Horne Tooke

“ Horne Tooke's ‘Society for Constitutional Information’ had co-operated to some extent with them; while the whig society called the ‘Friends of the People’ endeavoured to keep the agitation within safe limits. Joseph Gerrald [q. v.] and others had been most severely punished for their proceedings in Scotland, and Horne Tooke was likely to find that his playing at treason would turn out awkwardly. Other arrests were made, and the proceedings began by the trial of Hardy. ”

“ If the difficulties are petty, or the means employed low, vulgar, barbarous, there can be little worthy of highest regard, although the motives are pure and the results beneficent. If the motives are selfish, if a desire of power or wealth or Fame intrude into the actions, they lose that other title to regard springing from beauty and elevation of purpose, even if the conduct be mistaken or weak, and the results pernicious. Horne Tooke claimed for himself no mean epitaph, when he asked for himself after death the praise of good intentions. ”

“ I have likewise dined with Horne Tooke. He is a clear-headed old man, as every man must needs be who attends to the real import of words, but there is a sort of charlatanry in his manner that did not please me. He makes such a mystery out of plain and palpable things, and never tells you any thing without first exciting, and detaining your curiosity. But it were a bad heart that could not pardon worse faults than these in the author of "The Diversions of Purley".
Believe me, my dear sir, with much affection
Yours,
S. T. COLERIDGE. [1] Thomas Wedgwood, Esq. ”

“ On this occasion Horne Tooke published a pamphlet called ‘Two Pair of Portraits,’ contrasting the two Pitts—very much to their advantage—with the two Foxes. Horne Tooke was indifferent in the Warren Hastings impeachment, but in 1790 he came forward himself to oppose Fox in the election for Westminster. He denounced his rival vigorously, and spoke effectively on the hustings. ”

“ Returning to England in 1840, he made progress in an etymological theory, which he believed would supplant that of Horne Tooke, and he embodied it in a work called ‘Glossology, or the Historical Relations of Languages.’ Of this work he completed the first part only, which was published in 1858 in the ‘Encyclopædia Metropolitana.’ He died at 13 Brompton Square, London, on 16 Feb. ”

“ In both cases Horne Tooke left his antagonists under the table (Stephens, ii. 319, 439) . Sir Francis Burdett, his neighbour at Wimbledon, introduced James Paull [q. v.] , who became a regular guest for a time; but on the duel between Burdett and Paull in 1807, Horne Tooke published a pamphlet (‘A Warning to the Electors of Westminster’) denouncing Paull with great severity (see Stephens, ii. 291–334, for an account of the Wimbledon society) . Horne Tooke suffered from a local affection from early youth, and became a martyr to gout and other diseases in his later years. ”

“ Horne argued that the phrase was equivalent to the two propositions, ‘Crooke had been indicted,’ ‘She knowing that, did so and so.’ The argument led to theories about the grammar of conjunctions and prepositions, afterwards expounded at greater length in his chief work. ‘All that is worth anything in the “Diversions of Purley,”’ said Coleridge (Table Talk, 7 May 1830) , ‘is contained in’ this pamphlet. It certainly gives Tooke's characteristic doctrine. ”

“ In the quarrel between Wilkes and Horne Tooke in 1770, he intervened on the side of Wilkes, who publicly replied in Adair's behalf to the attacks made upon him by Tooke, and the notoriety that he thereby acquired was of material service to him in his professional career. ”

“ Sir Joshua, unassisted with a sitter, had no idea of a face; he copied nature, and yet there is a perfect degree of originality in his paintings; he had the affectation to deny genius." Of Gibbon he remarked, "that he had a good forehead, but a measured way of studying whatever he said." Of Horne Tooke,—"Tooke is undoubtedly a man of talents; but he is the greatest chatterer I ever sat down with; one cannot, in his company, put in a word edgewise; he, however, wishes to be thought a good German scholar, but in this he is very superficial." ”

“ In the preface the author truly declared that he owed nothing to the great, and described the difficulties with which he had been left to struggle so forcibly and pathetically that the ablest and most malevolent of all the enemies of his fame, Horne Tooke, never could read that passage without tears.
The public, on this occasion, did Johnson full justice, and something more than justice. The best lexicographer may well be content if his productions are received by the world with cold esteem. But Johnson's Dictionary was hailed with an enthusiasm such as no similar work has ever excited. ”

