II.

JOHN HORNE TOOKE.

Memoirs of John Horne Tooke, interspersed with Original Docu ments. By ALEXANDER STEPHENS, Esq.

THAT eager desire which the decease of very distinguished men so commonly excites among the inquisitive part of the community, to obtain ample memoirs of their lives and illustrations of their opinions and characters, must have been greatly repressed with respect to the very extraordinary individual who is the subject of these volumes. There cannot but have been a very general conviction, that it was as much in vain to expect a really faithful history and impartial estimate of him as of Oliver Cromwell or the French Revolution. Even if such a book were to appear, it is probable it would have but few approving readers. In the minds of a very large proportion of reading Englishmen, the name of Horne Tooke awakens ideas of almost every thing hateful or dreadful in politics and morals. A more moderate class, though giving him some considerable credit for honesty of intention, and superiority to the lowest sort of self-interested motives-adopting too, to a limited extent, the principles on which he waged his political wars, and regarding him with something of that kindness which we are disposed to indulge toward men in adversity-feel nevertheless such disgust at some of the connexions in which he acted at some periods of his career, at the inconsistency of his character with his spiritual profession while he exercised it, and at that later licentiousness of which his irreligion tended to secure him from being ashamed, that they cannot with any complacency hear him praised, while they see and despise the injustice of that undiscerning and unmixed opprobrium with which they hear him abused. There may be a small party ready to make light of all his faults and vices, and to extol him as the mirror of integrity, an apostle of liber

ty, a model of orators, a prince of philosophers. Not one person, probably, of these different classes, will ever alter his opinion of this remarkable character. The subject is old, the impression has long been made and settled, and just according to that impression will the biographer's performance be pronounced upon, instead of the impression itself being changed by the biographer's representations.

Though we should be glad, certainly, that there were any chance of our ever obtaining, however unavailing it might be for rectifying public opinion, a perfect life of this extraordinary man―a work written by a contemporary, endowed with great sagacity, a rational lover of liberty, a zealous friend of learning, and a true disciple of Christianity, and privileged, if such a man could have been so, with a long personal acquaintance with his subject-yet we can make ourselves tolerably content under the certainty that such a work will never appear. The subject in question will not long continue to excite any considerable interest. There is a vast number of things the world can afford to forget. The train of events and of transiently conspicuous personages is passing on with such impetuous haste, and the crowd of interesting or portentous appearances is so multiplying in the prospect, that our attention is powerfully withdrawn from the past: and there is something almost melancholy in considering how soon men of so much figure, in their time, as Horne Tooke, and even his greater contemporaries, will be reduced to the diminished forms of what will be regarded with the indifference, almost, of remote history.

In the mean time, we might be tolerably satisfied with the information conveyed in the present work, if it were not so unconscionably loaded with needless matters. The author, though too favourable to his subject, is however much nearer to impartiality than probably any of the enemies of that subject will ever be, in recording the life, or commenting on the principles.

The work begins with the introduction of names which some ingenuity might be thought requisite to connect with the subject, if we were not aware that writing biography is an undertaking of such very questionable legitimacy, as to make it, in setting off, highly politic, in order to get fairly and unobstructed into the course, to stun and quell the prepared cavillers with the imposing sound of such names as Plutarch, Tacitus,

Bossuet, and " our own Bacon Lord Veruiam.”* Several pages are then employed on the subject, apparently, of showing that the rank to be assigned, in biography, to distinguish talents, should not depend on the aristocratic or plebeian descent of their possessor. The author manages this topic so laboriously as to excite some little suspicion that he would. after all, have been better pleased to tell that his subject, John Horne, was the son of a duke, than that he was the son of a poulterer in Newport Market. A paragraph like the following does not exemplify exactly the right way of effecting what it appears intended for.

“A tradition still exists in the family, that their ancestors possessed great wealth, and were settled on their own lands at no great distance from the metropolis. A more ingenious biographer, by a plausible refer. ence to county histories, might have been able, perhaps, to have traced their origin to a pretty remote period, and, with a little reasonable con. jecture, it would have been easy to have ascertained the loss of the patri. monial estates during the wars between the rival Roses. Or the industry of a modern genealogist might have contrived, from the identity of names, in addition to some trivial and incidental circumstances, to have shed the lustre of episcopacy on their race, and, by means of Dr. George Horne, Bishop of Norwich, reflected a borrowed renown on his new relatives. But such arts, even if allowable, are unnecessary here; for the grammarian, who forms the subject of the present volumes, is fairly entitled to be considered as a noun substantive, whose character and consequence might be impaired, rather than increased, by the addition of any unnecessary adjunct."

