WILLIAM HONE
HIS LIFE AND TIMES
BY, THE SAME AUTHOR
With Coloured Frontispieces and many other Illustrations.
Demy Svo, doth, 10/6 net.
The Good Old Times: the Romance of
Humble Life in England.
Inns, Ales, and Drinking Customs of Old
England.
Good Cheer : the Romance of Food and
Feasting.
Old English Sports.
LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN
WILLIAM HONE.
Frontispiece,
WILLIAM HONE
HIS LIFE AND TIMES
BY
FREDERICK WM. HACKWOOD
AUTHOR OF
"THE GOOD OLD TIMES," "INNS, ALES, AND DRINKING
CUSTOMS OF OLD ENGLAND," "GOOD CHEER,"
ETC.
WITH 27 ILLUSTRATIONS
T. FISHER UNWIN
LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE
LEIPSIC :INSELSTRASSE 20
1912
PR
(All rights reserved)
PREFACE
THE Author acknowledges his indebtedness to Miss
Soul (granddaughter of William Hone) for the careful
collation of the family papers entrusted to him, among
which were many transcripts of notes taken down by
Mrs. Burn from the dictation of her father in the
later years of his life, and which constitute the main
sources of the information relating to the personal
side of his subject. The material placed at his
disposal was voluminous,, of subjects varied, and
arranged in fairly good chronological order. William
Hone erected his own literary monument, and the
biographer therefore confined his efforts to presenting
this material more as a revelation of the man's intimate
personal life.
Transcripts are not always safe material to work
upon, but the accuracy of these family documents being
found fairly reliable, they have been departed from only
when found in direct conflict with independent testi-
mony. Strange to say, very few references were found
to the most interesting of all Hone's friendships that
with Charles and Mary Lamb. However, an admir-
able chapter dealing with this period has been supplied
by Major Butterworth, to whom the Author takes this
6 PREFACE
opportunity to tender his most sincere thanks ; for
without this contribution the work would have been
decidedly incomplete. For the ready permission to
print the two letters from Lamb to Hone (dated
respectively 25 July, 1825, and 7 February,
1834) grateful acknowledgement is made to Messrs.
J. M. Dent & Co. To his old friend Mr. George
T. Lawley he also expresses his deep sense of obliga-
tion for assistance rendered during the progress of
the work, and particularly in the arrangement of the
Bibliography. The biographer also puts on record his
gratitude for expert assistance relating to the Queen
Caroline period received from Mr. Charles E. Pearce.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. INTRODUCTORY
II. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL
III. EARLY STRUGGLES
iv. A BOOKMAN'S ACQUAINTANCES
V. POLITICAL ACTIVITIES .
VI. AN ALERT PUBLISHER
VII. IMPENDING PROSECUTION
VIII. THE ARREST
IX. THE FIRST TRIAL
X. CLOSE OF THE TRIALS
XI. AFTER THE TRIALS
XII. THE CRUIKSHANK CONNECTION
XIII. A BANK RESTRICTION NOTE .
XIV. INDUSTRY WITHOUT BUSINESS METHODS
XV. POLITICAL PAMPHLETEERING .
XVI. THE QUEEN CAROLINE AFFAIR
XVII. ANTIQUARY AND CONTROVERSIALIST .
XVIII. THE " EVERY-DAY BOOK "
PAGE
. II
22
. 6 4
80
91
103
. 118
132
. 149
159
174
189
. 198
206
. 218
231
243
246
8 CONTENTS
CHAPTER l'AiE
xix. THE "TABLE BOOK" ..... 259
XX. WILLIAM HONE AND CHARLES LAMB . . 266
XXI. GETTING OUT OF KING'S BENCH PRISON . . 282
XXII. THE " YEAR BOOK " 294
xxin. HONE'S POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS VIEWS . . 299
XXIV. CONVERSION ..... 304
XXV. LIFE AT PECKHAM . . . . -319
XXVI. SUB-EDITOR OF THE PATRIOT . . . 327
XXVII. RETIREMENT AND DEATH .... 339
xxviii. HONE'S FUNERAL A DICKENSIAN EPISODE . 347
APPENDIX: BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . - 357
INDEX ...... 369
ILLUSTRATIONS
WILLIAM HONE ..... Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
WILLIAM NORRIS, AS HE WAS CONFINED IN BETHLEM . 95
ELIZABETH PENNING . . . . . -99
SKETCH, SUPPOSED TO BE BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK, OF HIM-
SELF AT THE AGE OF 2O . . . HO
FRANCIS PLACE . . . . . . I2O
CARTOON OF HONE AS A TOM-TIT TWITTING HIS PROSECUTORS 172
LAW VERSUS HUMANITY; OR, A PARODY ON BRITISH LIBERTY 174
A MEMENTO PUBLISHED BY J. HEAD, OF 141, FETTER LANE
(FEB. 6, 1818) . . . . . .185
AN ACCOMMODATION BILL BETWEEN AUTHOR AND ARTIST . 192
BANK RESTRICTION NOTE ..... 2OO
A ROUGH SKETCH, DATED 12 JANUARY, 1819, SUPPOSED TO
SHOW HONE'S PENCILLINGS .... 203
"THE WEALTH THAT LAY IN THE HOUSE THAT JACK
BUILT" 221
10 ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
THE FIRST ILLUSTRATION IN "THE QUEEN'S MATRIMONIAL
LADDER" . . . . . .223
SPECIMEN OF PIRATED ILLUSTRATIONS TO UNAUTHORISED
ISSUES OF HONE'S WORKS . . . .224
THE MAN IN THE MOON . . . . .226
" THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT " . . . 230
HONE AND CRUIKSHANK . . . . .230
TRANSPARENCY WITH WHICH HONE ILLUMINATED HIS SHOP 235
THE PICTURES ON THE TWO LEGS OF THE CARDBOARD TOY
LADDER ....... 236
MARY LAMB ....... 280
CHARLES LAMB ...... 280
REV. DR. RAFFLES . . . . . . 29 2
REV. SAMUEL PARR, LL.D. ..... 292
THE ILLUSTRATION TO HONE'S PARODY, "A VISION OF WANT
OF JUDGMENT BY SLOBBER'D MOUTHEY " . . 297
THE WEIGH-HOUSE CHAPEL . . . . -321
FACSIMILE OF VERSES WRITTEN BY HONE, JUNE 3, 1834 . 343
U THE QUEEN'S MATRIMONIAL LADDER" . . .361
WILLIAM HONE
INTRODUCTORY
WILLIAM HONE may be taken as a type of Englishman
into whose brains had distilled the doctrines of the
French Revolution, which inspired him, not to action
but to thought ; a type of the phlegmatic, slow-moving
Englishman to whose opinions, and the proper con-
stitutional advocacy of them, may be traced the roots
of so many of our modern reforms.
How much the progressive thought of this country
owes to William Hone and the men of his stamp is
too often lost to view. Though these men had the
roots of the matter in them, the country in their day
and generation was not in the least prepared for the
political reforms they would have planted. Yet they
lived in hope and died not in despair. Hone, be it
remembered, was born in the eighteenth century, the
era of oppressive and cynical politics, when class
prejudice was rampant and political honesty but lightly
esteemed.
The times in which he lived were out of joint ; and
it is when, in tracing the events of his life, we leave
the main stream of history for its eddying and whirling
side currents, that we are enabled to see how the
garbage of decayed feudalism was largely swept away
by the first flood of modernity.
11
12 WILLIAM HONE
Hone long contemplated the publication of an
Autobiography, and to that end made innumerable
memoranda, particularly of the events and memories
of his childhood days.
' Then," he says, " I considered and paused, for
upon close self-examination I discovered deep within
me the hidden old roots of feelings and tendencies
planted in my earliest years, which from defective
training had grown wild and vigorous in my youth
and manhood."
His notes had become too voluminous to be brought
within the narrow compass of a pamphlet, and a project
for the writing of a more extended " memoir " then
took possession of him. From this more formidable
undertaking he was also long deterred, not only because
he could ill spare the time such a task would entail,
but chiefly because his inmost reflections failed to inspire
him to the mood for making the attack. He found
no spur to the effort when he recalled what he describes
as the events of his " wayward life."
" At length," he continues, " having selected a few
hints and notes, throwing aside the bulk of my accu-
mulations, and being now at leisure, I resume my first
purpose, and begin with recollections of my earliest
life and the way in which I was brought up, until I
left my parental home. And now, ' with the blossoms
of the grave upon my head/ the scenes of my young
days recur familiarly and vividly as those of yester-
day. * I feel as a child.'
" Pascal writes that the last thing we can settle in
the composition of a work is how to begin it. This
thought has been verified in me. In the course of
my brief life the most astounding events of modern
times have happened ; to these I have not been an
indifferent observer, nor always an observer only. Of
the numerous changes in our own country, crowds of
incidents have affected me personally."
INTRODUCTORY 13
The Autobiography, as far as he got with it, reflects
the ingenuousness of the simple terms in which he
thus introduces it. An appended note reminds the
reader that the date of his birth was memorable as
a period of passionate conflict, when the insurgent storm
of popular tumult in England culminated in the excesses
known as the Gordon Riots. London was in posses-
sion of an excited mob, which fired the prisons, liberated
the prisoners, broke into, sacked, and burned private
dwellings and destroyed valuable property. In after-
years his mother vividly recalled the intense fever of
public excitement which prevailed at the moment her
firstborn was ushered into the world ; and, mother-
like, she cherished an impression that her child's energy
and earnestness of temperament were the tincture of
the stirring times in which he was born ; for though
shrewd and sensible in other respects, she failed to
perceive in that which she attributed to national influ-
ences an inherited phase of her own character. In
William Hone were unmistakably blended the mild,
benevolent, and cheerful disposition of the father, with
the inquiring mind, the perseverance, and untiring
energies of the mother.
Hone himself was fond of dwelling upon this portent,
and used to relate that he was told by a young woman
who had been the landlady's assistant at Copenhagen
House that in 1780 a body of the Lord George Gordon
rioters passed this house of resort, with blue banners
flying, on their way to attack Caen Wood, the seat
of Lord Mansfield, and that the proprietress was so
alarmed at this incident that at her request Justice
Hyde sent a party of soldiers to protect the establish-
ment. Hone seemed to derive some sort of satisfaction
from the contemplation of the civil commotion with
which his advent into a stormy world was heralded.
The " waywardness " of spirit to which Hone alludes
had reference to the freedom of religious thought in
which he had indulged himself in his early manhood
14 WILLIAM HONE
rather than to his advanced political ideas. His
inquiring mind had fostered a habit of omnivorous
and, during his callow youth, an ill-regulated reading ;
a habit which, combined with a tendency to self-
introspection and self-communing, could but engender
some slight morbidity of mind.
If his political trials had brought him fame, they
had also politics being inseparable from partisanship
excited considerable party spirit against him. His
political enemies had not hesitated to make as much
capital as possible out of his well-known flounderings
in the quagmire of religious doubt, the most effective
way of doing which was to dub him " atheist." And
as an unbeliever he was consequently reviled by those
who differed from him.
Now, while Hone possessed much independence of
political thought, and maintained these convictions with
a fine courage, in matters of religion he manifests in
the " Confessions " of the Autobiography, a trembling
sensibility which at times is almost distressing. No
man, indeed, can climb beyond the limitations of his own
character.
To the real atheist that appellation is never a term
of opprobrium ; in the sincerity of his religious con-
victions he rather regards it as a mark of distinction.
How much Hone in his later life resented the applica-
tion of the term to him, spurning it as a wilfully false
estimate of his character, is evidenced by his private
papers. Thus the Foreword to his projected life history
is couched in these terms :
" From certain occurrences which are matters of
history, and some of my productions which are not yet
forgotten, the public continues to deal with me as a
public man ; and, according to the differences of
individual views, to entertain different notions concern-
ing my opinion on religion. Hence it seems incumbent
on me to make a plain declaration of my religious
sentiments. This I now do without reserve in the
INTRODUCTORY 15
following narrative. I sincerely wish it could be read
by all who ever heard my name."
The title-page, drafted in his own bold and well-
formed handwriting, appears as :
VIEWS OF RELIGION
AND
RELIGIOUS VIEWS.
A NARRATIVE
BY
WILLIAM HONE.
This is a memoir explanatory of my
mind from its perversion in boyhood by
the principles of a wretch-making phil-
osophy, until I found happiness in the
submission of my will, and by divine
grace was enabled to surrender my heart
to God in Christ.
This is dated 1835. The same perturbation of mind
is disclosed on his draft title-page of the " Memoirs
from Childhood " ; again we have precisely similar
phrasing allusive to " Perversion in Youth by a Wretch-
making Philosophy : Struggles under its Influence
through Life, and the Final Submission of the Heart
to God in Christ ... by William Hone, Editor of the
EVERY-DAY BOOK/' &c.
In an attempt to justify the celebrated Parodies for
which he was put on trial, but more particularly in
his burning desire to rehabilitate himself in the public
mind, Hone prints at the end of the pamphlet con-
taining his father's " early life and conversion " (which
he edited and published the year before his death)
the following extracts from " Mr. Simpson's New
Edition of his father's ' Plea for Religion ' "it is a 1
16 WILLIAM HONE
note, he says, " written by a very dear friend, who
knows me intimately " :
14 There is a delicacy to be observed in referring to
living individuals ; and, without infringing on it, a
slight allusion may be made to Mr. William Hone,
whose name, a few years ago, stood associated in the
public mind with profaneness and infidelity.
" It is but justice to Mr. Hone to state that the
object of his Parodies was political, and that they were
not composed for the purpose of bringing religion into
contempt, although that was their unquestionable
tendency. While, however, this is admitted, it must
also be admitted that if the promotion of infidelity did
not enter into the plan of the Parodies, yet, that no
person could have aimed at a political object by such
means, whose mind was not, at the time, under the
complete influence either of infidelity or indifference
of opposition to religion or carelessness about it."
This puts the case very fairly. The Parodies were
neither pleasant nor witty, and possessed of no literary
distinction whatever. It was common knowledge that
Hone's mind at that period was (to put it mildly)
assailed by religious doubts ; and it was therefore a
perfectly legitimate inference that his flippant treat-
ment of serious subjects should be accepted as internal
evidence of his well-known attitude of mind.
" Mr. Hone, in early life, was led to reject
Christianity, and to adopt sceptical, if not atheistical,
opinions. At the time of his celebrated trials his
opinions may have been less extravagant, but neither
his intellect nor his heart had submitted to the
authority of revealed religion. After that period he
became convinced of the truth of the Bible, as a com-
munication from God, but satisfied himself with some-
thing like Unitarianism. This, however, he found
would not satisfy the heart. About six years since
his conscience was awakened to a just sense of man's
condition as a sinner, and the need in which he stands,
INTRODUCTORY 17
both of an atoning sacrifice and a sanctifying Spirit.
After many painful exercises of mind, serious exami-
nation of the Scriptures, prayer, and attendance on
the preaching of the Gospel, he came fully to accept
the faith which once he destroyed and to acknow-
ledge that Saviour whom he had formerly dishonoured.
The change in the minds of his family was equally
remarkable. One after another was brought to ' the
knowledge and belief of the truth,' though at first
contemned and resisted, till at length, in the close of
the year 1834, Mr. Hone, his wife, four of their
daughters, and a son-in-law were received to Christian
communion by one of the Congregational Churches in
London, and three of his children and three of his
grandchildren were baptized. The interest excited by
the circumstance was intense ; the scene was felt to
be one over which angels might be supposed to rejoice,
and which demanded the thanksgiving of Christians
on earth.
" The substance of this statement is communicated on
the best authority, and is purposely brief and general,
as there is reason to hope that Mr. Hone will give
to the public, from his own pen, some account of the
change which he has experienced."
To this there is a Postcript added by Hone, dated
3rd June, 1841, in which he, curiously enough, applies
to himself those terms to which, from others, he
strongly objected :
" The history of my three days' Trials in Guildhall
may be dug out from the Journals of the period the
History of my Mind and Heart, my Scepticism, my
Atheism, and God's final dealings with me, remains
to be written. If my life be prolonged a few months,
the work may appear in my lifetime."
After the public excitement occasioned by the historic
trials of 1817, the culminating period of his life, there
was not unnaturally a call for some biographical account
of the man around whom all the excitement had centred.
2
18 WILLIAM HONE
The popular expectation wa"s not gratified. But the
accumulation of the necessary material, by the subject
himself, went steadily forward ; and during his last
illness Hone gave a number of instructions relating to
the use and disposition of his papers and books, with
which it was long the study of his family to comply.
But, chiefly through the lack of the necessary leisure,
the years passed unheeded, and it was not till 1873
that a serious attempt was made to collate the family
papers with a view to publication, a task undertaken
by his eldest daughter, Mrs. Burn, then long resident
in Australia, which never attained fruition.
One cause of the original delay was, strangely
enough, the formidable bulk of the material which Hone
had collected for the purposes of his defence ; for
the contemplation of these vast stores of literary wealth
resolved itself into a design for a more elaborate work
which was to embody " A History of Parody."
According to Mrs. Burn, her father had
" mentally sketched out his plans, and wanted but the
necessary retirement, and freedom from daily inroads
upon his time, to enable him to effect his purpose.
That season of retirement never arrived. Circum-
stances compelled him to a reluctant abandonment of
his more ambitious project, and reduced his design
to that of a simple Autobiography."
Even that demanded more time than he ever had
at disposal, with the result that he had only accom-
plished the history of his youth when accumulated
physical and mental infirmities gradually revealed the
sad truth that for him the pen was ever at rest.
" The brightness of his intellect had sensibly
waned," writes Mrs. Burn, " and the vigour of a strong
frame had progressively yielded to repeated shocks
of paralysis, when in August, 1842, he became alarm-
ingly ill. Dropsy supervened, and the family prepared
themselves for the most solemn of earthly partings."
INTRODUCTORY 19
The end was uncertain ; some weeks might elapse
ere the closing scene, but they were assured by medical
friends that the fiat had gone forth. The daughter's
narrative continues :
"'His active connection with the Patriot had
terminated in 1840, when, aided by friends, after a
prolonged illness, he retired for a short time to Rich-
mond, and thence to Tottenham, a locality which had
for him choice associations, for there and at Edmonton
he had strolled the green lanes with his ever dear
friends Charles and Mary Lamb.
" He chose for his last earthly home a cheerful house
suitably situated, and enlivened by passing vehicles and
pedestrians. To the last he retained his innate love of
genial society and of rural beauty, and was pleased to
have his air-bed moved toward the window in view of
a row of fine elms which bordered the opposite path-
way. He would sometimes remark : ' How beautifully
the sun shines on the leaves/ when it was his impaired
vision which failed to detect that it was the autumn
sear that was gilding the fading foliage.
" On the 6th November, 1842, he entered upon his
eternal rest. During the long months of watching his
sorrowing wife and family were surrounded with the
kindly sympathy of their many friends, and especially
supported by the generous kindness of their excellent
neighbour Mr. Woolaston, whose medical skill in the
alleviation of the patient's sufferings was hardly less
welcome than his friendly visits at all hours, when his
cheerful voice and the occasional introduction of another
visitor raised the invalid's spirits, and relieved some
of the pain and weariness.
" Soon after the final rites there were many inquiries
and a widespread expression of urgent wishes for the
production of a Biography. Much diversity of opinion
existed as to the period it should embrace, as well as
to whom the task should be entrusted. Several friends
kindly proffered their services, and certain others were
suggested.
" Some well-intentioned persons proposed the
20 WILLIAM HONE
political years of his life only as worthy of record ;
others, again, considered that those of later times would
convey the most instructive lesson to posterity ; while
his family judged a memoir should comprise a history,
however brief, from the dawn to the close of life.
" Time in its flight has effaced from memory many
incidents, but sufficient material remains to illustrate
truthfully the political, literary, and social aspects of
a life of varied usefulness and real patriotism."
Through the years that have intervened public opinion
has not withheld that approval which his public conduct
merited, nor denied him those high commendations
which, by his literary talents and private worth, were
justly his. At the same time, certain ill-informed and
unscrupulous persons " of the baser sort " have not
hesitated to put forth misrepresentations of his
character, which to those who ever had the faintest
conception of the man and his work could not fail
to be recognised as scurrilous and contemptible
calumnies .
From various causes, as we have seen, the projected
Autobiography was never written, except the " Memoirs
from Childhood " reviewing the first twenty years of his
life. The few anecdotes embodied seem somewhat
apocryphal. To preserve the chronological order of
our narrative as closely as possible we propose to begin
with this uncompleted Autobiography as compiled either
from his own notes or dictated by him to one or other
of his children, and dated in his own hand the
2oth December, 1838. An appended short note is
dated Tottenham, 1841.
