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    -which he has not , may deceive once , but he will betray himself somewhere : it is easy to keep up a false seeming for the space of an article , but difficult for a whole literary life . If the writer , on the contrary , be wise and honest , the more we read of his -writings , knowing them to be his , * the mare thoroughly we shall

    trust him , and the better we shall learn to comprehend him . Every one of his opinions or sentiments which comes to our koovyledge helps us to a more , perfect understanding of all the rest ; and the light they reflect on each other is a protection to the author against having his meaning mistaken , with all precautions taken together . He may , then write with directness and

    freedom , not timidly guarding himself by a running comment of deprecatory explanation , nor encumbering his argument or interrupting the flow of his feelings by qualifications or reserves which may better be supplied from the reader ' s previous acquaintance with the writer . The importance of this consideration will

    be most apparent to those who are most sensible how intimately all truths are connected : to those who know , that onl y by the general cast of an author ' s opinions and sentiments , and not by any sufficient explanation which he usually has it in his power to give on that particular occasion , can we with certainty determine the sense in which he understands , and means us to understand .

    his own propositions . The foregoing remarks cannot be better illustrated than by the example of the writer who furnished the occasion on which they are made . We prize the writings of Junius Redivivus for the many valuable truths which are embodied and diffused in them , truths often , as we cheerfully acknowledge , new to us , almost

    always newly illustrated , and to have arrived at which required , if not a subtle and profound , a penetrating , sagacious , and enlarged understanding . But this , which is so much , is the least part of what we owe to Junius Redivivus , nor are his writings chiefly precious for what they are , but for what they show him to be : in so far as is possible for inanimate letter-press , they give to the world , once more , assurance of a man . ^\ t is men the world lacks

    now , much more than books ; or if it wants books , wants them principally for lack of men : of old mankind were often so far superior to their ideas ; now their ideas are so far superior to them . There are truths spread abroad in the worid in ample measure , were there but the intellect to grasp them , and the strength to act up to them . ^ But how often doe s it happen that when he is most wanted , w ^ know wherfe to look for the man who is pesstssed by the troth—whose mind has absorbed it , and , better still , of

    whose desires ami affections it has become the paramount roler ! We do not m « an by the truth , this or that little bk of truth here atid there , but the all of truth which a conscientious man needs in order to shape his path through the world , much more to be a light ami a protection to others ;—the all , or but barely so much

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    $ 64 Writing * of Junius Rrdioivus .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1833, page 264, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2612/page/48/