As to the latter of these supposed expedients for conferring adventitious consequence on that proud "substantive," we should have thought that no one who had been a personal observer of his moral temperament, could have entertained the idea, long enough to put it in words, of importance being added to him by even a real relationship to the Bishop of Norwich, without being rebuked by the image of that bitterly sarcastic look with which the said "substantive" would have heard any such suggestion.

He was born on the 25th of June, 1736. Whatever other reasons he might have for complacency in his parentage, there was one that could not fail to be always peculiarly gratifying to him. His father's premises were contiguous to those of Frederick, Prince of Wales, the father of the present King. The officers of the Prince's household thought it would be a

* When will writers learn to sweep their pages clear of idle expletives ?

great convenience to them to have an outlet to the street through a certain wall which belonged to the poulterer. Without ceremony therefore they ordered a door-way to be broken in it, and paid no attention when he went to remonstrate. He at last boldly appealed to the law, and found its administration upright enough to defend him against the encroachment. Being, however, zealously attached to the house of Brunswick, he had no sooner obtained this decision than he handsomely gave the Prince the desired accommodation.

John, being a favourite and a boy of promise, was placed at Westminster school, and afterwards, for five or six years, at Eton; where, however, it has not been discovered that he gained any literary honours, or made any efforts to gain them. There are traces of evidence, nevertheless, of great prematurity. "On interrogating," says our author, "an old lady, with a view of discovering if any thing remarkable had occurred during his childhood, I happened to ask, whether she had known Mr. Horne Tooke when a boy." "No!" was the reply, "he never was a boy; with him there was no interval between childhood and age; he became a man all at once upon us!"

He is believed to have become a diligent student at college, where he passed several years; and whence he removed to undertake, to the great surprise and regret of his biographer, the office of usher in a school at Blackheath.

It was at the "earnest request of his father, who was a zealous member of the church of England, that he entered, at length, into holy orders, and was ordained a deacon. It was not till a subsequent period that he qualified himself for holding preferment by passing through the usual ceremonies incident to the priesthood." And in the interval between the two points in his progress, and after he had made a commencement as a curate, he entirely abandoned all clerical intentions, and determined to enter on the law.

At the Inns of Courts he had for contemporary students and familiar associates Dunning and Kenyon, the one of whom was afterwards to be his defender and the other his judge, but whose more prosperous fortunes of subsequent life could not then have been prognosticated on any ground of family, or talent, or literary attainment. In this last particular both are asserted to have been very greatly his inferiors. And, to judge of their command of money by their almost rival frugal

ity, we may conclude they were all under an equal necessity of submitting to calculate their future successes solely on their abilities and exertions. In the point of frugality it should be mentioned that there was a small difference in favour of the individual who was so very eminent for that virtue in later life.

·

"I have been repeatedly assured, by Mr. Horne Tooke, that they were accustomed to dine together, during the vacation, at a little eating house, in the neighbourhood of Chancery-lane, for the sum of sevenpence half. penny each. 'As to Dunning and myself,' added he, we were generous, for we gave the girl who waited on us a penny a-piece; but Kenyon, who always knew the value of money, sometimes rewarded her with a halfpenny, and sometimes with a promise!"

But in spite of his strong inclination to the law, the singular adaptedness of his powers for the most successful prosecution of it, this formal preparation for it, and this companionship with some of the most fortunate of its young proficients, Horne was the captive, beyond redemption, of another destiny.

"His family, which had never sanctioned this attachment," (to the law)" deemed the church far more eligible as a profession, and he was at length obliged to yield, notwithstanding his relutance, to the admonitions, the entreaties, and the persuasions, of his parents. It seems not at all improbable that a friendly compromise took place on this occasion; and that an assurance was given of some permanent provision, in case he consented to relinquish his legal pursuits.

"Acccordingly, in 1760, Mr. Horne was admitted a priest of the church of England, by Dr. John Thomas, Bishop of Sarum; and in the course of the same year he obtained the living of New Brentford, which was purchased for him by his father.".""It is said to have produced between £200 and £300 per annum. This income he enjoyed during elev. en years, and in the course of that period he not only did duty at Brentford, but also preached in many of the churches of the metropolis."

In 1763, he was prevailed upon to become what he was accustomed to denominate a bear-leader, that is, the travelling tutor of a young gentleman. With a son of the famous Elwes he passed more than a year in France, with vastly higher gratification, no doubt, than any that could have been afforded by the occupations of a parish priest. It is not, however, to be understood that he scorned all the proprieties of his profession. We may transcribe without being bound to feel any great reverence for the biographer's judgment in theology, his account of Mr. Horne's clerical ministrations.

We need not remark on the extreme ignorance betrayed in