In the long years that have intervened the purpose
of one member of the family after another to produce
an authentic Biography of the father they revered has
been thwarted time after time by untoward circum-
stances. iWilliam Hone in his lifetime suffered much
obloquy for his opinions, and even at his death remained
a maligned and much vilified man. Not unnaturally
INTRODUCTORY
his family developed an over-sensitiveness in their
solicitude for the honour and probity of his memory.
His letters show him to be a man very much in
earnest, but not always particularly lively. In con-
sidering the personality of William Hone, his private
papers and correspondence will be drawn upon as fre-
quently as possible in order that the man's ipsissima
verba may reveal his attitude of mind, and, so far as
he indulged in them, his ideals, enthusiasms, and preju-
dices. In the vigour of his manhood he was an ardent
politician, and before the days of Punch his cartoons
and caricatures made the features of leading politicians
familiar to the public.
If occasionally he strikes the reader as a poseur, a
nearer approach will quickly dispel the impression and
show it to be merely the attitude of a naive simple-
mindedness, exhibited with somewhat of the natural
vanity of an artless child.
II
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL
MY Father was the eldest son of a farmer who lived
upon a grazing farm near Ripley, in Surrey, which he
held under Lord Onslow, until he lost it through bad
management, owing to convivial habits. He died of
a broken heart, leaving my Grandmother with a large
family, which dispersed, and my Father became appren-
ticed to a law stationer in London.
At the expiration of his apprenticeship he was deluded
into intimacy with persons attached to the theatres,
and was under an engagement to go upon the stage.
A severe illness, however, seized him the day before
he was to have appeared ; it resulted in religious im-
pressions, which were deepened by the remembrance
of his mother's pious teachings in his childhood. Upon
his ultimate recovery he remained decidedly religious ;
to avoid his companions he engaged himself as clerk
to a corn merchant 1 at Bath.
There, in 1779, he married Miss Frances Maria
Stawell, and there their first child, myself, was born
on the 3rd of June, 1780.
I have heard my Mother relate that when I could
just run about, while she was engaged in household
affairs, she suddenly missed me, and ran about for a
considerable time seeking in vain, until, looking into
a stable, she found me stooping down close behind a
large spirited carthorse, playing; with his fetlocks, an
1 He was first employed as clerk to a solicitor.
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 23
incident which she regarded as ominous of a" fearless
character. After I could walk alone, my Father some-
times took me with him to the counting-house, to show
me the moving craft, and the swans on the river, and
the horses in their stabling.
When I was about three years of age my Father
returned alone to London, for the sake of hearing a
particular minister, and having obtained settled employ-
ment in the office of Mr. Ludlow, Solicitor, of
Monument Yard, he sent for my Mother and me, as
had been previously arranged. We settled for the
summer in the eastern corner house of Graf ton Street.
Paddington was then an inconsiderable village,
having a single stage-coach, which daily made one
journey to and from the City.
Our next residence was on the west side of Totten-
ham Court Road. All beyond Warren Street, which
had been lately commenced, was open meadow- land
and dairy farms as far as the eye could see, except the
" Adam and Eve," then resorted to as a country tea-
garden house, at the west corner of the Hampstead
Road, and the " Old King's Head," at the opposite
corner, with a few humble buildings.
My young eyes were attracted by the numerous
moving objects I beheld from our windows. Opposite
was a cow-lair, and great gravel-pits adjoining, while
beyond meadows extended to Gray's Inn Lane ; one
of them, conspicuous at a distance, formed the bowling-
green, now a public-house, in Cromer Street.
From far and near on Sunday mornings in the
different fields crowds assembled around preachers,
boxing-matches, dog-fights, and duck -hunts. To these
scenes resorted pickpockets, who, when detected and
pursued, were brought by large mobs to ponds in the
gravel-pits and mercilessly ducked, with uproarious
shouting.
On Sundays London poured towards the country a
populous tide of individuals, differing much in appear-
24 WILLIAM HONE
ance from our present Sunday swarms to the suburbs ;
many were personally afflicted, youths walking on
crutches or with one crutch, girls suffering under dis-
orders of the hip-joint, rickety children, with jointed
iron straps on their legs at least one-tenth of the
passers-by were crippled or diseased.
On Sunday afternoons tradesmen or respectable
journeymen and their wives were profusely powdered.
Men wore scarlet coats and long-flapped, figured waist-
coats ; cocked hats, with their hair behind in long
or large clubbed pigtails, and at the sides in large
stiff curls ; silver or plated buckles, curiously wrought
or bespangled, on their shoes.
Daily there were processions of Freemasons' funerals,
or long trains attending the Irish burials, to Old Pancras
Church ; and frequently school " breaking-up " pro-
cessions. We soon removed to Warren Street, of which
only five houses were then built.
My recollections of this early period are vivid ; of
my Father reading to me, Bible in hand, while I stood
between his knees ; of his talking to me about Adam
and Eve, Noah's Flood, Cain and Abel ; and of my
questioning him about the Garden of Eden, the Dove
with the olive-branch, the Ark with its animals, and
the Rainbow after the Flood.
My childish imagination drew pictures of Paradise
from the upland horizon of Hampstead and the verdant
intermediate scenery which fascinated my young eyes
and filled me with indescribable emotions.
Nature was my first book ; my father's only one was
the Bible, and he constantly read in it. He was a
good man, and he taught me the alphabet and reading
from the Bible.
I saw but little of him except on Sundays, when,
going to hear the Rev. W. Huntingdon preach, he
took me with him. On other days his employment
in a distant law office drew him out early and detained
him late. He often inveighed so bitterly against the
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 25
Arminians and John Wesley that I imagined the
Arminians to be much more wicked than common
wicked people about the streets, and that John Wesley
had some peculiarly terrible aspect. My Father and
his friends were in the habit of speaking much and
bitterly of John Wesley. They frequently called him
" the Old Devil," and I had a most terrific idea of
this satanic personage.
Although my Father and Mother had taught me to
read tolerably well, I was too young for a boys' school,
being under six years of age, and as the family was
increasing I was sent to a neighbouring dame, who
taught young children from the Horn-Book.
That implement of education was a thin piece of
oak of small duo-decimo size and form, covered on
one side with a piece of horn, through which appeared,
printed on a paper which was pasted on the wood, an
alphabet of capital letters, headed by a cross, a lower-
case alphabet of small letters, the vowels, a few
syllables of two letters, the Lord's Prayer, and the
Gloria PatrL
I was soon Dame Bettridge's head scholar. She
was very fond of me, and I was always good with
her, although, perhaps, naughty enough at home. She
lived in one room, a large underground kitchen ; we
went down a flight of steps to it. Her bed was always
neatly turned up in one corner. There was a large
kitchen grate, and in cold weather there was always
a good fire in it, by which she sat in a carved wooden
arm-chair, with a small round table before her, on which
lay a large Bible, open, on one side, and on the other
a birch rod.
Of the Bible she made great use, of the rod very
little, but with fear we always looked upon it. There,
on low wooden benches, books in hand, sat her little
scholars. We all loved her, I most of all, and
I was often allowed to sit on a little stool by her
side. I was happier there than anywhere.
26 WILLIAM HONE
I think I see her now, that placid old fate, with
her white hair turned up over a high cushion, and a
clean, neat cap on top of it. One morning I was
told I was not to go to school. I was miserable
and cried to go to my Dame ; it was a dark day
for me. The next day I got up hoping to go to
school, but no ! I might not ; then they told me she
was ill, and I cried the more from grief. It was
my first sorrow. That day, too, I passed in tears,
and before evening I became so distressed that my
mother, to appease me, obtained leave for me to go
to school the next day. I went to bed and cried myself
to sleep.
The next morning the servant was told to take me.
All was so still as we approached the house that I had
an awful feeling that there was something not right.
The door was shut ; so the servant tapped, and a
girl opened it. Instead of the benches and my school-
fellows in the room I saw the bed, let down and cur-
tained, and my good Dame lying on it, pale and altered.
" Here is Master William ; he would come," said
my bearer, and a low, hollow voice from the bed replied,
" Let him stay ; he will be good." Shocked at her
appearance, I stood and cried, until she motioned me
to approach, and then scrambling up to her on the
bed, she soothed me to quietude.
I saw the little round table covered with a clean
white cloth, and something upon it which I did not
understand, covered over with another cloth.
I sat still until she inquired of the little girl who
attended upon her the exact time of the day, and
then she told me a gentleman was coming. I asked
her respecting the gentleman, and receiving an un-
satisfactory answer, shuffled off the bed to the little
girl, who had gone into an adjoining room, and learned
from her that the expected gentleman was Mr. Wesley.
I eagerly asked, " What Mr. Wesley? " Her answer
confirmed my fears. It was the terrible John Wesley 1
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 27
At that moment the knocker rapped, and while Lucy
went to open the door I ran back to my Dame and
round the bed, and looking through the window I saw
his black stockings. I turned and gazed in stupor
at my poor Dame, until the sound of his footsteps
startled me to attempt instant escape, but before I
could reach the door I saw the black legs, with great
silver buckles, coming down the stairs, and there came
into the room a venerable man, his long, silvery hair
flowing upon his shoulders, his countenance cheerful
and smiling and ruddy as a youth's, and his eyes
beaming kindness.
Nevertheless, as he went up to the bed I trembled.
With an eager, gratified look my poor old Dame drew
her withered hands from under the bedclothes and clasped
his proffered hand. He touched her cheek with his
lips, and, continuing to hold her hands, he breathed
out short sentences of consolation.
The room seemed illuminated by his presence, but
I recollected having heard something about '' Satan
coming as an angel of light." He looked at me and
said something. She said, "He is a 1 good boy ; he
will be quite quiet."
After much talk he uncovered the table, and I saw
the bread and wine as I had often seen it at my
Father's chapel. Suddenly he said, " Let us pray,"
and then he kneeled at the bedside. I was full of
wonder ; I knew not what to think, but determined
not to kneel. He began to pray and my tears flowed,
and then I dropped upon my knees weeping, but feeling
happy, I knew not why.
After prayer and all else was over he conversed
affectionately with the poor afflicted woman, and, taking
her hand, he again pressed his cheek to hers, and with
a solemn benediction he bade her " Farewell " ; then,
laying his hand upon my head, he said, " My
child, God bless you, and make you a good man,"
and then silently withdrew. I wondered was this
28 WILLIAM HONE
"the Old Devil"? I never saw Rev. John Wesley
again.
From what had passed I feared my Dame was going
to die, and I burst into convulsive sobbings. She
beckoned me to her once more, and again getting
on the bed, I cried myself to sleep in her arms,
was removed from her before I awoke, and never saw
her again, for in a day or two she died.
Although a child, yet from that time I reluctantly
listened to, and always distrusted, Mr. Huntingdon ;
for of John Wesley nothing could now make me think
ill. I feared to tell my thoughts, nor did I mention
this scene until I heard the hawkers crying a new
elegy upon the death of Mr. Wesley. Comparing his
writings, which I have read within the last few years,
I do not hesitate to declare that my childish preference
for John Wesley is confirmed.
William Huntingdon was an illiterate man of vigorous
mind ; my father was attached to his high, exclu-
sive doctrines, and extended his attachment to the man.
He had an occasional intimacy with him, and some
years later corrected for the press several of his works,
which I copied particularly the " Bank of Faith " and
" The Arminian Skeleton." In " The Last Will and
Testament of William Huntingdon " he bequeaths to
every heir of promise in the Christian world " that
golden phoenix in its cage " called " The Pilgrim's
Progress."
About the time of my Dame's death my Father told
me he would buy me " The Pilgrim's Progress," that
it should be my own. My father himself was a man
of exemplary piety. He constantly carried a Bible
of small size in his pocket, and had a larger one at
home, daily used, and a volume of Crisp's Sermons.
Our family library consisted of a mutilated copy of
Milton's " Paradise Lost," "Mrs. Glasse's Cookery,"
in worse condition, an old book of Farriery, and some
Pamphlets of Mr. Huntingdon. With any other books
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 29
I was wholly unacquainted, and the addition of such
a book as " The Pilgrim's Progress " to such a collec-
tion as ours was to me an event. I eagerly longed
for its coming home, and well recollect my emotions
of heart when my father, eyeing me with affection,
slowly drew from his pocket a good old woodcut copy
of the famous " Pilgrim."
The first glance at the frontispiece delighted me.
It represented the upper half of the Author, sleeping in
a sort of cave, with his head upon his hand, and above
him Christian, in a large hat and flowing coat, walking
upwards towards the " Gate Beautiful," with a lion
standing on each side of the way. All the cuts were
rude, yet they all pleased me ; but the pleasure I
derived from the work itself is indescribable. I read
in it continually, and read it through repeatedly. I
read without the least conception of the Allegory, for-
getting, too, that the narrative was a dream I supposed
it to be real and literal. I earnestly desired to become
a man that I might travel and find the places described.
One day upon some remarkable occasion my Father
took me into the City, where I had never been before.
He entered the Royal Exchange at full " 'Change "
time, and perched me on his shoulder to enable me
to see the quadrangle and the statues. It was a sight
wholly new. I think there were some old flags hanging
about. I read the inscriptions on the columns, denoting
the walks of the different foreign merchants and trades-
men, and hearing the strange din and buzz of the crowd
and the ringing of the bell, I suddenly imagined we
were in " Vanity Fair," and, clapping my hands, shouted
out, " Father ! Vanity Fair ! This is Vanity Fair ! "
Some of the bystanders looked oddly, and one of
them, a calm-speaking, elderly man, said, " .What does
the child mean?" My Father answered: "Sir, the
little fellow is a stranger to the place ; he has been
reading a book called ' The Pilgrim's Progress/ and
he fancies he is in Vanity Fair." The old gentleman
30 WILLIAM HONE
smiled and observed, " Perhaps he is not far wrong."
I firmly believed that I beheld the spot where " Faith-
ful " came to his end, and it was difficult to dissuade
me from the notion.
My admiration for "The Pilgrim's Progress" was
excessive, and after a while I entreated my Father
for another book of the same kind ; he astonished
me by saying he did not know another like it. I
thought there must be many, and went moping about.
He bought me " The Holy War," but though this
was by Bunyan, it failed to interest me as did " The
Pilgrim's Progress." In "The Holy War" I found
no " Christian " and " Hopeful " ; no " Wicket-Gate/
no " Valley of the Shadow of Death," no " Giam
Despair," no " Vanity Fair," no " Interpreter's House/
no " Delectable Mountains " with the shepherds, no
river with " Christian " helping " Hopeful " through
the flood the " Shining Ones " on the other side.
My Mother had a cousin married to a Mr. Rees, a
Solicitor and Commissioner of Bankrupts, in Feather-
stone Buildings, Holborn. He occupied, as a country
residence, the Manor House of Belsize, Hampstead,
and when the intimacy of relationship between Mrs.
Rees and my Mother was renewed I was left in the
family, a numerous one, chiefly of grown-up sons.
Leading to the mansion was a noble avenue of elms,
in which I was allowed to walk alone, keeping within
sight of the house ; in the rear were the offices and
gardens, an orchard, and a walled park, where I had
liberty to wander at pleasure.
I recollect that Belsize awakened in me newborn
senses. There, near the park wall, I first marked
the different odours of flowers growing in the gardens,
the delicious smell of apples lying in the storeroom.
Then my ear educated itself to sounds, and I listened
breathlessly to silence to its eloquence my young
heart escaped in sighs, for I felt wonder. There I
first heard the sound of the wild bee, and can still
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 31
point out the spot where I heard his drowsy hum
among the flowers in the sultry heat of a summer's day.
I had an almost constant companion in the youngest
son, a kind-hearted youth of about fourteen, tall of
his age, and verging into a decline of which he after-
wards died from too rapid growth. I was a favourite
with him, although so much younger than himself.
I helped him to build high among the branches of an
ancient mulberry- tree a summer-house lar>ge enough
for us both, in which we sat and read childish
books, reasoned, and talked of birds and insects new
to our eyes and of all innocent things.
We could occasionally hear from the heart of London
the solemn striking of the hour by St. Paul's clock,
and in quiet evenings a favourable wind bore to us
the clear silver tones of the chapel bell of Lincoln's
Inn. Often we were warned into the house by the
clanging of the dinner-bell. Sometimes when we were
with the family, and the weather indicated a storm,
we slipped away from the house, and, clambering to
our airy height, awaited the coming of the tempest,
and abided watching the lightning, while the thunder
rolled and crashed and the rain poured ; and then,
when all had passed away and the sun shone out,
we scrambled down through the drenched leaves.
Here, too, after sunset we were accustomed to sit,
listening to distant sounds, looking for the appear-
ance of the first star and the coming out of other
stars until the firmament was gemmed with sparkling
and shining lights. In whispers we talked of the
freshening odour from the drenched earth and the
clearing up. Often our outstretched eyes followed little
flecks of cloud while they evaporated and were lost
in the transparent rain ; we gazed on the clear sky
and strained our sight to look through it into Heaven.
To this summer-house in the mulberry-tree we
climbed daily. From such scenes and habits of child-
hood I derived a love for quiet and the country which
32 WILLIAM HONE
has yearned in me throughout life, and has frequently
detached me from alluring society and busiest occupa-
tions to bury myself awhile in rural solitude and nourish
peaceful thoughts "far from the haunts of careworn
men." I sought to be alone. In my solitary rambles
about the place or in the adjacent lanes I used to ,sit
and indulge in childish musings till some living thing
caught my eye, and then I watched the motions and
habits of insects, or examined little wild flowers and
mosses, and closely observed things I had never before
noticed.
On my return home from the delights of Belsize
I had little liking for play, but continually hankered
for books. Odd pence were sometimes given to me,
and always expended on something to read, which was
trashy stuff, sold at little shops ; in those days there
were no " Penny " and " Saturday " Magazines, no
works of healthy entertainment or of information for
the young mind. Inquisitive I and imaginative, and
often getting improper answers to my childish questions,
I examined my own thoughts, and gathered education
from them.
One day my Father brought home a little book which
affected me to tears Jane way's " Token for Children."
1 To his son Alfred he relates that during one of
his pleasant sojourns at Belsize, when they were making
the grape wine, he was attracted by the odour of the
mushed grapes in a large open tub standing in one
of the outhouses. The juice was so tempting that,
boy-like, he leaned over to get a drink, but, losing his
balance, he toppled over, and his head was immersed
till he was in imminent danger of suffocation, from
which he was only saved by the timely arrival of the
gardener. Rescued with head and clothing smothered
in grape-skins, the culprit was stripped, bathed, and
put to bed an episode he never forgot, and which
admirably served him " to point the moral " to his
own boys.
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 33
I could read " The Pilgrim's Progress " or " The Holy
War " in the presence of my Father and Mother, or
of any one, but not " The Token for Children." With
this I got away alone, into private places, where I
could read and weep unseen. My Father occasionally
talked to me about the things in this little book
without my being able to talk to him ; had I spoken,
I should have betrayed feelings which I strove to
conceal.
My desire for reading became distressing to myself
and to those around me, and I moped in my Mother's
way until my Father sent me to a boys' day school.
The scholars were numerous and well taught for
beginners, but my situation was amongst advanced
scholars, who were arranged on forms and at desks.
Mr. Perry was a kind, religious man, loving and
preserving order, and the scholars were exercised three
times a day. The whole school, standing, sang out
of Watts's " Divine Songs for Children." I especially
admired " The Summer Evening," and thoughts re-
curred to me in after-life of other than of Watts's
songs.
While I was at this school (1787) in my seventh
year I rapidly improved, but within three months from
my going I was attacked by the dreaded disease of the
age, virulent smallpox, under which not all the medical
skill nor watchful care employed could preserve me
from sinking, apparently to death, and preparations
were being made for the funeral, when I showed signs
of recovery young life was not extinct, Nature had
sought repose in simulated sleep or trance, and the
converse of my Mother and Aunt in relation to my
funeral, which I overheard, in the struggle of agony
forced an utterance, which arrested their attention.
My recovery was very slow. Soon afterwards my
parents removed to Old North Street, Red Lion Square,
and I went no more to that school. I missed the
green fields close to the house, where I had been
3
34 WILLIAM HONE
allowed to roam. As I had not learned to write, my
Father, who wrote a fine distinct hand, taught me by
keeping me close at copying specimens he set before
me, and he took great pains to form mine. For four
years the greatest part of my time was employed in
learning to write and 1 in getting lessons thoroughly by
heart from the Bible.