“ It is suggested to Q. (Bloomsbury) , that Lord Brougham meant not to say that Horne Tooke had ever held or maintained this strange doctrine, "that the law of libel was unjust and absurd, because libel means a little book," but that he would have done so, or might have done so consistently with his etymological theory, namely, that the present sense of words is to be sought in their primitive signification: e.g., in the Diversions of Purley, vol. ii. p. 403., Horne Tooke says,—
"True, as we now write it, or trew, as it was formerly written, means simply and merely that which is trowed ”

“ Pitt, etc., etc.
General Fitzpatrick has published his letters to Lord Kenyon. [61] Previous to doing so he sent them to the King, accompanied by a letter calculated to delight him, appealing to him as the head of the school of honour and chief among gentlemen. The motto to the publication is very happy; it is taken from Kenyon’s own speech on the trial of Horne Tooke in 1792: ‘Mr. Horne Tooke, I cannot sit here to hear names calumniated and vilified, persons who are not in this case, persons who are absent, and cannot defend themselves. A Court of Justice is no place for calumny. ”

“ At the general election of 1796 Horne Tooke again stood for Westminster, against Fox and Admiral Sir Alan Gardner [q. v.] , the ministerial candidate. He spoke frequently, and claimed support as a political martyr and the candidate ‘most hated by Pitt.’ The poll lasted fifteen days, and he received 2,819 votes, 5,160 being given for Fox, and 4,814 for Gardner. The election cost 1,000l., which was, however, advanced to him by a ‘man of rank.’ His old enemy Wilkes spoke in his favour, and plumped for him on the first day of the poll. ”

“ I never was afraid in my life"; and looking the lieutenant full in the face, he added, "Pray, how does a man feel, sir, when he is afraid? I need not ask how he looks."
LIV.—NOTHING BUT THE "BILL."
John Horne Tooke's opinion upon the subject of law was admirable. "Law," he said, "ought to be, not a luxury for the rich, but a remedy, to be easily, cheaply, and speedily obtained by the poor." A person observed to him, how excellent are the English laws, because they are impartial, and our courts of justice are open to all persons without distinction. ”

“ Magna Charta is an early expression of the Declaration of Rights, and thus pure reason confirms British tradition. The adoption of a common platform, however, covered a profound difference of sentiment. Horne Tooke represents the old type of reformer. He was fully resolved not to be carried away by the enthusiasm of his allies. 'My companions in a stage,' he said to Cartwright, 'may be going to Windsor: I will go with them to Hounslow. ”

“ With these modifications, his theory holds the field, and the people of Great Britain only escape starvation by ever-growing importations of grain from countries whose production—for the present—exceeds their consumption.
Several other writers of eminence, such as Sheridan and Paley, who lived in the latter days of George III. are more properly to be regarded as survivors of eighteenth century literature. Horne Tooke was returned for Old Sarum in 1801, and enjoyed a reputation in society until his death in 1812, but his old-fashioned radicalism had long since been superseded by a newer creed. ”

“ Hardy was a shoemaker, and, with two or three others, was from the upper strata of the lower orders. Kyd was a barrister; Holcroft, a dramatic writer; Joyce, a minister; and Thelwall, a political lecturer. These belonged to the middle class. John Horne Tooke, the most considerable person among them, held a debatable position in the higher circles. He was a gentleman of limited aristocratic connections, and a scholar of rare and varied learning. He had taken holy orders in his youth, but had long ago left the altars of the church for the closet of the student and the forum of the politician. ”

“ Paine, although he was not known, and took no part in the meeting. He only revealed himself as the author of it after Horne Tooke, the supposed author, had stated that Mr. Paine was the author. But this is what he says about it: "The gentleman who [139] signed the address and declaration as chairman of the meeting, Mr. Horne Tooke, being generally supposed to be the person who drew it up, and having spoken much in commendation of it, has been jocularly accused of praising his own work. ”