I was about nine years old when my Father went
to preach at a chapel in Paradise Row, Lambeth. I
was with him, and we were invited to dine by Mrs.
Johnson, a widow lady, who had an only daughter. The
friendship of our parents continued ; an attachment
between the daughter and myself strengthened with our
years, and in the year 1800 we were married.
About this time my inquisitiveness about sects and
opinions induced my Father to buy a " Dictionary of
All Religions," in two volumes, which I deemed scarcely
better than " Josephus," although I often turned to it
for one fact which riveted me upon the first reading.
The compiler relates that at the time of the Crucifixion
of Christ some mariners, being at sea, navigating on
a calm day and near a desert island, were surprised
by dolorous sounds and lamentations which seemed to
come from the desolate place. They steered close to
the coast ; there were no living beings to be seen,
and yet terrifying shrieks and wailings of distress ran
along the shore. The mariners were silent from
astonishment, and then they heard a loud voice mourn-
fully proclaim, " The Great God Pan is dead ! " I
never read this account without feeling a mysterious
awe and solemnly pondering.
Another circumstance roused some new thoughts. In
July, 1789, a boy whom I knew suddenly stopped
me in Hand Court, Holborn, from driving my hoop,
and with mysterious looks and voice he said, " There's
a Revolution in France." Little instructed, the word
" Revolution " was new to me ; I stared at him and
inquired, " What's a Revolution? " " Why, the French
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 35
people in Paris have taken the Bastille, and hung the
Governor, and let loose all the prisoners, and pulled
the Bastille down to the ground." " How do you
know? " " My Father says so ; he read all about
it in the newspaper just now and he says it's a Revolu-
tion." My informant's Father was a Captain in the
City Trained Band.
I had a young brother who had long been in a decline,
and his condition lay heavily on my Father's mind. The
poor little fellow wasted fast in the heat of sumrner ;
he was too enfeebled to walk or to stand, and my Father
sometimes came home early and carried him into the
fields till sunset. On these occasions my brother Joseph
and I went, and to him and to me these walks were
delightful what they were to my Father I can now
well imagine, as with tears in his eyes, bearing this
poor dying child on his bosom, he seldom spoke, except
to him, while gently shifting him from one arm to
the other. Sometimes my Father drew long sighs,
and his features expressed sorrow and anguish, but
his looks soon calmed, and his countenance radiated
unspeakable peace. And thus he bore about his dying
child as long as he could be lifted from the bed on
which he lay.
When he ceased to breathe my Father was absent.
On his return home, seeing us in black, he knew the
sad truth, yet ceased to afflict himself his looks ex-
pressed " Thy will be done." He immediately passed
into his own room ; we listened and heard him praying,
and presently he rose from his knees, and came in
with a calm countenance. While the child lived in
suffering the Father's tribulation was great, but when
he died it ceased.
After the funeral my Father borrowed for me " Foxe's
Book of Martyrs." The plain narrative of their
sufferings and fortitude animated me to enthusiasm.
I read the controversies they held at an apposite
moment.
36 WILLIAM HONE
A family in the same house with ours were of the
Catholic religion. Being out one morning, I was over-
taken in Lincoln's Inn Fields by a little girl of this
family, who told me she was going to her chapel, and
asked me to go with her. I hesitated at first, but
she was a good-tempered child, about my own age,
and her persuasions prevailed with me.
On entering my eyes were attracted to a procession
of singing boys in white vestments and shining scarlet,
passing towards the stairs of the gallery ; but when
in the body of the chapel I looked in amazement at
the Altar, covered with white linen and decked with
flowers, a shining pix and crucifix, altar-piece above,
massive golden candlesticks on each side, vases burning
with lambent flames, and priests coming from a side
door in rich habits.
The service began with dulcet music, and proceeded
with the singing of sweet voices, the chanting of the
priests, the swinging of censers, emitting aromatic
odours, and now and then the tinkling of a bell. I
comprehended nothing of what I saw, but, indescribably
lost in wonder, I long outstayed the hour by which I
ought to have been home.
The scene, so different from anything I had witnessed
in places of dissenting worship, operated to make me
imagine I felt more religious, and, to indulge in this
feeling, several times afterwards I strayed into their
chapel. What I saw and heard was void of meaning
to me, but my senses were charmed, and, with what
the little girl told me at home of the devotion of the
Catholics, and the hardships they endured, I began
to think that the Romish religion was the only religion
in the world.
It was at this juncture that I fell to reading the
" Book of Martyrs." There, independent of their forti-
tude under torture, and the triumph of their deaths,
I found enough to determine me from my notions, and
to enable me to read and to understand in some degree,
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 37
that " God is a Spirit, and must be worshipped in
spirit and in truth."
Soon after this one or two persons known to my
Mother lent me several books, to which she did not
object, but thought my Father would, and I therefore
read them unknown to him.
We young ones were sickly children, and I in par-
ticular was deemed consumptive. While recovering
from one of my illnesses I read Brooke's " Fool of
Quality," a book which I then thought delightful, and
am almost certain that were I to read it again, after
a lapse of forty years, I should think so still. It
must have been a work of merit, for it was abridged
by John Wesley. Except the " Book of Martyrs," it
was the only book that religiously affected my mind
at that age. But my serious thoughts, such as they
were, quickly disappeared, and soon afterwards an
accident befell me, fully adequate, it may be supposed,
to their revival.
I kept some little fish in a decanter of water on
the sill of a back window, on a second-floor landing.
This window was almost beyond my reach, and one
forenoon, being desirous of watching the fish at my
ease, I clambered up and sat straddling across the
sill. Suddenly I thought I heard my Mother coming,
and fearing to be caught in that position, I hastened
to get my leg in ; but by an awkward movement in
trying to avoid the fishes' decanter I lost my balance
and rolled out of the window. Catching a leading
branch of an old vine that grew against the house,
I held fast, my dangling weight freed the vine right
and left, and I came down, ripping the immense
branches above and around me, until I found myself
flat on the gravel walk.
I struggled through the mass and found myself
unhurt ; the alarm which had caused my fall had
been false, nobody had seen the accident, and how
the vine could possibly have fallen was a matter of
38 WILLIAM HONE
wonder. I told my Mother, some years after, of my
narrow escape from death, which had not produced
in me the slightest reflection.
Shortly before this accident a favourite bird escaped
from a staircase window ; I leaped after it to find
myself in a neighbour's garden, and a prisoner. In
my alarm I ran through the house, opened the hall
door, and escapedrejoicing that I had not been de-
tected by the owner, Mr. Ayrton, who was believed
to be very austere.
As a youngster I was not exempt from the perils of
boyish adventure ; all through my life I have felt
the splinters of a glass bottle, which shattered in my
hand while firing a train, and inspired me with a
wholesome distaste for gunpowder.
When not otherwise employed I amused myself with
colouring children's common prints, and cutting out
different figures from writing and coloured papers. My
greatest indulgence was being permitted to go to the
office of a neighbour, a copper-plate printer, where I
watched him and his apprentice work ; much of my
time was spent with him, observing these processes.
I believe in the course of three years I saw every
plate sent in to him. During this period I read only
two books, a sixpenny dull " Life of Frederick the
Great " and the " Life of Philip Quarll," with an
account of his monkey " Beau Fidele." These were
purchased from my savings.
I was not eleven years old when I made my first
attempt to purchase an old book. With an economy
befitting my parents, their allowance of pocket money
was suited to my age ; I had a penny a week to spend
as I pleased. On a fine summer day of 1791, two
weeks of that amount were in my pocket when I first
saw the great book-stall outside the front of Nunn's
large book-shop in Great Queen Street, at the corner
of Wild Street. Of the money value of old books,
and of the value of money itself, I was utterly ignorant,
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 39
but I was suddenly possessed with the determination
to buy one of the hundreds of volumes temptingly
spread before me. I vainly examined several, for all
were marked beyond the sum I held ready to my
hand ; and those at the lowest price sixpence : were
in a box at the door.
There were none here that attracted me excepting
a fine clean copy of " Garth's Dispensary," with a
view of the old College of Physicians, Warwick Lane,
for a frontispiece. While poring over it, out stepped
the bookseller, J. Nunn a large, formidable, farmer-
looking man, in a sort of brown frock-coat, with ampli-
tude of skirt and desired me to go away. I offered
him my twopence, telling him I wanted to buy that
book, and proposed that he should keep it for me
until I brought him the remainder of the purchase
money. He took the money, looked at me in my
pinafore (for in those days, and many years later, boys
wore pinafores until twelve years old), and smiled as
he turned from me to put it away.
The copper-plate printer permitted me to read all
the odd sheets of printed paper that came to him in
the course of business, and he gave me an old copy of
Gesner's " Death of Abel." This book was a continual
feast to me. It brought to my recollection Belsize I
imagined the country round it to be like Paradise.
Since then I have not read the " Death of Abel " ;
yet, even now, I remember the pleasure I then derived
from the description of Eve's emotions on finding a
dead bird, when she did not know what death meant.
It impressed me deeply.
Within the range I was allowed for walking was the
shop of a staymaker. One day, while sauntering up
and down with my " Death of Abel," the staymaker
beckoned me to him, looked at the title of my book
and smiled, which encouraged me to ask him to lend
me one. He fetched a volume from the parlour, the
only book he had, and said it was too hard for me.
40 WILLIAM HONE
It was an " Essay on the Weakness of the Human
Understanding," by Peter Huet, Bishop of Armagh.
I took it with me, found it puzzling, yet I compre-
hended, by attention, something of the meaning. Huet's
Essay first led me to reflect. I was then eleven
years old.
I was in the habit of making my own every scrap
of printed and written paper, whether from cheese-
mongers' or other shops, and one day met with an old
printed leaf, which seemed to be part of an energetic
defence of some man ; I could not discover who he
was, nor could my Father. I took uncommon pains,
and at every opportunity strolled into booksellers' shops,
showing my leaf and anxiously inquiring. At last I
obtained the information from a bookseller who
possessed a copy of the book. It was the " Trial of
John Lilburne."
By patience, industry, and extraordinary manage-
ment I accumulated half a crown I had for some time
improved my resources by the disposal of toys and
boxes which I made of card, and I bought the book.
Since " The Pilgrim's Progress," no other book had
so riveted me ; I felt all Lilburne 's indignant feelings,
admired his undaunted spirit, rejoiced at his acquittal,
and detested Cromwell as a tyrant for causing him to
be carried back to the Tower, after the Jury had pro-
nounced him to be free from the charge. This book
aroused within me new feelings, and a desire of
acquainting myself with Constitutional Law, which in
a few years afterwards I had an opportunity of
acquiring.
In my twelfth year I was again sent to school.
It was not so well conducted as the one I had been
at five years before, but the boys were well taught.
I was put at once into Arithmetic, and got on rapidly.
The master liked me, and my fondness for reading,
and he lent me an old " Annual Register," and a volume
of a magazine. These seemed to afford new views,
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 41
and I imagined if I could get the other volumes of
the sets, I should possess an inexhaustible field of
knowledge.
I had commenced the " rule of three " when a boy
at the school ill-used me ; he was the son of a parish
officer, and as my master favoured him, my Father
took me away. This ended my scholastic attainments.
My Father kept me at home, instructing me an hour
at midday and another hour in the evening. By
myself I could make no progress in arithmetic, and
home instruction became irksome to me. It was high
summer ; we lived in a street on the suburb side of
Red Lion Square, at that time open to the meadow-
land, but now forming the sites of Queen Square, Great
Coram Street, the New Road, Pentonville, &c.
Every breeze that blew brought odours from the
new -mown grass, and told of green fields. I
remembered, and longed to renew, the rambles I had
been accustomed to at Belsize. Had I been at school,
desires of this kind would have been diverted by my
occupations in company with the other boys, and my
advance in learning, in which I really delighted, would
have reconciled me to confinement. It was true I had
a brother at home with me, but he was three years
my junior, and our dispositions were different ; he
cared but little for reading, and I cared for little else ;
we would neither read nor learn together.
I saddened into listlessness, wrote without care, and
had tasks set me in the Bible, which rendered the Book
itself distasteful. I felt my faculties were wounded ;
they seemed benumbed. Of the real condition of my
mind and feelings my Father was ignorant. I spoke
but little, and dispiritedly, and one morning on leaving
home at breakfast -time, he required that (for some
fault I had committed) I should get by heart a heavy
task before he returned to dinner at any time it would
have been heavy, but in my condition then it was
impossible. He put the Bible into my hands, telling
42 WILLIAM HONE
me imperatively that if I did not learn it perfectly
he would strictly chastise me. I sat on the stair-head
gazing in dull vacancy on the open chapter without
seeing a word, and closed the book in despair. On
my Father's coming home, he required my task ; I
could only shed tears, without power to explain, and
he punished me. My poor Father was not aware of
the mischief fraught in me by this severity ; from that
time I regarded the Bible as a book of hopeless or
heavy tasks.
My Mother, unknown to my Father, related in my
favour ; she permitted me to go out with my brother,
and together we rambled in the fields, always taking
care to be within doors before my Father came home.
In time she brought him to acquiesce in this indulgence,
and I gradually recovered my usual spirits. Still, I was
in want of proper instruction, and without books to read.
There is a cobbler's stall in Theobald's Road,
London, that I go out of my way to look at whenever
I pass its vicinity, because it was the seat of an honest
old man who patched my shoes, and my mind, when
I was a boy. I, involuntarily, reverence the spot, and
if I find myself in Red Lion Square, with a like affec-
tion I look between the iron railings of its enclosure
because, at the same age, from my Mother's window,
I watched the taking down of the obelisk, stone by
stone, that stood in the centre, and impatiently awaited
the discovery of the body of Oliver Cromwell, which,
according to local legend, was certainly buried there,
in secrecy, by night. It is true that Oliver's bones
were not found, but then "everybody" believed that
"the workmen did not dig deep enough." Among
these believers was my friend the cobbler, who, though
no metaphysician, was given to ruminate on " causa-
tion." He imputed the non -persistence of the diggers
to " private reasons of state," which his awfully
mysterious look imported he had fathomed, but dared
not reveal.
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 43
From ignorance of wisdom, I venerate the wisdom
of ignorance ; and although I now know better,
I respect the old man's memory. He allowed me
(though a child) to sit on the frame of his little pushed-
back window, and I obtained so much of his goodwill
and confidence that he lent me a folio of fragments
from Caxton's " Polychronicon " and Pynson's
" Shepherd's Kalendar," which he kept in the drawer
of his seat, with "St. Hugh's Bones" and the instru-
ments of his "gentle craft.'* This black-letter lore,
with its woodcuts, created in me a desire to be
acquainted with our old authors, and a love for
engravings, which I have indulged without satiety. It
is impossible that I should be without fond recollections
of the spot wherein I received these early impressions. 1
1 Thus he tells how he occasionally whiled away
a half-holiday with one of those good-natured, elderly
gossips who encourage and are pleased with the
inquiries of young children ; and we learn how early
were impressed upon the unsullied page of his memory
some of those experiences which were to develop into
mature thought, and engender aspirations which soared
far beyond the range of the humble cobbler's simple
wisdom or archaeological knowledge. We have, too,
an early intimation of the maternal influence. His
mother was an ardent admirer of the character of
Cromwell ; she would frequently talk to him of
the great Protector or of " Oliver," as she styled
him, with the familiarity one uses towards an inti-
mate. Circumstances favoured her predilections, for
while living at Hammersmith she became intimate with
one who claimed to be a descendant of her hero Mr.
Thomas Cromwell, a brewer. Again, on removing to
Clerkenwell, she had the satisfaction of sending one of
her grandsons to school to one of the stately old
mansions in the rear of St. James's Church, which was
said to have been one of the residences once occupied
by Cromwell. The house was destroyed by fire
about 1845.
44 WILLIAM HONE
Entick's " Dictionary " had been bought for me
before I went to school, and then Bailey's
"Dictionary," upon which, for want of other reading, I
incessantly pored. By this practice I became such an
adept in spelling, that I tried to compile a Spelling-
book. I found I should not be able to get it printed
without money, and on that account my first attempt at
authorship was abandoned.
The French National Assembly had declared war
against Germany. My Mother began to have, daily,
a newspaper, which I read to her and her sister, who
lived with us. They commented, and I took great
interest in what they said. A large folio " Geography
of the Whole World " by James Theodore Middleton,
Esq., borrowed from a neighbour, contributed largely
to our information, and with the aid of papers issued
by the " Associations for preserving Liberty and
Property against Republicans and Levellers," we
became politicians.
In the Geography were some lines addressed by
Addison to "Liberty," and others in imitation of them
to " Slavery " by the Geographer. These lines seemed
to me a subject for panegyric. I arranged them side
by side, and below Addison's, stated in prose the
blessings of Liberty in England, and beneath the
Geographer's, denounced the National Assembly and
the horrors of Slavery, the cruel death of the King,
&c., in France; and wrote above "The Contrast."
Then I composed what I called a " poem " and put
it beneath the prose.
These doings obtained praise from my Mother and
from my Aunt, who was very fond of me, and a smile
from my Father. We raised the money for putting
it to the press, and finally "The Contrast" appeared
in print upon a quarter of a sheet of paper, without
any name but with these words dictated by my Father
at the foot ' The Author of the above is only twelve
years of age." A copy sent to the Association, at " The
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 45
Crown and Anchor " in the Strand, procured for me
a flattering letter of thanks from the Secretary. I
received presents from those who promoted the publica-
tion equal to its expenses, with a few shillings surplus. 1
Bishop Watson's " Apology for the Bible," in answer
to Paine 's " Age of Reason," was given to my Father,
and he gave it to me. I only knew the " Age of
Reason " existed by his conversing with a friend upon
it as a mischievous work ; its nature I soon understood
from the Bishop's book. Until the " Apology " in-
formed me, I never conceived the Bible had been, or
could be, doubted or disbelieved, and, strange to say,
although I thought Bishop Watson proved the untruth
of much that Paine had written, yet the Bishop's work
alone created doubt in me who had never before
doubted. I mention this much as a fact, without
remark. My wish is to relate truly, every circum-
stance I can remember, that tended to produce extra-
ordinary states of mind, with the thoughts and
1 The boy's " poem " commenced :
" Come Britons unite, and in one Common Cause
Stand up in defence of King, Liberty, Laws ;
And rejoice that we've got such a good Constitution,
And down with the barbarous French Revolution !
' There's Egalite Marat, and famous Tom Paine
Had best stay where they are, and not come here
to reign.
Be staunch for your King, and your good Constitution,
And down with the barbarous French Revolution ! "
The same burden runs through the whole of the six
verses, of which these two are a fair sample. The
letter of acknowledgment, dated from the " Crown
and Anchor," April 27, 1793, evinces the pleasure of
the Association in perceiving " a spirit of loyalty in a
person so young," and trusts that a continuance in the
same sentiments will make him a valuable and useful
member of the community.
46 WILLIAM HONE
reflections and views of religion which in these pages
will be fully disclosed.
For two or three months a gentleman whom my
Father had long known and a man of religion-
allowed my Father to send me to his office, in Canter-
bury Square, Southwark, that I might see something
of business. The two hours allotted for dinner, I chiefly
spent in wandering alone over the neighbouring
wharves, and walking about the Borough. After
leaving the office at eight o'clock in the evening, I
sometimes went to a little bookseller's auction, in
Tooley Street, where I contrived to buy a few books,
with savings from my dinner money and my pocket
allowance. This was almost all the pleasure I had,
for the clerks delighted to tease me, except the eldest,
who took me two or three times to public tea-gardens
and places of what he termed innocent amusement, to
see, as he said, a little of life nor seemed to think a
boy of my age could be harmed by observing scenes
of licence and depravity.
My Father must have observed a change in me for
the worse, for he took me away, just as I began to
make myself agreeable to the persons who had sneered
away my simplicity.
I was now in my thirteenth year, and became very
importunate with my Father to find for me a situation
in which I could earn something by my handwriting.
His intimacies were few, and his inquiries ended with-
out success. By a bold step for a boy of my age, which
my Father laughed at as impossible to be availing
when I proposed it to him, I got such a situation in a
few hours, at City Chambers, Bishopsgate Street, with
a gentleman just entering into business as a solicitor.
I was his factotum. While his office was there, I was
punctual and attentive and gave him entire satisfac-
tion ; but he removed to Nicholas Lane, and there
unhappily, in the room in which I sat alone, he placed
a book -case, filled with the works of the Poets and
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 47
Dramatic authors, with the door unlocked. The books
irresistibly attracted me reading them occupied time
I should have devoted to my business ; my employer
remonstrated with me upon my neglect, without
knowing it had been occasioned by his own omission
to lock the book-case door.
I promised and strove to amend ; but the book-case,
seductively open, infatuated me ; while daily resolving
to read less and less, I heedlessly read more and more.
Conscience did its office, and I determined to leave
off reading entirely, after I got through the contents of
the fatal book -case. That period never came, for I
was suddenly, and deservedly dismissed, with an
imagination inflamed to intensity by the infatuating
reading in which I had recklessly indulged.
Although this was a disgrace under which I shrank,
it had one advantage absence from the books by which
I had been infatuated, discovered to me that I had
become disqualified for sober reading. I knew there
were Poets, and when " Cook's Poets " commenced,
I bought the poems of Thompson and Goldsmith, as
they came out, in weekly numbers.
They were the first poems I read, and I derived
from them lasting benefit. The simplicity and tender-
ness of " The Deserted Village " and " The Traveller,"
and the just descriptions and noble sentiments in the
" Seasons," refined and elevated my mind. I saw
nature with a new-born sight ; in its quiet scenery
I felt emotions of peaceful delight unknown to me
before my affections went forth to every living thing ;
my heart expanded with rapturous joy.
I had no other schooling than what has been men-
tioned, but from the time I could hold a pen, I had
been taught, by my Father, to write. His hand-
writing, like every trait in his character, was pure and
distinct, each letter well formed and clear, and all so
plain and compact that each word he wrote, like every
word he spoke, could not be mistaken or doubted.
48 WILLIAM HONE
I had been actively employed in the office, and now
to copy the examples which he wrote for me before
he left home in the morning was but mechanical, and
I was confined within doors. It was summer, an
irresistible longing to ramble in the fields and meadows
came over me ; I was allowed this indulgence, as
I always had been, before, but not after, breakfast.
Yearning with a desire to indulge my young imaginings,
I was compelled to earn means for my support among
the realities of life.
I presume it was with a view to have me under
his own eye that my Father got me into the office
with himself, at Clerkenwell, where he assisted in
managing the concerns of the Parochial Board, and my
business was to help him. His firm religious character
and gentle disposition commanded general esteem, and
while with him I was safe. Here I had access to
a good English Library,, and in my leisure hours read
many books, particularly Rollin's " Ancient History,"
" Plutarch's Lives," Pope's " Homer," and most of
Swift's works.
I now began to think what station I should be
likely to fill in life, and conceived myself doomed to
be an attorney's copying clerk. This occupation I
looked upon with horror. All persons whom I knew
in that situation were thoughtless beings, weak,
mindless, and scarcely paid for their labour. Under
the apprehension of being devoted to this drudgery,
I became melancholy, and in the summer evenings
stalked about the fields, anticipating and brooding over
the hardships of my imagined destiny.
I found myself fixed to a desk under my Father's
eye. The establishment was large, and there were wild
young men under articles of clerkship, and a number
of other clerks. In his presence all was well ; for
he was strict with me, and not sparing of mild but
effective remonstrance with them when their language
deserved censure. They were mirthful upon his being
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 49
a Methodist, as they called him, yet they respected his
rectitude and open conduct, and uniform good temper.
Their playful and vain endeavours to entrap him into
some neglect of his business duties were exceedingly
amusing ; his position gave him no authority over
them, but his character shamed and restrained their
licentiousness. In his absence they were unbridled,
and more successful with me than with him, and when
they got me into fault, betrayed and exposed me to
his censure.
I was becoming unhappy, and wished myself away,
when a popular performer at Sadler's Wells was about
to have his benefit, and he being a client of the office,
the partners of the firm took a quantity of tickets
for themselves and the clerks. This being announced,
there was much speculation as to the manner in which
my Father would receive his. On one being presented
to him by a gentleman of the firm, he respectfully
declined it.
The partner who had given me the ticket under-
taking to ward off my Father's displeasure, two of
the clerks carried me with them into the theatre.
At breakfast the next morning, my Father seemed
hurt, but both he and my Mother were silent ; I was
silent too. There was noisy discourse at the office
on the performance, and ludicrous attempts were made
to draw my Father out, but he would not be brought
to speak.
The effect was produced which I conclude my
Father had foreboded. At busy times, the clerks and I
were occasionally sent long distances in the evening,
after business. These walks I had found irksome, but
now I coveted them ; at my solicitation, many were
frequently transferred to me, and by extreme running
I effected my business errands in time to get to some
theatre at the half price, and I became play-house mad.
Gratification increased my desires ; my limited
weekly allowance of pocket-money, which had sufficed
4
50 WILLIAM HONE
for book- buying, went a very little way towards the
expense of my headlong indulgence, and I teased my
Mother till she added another sixpence to it, and then
I sold all of my books that I could get together.
I was soon exhausted, and became restless and uneasy.
Happily I had formed no intimacies, and therefore
had not been seduced by associates into the vices
inseparable from theatrical acquaintances.
A dissolution of partnership making a change in
the business arrangements of the office, induced my
Father to provide me with another situation, in every
respect better. My new employer (Mr. Pelletti) had
recently begun business as a solicitor, and just married
when I became his clefk. I had heard my Father say he
was a Unitarian, but though I had completed my
fifteenth year, I did not know what " Unitarian " meant.
Soon after I went to him, he dispatched me to a
distant bookseller's with " Ben Mordeccas's Apology,"
and a number of other books which I afterwards knew
to be Unitarian. I brought back in exchange, as
had been previously settled, a set of William Law's
works. I read as I came along and was very much
interested.
This gentleman was mild, quiet, and strict ; he sat
in the same room with me, and for many weeks occa-
sionally read to himself in one or other of these
volumes, which now and then he happened to leave
on his table then I read, too. This he discovered,
and took an opportunity of talking to me upon the
importance of religion lent me one of Law's pieces,
which he said might be suitable for me, and which
I kept in my desk and read with great interest. He
afterwards started short conversations, and caused
me to consider my passion for the theatre. In a
day or two my kind employer quitted town, taking
with him Law's works. I bought the " Serious Call
to a Devout and Holy Life " and read it through with
thought and reflection, but being left alone with much
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 51
leisure on my hands, I renewed an intimacy with an
old schoolfellow, and through him! gradually became
acquainted with a young man who, as our familiarity
increased, drew forth all my notions, and then amused
himself with laughing at them.
He calmly insinuated that I was in " leading strings,"
and should be good for nothing while I read silly
authors, and took things upon trust. I knew not what
to answer, and in a few conversations I thought him
unanswerable.
He was my elder by three years, well educated, and
seducingly eloquent. He had settled to his own satis-
faction that religion was a dream, from which those
who dared to think for themselves would awake in
astonishment at their delusion ; that the human mind
had been kept in darkness, and men held in slavery,
but that the reign of superstition was over ; that when
intellect should be cultivated to the extent of its powers,
the majority of virtue would proclaim its omnipotence ;
the rights of one would be the rights of all ; govern-
ments would disappear, and every individual would
be self -governed.
My new friend told me this was the " New
Philosophy." Had these opinions been stated abruptly,
I should have shrunk from them with horror ; but each
was plausibly introduced unfolded by degrees and
maintained with much eloquence, by a succession of
arguments, plain, and, I thought, undeniable.
I was in my sixteenth year when I became a convert
to this wretch-making " New Philosophy," as it was
then called, which Mr. Robert Owen has since revised
and systematically attempted to diffuse, under the name
of " Socialism."
I acknowledged a great Creator who, satisfied with
what He had made, left the creatures of His creation to
do the best they could for themselves, and, if there
was a future state, it would certainly be better than this.
I looked upon the obsolete religions of antiquity as
52 WILLIAM HONE
worn-out erections, which Christianity had somehow or
other suppressed, and to which it had succeeded. I
imagined that with the cultivation of the intellect,
Christianity also would disappear, and Reason become
omnipotent. With the growth of these notions, I con-
trasted Scripture authority treated its historical
accounts as absurdities ridiculed its sacred characters
and regarded Christianity and its doctrines as imposi-
tions and childish dreams.
In the writings of Plato and his followers I sought
in vain for satisfaction. To me, their philosophy
seemed mere imaginings, and I resolved to inquire
no more. At a moment when my mind was dis-
engaged from these speculations, my eye happened
to fall upon a New Testament which lay open at
the fifth chapter of Matthew, and I read the Saviour's
discourse upon the Beatitudes with an interest I never
felt before.
At that moment I determined upon a thorough
perusal of the New Testament. I read it ; and having
read about the same time in one of my then favourite
books a parallel between Socrates and Christ, I con-
curred in the conclusion of my author that the
character of Christ stood out as an example of inimit-
able virtue. The devotedness of the Disciples to their
Master and the successful preaching of the Apostles
after His death, were facts not more unaccountable
than the wide diffusion of Christianity in after times,
and the certainty that among the multitude in my
own time there were, at least, some who were real
believers.
The standard and rule of Christian conduct seemed
to me to be the example and teaching of Christ Him-
self, and this conception was strengthened by my
reading an " Essay on the Internal Evidence of
Christianity," which so powerfully insisted upon
lowliness, meekness, love of righteousness, absence of
resentful feeling, and purity of heart, that I was
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 53
charmed into admiration, and thrown into despondency
of ever being able to attain such virtues.
The effect produced upon me by this tract rather
increased than diminished during thirty years of after
life. I frequently recurred to it at seasons when I was
little supposed to be occupied by solemn thinkings,
and I was accustomed to imagine my own father to
be the only real Christian whom I knew.
When about sixteen, I became a member of the
" London Corresponding Society," I very much to the
1 The London Corresponding Society met in the
Strand, sometimes at the Globe tavern, sometimes at
the " Crown and Anchor " ; the objects and method
of working appear with tolerable clearness in the
pages of a pamphlet published by the Society in 1794.
An address to the " citizens " of England ridicules the
notion that " the Constitution of England is the per-
fection of human wisdom " (a tenet to which, by the
way, Hone had subscribed in the first published poem) ;
appeals to Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights against
" the usurped power of the judges," particularly against
" the unconstitutional and illegal Informations Ex
Officio," whereby the arbitrary will of the King's
Attorney-General was made to usurp " the office of
the accusing jury " ; and ends with a passionate plea
for the redress of grievances to be obtained only by
" a fair, free, and full representation of the people."
(Here, in fact, we have the first glimmerings of the
era of reform.) Then is printed the King's Speech
which was delivered at the opening of Parliament on
the 2 ist of January of that year, with its detailed
allusions to the French War then in progress, " for the
maintenance of our Constitution, Laws, and Religion,
and the security of all Civil Society " (the Address,
in its opening sentences, had alluded to the " immense
numbers of our countrymen slaughtered in one
campaign ". ; to " our trade, commerce, and manu-
factories almost destroyed " ; to " many of our
manufacturers and artisans ruined, and their families
starving " ; had deplored the taxes which add to the
54 WILLIAM HONE
distress of my Father. My connection with that and
other debating societies completed the mischief,
disregarded his admonitions, eluded his restraint, joined
a society which kept me out late at night, and
opposed my Father's remonstrances by questioning his
right to control me. I became self-willed, and deter-
mined not to be swayed.
An extensive circulating Library supplied me with
romances and novels, which I read rapidly and
incessantly. My desire for works of this class was
insatiable, and I believe there were none then existing
in the English language which I had not sought out
and perused. This class failing me, I was compelled
to recur to miscellaneous and depraved reading.
My mind had thus become enfeebled when, un-
happily, a book was warmly recommended to me by
a youth named Jackson, who distinguished himself as
a speaker in the " School of Eloquence." This work
was then publishing in sixpenny numbers, by Kearsley,
a respectable bookseller in Fleet Street. It caught
my imagination and it wrought upon me to believe,
what its object was to prove, that in Nature there was
nothing but Nature. (I forbear to mention the title.) l
I had reveries upon the notions eloquently set forth
nation's affliction and the intolerable load of imports
with which it was already overwhelmed and all in
a fruitless crusade " to re-establish an odious
despotism in France "). On the last leaf of the
pamphlet is appended a letter of appeal, signed by
John Home Tooke, asking for contributions in aid
of the defence of a Scottish delegate to a similar
society, in Edinburgh, who for his strenuous advocacy
of the cause of constitutional reform had been in-
dicted, and stood in imminent danger of fourteen years'
transportation, to which two of his countrymen, for
a precisely similar " offence," had just been sentenced,.
1 The reference is believed to be to the philosophy
of Holcroft and Godwin.
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 55
in the works I had studied. For two years I specu-
lated on them as facts. At length it occurred to me
to collect a few evidences of the truth of their
assertions. Vain were all my researches for a single
specimen of proof, and I began to doubt the verity
of the New Philosophy.
Researches, however, of this nature were the means
of my gleaning some particulars of the habits and
manners of the living authors who had seduced me
to believe in their teaching, and led me to doubt
whether my instructors were better or happier, or
would live longer than other men.
There occurred an opportunity of seeing one of
these distinguished characters. I had been told where,
on a certain evening, he might probably be met. I
went, and at the moment of my entering the room the
" perfectibility " philosopher, to my utter astonishment,
was violently energising under a momentary disappoint-
ment, in itself so trivial, that, if it had caused similar
passion in a child, such violence would have been
inexcusable.
Before I left the house, I learned that similar
paroxysms of ungoverned temper were habitual to him.
Until then, his works had been great favourites with
me ; I never looked at them again, nor ever after-
wards saw, or desired to see their author. 1
1 Apparently the " author " and " perfectibility
philosopher " to whom allusion is here made was
William Godwin, who, in his " Enquiry Concerning
Political Justice," states that education, literature, and
political justice " are the three principal causes by
which the human mind is advanced towards a state
of perfection." Godwin's temper was at times tem-
pestuous and violent there is a story that once he took
a knife and threatened to stab himself unless Shelley
advanced him money. He was a republican and an
atheist ; it was his powerful defence of Holcroft and
Home Tooke in the Morning Chronicle that did so much
to break down the charge of high treason against them.
56 WILLIAM HONE
I was in my seventeenth year, and my home was at
my Father's. He certainly had not discovered the
lengths to which I had gone, but I am inclined to
think Mr. P. suspected something of the matter, and
warned my Father, for he obtained a situation for me
with Mr. Jeffreys, a Solicitor, in the busy town of
Chatham, which was surrounded by a beautiful country.
I was compelled by my employer to attend every
Sunday at the Parish Church. My connections in this
place were with a few respectable young men of about
my own age, all thoughtful Churchmen. During our
intimacy, I gradually disclosed my opinions, yet
without desire to force them. My disbelief was to the
uttermost, but I was not easy. I forebore to disguise
my thoughts, but I concealed the discomfort of my
feelings. When we were not together, which was
seldom, I took solitary walks, and climbed the hills,
or strolled in the woods.
I frequently walked far into the country, 1 beholding
the quiet scenery of Nature with a new-born sight ; con-
templating in solitude the wonder of silence, until the
darkness warned me home. Although impenitent and
unbelieving, yet sometimes in the presence of my
Father, I reverenced in him the inexplicable something
which, opposed to my wickedness, seemed to heave
my heart.
Religion had no charm for me, save as in " Watts 's
1 His musings at such times he occasionally
expressed in verse. Here is an extract from a com-
position he wrote in 1797 :
" Oft when pale Ev'ning throws her mantle o'er
The clear bright prospects of declining day,
I frequent roam till past the midnight hour,
And, to its secret influence, homage pay.
*****
These scenes assuage the pain of inward grief,
Draw forth the silent tear, and give the heart relief."
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 57
Songs," which brought to remembrance the Dame
School of my infancy, and then the home of my Father.
About the end of my eighteenth year I returned to
London, and entered the office of Mr. Egerton, of
Gray's Inn Square, and while there continued to indulge
my habit of reading.
My home was now at Lambeth, with a pious widow
lady. Every Sunday I attended with her at Surrey
Chapel. The personal peculiarities and the fervid and
fearless preaching of the Rev. Rowland Hill amused
me. I deemed his sermons waking dreams, that, as
to a man asleep, his imaginings were to him realities,
and that he was an honest enthusiast. Now and then
some of his remarks startled me, but my secret
unbelief stifled my conscience, and my alarms
disappeared with the day.
It is remarkable that I had a vague, undefined
pleasure in listening to sermons and joining in the
prayers and singing. I both wished and dreaded to
be religious. I had no fear or hope of futurity, no
soul, or spirit to depart ; no hope but to live, no
fear but to die ; no fear of death, but as the end
of life.
It was my will to have as much pleasure as I could
get my means were limited, my desires boundless. I
soon found my capacity for enjoyment was also limited,
and I was, of necessity, pleased to be a little rational.
I began to think when all this would end, and fell
into fruitless musings. I willed to be as happy as
my Father but this was impossible. I concluded that
he was happy because he was ignorant. He knew
nothing of literature, never read a newspaper, and it
was difficult to obtain his attention for more than a
few minutes to news or details of great public events
wholly destitute of learning, and of that worldly
wisdom called tact y he lived by faith and prayer.
By the term ignorant, I do not wish to imply that
my Father was misinformed ; but that / considered
58 WILLIAM HONE
him so, because his information was not so varied
as my own. It had been acquired in a different way,
and from other sources. I had sought mine in the
frivolities of worldly life, and in books, of which some
had ensnared and deluded me.
My Father had read the only books of Truththe
Bible and the Works of the Great Creator. Thus he
had become intimately conversant with the economy
of the animal kingdom ; their usefulness to man, their
diseases and their cures. From habitual and accurate
observation he could recognise the particular sheep of
a flock, by its distinctive countenance, as we recognise
each other ; and by their habits and those of other
animals and of insects he judged correctly of weather
its changes for wind, rain, or other atmospheric
variations .
His gentle kindness to all animals was known for
miles away from his dwelling. Of earth's productions,
he knew the many grasses, grains, herbs, plants, and
forest trees ; their construction, qualities, and different
uses ; nor were flowers, as objects of beauty, slighted
by him, whose eye delighted in the loveliness of rural
scenery, with a pure enjoyment.
He would also watch the pliant forms and graceful
attitudes of children at their innocent play, with extreme
pleasure, and when he came across a fine picture would
view it with a critical eye, in his appreciation of correct
form and colour.
He was painfully affected by the sufferings of the
poor ; could he have willed it, every human being would
have been in comfort and happiness. Obedience, order,
and neatness were the rule of his house. A punctual
observer of time, he had such a sense of justice that
if he were a quarter of an hour behind he remained
at his office a quarter of an hour later, or came a
quarter of an hour earlier next day ; and, scrupulous
in his duties to man, his Bible was not introduced at
his place of business.
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 59
He was no sightseer. Except on the occasion of
the King going to St. Paul's, and when he took me
to see the Royal Exchange, I have no recollection
of such indulgences. Not that he was indifferent to
performance of public duties of which sightseeing was
not one. Humility and patience were his practice.
Temperate in personal requirements, and plain in dress,
he often pointed out the Quakers as examples of
uprightness in gait and in mind. I could fill a volume
with anecdotes of his virtues, and do not know that
he had a single vice, for vice instinctively shrank from
him.
Sometimes I wished that I, too, had been ignorant
ignorant of the book which had caused me to doubt,
and to believe that death was annihilation. I began
to question whether my knowledge was of any use.
It gave liberty to do as I would, but not the power.
I desired to make every human being happy and
virtuous, but I saw that if I could diffuse all the wealth
in the world that its inhabitants could not be happy
with my knowledge, and I was sure they would not be
virtuous.
I continued to attend on Sundays at Surrey Chapel.
In July, 1800, I married Sarah, the daughter of my
landlady, Mrs. Johnson. I opened a circulating library
in Lambeth, with stationery and books for sale. My
wife's good mother, who enjoyed a respectable income,
lived with us for a year or two, and my attendance
at Surrey Chapel was pretty regular.
Now and then I was seriously impressed by the
preaching of the Rev. W. Jay, of Bath ; and with
so much advantage that I went, alone, to his Wednesday
evening Lectures.
No other minister had ever interested me to that
extent. One of those Lectures so seriously affected
me that on the Thursday or Friday after I sought
an interview with Mr. Jay, at Mr. Hill's residence.
The servant told me he was much engaged, and could
60 WILLIAM HONE
not be spoken with by any one. I desired to be
allowed to wait his leisure, and I finally succeeded in
getting to him, and telling him I wished to disclose
the state of my mind. He said he could not possibly
enter upon the subject with me in private ; he assured
me his time was wholly appropriated, but that if I
would be at the Chapel on Sunday, when he pro-
posed to preach his last sermon before leaving London,
he would then mention what would apply to me, and
to others who felt as I did.