“ Lord Temple endeavoured to secure his exclusion on the ground that he had taken orders in the Church, and one of Gilray’s caricatures delineates the two politicians, Temple and Camelford, playing at battledore and shuttlecock, with Horne Tooke as the shuttlecock. The ministry of Addington would not support this suggestion, but a bill was at once introduced by them and carried into law, which rendered all persons in holy orders ineligible to sit in the House of Commons, and Horne Tooke sat for that parliament only. ”

“ In surgery, cool, safe, judicious, and cautious; in anatomy, sufficiently informed for teaching and practice. He wanted industry and professional zeal, liking other things better than the study and practice of his profession.
In politics a democrat, living in friendship with Horne Tooke.
In morals, thoroughly honest; in religion, a Deist.
A good husband, son, and father.
As a friend, sincere, but not active; as an enemy, most inveterate.
He was mild in his manners, gentle in his conduct, humane in his disposition, but withal brave as a lion. ”

“ Journal 65, fo. 92. Horne Tooke was accustomed to exclaim "that he could not be deemed a vain man, as he had obtained statues for others, but never for himself!"—Stephen, Memoirs of Horne Tooke, i, 151, 157.
[260] Chatham to the Lord Mayor, 25 May, 1770.—Chatham Correspondence, iii, 462.
[261] Beckford to Chatham, 25 May, 1770.—Chatham Correspondence, iii, 463.
[262] Journal 65, fos. 83-84; Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xl. (where the date of the Common Council is given as the 28 May) . ”

“ Horne Tooke,’ alleging that Paull had thrust himself upon him; but the accusation was rashly made, and easily dispelled in ‘A Refutation of the Calumnies of John Horne Tooke, by James Paull,’ 1807. In 1808 there came out ‘A Letter from Mr. Paull to Samuel Whitbread,’ in which he attributed the loss of his election for Westminster to the influence of that politician. His letter to Lord Folkestone on the impeachment of the Marquis of Wellesley is in Cobbett's ‘Political Register,’ on 25 Oct. 1806 (pp. 648–56) . ”

“ Wilkes and George might well be nicknamed the “Two Kings of Brentford.” And for ten years or so New Brentford, as the village was then called, had a firebrand parson who would not commend himself to Mrs. Trimmer. Her future home, indeed, was at Old Brentford, now being swallowed up in Ealing.
The Brentford political parson was John Horne, afterwards better known as Horne Tooke. Son of a London poulterer, whom he styled to his Eton school-fellows “a Turkey merchant,” Horne was not the best man to hold a living which his friends bought for him about the time of the King’s accession. ”

“ Upon his return train America he travelled in France, Italy, and Morocco, he was an intimate friend of John Horne Tooke. to whose house at Wimbledon Bosville used to drive down in a coach and four to dinner every Sunday during the spring and autumn for a great number of years. Mention will he found of his name in the ‘Diversions of Purley' (1805) , pt. ii. p. 490. Possessed of at large fortune he was exceedingly generous with his money, and was unbounded in his hospitality. Every weekday he used to receive some of his friends at dinner at his house in Welbeck Street. ”

“ There are producible specimens, not only of the radix, which an artificer elaborates to suit his purposes, but of the converse—where the length of the original saying has been regarded as prolix, and has been shorn of its ample proportions, till it becomes a mot or an epigram. Every one has heard, for instance, of the capital observation of Horne Tooke, in reply to somebody who had stated in his hearing that the law was open to all men: “And so is the London Tavern!” But the more correct version of this matter appears to be one which is given in Joe Miller, 1832, No. ”

“ He, (Mr. Sheridan,) said he recollects a meeting to celebrate the establishment of liberty in France in the year 1790. Upon that occasion he moved a Resolution drawn up the day before by the Whig club. Mr. Horne Tooke, he says, made no objection to his motion, but proposed an amendment. Mr. Tooke stated that an unqualified approbation of the French Revolution, in the terms moved, might produce an ill effect out of doors, a disposition to a revolution in this country, or, at least, be misrepresented to have that object ”

“ TOOKE, John Horne (1736-1812) , an ardent politician and an erudite philologer, was the third son of John Home, a poulterer in Newport Market, whose business the son, when a pupil at Eton with other boys of a more aristocratic position, in early life happily veiled under the title of a " Turkey merchant." He was born in Newport Street, Long Acre, Westminster, on 25th June 1736. ”