I anxiously listened to him ; he seemed to have me
in his thoughts, and to have understood the particulars
of my case, although I had not disclosed them ; and
he exhorted with much earnestness and force. My
convictions at the time were very strong, but they
gradually declined.
Here the Autobiography, as originally set down,
comes to an end. There is appended the following
summary of the chief activities of his subsequent years,
with a sort of apologia for his life's mistakesit is
almost the revelation of a soul in revulsion from its
blind heretical lapses. At the end of this summary,
written in 1838, there is a note added three years
later of a reverential pilgrimage he made to the soil
in which his ancestry was rooted.
(Written 20th f)ec., 1838.) I have been a lover
of the world and its pleasures, a curious observer of
men and manners ; an insatiable reader in search of
truth ; an anxious inquirer after happiness.
For a short time, in my early years, I was a believer
in all unbelief. To efface this I read the Bible, and
I sincerely reverenced its moral teachings. Utter un-
belief became impossible, and I had commenced to
arrange what I called " Ethics of the Bible," when
I published some " Parodies " on portions of the
Book of Common Prayer. These " Parodies " I
I
fo
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 61
suddenly suppressed in deference to the feelings of
y Father and others.
Two months after their suppression I was arrested
or having published them, and committed by the judges
the King's Bench. While there I continued my
Extracts from the Bible." Upon my liberation I
completed the Bible Extracts, and had arranged them
for publication, when I received notices of my forth-
coming trial for the " Parodies." I defended myself ;
and after obtaining verdicts of acquittal, I immediately
inserted in every London paper a letter, disclaiming
all intention of republishing the " Parodies," or of pub-
lishing any others, and admonishing others to the
same abstinence.
Upon my Trials I really believed I knew Christianity
I declared myself to be a Christian. I afterwards
commenced a critical examination of the New Testa-
ment, and by criticising and rationalising I made out
a pleasing, but perplexing, rational Christianity. It
was pleasing as a thing to admire, but as Religion it
was perplexing. There was a glimmering of light to
the understanding, but it imparted no warmth to my
heart ; there was something in it to please me, but
nothing I could love. I tried to be happy, and
could not.
The 1 8th, igth, and 2oth of December, 1817, are
memorable dates in my wayward life, for those days
gave my name publicity. Their anniversaries might
perhaps have been kept in rejoicing by me and my
family, but they have annually passed unheeded, save
by a casual remark that these were the days . . .
Now, however, all in the house but myself having
retired to rest for the night of this 2Oth of December,
1838, and I being thus left in quiet loneliness, recol-
lections arise of the hurries of that evening one and
twenty years ago, and I find myself pondering on the
multitude of events which have since transpired ; on
the rapid flight of time ; and especially on a circum-
62 WILLIAM HONE
stance of more importance to me personally, and to
society, through me, as one of its members, than any
other connected with my existence.
Explanation to the public has long been due from
me, and I no longer defer, in the hope of more leisure,
to give it ; but seizing on the departing minutes of
this anniversary, as though they were my last moments,
I proceed to an explicit disclosure which it is my
purpose and hope to continue, at brief intervals, until
it be complete.
After my "Trials" (which I published in 1818),
the public befriended me ; and from 1819 to 1824 I
wrote political pamphlets for its amusement, which sold
extensively, besides other pieces literary, antiquarian,
and controversial, of less notoriety.
Elsewhere I have related with what motives, under
what circumstances, and in what manner I executed
and published in 1820 a volume, the " Apocryphal New
Testament." And here I desire to state that I have
long felt deep remorse for having produced that work.
I have lived to experience that it is justly offensive to
pious minds, and so is detestable to my own. Its
apocryphal gospels are contemptible forgeries.
Throughout 1825 and 1826 my time was wholly
occupied in writing and conducting " The Every -Day
Book"; and in 1827, "The Table Book." In 1828
I merely edited a reprint of the late Mr. Strutt's " Sports
and Pastimes of the People of England." In 1829
my pen was idle, nor was it busied in 1830, except for
a few weeks upon an ephemeral " History of the Three
Days' Revolution in France," undertaken much against
my will, at the instigation of the publisher, who had
become the proprietor of the " Every-Day Book " and
" Table Book," and for whom I employed the year
1831 in writing and compiling "The Year Book."
Since 1831 I have written nothing for the public
except two antiquarian articles in the Times of
October the i;th or i8th and 2ist, 1834, on the
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL 63
late " Houses of Parliament " ; another in that journal
of November the ist on " Tallies," and in the same
journal of November the 1 4th a brief notice of Oberlin,
the pastor of Waldbach, claiming for him and excellent
Louisa Sheppler the reputation due to them as the first
institutors of Infant Schools.
(Tottenham, 1841.) In July, 1840, I went with my
dear wife from our then residence in London to Rich-
mond ; while there for a few days we visited Ripley
and saw Homewood Farm, where my Father was born
in 1755.
The Rev. Mr. Onslow, the minister, Bonsey, the
parish clerk, and other elders of the parish still remem-
bered him. I had never been in the village before ;
it was to me lovely, from its peaceful aspect, and
especially endeared by the occasion of our visit to it,
and was animated to my mind's eye, by my Father's
fancied form in farm dress when a child ; as he had,
more than half a century before, described himself to
me who was then also a child.
Now he was no more, and I, the only one in England
of his descendants, had become old. I have only one
dear brother he is a barrister, holding various offices
in Tasmania.
Chantrey's statue of James Watt, in Westminster
Abbey, is an inimitable likeness of my Father, and the
attitude is as strikingly characteristic as if he had
actually sat for the great sculptor.
Ill
EARLY STRUGGLES
THE Autobiography extends only to a short time after
his twentieth year, when he assumed a double responsi-
bilityhe married and entered into business. With a
hundred pounds from his mother-in-law he purchased
stationery, started a circulating library, and added his
own books for sale.
Hone's first shop was at his mother-in-law's in
Lambeth Walk, the highway to Town from Vauxhall and
other villages. It was surrounded by gardens, and
verged on the open country.
To his stock of books he soon added prints ; he
attended auctions ; by assiduous study he acquired a
knowledge of the different schools of design and styles
of engraving, acquainted himself with works of art
and artists, and read chiefly to that end.
For many years his life was a series of failures,
aggravated by the responsibilities and cares of wedlock
and paternity. Episodes of philanthropy and social
reform, as we shall see such as an abortive effort
to establish a savings bank and an equally laudable
attempt to mitigate the horrors of lunatic asylums-
mark a career more interesting and successful.
He was not long in discovering that book and print
buyers were somewhat rare in the locality of Lambeth
Walk, though his ingenuity had devised the novel form
of attracting attention by affixing descriptive labels to
the book covers, an innovation which enticed a few
64
EARLY STRUGGLES 65
stray customers and originated that custom of old book-
sellers which prevailed before the days of elaborate
catalogues.
An episode of this period illustrates that impulsive
humanity which was so marked a feature in William
Hone's character. His benevolent nature would perhaps
have better befitted one who possessed a larger share
of this world's goods ; in him it sometimes led to
awkward situations.
Returning home from the City one winter night, he
came upon the watchman, in whose rough custody he
was astonished to see an infant in arms. The little
waif had been left on a doorstep, and the watchman
was not unnaturally perplexed what to do with it. ' ' The
poor little thing," said he, " will be starved if I keep
it in the watchhouse till morning. Nobody will take
it in. And I dare not go so far away from my beat
to take it to the workhouse." Here was a pitiful
plight for a forlorn and helpless infant just the thing
to go straight to the tender heart of ai man like Hone,
who in his characteristic way settled the difficulty, after
due consideration, by taking the poor little waif to
the house of his mother-in-law, Mrs. Johnson, who
was easily prevailed upon to give it shelter till the
morrow ; which was all very satisfactory, even though
it left Hone open afterwards to the jocular sallies of
his friends.
Shortly afterwards he removed with his wife and
child to St. Martin's Lane, where he became acquainted
with Mr. Charles Townley and many other men of
iarning, who highly esteemed him for his great natural
lent and conversational ability.
Charles Townley, who died in 1805, was a con-
dsseur, who had lived much in Rome. His collection
ancient statuary, medals, &c., was purchased by
British Museum for 28,000.
The premises in St. Martin's Lane were more favour-
>le for business, but unfortunately he was compelled
5
66 WILLIAM HONE
to leave them. He had been induced to take the shop
for a short term by the promise of a long lease to
follow. The owner now broke faith, and another
removal was necessary. But scarcely had Hone settled
in this new abode, with his wife and two young
children, than the giving way of a party wall neces-
sitated their prompt removal to yet another home. And
so they returned to Lambeth, which he had already
proved to be anything but a centre of commercial
activity, and occupied a house belonging to his
mother-in-law.
In 1804 Hone compiled what he put forth as
" Millington's Cookery," on which his Chatham friend
John Yenning wrote :
" DEAR M'ILLINGTON, It appears to me unaccount-
able how such a subject ever popped into your head.
I should have wandered over the wide field of
literature and stooped to cull many fairer flowers in
preference to going near the hedge to pick gross herbs
and aromatic plants for real use,"
Here, with the mention of Yenning, it may be found
advantageous to become retrospective for a brief space,
in order to introduce some of the friendships Hone had
formed while living at Chatham, a few notes on which
will prove helpful towards the better understanding
of our subject.
It was purely on account of the democratic prin-
ciples, of which he had so freely imbibed, through
his connection with the London Corresponding Society,
that at the age of sixteen young Hone had been sent
away to Chatham. It was deemed advisable, both by
his father and his employer, that he should be removed
from an influence to which he, as they believed,
had surrendered his better judgment.
During the two years or more that William Hone
was in Chatham he formed a number of pleasant
EARLY STRUGGLES 67
intimacies and friendships, which were kept up long
after his return to London.
Extracts selected from his correspondence with these
Chatham friends will throw some further light on the
character of the man, or at least will prove of interest
from the local and topical allusions they contain.
One friend, C. Few, writing under date September,
1797, remarks
" that you are ' an original ' cannot be denied and
that you are sometimes ' leadeny ' must also be
admitted, and in the letter or note I am now answering
I have a specimen of it. Oh ! Hone, Hone, thou
surely art somewhat confused in thy upper stories."
After this gentle piece of raillery the writer betrays
his appreciation of the man, and the value of his
friendship, in a later sentence :
;
' To be at variance with such a worthy fellow as
W. H. would give me no small share of anxiety."
:
I
rom this correspondent we obtain valuable insight.
His " affectionate friend, C. Townson," writing
May 13, 1799, shows an even more intimate
quaintance with Hone and his idiosyncrasies :
"As I have just returned from a visit to friend
eaton, you may naturally conclude that I shall not
sympathise with you in your hypochondriac affections.
Laugh ! laugh, you dog, 'tis the best cure in
e world for the hyps. . . . You appear when you
rote to be under the influence of one of those melan-
holy moods which the soul is sometimes betrayed into.
If the cause should proceed from some calamitous mis-
fortune or real evil, it then stands in need of the
oothing voice of consolation, or the pious breathings
f religion. . . . Write soon, unbosom yourself to me,
d the little comfort that I am able to give you shall
heartily at your service."
68 WILLIAM HONE
In the June of the year 1800 Hone received a visit
from his "sincere friend, J. Yenning," of Strood, who,
upon his return home, writes his graceful acknowledg-
ments of the hospitality he had received at the hands
of that "amiable" woman, his friend's mother. The
writer, although himself a bachelor, ventures in the
course of his letter to give Hone some advice on
the delicate subject of matrimony, into which it
appears the latter was about to plunge.
Hone married, and in 1801 was blessed with a
daughter, upon which occasion his friend writes in this
strain :
" Jy> Jy> m y good fellow, I give you joy of your
young she bairn it's the wrong sex. You say nothing
of Mrs. H. hope she is in convalescence. Does the
babe show any symptoms of Honeyism? "
The same correspondent, in a letter dated from
Rochester, September 24, 1802, makes the following
significant allusion to Hone's interests, both spiritual
and material :
" I hope, Billy, you have met with another situation
to your wishes or a greater share of business than
when I last saw you. I am afraid Providence does
not think itself under any obligation to bestow unde-
serving favours on you You don't go to Church."
Allusion is made to Hone's business matters in
another communication dated March 21, 1803 :
* The last letter I received from you informed
me that I should hear again when you had taken
possession of your house in St. Martin's Lane, which
I suppose you have long since done. ... I hope you
push on prosperously in your new situation, and meet
with all the encouragement you deserve. ... No
doubt ere this you have bought some experience to
enable you to act on a steady principle, and to judge
EARLY STRUGGLES 69
of things more by their intrinsic worth than from'
appearances, as you commonly used to do."
The last two extracts from the same writer's epistles
are dated 1804, and both have reference to Hone's
wielding of the pen, first as a correspondent :
" I cannot help noting with what facility you
adopt the fusty old-fashioned and precise terms of
thee and thoa on all occasions in your prose
correspondence. . . ."
Then with regard to his writing for publication :
" I am informed that you are about to commence a
new scene of Life and to acquire Fame by a glorious
display of those powers of mind which you should
thank your Creator for it is worthy and laudable so
skilful a character should employ himself so advan-
tageously for the public good."
Let
1,
ac
In after-years considerable correspondence continued
pass between Yenning and Hone in relation to
bookselling transactions .
In August of the same year another letter contains
remittance of 10, in two banknotes, in part payment
r a number of books consigned through Venning to
arious purchasers. In 1812 Venning, having then
taken the Parsonage House at Rainham, near Chatham,
r " an Academy for the education of youths," is still
riting to Hone respecting their book-dealing trans-
actions, which appear to have been numerous and
tensive. And here we may leave the Chatham
sociations and resume the thread of our narrative.
From being a bookseller William Hone became a
student of books, and developed into what may be
better described as a bookman a tradesman who
handles his literary wares with tender, loving hands,
70 WILLIAM HONE
with whom the effecting of sales is as a man parting
with his treasures, and to whom the making of a profit
is almost a sacrilege.
Like Michael Johnson of Lichfield, he was a book-
seller of the old school, of that ideal type which it is
the delight of the fictionist to adopt for a character-
one who is always far more intimately acquainted with
the insides of the books on his shelves than with those
of the ledger on his desk. As a rule, these are the
booksellers who do not wax fat and grow rich, but
who inspire the confidence of their customers, whose
shops are a centre of influence upon the culture and
intellectuality of the neighbourhood. Where, in any
way, Hone fell short of this ideal was that, owing to
the severe buffetings he received at the hands of the
world throughout his life, his establishment lacked the
very desirable quality of permanence.
On the congenial topic of " old booksellers," Hone
himself is entitled to be heard. In an article written
later in life he says :
" From the time I could read and use a pen, I have
been a lover of books and addicted to writing. My
pursuits led me frequently among the booksellers, and
I had a knowledge, more or less, of many of them now
no more. I think I may call the late John Nichols
the father of the trade. He was an eminent printer,
and the biographer of his friend and predecessor,
Bowyer, and the annalist of our literature during the
greater part of the two last centuries, a work for
which his connection with literary men supplied him
with abundant materials. He had been contemporary
with Dr. Johnson and George Stevens and Edward
Malone, and intimate with most of the writers of that
school. The whole Society of Antiquarians, of which
he was a member, were personally familiar with him.
He wrote a topographical account of his native parish
in Leicestershire, and became the able historian of
his native county, and author of many other antiquarian
works.
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EARLY STRUGGLES 71
" Old Carter, the indefatigable draftsman of our
Gothic antiquities, and Gough of Enfield, co-author
with King of the sepulchral antiquities, and the
laborious editor of Camden, were his friends, and he
was a friend to many a humble dependant on the pen
or subsistence. He was a Tory, yet he kept poor
ingley, after he had been persecuted and imprisoned
nd ruined for publishing the celebrated No. 45 of
the North Briton. Wilkes had neglected B ingley, who
had stoutly contested, and to the last moment firmly
denied the right of the Court of King's Bench to
prison him. Mr. Nichols gave employment to the
nfortunate man, and maintained him when he was
past labour, and at his death, buried him.
" The Chamberlainship of the City had been obtained
by Wilkes, who was as profligate in politics as in
orals, and Mr. Nichols, being a member of the Cor-
poration, and being both literary, they were intimate.
I remember Wilkes. He was the last wearer of scarlet
and gold in the streets, and in withered old age, with
that dress, a cocked hat, a horrible squint, a satyr-like
lubricity of mouth, and his tongue flopping in and out,
is appearance was shocking.
Mr. Nichols, until his death was, as his portraits
xactly represent, a stout cheerful-looking man, with
spectacles, remarkably active in mind and person, mild
in speech and manner. His amenity was visible in
the pages of the Gentleman's Magazine, of which he
was the proprietor and editor. The manner in which
he conducted this work enabled him to command local
information on subjects connected with his pursuits
from all parts of the Kingdom.
" Every person who met with an old ring, an ancient
seal, a relique of by-gone times, or a similar custom
which he required to be explained, sent an account of
it to ' Sylvanus Urban,' and in this way in the course
of a century, during more than which period the Gentle-
man's Magazine existed, rendered that Miscellany an
immense storehouse of antiquarian facts. It was an
especial favourite with quiet old country Clergymen,
and favoured by all zealous antiquarian inquirers,
72 WILLIAM HONE
among whom, I believe, I may reckon myself. My
propensity that way procured me, now and then, a
pleasurable chat with old Mr. Nichols at his Printing
Office in Red Lion Court, which was afterwards Mr.
Valfrey's, and is now the office of the well-known
Mr. Richard Taylor, printer and learned Saxon Anti-
quary. Here Mr. Nichols kept his immense literary
collections stored away, and accurately arranged, in
old-fashioned book-cases and presses, and here he
politely received every person who came to him on
business, or who was, or aspired to be, an antiquary.
I condescend only a smile to the sneers of witlings
at the labours of such persons of whom many, sur-
rounded by their books, can afford to say :
" ' Friends and companions get you gone
Tis my desire to be alone,
Ne'er well but when my thoughts and I
Do domineer in privacy.
No gem, no treasure, like to this,
'Tis my delight, my crown, my bliss
All my joys to this are folly,
Nought so sweet as melancholy.'
"So in the beginning of his * Anatomic of Melan-
choly,' sings or says old Burton, who, by the by,
while praising the pleasures derived from ' great
tomes ' and ' those studies of antiquity,' slips his pen
aside, and adds inoriginally, and withal quaintly, * As
in travelling the rest go forward and look before, an
antiquary alone looks round about him, seeing things
past, and hath a compleat horizon, James Bifrons.'
Mr. Nichols' studies and his large business as a printer
proceeded together. He was printer of the Votes of
the House of Commons ; sole publisher of an immense
number of topographical and antiquarian works which
he had printed for their authors, or on his own account,
besides his own numerous productions ; and partner
in the Copyright of almost every important work pub-
lished for the Booksellers."
W2
EARLY STRUGGLES 73
These allusions of Hone to Nichols of the
e title man's Magazine, and the other literary celebrities
f his time, are not without some little value.
In 1805 the vicissitudes of fortune led William Hone
into another walk of life. He engaged himself as book-
keeper to Mr. E. Lowton, a hop factor in South wark.
His new employer's affairs proved to be seriously
volved ; he became a bankrupt, and shortly after-
ards died. Hone was retained by the assignees to
manage the settlement of the bankrupt's affairs, in
the course of which business a characteristic little
episode occurred. He found hidden away in the office
a stencil plate of the " Kentish Horse " ; divining the
use of this to have been the conversion of Sussex
hops into the more famous Kentish brand, and feeling
an unutterable contempt for such fraudulent dealings,
he took the plate away with him that night, and on his
way home flurig it over the bridge into the Thames.
Always industrious, his spare hours at home during
this period were occupied in the use of his pen. His
output in 1806 included an edition of "Shaw's
Gardener," and a compiled work on " Farriery." Work
of this kind, and even of a more laborious nature, such
as indexing! a new edition of Berners's " Translation of
Froissart," varied the next few years of his life, in which
he was twice bankrupt. For a tradesman whose busi-
ness was as yet in the making, he undoubtedly spent
too much of his time upon public affairs. No busi-
ness needs more constant personal attention than
bookselling.
About this time Hone, true to his nature, was
attracted by the tenets being promulgated by a Dutch-
man named John Bone, who had escaped from the
horrors of the Bastille and taken refuge in England.
The two men became intimate in studying together the
principles of Savings Banks, and the great national
advantages to be derived from the establishment of
ch institutions.
74 WILLIAM HONE
With his friend Bone he established an institution
which with laudable optimism they styled ' Tran-
quillity," in Albion Place, Blackfriars Bridge, com-
bining the features of a savings bank, an insurance
office, and an employment registry office. Sir William
Stirling and other persons of substance acted as
trustees, but, like Hone's other philanthropic and com-
mercial schemes, the concern soon failed.
If these two men did not become the pioneers of
the savings bank as a working institution, they at least
deserve some credit for the missionary work they
accomplished in clearing the field for those who entered
it subsequently. For any real hope of success in the
establishment of so gigantic a scheme as they pro-
posed, it was essential that they should receive the
approval, and if possible the tangible support, of
His Majesty's Ministers. The Government was then in
the hands of a Whig administration ; Mr. Fox was in
power, and the Hon. George Rose l granted Hone
several interviews in connection with his philanthropic
proposals. But though the countenance of the Govern-
ment was not directly denied, no actual support was
ever forthcoming, and the project fell to the ground, as
already stated.
1 George Rose, a statesman of some note in his
day, held many offices, including those of Vice-President
of the Board of Trade, and Paymaster-General. Though
a placeman of whom Cobbett did not fail to make a
butt, he was a man of high personal character, amiable
and benevolent, and really rendered valuable services
to the nation. He certainly did much to forward the
foundation of savings banks, and promoted legislation
securing the prosperity of Friendly Societies. There-
fore the satirist who wrote the following lines must
be discounted :
" No rogue that goes
Is like that rose,
Or scatters such deceit."
EARLY STRUGGLES 75
This appears to have been the way in which the
ortive scheme took shape. Hone, as Secretary to
Tranquillity," used his influence with Stirling and
her men of standing to get up a meeting to found a
oposed " Society for the Gradual Abolition of the
oor's Rate." A meeting was held at the Horn Tavern,
octors' Commons, April 23, 1806. A manifesto issued
that occasion, and signed " W. Hone," deplores the
retched condition of the " lower orders," declares the
Poor Law system to have failed to ameliorate their
t, and proposes the application of entirely new prin-
iples towards that end. The poor were to be taught
not to depend upon " charity," but to rely upon their
own exertions.
iAs a means to that very desirable end, the proposed
Society " was to be linked up with the institution
Iready founded under the alluring name of " Tranquil-
ly," and " every respectable person was invited to
become a member," pay, a guinea at admission, and sub-
scribe one guinea to its funds annually. The secretary
of " Tranquillity " was to act also as secretary to the
" Society." The objects of the promoters cannot be
described more tersely than in the seventh resolution
passed at the meeting on the date above mentioned :
" That every one who in the time of youth and vigour
treasures up all he can spare to provide for the season
of Age and Infirmity, has performed the utmost duty
that Society in that respect can require of him ; and
if after these endeavours he has been incapable of
providing what is sufficient to furnish him with Neces-
saries and Comforts, Society is unjust if it does not
make up the deficiency, not as a matter of Charity
but of right."
Do we not find an echo of contemporary effort
in the terms of this manifesto? Here was " Lloyd
George legislation " foreshadowed long in advance of
its time. The nation was not found ripe for it by
upwards of a century at least.
76 WILLIAM HONE
One of his faithful Chatham friends whose views
on " necessary class distinctions " are perfectly typical
of the period, wrote to him on the subject as follows :
" CHATHAM, 8th June, 1806.
" DEAR HONE, You sent Charles a small political
work written by a friend of yours, and a copy of the
Resolutions of the Society ' For the Gradual Abolition
of the Poor's Rate ' with your name subscribed as
Secretary. By having read and heard more of the
plan of this Institution from Mr. Bone's publication,
I have conceived the highest opinion of the system and
think that it does credit to those who are now labouring
to do away the corrupted establishments and inefficient
measures which have for such a length of time been
borne for the maintenance and keep of the poor in
this country ; yet I am persuaded that old prejudices
are difficult to be done away. But, my good fellow,
I do not prejudice your endeavours ; my only anxiety
is that as you have a wife and family to support and
a reputation of talent and industry to sustain, they may
perhaps suffer by your attention to this institution whilst
other opportunities of improving your fortune may slip
from under you, and you at length fall into a dis-
tressed and impoverished state of living.
" Yours most sincerely,
" J. VENNING."
Mr. Venning's fears were but too well grounded,
for shortly the office of " Tranquillity " at Albion Place,
Blackfriars (the site of which is now covered by the
railway bridge), was closed ; the few deposits were
returned, and the subscribed funds being insufficient
to meet expenses, the unfortunate secretary lost his
furniture under a distraint for rent, and his wife and
family went to her mother, whose home was the
customary refuge in their distresses. The deposits were
placed in the custody of a banker in the Strand.
The home life of William Hone at this period,
when his children were young, reveals him as an
EARLY STRUGGLES 77
exemplary father and husband. The intense love of
Nature which he manifested and which he so care-
fully inculcated in his children, has given to the
religious views of his early manhood a tinge of
pantheism.
Hone, like his father before him, passed through that
period of religious doubt which is incidental to the lives
of most men who are given to serious reflection. The
course taken in each of these gropings after Divine truth
differed according to the period ; that of the father (an
ardent Evangelical) was tinged with the intensity of
religious fervour characteristic of the Wesleyan Methodist
revival ; that of the son was unmistakably influenced
by the spirit of the French Revolution we find him
at this period of his life still cherishing the doctrines
of a deistic rationalism. Hence his care for the moral
training of his children. A man who is irreligious
cannot afford to be immoral. William Hone, however,
was entirely without that mysticism in which his father
had indulged himself. Still, he was swayed by the
forces of heredity, and more so by those of training.
Hone's extraordinary industry was often impeded
by serious spells of illness. Throughout the winter of
1808 he was prostrated with rheumatic fever, one result
of which was to maim his right hand, and for months
he wrote only with his left, contributing his usual
serial articles while labouring under this disadvantage.
Indeed, the indomitableness of his industry was
manifested by the never -flagging pursuit of his literary
labours under every possible form of distraction,
whether mental anguish which was sometimes caused
by his domestic afflictions or the more persistent worry
of monetary embarrassments which so constantly beset
him. Whatever his private cares, his brave heart never
quailed at the call of duty, and every engagement
undertaken by him was fulfilled to the utmost so long
as the physical strength remained wherewith to accom-
plish it. At least distraction from present care, if
78 WILLIAM HONE
not consolation, was to be found in assiduous and
unremitting labour.
Repeatedly do we find Hone embarking upon com-
mercial enterprises without sufficient capital. He was
constantly in a maelstrom of debt, struggling against
heavy rents and grievous taxation, against the excessive
cost of all necessaries of life incidental to war times
and particularly burdensome to one with an increasing
family. At length, in partnership with Mr. Bone, he
took the business of Messrs. Jordan & Maxwell, " Old
and Curious Booksellers," in the Strand. *
Towards the end of 1810, a year of severe com-
mercial depression, the names of Bone and Hone were
gazetted in an unusually long list of bankrupts. JVIr.
Bone, free from domestic ties, took a shop in May's
Buildings, while his partner was glad to become clerk
and cataloguer to Mr. R. Saunders, book auctioneer.
Presently this employer succumbed to the general de-
pression, and Hone's family had once more to find
shelter with his wife's mother. Getting together a
small stock of books, he opened a shop at High Street,
Bloomsbury, and managed to eke out a living with
his pen.
His second bankruptcy occurred when Hone was
trade auctioneer, a post to which he was preferred
in 1 8 n on the retirement of John Walker, by the good-
will of his bookselling brethren. He had his counting-
house in Ivy Lane, and took his brother as his clerk
and assistant. His auction-rooms were at 45, Ludgate
Hill, where a number of fine libraries were dispersed
under his hammer, the sales of some of the collections
lasting for ten or twelve days. His first large sale was
at the Albion Tavern, and the results of this and the
succeeding sales were satisfactory to both buyers and
sellers ; but they were too far between to supply the
necessities of a family of seven children. With William
Hone, however, business ventures succeeded and failed
with the regularity of a see-saw. To the hour of his
EARLY STRUGGLES
79
:
i
death his life was one unsuccessful struggle. But he
was not the man to be beaten down by private mis-
fortune, and at this very time he was devoting his
nergies to the affair of the Burdett procession (p. 87).
With this family of seven children he lived in
umble lodgings in the Old Bailey, and supported them
by stray contributions to the Critical Review and the
British Lady's Magazine. His letter-writing was
always extensive.
It is to be feared that Hone and his family suffered
rivation in the times of his misfortune. Even in his
ater years, when his fame as a writer was established,
the property which resulted from his talent the ex-
:ensive sales of his " Every-Day Book " and " Year
ook," for instance served only to provide the necessi-
ties of the hour.
IV
A BOOKMAN'S ACQUAINTANCES
AT home, as well as abroad, it will be seen, Hone was
brought into contact with quite a number of public
characters and people of note in his day. A book-
seller's shop generally being a common meeting -
ground for persons of culture may account for a
number of the acquaintances he thus formed ; but many
of them were political, and some few of the intimacies
may indubitably be traced to that sympathetic nature,
that readiness to advise and assist, which so strongly
characterised the proprietor of the establishment.
In 1 8 10 Hone published a fine engraving of
Napoleon and Josephine, who were divorced that year.
His personal opinion, delivered in connection with this
event, was, " Napoleon has thrown away his best friend.
Mark ! he will fall ! " On the question of female
capacity generally, at a period when most people so
grossly underrated it, he used to say : " Never despise
the opinion of sensible women ; their judgment upon
subjects on which they are fairly informed is in most
instances correct ; they have quicker instinctive per-
ceptions than men."
Another unhappy woman of the period with whom
Hone sympathised was one of his customers. This was
the Lady Augusta Murray, consort of the Duke of
Sussex, the excellence of whose character, combined
with her misfortune, naturally commended her to the
public sympathy. The Duke of Sussex shared with the
A BOOKMAN'S ACQUAINTANCES 81
Duke of Kent the affections of the English people,
but he had married without his father's consent, and
George III. had no compunction in annulling the
marriage. The people, all the same, insisted upon call-
ing her the " Duchess," and according her the dignity
of " Highness."
She was the second daughter of the Earl of
Dunmore, and the Duke had met her at Rome, in
1792. She was several years older than the Prince,
and when he proposed marriage to her she at first
declined, but in the end they pledged eternal constancy
to each other, and signed a written contract. They
then went through the marriage ceremony, performed
by a clergyman of the Church of England, in Rome
a ceremony they repeated a few months later at St.
George's Church, Hanover Square, under disguised
names. All this availed but little, as the marriage
was void under the Royal Marriages Act of 1772.
Two children were born of the union, and they
took the name of D'Este. The Prince for some years
set the decree of his father's Court at defiance, but
in 1809 he applied for the custody of the children.
We now quote from Mrs. Burn's MS. Memoranda :
Lady Augusta came frequently, accompanied by
her young son and daughter, and her sister, a slender
lady of gentle bearing. The drawing-room floor used
to be kept in readiness for her reception, where she
would look over the books she selected. She derived
much pleasure in conversing with my father, often
talked of the Duke in terms of deep affection, and
would weep over the cruelty of their separation. Her
carefully cultured, highly improved mind attracted the
admiration of the literary and other talented persons
of the day. Of an amiable, generous disposition, she
often brought presents of comfits, dainty sweetmeats,
&c. (indulgences much rarer than in the present day),
and would have the children, as she said, ' to enter-
tain ' ; her own, who were several years older, joining
82 WILLIAM HONE
in their play ; she would herself roll the baby's ball,
arid was at all times affable and kindly ; ever graciously
recognising the attentions our mother was happy in
affording her.
" One time, when the ball rolled under her chair,
she fancied her cotton stockings attracted our notice,
her sister's being silk, whereupon she laughed merrily,
and said : ' My dears, I cannot afford the luxury of
silk stockings as my sister can ; she is richer than I
am ' an assertion that very much astonished us. Her
carriage was always sent away after setting her
down, as she feared that if she was known to frequent
company adverse to Court politics, the security of her
pension might be endangered."
Her two children who played about Hone's drawing-
room grew up and succeeded in life. The daughter
became the wife of a Lord Chancellor, as Lady Truro ;
the son, known as Sir Augustus D'Este, filed a bill in
Chancery and strove by every means to get his mother's
marriage legitimatised, but always without success.
" Another regular visitor " (continues Mrs. Burn)
" was Sir Lumley Skeffington, who would exclaim, as he
turned over the portfolios and came upon the portrait
of a handsome woman, ' The loveliest of the lovely ! '
or, perhaps, ' An angel ! ' Sir Lumley was seen many
years later, attired still in the costume of his earlier
days : the amply plaited shirt frill, pointed tail coat,
chimney-pot hat of the old shape, shin * pumps ' tied
with large bows, and white silk stockings. He walked
slowly and feebly, his eccentric appearance attracting
much attention, of which the venerable gentleman
seemed to be totally unconscious."
Sir Lumley Skeffington was a dandy and a play-
wright does not Byron allude to his " skirtless coats
and skeletons of plays "? He was an intimate of the
Carlton House circle, and invented for the Prince
Regent a new colour, known as the " Skeffington brown."
His own dress for many years comprised a dark blue
A BOOKMAN'S ACQUAINTANCES 83
coat with gilt buttons, a yellow waistcoat, white cord
inexpressibles, with a large bunch of white ribbons
at the knees, and short top boots. Gillray once
caricatured him dancing in an exquisite attitude and
attire, labelling him " Skeffy Skipt-on."
" Mr. Thomas Coram, a descendant of Captain
Thomas Coram,, the founder of the Foundling Hospital "
(continues Mrs. Burn) " was another friend of my
father's, and when a fire destroyed all his property and
he received serious injuries from molten lead which
poured upon him while making an ineffectual effort to
rescue his two kittens, he came to our home, and stayed
until his wounds were healed, and his arrangements for
the future could be made.
" Soon after the revolt in St. Domingo, a coloured
boy was feted in London, by the Liberal party, as
the son of Toussaint L'Ouverture. Active and intelli-
gent, he was in great danger of being ruined by ' hero
worship.' Perceiving this danger, my father pitied
the lad, and rescued him by bringing him home. He
interested some friends in the case, and money was
subscribed to meet the expense of sending the boy
to school, after he had passed some few months in our
family.
"'It eventually transpired that he was not a son of
/Ouverture, but my father's interest in him continued,
ist the same, as will be shown by the following letter.
" ' 331 STRAND
"'Tuesday 2$rd. Octr. 1810.
" ' MY DEAR JOHN, I send you enclosed in this
tter " La Feuille Indicatrice des Temperamens," and
wish you and your companions much amusement from
ese Temper telling Fish.
' Do not return them until they cease to give you
pleasure and by that time my little girls will be very
glad to see their old friends move about again as you
can keep them as long as you please they will be of
as much use to you as if they were bought with your
own money.
84 WILLIAM HONE
" ' I hope you will soon let me have the still greater
pleasure of lending you some books, for from books
you can gain more amusement than you can get from
all the toys you have ever seen, and more instruction
than you have had from all the people you have ever
talked with.
" ' After you begin to read you will soon be able
to understand many things which you now only wonder
at, and speedily be convinced of this grand Truth,
delivered by one of our greatest Philosophers, that
" Knowledge is Power."
" ' I told Mr. Mercier to-day I was going to write
to you, and he wished me to tell you that he was
very glad to hear of your progress at Mr. Dalton's.
Mr. Bone and all friends beg to be remembered to you,
and we all most certainly send you the best of good
wishes for your health and improvement.
" ' I am, Dear John,
" ' Your true Friend,
" ' WILLIAM HONE.
' John Toussaint L'Ouverture.'
' John Toussaint was at Grandmother's, Lambeth
Walk, weeks or months. Fanny and Fids were there
at the same time, about 1809 or '10. He used to
' climb the large pear tree like a cat, and Dads my
life, Fan was up after him in a jiffy.' Those were dear
Granny's words in telling of these exploits, at which
you may be sure our father was highly amused.
Toussaint was a handsome, perfectly black boy I used
to wonder where he slept, but never ventured to dive
into the mystery. We were all sorry when he left us."
The tragic story of Toussaint L'Ouverture has been
told by Harriet Martineau in " |The Hour and the Man."
Mrs. Burn introduces us to another noted character
of the period :
' The soi-disant Princess Olive repeatedly requested
my Father to inspect the documents which, she said,
proved her claim to royal kinship. His own native
desire for information prompting compliance, he went
WJ
!
BOOKMAN'S ACQUAINTANCES 85
to her house, and thus describes the interview : ' I was
ushered into an upstairs apartment, where, after the
briefest of visiting courtesies, the Princess, in a rather
excited manner, introduced me to a round table covered
with papers, at which I was only permitted to look as
" e Princess selected or read to me. This went on
or some time, when, by degrees, as the papers were
cattered, her Highness edged her chair, so that I
had to move mine. Then she would insist on my
reading with her ' a most important paper ' another
edging of the chair another retreat and so on until
we had fairly circled the table. With the prospect
of other rounds in view, I started up, seized my hat
and escaped, never more to examine the proofs of the
Princess Olive's title to Royalty."
,
in
s
a
i ;
pa
wi
I
,v
>
The person who called herself the Princess Olive of
umberland was a Mrs. Olivia Serres, born at Warwick
in the year 1772, and educated by her uncle, Dr. James
Wilmot, Rector of Barton-on-Heath, Warwickshire,
he married her drawing -master, John Thomas Serres,
a marine painter of some ability ; the union proving
nhappy, she parted from her husband, and occupied
erself with painting. Obtaining an introduction to the
oyal Family, she was in 1806 appointed landscape
inter to the Prince of Wales.
In 1809 she began an incoherent correspondence
with the Prince, offering to lend his Royal Highness
20,000, at the same time begging for pecuniary
sistance. She also tried her hand at literature, wrote
a novel, some poems, and other works.
In 1817 she made her first claim to be the daughter
f Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, and in a
petition to George III. alleged she was the daughter
of the Duke by Mrs. Payne, a sister of the Rev. Dr.
Wilmot, and the wife of a captain in the Navy.
These claims she later amplified, asserting herself to
e the legitimate daughter of the Duke of Cumber-
land, and in a memorial to George IV. (1820)
86 WILLIAM HONE
assumed the title of Princess Olive of Cumberland. A
newspaper called the British Luminary took up her
cause, and a wonderful pedigree was invented for her.
When arrested for debt in 1821 she claimed the royal
privilege of exemption. In 1823 Sir Gerald Noel,
who had long interested himself in Mrs. Serres's pre-
tensions, presented a petition to Parliament, and moved
that it should be referred to a Select Committee. Joseph
Hume seconded, but the motion was negatived, Sir
Robert Peel, the Home Secretary, declaring the lady's
claims to be entirely baseless. Mrs. Serres spent the
rest of her life in difficulties, dying in 1834 within
the rules of the King's Bench. There is good reason
for believing that she had a hand in writing the
scandalous " Secret History of the Court of England,
by Lady Anne Hamilton."
A time of great popular excitement was coming over
the land. Sir Francis Burdett (the father of that
estimable lady the late Lady Burdett-Coutts), at that
time Member for Westminster, who had long been a
champion of popular rights, in 1 8 i o became the centre
of a great turmoil in London. He had published in
Cobbett's paper, the Political Register, a letter to his
constituents, declaring the conduct of the House of
Commons illegal in imprisoning a Radical orator. It
appears that John Gale Jones, the manager of a
debating society (one of those pioneer institutions of
reform which marked the awakening of England at
that time), had issued a handbill against the enforce-
ment of the Standing Order for the exclusion of
strangers from the House during the inquiry into the
ill-starred Walcheren expedition. In the handbill he
had declared the enforcement to be " an insidious and
ill-timed attack on the liberty of the Press, and tending
to aggravate the discontents of the people." Jones was
incontinently committed to Newgate as guilty of "a
breach of privilege."
Burdett having made an unsuccessful motion for the
discr
A BOOKMAN'S ACQUAINTANCES 87
UJ.JL
r
I
I
ischarge of Jones, wrote his " open letter," which in
its turn was brought before the House, and declared
to be a scandalous libel on the rights of that august
assembly. For two nights an angry debate was waged
in the Commons, with no little violence of language,
and at half-past seven o'clock on the morning of
pril 5th it was determined by 190 votes to 152 to
mmit Sir Francis to the Tower on a breach of
privilege.
When the Speaker's warrant was issued for the appre-
hension of the popular idol the tumult began, the
populace breaking the windows of the Members who
had voted against their favourite. Sir Francis resisted
the warrant for his committal, and barricaded his house
in Piccadilly. The Riot Act was read, and when the
Guards were called out a number of the rioters sus-
tained injuries. On Monday, the Qth, the house was
broken into, and Sir Francis was conveyed to the Tower
under a strong escort. On their return the troops
were attacked by a furious mob and the soldiers com-
pelled to fire ; in fighting their way through Eastcheap
number of persons were killed.
Lengthy proceedings in the courts of law ensued,
ir Francis bringing actions against the Speaker and
e Sergeant in the Court of King's Bench for redress,
he case was ultimately carried to the House of Lords,
ut in the end the authority of the House of Commons
was fully vindicated : everything had been done
according to ancient usage and established precedent.
When Parliament was prorogued on June 22nd the
prisonment of Sir Francis came to an end. A pro-
ssion was announced to convey him home in triumph,
ut he departed secretly by water, and the mob followed
empty car to Piccadilly.
Foremost among those who organised this procession
was William Hone. All London appeared to be out
of doors that day, and every one sported the " true
blue " colours. The streets along the line of route
88 WILLIAM HONE
were decorated, and the windows crowded with
spectators. Those at Hone's windows included Lady
Augusta Murray and her sister he was then living at
45, Ludgate Hill, on a site now occupied by the railway
bridge.
When the unwelcome tidings came that Sir Francis
had returned by water the disappointed people tore off
their colours.
" Lady Augusta and her sister," writes Mrs. Burn,
" gave theirs to our baby brother. My father indig-
nantly tossed his out of the window, and they condoled
with each other over the defection of the people's
favourite. Later in the day a report was circulated
that Sir Francis, whose health had suffered from his
confinement, had been too ill to encounter the fatigue
of a public ovation."
" Old Glory," as Sir Francis was nicknamed, was not
a man to be relied on.
It may be readily understood that Hone, so sincere
and enthusiastic himself, would be proportionately dis-
appointed and mortified that the baronet, after sanction-
ing, or at least permitting, those public manifestations
of rejoicing at his liberation, should slink away, and
leave his friends to return with their flags and banners,
and the decorated carriage without the golden calf.
An anecdote relating to this processional affair will
show the temper of many parties at that time. Lady
Augusta Murray, with her sister, son, and daughter,
were at Hone's to testify their sympathy with the
popular cause ; but that their presence might not be
generally known they had the drawing-room to them-
selves " For, you know," said Lady Augusta, " I must
be careful lest I pay for my patriotism with my
pension."
Among Hone's papers is a letter from Sir Richard
Phillips, dated May 7, 1817, addressed to "Mr. F.
Place, Woollen Draper, Charing Cross (it was evidently
A BOOKMAN'S ACQUAINTANCES 89
called forth by Hone's case, which was then exciting
all London), in which he lays down that an arrest upon
ex-officio information is so contrary to existing statutes
that it constitutes an assault, and that detention under
it is false imprisonment. This authority was a Radical,
a vegetarian, an author, a publisher of cheap miscel-
laneous literature, and many other things ; he was a
man of original opinions on matters of science and
literature, of whom Mrs. Burn has left this note :
P" Sir Richard Phillips was a frequent ' dropper in '
nd ' gatherer by the way.' He gleaned a store of
information during his gossips. One day, looking over
some papers with us, my Father came upon a wrapper
containing some relating to Sir Richard, one being
a list of about 20 titles for works. ' Sir Richard,'
said he, ' once asked me to give him some subjects
to work out for publication, and said if he selected any
he would pay me for the suggestions. I gave him
this list, which he afterwards returned, saying there
was nothing that suited him . . . now here are pros-
pectuses and notices of various works since published
by him . . . giving evidence of the use made of my
list. This is how men with money will rob men
t'thout money of their brains.' '
Christopher North dubs Phillips " a dirty little
cobin."
Sir Richard Phillips in 1823, after a life devoted
the diffusion of knowledge, and after writing, editing,
d supervising innumerable books, all tending to make
the next generation wiser than the last, disposed of a
third share of his literary property, land retired to
Brighton. At this time he was superintending the
completion of the publication of a collection of
^' < Celebrated Trials and Remarkable Cases of Criminal
urisprudence." The work was in part compiled by
George Borrow, afterwards the popular writer of gipsy
lore, who was at this time doing hack work for
Phillips.
90 WILLIAM HONE
Francis Place, who also has just been mentioned,
was a friend of Jeremy Bentham, and with him believed
in the doctrine of " the greatest happiness of the
greatest number." Brought up as a breeches -maker,
he, in 1799, opened a tailor's shop in Charing
Cross, where his business prospered ; his name, how-
ever, has come down to us as one of the most earnest
and active of the Radical reformers of the time. The
library behind his shop, in which he had gathered a
splendid collection of books, was the resort of reformers
and all who held advanced views in politics.
POLJ flCAL ACTIVE IES
IT will be necessary here to leave Hone for the moment
in the peaceful quietude of his domestic circle, and
go abroad into the public life of the time to test the
political atmosphere he had to breathe whenever his
profound sense of citizenship impelled him to leave
the bosom of his family and take his due share in
the business of the State.
The acts of a Ministry uniformly opposed to the
wishes and aspirations of the people were arousing a
widespread spirit of resistance ; and when the leaders
of that movement were met with personal oppression
a rankling sense of wrong easily converted passive
resistance into an active antagonism.
Hone associated himself with the Liberal party, but
tot to the thoughtless neglect of his business, because
wherever he was engaged on an election committee
he generally found his customers there too. He was
a fine reader, and of a morning would hurry over his
light breakfast of tea and toast to declaim the
" Debate," his rare power of mimicry enabling him to
reproduce to the life the mannerisms of each speaker.
To these readings his children were always attentive
listeners ; they traced their acquisition and cultivation
of literary tastes to their enjoyment of the father's
dramatic renderings, always given with the proper
emphasis and modulated intonation which was necessary
to interpret the eloquence in the political speeches of
Fox and Pitt, Sheridan and Burdett.
91
92 WILLIAM HONE
In 1814 a public question which engaged Hone's
attention even more than his own private affairs was
that of the condition of lunatic asylums, the conduct
of which was rife with the most awful abuses. In
this episode we are introduced to two new acquaintances,
Alderman Waithman and George Cruikshank the
artist.
The maltreatment of the insane in private as well
as in public asylums was a crying evil of the day,
and one to which he had devoted much deliberate
thought ; his knowledge of the internal arrangements
of some asylums convinced him that a salutary reform
in the treatment of patients could not be effected in
buildings constructed as were those in existence. The
Retreat of York, instituted by the Society of Friends,
was the model on which he aspired to work out a plan
for the foundation of a similar establishment near the
Metropolis, and he had projected several schemes
toward the fulfilment of that purpose, when an incident
occurred which seemed opportunely favourable to his
views, and led to the " Investigation of Lunatic
Asylums."
He said : "I was at a Coffee Shop in Fleet Street,
sitting next to Alderman Waithman, when James Bevans
came in. We talked on the subject of mad-houses ;
I, of the abuses and cruelty to the patients, and he
(an architect) of the buildings. We walked to his
house in Bunhill Row, where he showed us some of his
drawings, and he was much interested in the facts I
then related to him.
" I proposed forming a committee to investigate,
and wrote to Edward Wakefield in the country, who
came to London. Subsequently, at a meeting held
at Fry's in the Poultry, Basil Montague proposed that
we should not bring matters to an issue until a sub-
committee should have inspected the Lunatic Asylums,
and named to that intent Edward Wakefield, William
Hone, and James Bevans.
POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 93
' Thus self -authorised, we knocked at the door of
one Asylum after another. The evidence of Wakefield
is correct, and was founded upon our joint notes. I
was unable to appear, myself, owing to a severe attack
of quinsy and a prolonged illness which increased my
pecuniary difficulties ; and he never mentioned my
name in connection with the report. James Bevans he
Iso threw overboard."
a
I
::
To Hone's unwearied efforts may be attributed, to
great extent, the steady advance of humane treatment
the mentally afflicted ; for though through a com-
ination of adverse circumstances and unworthy motives
is name was kept in the background, his views were
bodied in the improved conditions which contrast so
trikingly with the horrors of the " old Bethlem " and
of many of the private madhouses of that period.
The Report, which contains the notorious descrip-
tion of the condition in which William N orris was con-
fined, was in the handwriting of William Hone ;
subsequently he published etchings by George Cruik-
shank of the unfortunate man as he was kept chained
o a bar in his cell in Bethlem.
The printed Report of the Sub-Committee of the
Intended London Asylum for the Care and Cure of
the Insane," appointed at the City of London Tavern,
on March 2, 1814, is an interesting document, whoever
prepared it ; as to the nature of the revelations it
contained one extract will suffice :
" In one of the cells of the lower gallery, the Com-
mittee saw William Norris. He stated himself to be
55 years of age, and that he had been confined about
fourteen years ; that in consequence of attempting to
defend himself from what he conceived the improper
treatment of his Keeper, he was fastened by a long
chain, which passing through a partition, enabled the
keeper, by going into the next cell, to draw him close
to the wall at pleasure ; that, to prevent this, Norris
muffled the chain with straw, so as to hinder its pass-
94 WILLIAM HONE
ing through the wall ; that he afterwards was confined
in the manner the Committee saw him ; namely A
stout iron ring was riveted round his neck, from which
a short chain passed to a ring, made to slide upwards
or downwards on an upright massive iron bar, more
than six feet high, inserted into the wall ; round his
body, a strong iron bar, about two inches wide, was
riveted ; on each side the bar was a circular pro-
jection, which being fashioned to, and enclosing each
of his arms, pinioned them close to his sides ; this
waist -bar was secured by two similar bars, which pass-
ing over his shoulders, were riveted to the waist-bar,
both before and behind ; the iron ring round his neck
was connected to the bars on his shoulders by a double
link ; from each of these bars another short chain
passed to the ring on the upright iron bar. We were
informed he was enabled to raise himself, so as to
stand against the wall, on the pillow of his bed, in
the trough-bed in which he lay ; but it is impossible
for him to advance from the wall in which the iron
bar is soldered, on account of the shortness of his
chains, which were only twelve inches long. It is con-
ceived equally out of his power to repose in any other
position than on his back ; the projections, which, on
each side of the waist-bar, enclosed his arms, render-
ing it impossible for him to lie on his side, even if
the length of the chains from his neck and shoulders
would permit it. His right leg was chained to the
trough, in which he had remained thus encaged and
chained more than twelve years. To prove the
unnecessary restraint inflicted on this unfortunate man,
he informed the Committee that he had for some years
been able to withdraw his arms from the manacles
which encompassed them. He then withdrew one of
them, and observing an expression of surprise, he said,
that when his arms were withdrawn, he was compelled
to rest them on the edges of the circular projections,
which was more painful than keeping them within.
His position, we were informed, was mostly lying down,
and that, as it was inconvenient to raise himself and
stand upright, he very seldom did so ; that he read
WILLIAM NORRIS, AS HE WAS CONFINED IN BETHLEM.
To face p. 95.
POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 95
a great deal ; books of all kinds ; history, lives, or
any thing that the keepers could get him ; the news-
paper every day ; and conversed perfectly coherently
on the passing topics and the events of the war, in
which he felt particular interest."
An accompanying paper, prepared by Edward Wake-
field, prints the remarks submitted to the Right Hon.
George Rose, M.P., and various other Members of
the House of Commons for the regulation of Houses
for the Reception of the Insane.
The exposures of this voluntary sub-committee, on
which Hone served, led to gradual improvement in the
treatment of lunatics, and at last to the total abolition
of mechanical restraints, first at Lincoln, in 1837,
and at Hanwell and other enlightened establishments
shortly after.
The illustration is a copy of that
" Printed for William Hone, No. 55 Fleet Street,
London. Sketched from the life in Bethlem by G.
Arnald, Esq. A.R.A. and etched by G. Cruikshank
from the original drawing exhibited in evidence to the
Select Committee of the House of Commons, 1815.
(Price One Shilling)
A WHOLE LENGTH PORTRAIT OF WILLIAM N ORRIS,
an Insane American riveted alive in Iron and for
many years confined in that state, by chains 12 inches
long, to an upright massive bar in a Cell in Bethlem."
As a prelude to the next public episode which
interests us, here are Hone's private notes of the state
of the political atmosphere at that time :
"' The history of the first quarter of the nineteenth
century teems with instances of the profligate violence
that marked the progress of oppression by a corrupt
and persecuting Ministry. Discord reigned at Court
and in the City.
96 WILLIAM HONE
"From 1812 to 1817 the Government Spy System
prevailed, and added to oppressions of the people.
' Blood Money Spies ' Vaughan, the celebrated Detec-
tive proved to be one.
" Political prosecutions Ex-officio Inditements
Daniel J. Eaton prosecuted 8 times for printing Paine's
* Age of Reason 'Corn Bill Riots."
The particular episode which agitated the political
barometer and engaged the energies of Hone was the
remarkable case of Lord Cochrane, afterwards the
famous Earl of Dundonald.
As a sailor Cochrane had already rendered his
country valiant services ; but as a Member of Parlia-
ment he had made himself a number of powerful
enemies by his unsparing attacks on the many naval
abuses of the time. In 1814 he was arrested on a
charge of fraud. A rumour of Napoleon's overthrow
had sent up the funds, and he, with two others, was
tried for propagating it and selling out upwards of a
million sterling at a gross profit of 10,000.
Thomas, Lord Cochrane, knew nothing of expediency,
and made enemies at every step through life ; and, in
the second place, he lived in times when the Admiralty
not only neglected but actually crushed those naval
officers who had fallen under its displeasure. At the
very outset of his career in the Royal Navy Lord
Cochrane contrived to make himself objectionable to
the officials in Whitehall, and he has left upon record
a solemn statement of his conviction that the charge on
which he appeared in the dock, of having conspired with
two others to " rig " the Stock Market, was got up
" by Admiralty malice " and pressed to extremity by
official virulence. The conclusion of the trial was that,
after a summing-up by Lord Ellenborough, which is
one of the greatest stains upon that Judge's fair repute,
Lord Cochrane was found guilty, and sentenced to
stand in the pillory at the entrance of the Royal
Exchange, to a year's imprisonment in the King's Bench
POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 97
prison, and to a fine of 1,000. The first part of his
sentence it was found impossible to execute. Sir
Francis Burdett, who was at that time Lord Cochrane's
colleague as Member for Westminster, immediately
avowed his intention of standing by his colleague's
side in the pillory if any such indignity were inflicted
upon him. The Government of Lord Liverpool was
already so unpopular that it dared not face the storm
of indignation to which the very sight of Lord Cochrane
in the streets of London would have given rise. But,
in other respects, the malignity of his persecutors had
full swing. He was confined in the King's Bench
prison, and escaped from it only to be again led back
to prison, after putting in a somewhat melodramatic
appearance in the House of Commons, from which he
had been expelled by a vote of its Members, but to
which he was instantly re-elected by his constituents in
Westminster. When he left prison his fine of 1,000
was raised by public " penny subscriptions," in the
collection of which Hone took a prominent part. Mrs.
Burn makes an interesting note on the method of
Cochrane's escape. She says :
" He was not dungeoned, but had the parole of
the Prison Yard or airing ground, from which he
managed to make his escape.
" Many were the surmises as to how it had been
effected. A sofa had been taken out of the Prison
at one time, a press bedstead at another. It was con-
cluded that he must have been secreted in one of these.
His Lordship's height and peculiar figure were opposed
to any supposition of his having walked out, and it
long remained an unsolved mystery.
I' His Lordship thus related the manner of his escape.
A medical gentleman going home one night, found a
person lying on the ground who, on being questioned,
said he was much hurt. The gentleman offered his
Iistance, said he lived near, and would get a con-
ance. The injured person begged he would not,
&8 WILLIAM HONE
and said if the other would assist him, he would prefer
to walk. He helped the injured man to rise, and in
the dimness of night recognised him as Lord Cochrane,
who said, ' I have fallen from the wall, you will not
betray me? ' ' Certainly not,' replied the other, and
supported him to his house.
" Lord Cochrane was severely bruised and remained
there, under care, and in the enjoyment of home com-
forts, until the payment of his fine released him from
concealment, whereupon he immediately took the oath
and his seat in Parliament."
In the year following the Cochrane affair, having
recovered his health, Hone took an intense interest in
the case of Eliza Penning, a poor innocent servant-girl
who was hanged for a supposed attempt to poison her
master, a law stationer, in Chancery Lane. Her case
has often been cited as one showing the dang'er of
acting on purely circumstantial evidence.
As stated by Sir Samuel Romilly, this poor girl was
tried at the Old Bailey in April, 1815, before the
Recorder of London, for administering poison to her
master and mistress and her master's father. The only
evidence to affect the prisoner was circumstantial. The
poison was contained in dumplings made by her ; but
then, she had eaten of them herself, and been as ill
as any of the persons whom she was supposed to
have intended to kill, and her eating of them could not
be ascribed to art or to an attempt to conceal her
crime, for she made no effort whatever to remove the
strongest evidence of guilt if guilt there was. She
had left the dish unwashed, and the proof that arsenic
was mixed in it was furnished by its being found in
the kitchen the next day, exactly in the state in which
it had been brought from table. No motive, moreover,
could be found for so atrocious an act. Her mistress
had reproved her about three weeiks before for some
indiscretion, and had given her warning, but had after-
wards consented to retain her in her service.
ELI ZAB E.TH FENN ING ,
OMJVG rtw FAMILY or M? TCtf>Vtttt>
To face p. 99.
:
POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 99
This was the only provocation for murdering, not
her mistress only but her master and her master's
father.
A crime of such enormity produced by so very slight
a cause has probably never occurred in the history of
human depravity. The Recorder, however, appeared
to have conceived a strong prejudice against the
prisoner. In summing up the evidence he made some
very unjust remarks and unfounded observations to her
disadvantage, and she was convicted.
The victim was given a public funeral, which at once
dvertised her presumed innocence and appealed to
popular sympathy. Not less than ten thousand persons
assembled in and around the churchyard of St. George
the Martyr to see her buried. Hone published " An
Authentic Report of the Trial " ; and Charles Phillips
wrote a brilliant rhapsody on " the fate of one so
young, so fair, so innocent, cut down in early morn,
with all life's brightness only at its dawn." "Little,"
said that facile writer, " did it profit thee that a city
mourned over thy early grave, and that the most
eloquent of men Curran, a fellow-countryman did
justice to thy memory."
The singularity of the trial attracted the notice of
many persons to her case, and they interested them-
selves in her favour, Hone being one who worked hard
to obtain signatures to a petition in which they applied
to the Crown for mercy. The master of the girl was
requested to sign a petition on her behalf, but at the
instance of the Recorder he refused. Every effort was
unavailing ; the sentence was executed, and the girl
ied, apparently under a strong sense of the truths
f religion, and solemnly protesting her innocence.
Hone thus relates the scene of her execution :
" I was going down Newgate Street on some
msiness of my own. I got into an immense crowd
it carried me along with them against my will ; at
100 WILLIAM HONE
length I found myself under the gallows where Eliza
Penning was to be hanged. I had the greatest horror
of witnessing an execution, and of this in particular ;
a young girl of whose guilt I had grave doubts. But
I could not help myself ; I was closely wedged in ;
she was brought out. I saw nothing, but I heard
all. I heard her protesting her innocence I heard
the prayer I could hear no more. I stopped
my ears, and knew nothing else till I found myself
in the dispersing crowd, and far from the dread-
ful spot. I made my way to the house of a book-
seller with whom I was very intimate ; I asked him
for a glass of water ; I sat down and told him where
I had been, and that people were saying the unhappy
girl had ' died with a lie in her mouth/ * Friend
Hone,' said he, ' she is with her Almighty Father ;
I have visited her in prison, so have many of m|y
friends, and we are satisfied of her innocence/ I
was up immediately. ' Why, then, was she executed? '
' We made every possible exertion to save her life,'
replied he, * but we were not listened to.' ' The public
must be roused about it,' said I. My friend replied,
' You are the man to do it, and I will print what you
write."
Hone continues :
" I took lodgings away from my family, for I could
do nothing among them, and for three weeks I was
wholly engrossed on the case of Eliza Fenning. On
the fourth Saturday evening my wife came to ask
me for money but I had none. I told my wife to
go home, and that I would bring her the money, but
I had no idea where to get it ; I had not sixpence. I
went off to my friend the bookseller, and charged him
with having made me neglect my family, asking him
for the loan of a few pounds. Having obtained this,
I walked through the turnstile into Lincoln's Inn Fields,
and on, until a play-bill stuck up in large letters
caught my eye : ' The Maid and the Magpie,
repeated with unbounded applause to overflowing
a
s
ar
wi
th
W1
POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 101
houses.' An idea flashed upon my mind. I changed
one of my notes and went to the play, in the pit,
and saw ' The Maid and the Magpie.'
I went home and said to my wife, * Give me a
pair of candles and snuffers upstairs, and send for
George Cruikshank.' He came ; I said, ' Make me
a cut of a Magpie hung by the neck to the gallows '-
and I put my head on one side, and looked as like
a dying Magpie as I could.
I walked to my printers, and by six o'clock in the
orning * The Maid and the Magpie ' was completed
and a thousand struck off. Cruikshank was ready
with the frontispiece ; and my wife sewed them. When
e coaches drove up for the newspapers, we were ready
with our pamphlets. ' Will you have this? ' ' How
many? ' ' Half a hundred ' ' A hundred.' So we
fTectually roused the public as to the case of Eliza
enning, and I and my family lived for four months
n ' The Maid and the Magpie.' "
That the case excited a great amount of public
terest is evident from the amount of " literature "
which grew out of it. Hone, then at 55, Fleet Street
(a small shop where he was twice robbed), published
two works having rather formidable titles. One, at
ve shillings, was
Ki
The Important Results of an Elaborate Investi-
ation into the Mysterious Case of Elizabeth Penning :
being a detail of Extraordinary Facts discovered since
her Execution, including the Official Report of her
Singular Trial . . . also a Memorial to H.R.H.
he Prince Regent ; and Strictures on a late
amphlet of the Prosecutors' Apothecary ; by John
Watkins, LL.D." ;
lie other, published at eighteenpence, was entitled
" Thirty Original and Interesting Letters written by
late Elizabeth Fenning whilst in prison and under
itence of Death, Declaratory of her Innocence . . .
102 WILLIAM HONE
Containing an Exposure of the Fabrications of the
4 Observer ' Newspaper, and other Falsehoods respect-
ing the Case."
Hone also published] a portrait of the poor girl, drawn
by, Isaac R. Cruikshank, father of George Cruikshank ;
while in the columns of the Traveller newspaper his
pen was constantly busy in her defence.
Wherever there was trouble there William Hone seems
to have been found, if only to give publicity to the wrongs
of those whom his sympathetic nature looked upon as
victims or sufferers in any sense we find him as a
witness at inquests held upon two persons shot during
the Corn Riots on March 7th, before the house of
Mr. Robinson, in Old Burlington Street ; and, of course,
he published reports of both these inquiries.
With all his Radicalism and ardent advocacy of
political reform, Hone, as might be expected of "so
mild a mannered man," was always opposed to the
employment of physical force. In December, 1816,
occurred the Spa Fields Riots, when the shops of the
gunsmiths were attacked for arms. Apprehensive that
the movement if accompanied by violence would preju-
dice the causes he had so much at heart, Hone printed
placards, which he had widely posted, calling on the
people to preserve their own liberties by keeping the
peace and becoming the custodians of them. He
exhorted the populace not to confound agitation with
rioting, and, like the good citizen he was, used every
influence he possessed to restore public order.
At the same time, he never slackened in his attacks
on the Government with his vitriolic pen ; he regarded
himself as the mouthpiece of the people, and on their
behalf kept up the fight for the free expression of
opinion .
VI
AN ALERT PUBLISHER
HONE at this period, it will be observed, was publishing
two classes of works, in both of which he had (at the
outset, certainly) more than a commercial interest his
political satires, in which he advocated his views on
public polity, and a number of opportune sensational
tracts and broadsheets, on those topics of the day,
which were exciting the greatest amount of public atten-
tion. The earlier ones of the latter class, such as those
relating to William Norris and Eliza Penning, were
no doubt genuinely inspired by Hone's humanitarian
sympathies with the victims of injustice and wrong.
But as much cannot be said for some of his later cheap
tracts and booklets. He was a struggling tradesman
with a ( young family to maintain ; he was indefatigably
industrious ; he was alert, and had a keen eye for what
would sell.
In 1 8 1 5 he was brought up before the Wardmote
Inquest of St. Dunstan's for placarding his shop on
Sundays, and for carrying on a retail trade as book-
seller and stationer, not being a freeman.
It was in 1813 the famous Catnach Press was
founded in Monmouth Court, off Little Earl Street,
St. Giles's, for the publication of ballads, broadsides,
" last dying speeches," and every other kind of gutter
literature, which the public bought with avidity in the
days of v dear newspapers. During the time Hone was
in Fleet Street he did not disdain to emulate this class
103
104 WILLIAM HONE
of publication. A good specimen of this trumpery
stuff, issued by him in 1815, is a sixpenny tract,
entitled "The Power of Conscience." It is of the
'" catchpenny " type, consisting of eighteen pages of
sensational stuff, ,which includes the confession of
Thomas Bedworth, delivered at Newgate Sep-
tember 1 8, 1815, for the murder of Elizabeth Beesmore
in Drury JLane, relating, among other things, his
horrible sufferings occasioned by constant supernatural
visitations of the murdered woman and other dreadful
apparitions all of it, of course, " from the original
paper now in the possession of the publisher."
Although misfortune seems to have pursued William
Hone with a relentlessness that would have broken
the spirit of some men once he was burnt out, and
twice was his Fleet Street shop broken into and
plundered nothing could repress the elasticity of his
cheerful and hopeful nature. In 1815 we find him the
publisher of .the Traveller newspaper, afterwards
amalgamated with the Globe. A year or so after-
wards he issued the Reformist's Register, which ran
a feverish career of a few months only. Then, in con-
junction with George Cruikshank, he commenced the
publication ctf a series of political satires which achieved
an immense success ; one of them, ' The Political
House that Jack Built," passed through fifty editions.
In some of the political pamphlets not regarding
the Church of England liturgy with the same venera-
tion as the Bible he parodied portions of the Prayer
Book, an indiscretion which landed him within the
meshes of the law, though the law had to be strained
on purpose to entangle him. Hone emphatically
asserted that he never had any intention to bring
religion into ridicule. But ridicule, if a powerful
weapon, is a dangerous one, especially with which to
attack a corrupt and an unscrupulous Ministry a
Government that would not hesitate to strain or even
alter the law to meet its own ends, and that would
AN ALERT PUBLISHER 105
certainly have no compunction in construing an alleged
political libel as a blasphemy, if that were deemed
safer ground on which to prosecute. That Hone was
really prosecuted for the alleged libels contained in
his pamphlets, because of their obnoxious satires on
the Government of the day, there never has been a
shadow of a f doubt. The public, both before and after
his trials, felt that had they been on the other side o!f
the question, written in defence of the Ministry instead
of in ridicule of it, no notice would have been taken.
It was in this matter that Hone was forced into
the unenviable position of the defender of the freedom
of the Press ; that he suddenly found himself the object
of a Government prosecution ; that, in fact, he became
a public, an historic character. He was not unaware
of the terrors of which he stood in danger.
Lady Morgan, a contemporary novelist, though not
(ways wise in what she wrote, has this to say :
" Ridicule derives its efficacy from the responsive
mpathies of the audience addressed.
' The ridicule of unknown persons excites no
lotion. The ridicule of a known person for qualities
which he notoriously does not possess, is equally
t potent.
' When Hone represented the British Constitution
an inverted pyramid, resting on the crown at its
apex, and supported by bayonets, the sensible image
of instability he presented found a prompt reflection
in the public mind. He advanced, however, no novel
statement. If a conviction had not pre-existed in public
opinion of ' something rotten in the state of Denmark,'
s humour would not have told. Had he supported
e tottering edifice with a printing press, instead of
bayonet, the misrepresentation would have been
jected with scorn."
One of the sixpenny tracts published in 1816, and
iring Hone's two addresses 55, Fleet Street, and
106 WILLIAM HONE
67, Old Bailey was a " genuine " edition of " The
Eloquent Speech on the Dethronement of Napoleon,
the State of Ireland, the Dangers of England, and
the Necessity of Immediate Parliamentary Reform,
delivered by Charles Phillips, Esq., at a Public Dinner
given to him at Liverpool, on 3ist October, 1816."
One brief extract will convey a fair notion of the
contents :
" There is now scarce an object but industry in rags,
and patience in despair the merchant without a ledger
the fields without a harvest the shops without a
customer the Exchange deserted, and the Gazette
crowded. . . . Here in England, after all her vanity
and all her victories, surrounded by desolation, like
one of the pyramids of Egypt, amid the grandeur of
the desert full of magnificence and death at once a
trophy and a tomb."
Although somewhat obscured by the flowers of
rhetoric, the description of England's condition is a
telling one.
France, and the movement of public events there,
naturally interested a publicist like Hone, at a time
when French politics acted and reacted on the affairs
of this country.
Concerning the work entitled "Louis XVIII. climb-
ing the Mat de Cocagne," an interesting prosecution
occurred which throws considerable light on the
publishing amenities of those times. A printseller,
named Sidebotham, of the Strand, applied to Hone
for impressions of this caricature at less than cost price,
threatening that if Hone did not accede to his request
he would pirate the picture. On Hone's refusal, Side-
botham applied to Cruikshank to make him a copy,
and, on receiving a second refusal, actually got the
work effected elsewhere. Not contented with this, the
pirate publisher had the effrontery to send his errand-
boy with six of the spurious prints with the mild
;
en
AN ALERT PUBLISHER 107
request that Hone would exchange six of his genuine
prints for them. The exasperated Hone simply tore
up the offending pictures, and sent them back by the
boy as the only answer he would make to his master.
Sidebotham promptly summoned the outraged publisher
for the damage, and the case came before the Court of
Requests at the Guildhall. The newspaper report ends
ery satisfactorily with this sentence :
4 The Court conceiving that Mr. Hone had received
great provocation, as well as sustained serious injury
by the plaintiff's piracy, dismissed the summons."
Phillips, having made a name by his florid oratory,
gaged in literature. The business relationships
between Phillips and Hone were pleasant enough,
although the advantage seems to have been on the
side of the former, whose " blarney " easily vanquished
the susceptible Hone. The publisher not only regularly
paid the author in cash as it became due, but we find
him, characteristically enough, making the insinuating
Irishman a present of a silver snuff-box, engraved with
a complimentary inscription.
Charles Phillips was familiarly known as " Napoleon
hillips," on account of an oration in which he
elebrated the downfall of the Corsican conqueror, a
passage from which, long preserved as a familiar
quotation, was
i" Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon the
tirone, a sceptred hermit, wrapt in the solitude of his
wn originality."
Lord Brougham was an admirer of Phillips, who, in
later years, engaged himself heartily in the struggle
for Catholic emancipation. His daughter married
LUgustus, youngest brother of Charles Dickens, and
the original of "Boz."
108 WILLIAM HONE
To a topical writer so alert and eager as William.
Hone " the ever -watchful Hone "the death of the
Princess Charlotte in November, 1 8 1 6, afforded a fund
of excellent material upon which his ready pen was not
slow to seize. He published, from 67, Old Bailey, four
booklets at sixpence each ; these were
" Life of the late Lamented Princess Charlotte ; the
order of succession ; the chance of Jerome
Napoleon becoming King, &c., &c. With
engravings."
" Authentic Particulars of the Death of the Princess
Charlotte and Her Infant ; with engravings."
" Funeral of the Princess Charlotte ; with a fold-
ing plate of the Grand Burial Procession in St.
George's Chapel, Windsor, and an illustrative
vignette."
" Memoirs of Prince Leopold ; with Portraits."
These were not all he had published on the subject
of the Princess. Earlier had appeared :
" Hone's authentic Account of the Royal Marriage,
consisting of original memoirs of Prince Leopold and
Princess Charlotte. ... A great variety of Anec-
dotes of His Serene Highness. . . . Details of the
Marriage Ceremonial . . . with an Appendix contain-
ing the Acts for naturalising Prince Leopold," &c.
" Authentic Memoirs of the Life of the Late
Lamented Princess Charlotte with clear statements
showing the succession to the Crown and the prob-
ability of the wife of Jerome Buonaparte becoming
Queen, and her son Jerome Napoleon being Prince of
Wales, and afterwards King of these realms."
This latter was a striking, if a lengthy and somewhat
cumbrous title. Doubtless at a period when " Buona-
partephobia " (which is the title of another of Hone's
topical publications) was rife, the pamphlet sold readily
enough. It contains only sixteen pages, and the fol-
Ill
Wi
ces
AN ALERT PUBLISHER 109
>wing extract, in the substance of which Hone is
historically and legally correct, is taken from it :
The first wife of Frederick, King of Wurtemberg,
was Caroline of Brunswick. Their daughters, the
Princess Catherine and the late Princess Charlotte of
Wales, were of like kin to Frederick, Prince of Wales,
the father of his present majesty, both being his great-
grandchildren. The Princess Catherine was married
to Jerome Buonaparte, King of Westphalia, and had
a son by him. If the male line of succession to the
Crown of Great Britain should fail, by the Prince
Regent and the Royal Dukes dying without issue, then
the sovereignty would vest in the female line ; and
in that case, as by the Act of Settlement of 1 1 and 1 2
illiam III. c. 3, the heirs of the Princess Sophia,
ing Protestants, are entitled to the Crown in suc-
ession, the succession would be thus :
First, the Duke of Brunswick, son of the Duchess,
and if he had no issue
Secondly, to the Prince of Wurtemburgh [sic],
grandson of the Duchess ; and if he had no issue
Thirdly, to the wife of Jerome Buonaparte, the
Princess Catherine, as great grandchild of
Frederick, Prince of Wales ; who would, by the
Act of Settlement, be Queen Regnant, and her
son, young Jerome Buonaparte, be Prince of
Wales. Thus, after his mother's death, and pro-
fessing the Protestant religion, he would claim
the throne by hereditary right, being as near akin
by the female line to the reigning family, as any
other claimant, he having descended from
Frederick, the common ancestor to all the claim-
ants of the Crown.
Thus it appears, unless Parliament interferes, the line
of Guelph failing, the British Throne may be filled in
succession by the line of Buonaparte."
As a printseller and publisher of political portraits,
[one appears to have done quite a brisk trade from
; 8 1 5 to 1817,; and after several trials at authorship he
110 WILLIAM HONE
founded the Reformist's Register, the aim of which
is indicated by its title, but which, it may be added,
attacked the doctrines of Robert Owen. He continued
to issue also his series of political squibs, illustrated
with great force and spirit by George Cruikshank,
then a young and unknown man ; and their success
was undoubted. Not content with these, however, he
published his famous " Parodies," which quickly brought
him within the meshes of the law, as then administered.
Hone's Reformist's Register was an octavo of six-
teen pages, published every Saturday at the price of
twopence, as a weekly commentary on current events,
and intended to constitute a history of the parlia-
mentary reform movement. The subjects dealt with
in the opening numbers included Universal Suffrage,
Annual Parliaments, Suspension of the Habeas Corpus
Act, and so forth.
The general feeling of discontent among the lower
classes, says the historian Hume, and an outrage com-
mitted upon the Prince Regent, the windows of whose
carriage were broken as he was returning from opening
the Parliament, January 28, 1817, led to the suspen-
sion of the Habeas Corpus Act on February 2ist.
" At the same time the execution of the law was
severely pressed, and numerous ex-officio informations
were filed against political writers, not the least remark-
able of which were those against the well-known
Radical and Reformist bookseller, William Hone. It
is difficult to imagine a more degraded and dangerous
position than that in which every political writer was
liable to be placed in the year 1817."
He might be apprehended on a warrant, imprisoned
upon suspicion, held to heavy bail or kept in prison,
and prosecuted by the Attorney-General on ex-officio
information. It is even said that the Government's
instructions issued to Lords -Lieutenant directed that
the magistrates should only admit to heavy bail in
\
SKETCH, SUPPOSED TO BE BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK, OF HIMSELF
AT THE AGE OF 2O.
AN ALERT PUBLISHER 111
these cases of "blasphemous and seditious pamphlets."
The proceeding has been stigmatised by another
storian as the most daring invasion of public liberty
tempted since the time of the Stuarts.
The law was being directed in particular against
e press, and at this time William Hone was publishing
and selling very largely political parodies, founded on
the style and phraseology of the English Liturgy, which
the Government were not slow to pounce upon as
profane publications. One was modelled on the
Catechism, one on the Litany, and one on the Creed.
The famous parodies were three in number, and were
published sharply one after the other.
A distinction might perhaps be made between
bringing Holy Writ into ridicule and the parodying
of Creeds and Catechisms. That the reader may form
his own estimate, a few samples of the parodist's efforts
e presented.
In the January of 1817 had appeared :
The late
JOHN WILKES'S
CATECHISM
of a
MINISTERIAL MEMBER
Taken
From an Original Manuscript in Mr. Wilkes's
Handwriting, never before printed, and
adapted to the present Occasion.
With Permission
LONDON :
Printed for one of the Candidates for the
Office of Printer to the King's Most Excellent
Majesty, and Sold by William Hone, 55 Fleet
Street, and 67 Old Bailey. Three doors from
Ludgate Hill. 1817. Price Two-pence.
The pamphlet was a close parody of the Church
itechism, supposed to be " an instruction, to be
112 WILLIAM HONE
learned of every Person before he be brought to be
confirmed as Placeman or Pensioner by the Minister,'*
the copy of which reached Hone through the post, and
was supposed to have been '" written by the late Mr.
Wilkes." It opened thus :
14 Question. What is your Name?
" Answer. Lick Spittle.
" Question. Who gave you this Name?
" Answer. My Sureties to the Ministry, in my Political
Change, wherein I was made a Member of the Majority,
the Child of Corruption, and a Locust to devour the
things of this Kingdom.
" Question. What did your Sureties then for you?
" Answer. They did promise and vow three things
in my Name. First, that I should renounce the
Reformists and all their Works, the pomps and vanity
of Popular Favour, and all the sinful lusts of Independ-
ence. Secondly, that I should believe all the Articles
of the Court Faith. And thirdly, that I should keep
the Minister's sole Will and Commandments, and walk
in the same all the days of my life.
" Question. Dost thou not think that thou art bound
to believe and to do as they have promised for thee?
*' Answer. Yes verily, and for my own sake so I will ;
and I heartily thank our heaven -born Ministry that
they have called me to this state of elevation, through
my own flattery, cringing, and bribery ; and I shall
pray to their successors to give me their assistance,
that I may continue the same unto my life's end.
" Question. Rehearse the Articles of thy Belief.
" Answer. I believe in George, the Regent Almighty,
Maker of New Streets and Knights of the Bath."
Following closely the lines of the Liturgy, it presently
came to the Ten Commandments. To quote the
travesty it made of six of them will suffice :
" IV. Remember that thou attend the Minister's Levee
day ; on other days thou shalt speak for him in the
House, and fetch and carry, and do all that he com-
AN ALERT PUBLISHER 113
mandeth thee to do ; but the Levee day is for the
glorification of the Minister thy Lord. In it thou
shalt do no work in the House, but shall wait upon
him, thou, and thy daughter, and thy wife, and the
Members that are within his influence ; for on other
days the Minister is inaccessible, but delighteth in the
Levee day, wherefore the Minister appointed the Levee
day, and chatteth thereon familiarly, and is amused
with it.
"V. Honour the Regent and the helmets of the Life
Guards, that thy stay may be long in the Place, which
thy Lord the Minister giveth thee.
' VI. Thou shalt not call starving to death murder.
' VII. Thou shalt not call Royal gallivanting adultery.
"VIII. Thou shalt not say that to rob the public
is to steal.
" IX. Thou shalt bear false witness against the
People."
On a later page the parody grates worse :
' Our Lord, who art in the Treasury, whatsoever
thy name, thy power be prolonged, thy will be done
throughout the empire, as it is in each session. Give
us our usual sops, and forgive us our occasional
absences on divisions ; as we promise not to forgive
them that divide against thee. Turn us not out of our
Places ; but keep us in the House of Commons, the
Land of Pensions and Plenty ; and deliver us from
B People. Amen."
id so on to the end of the Catechism, the portion
lating to the Sacraments being thus burlesqued :
o
Question. How many Tests hath the Minister
ordained?
Answer. Two only, as generally necessary to eleva-
on ; (that is to say) Passive Obedience and Bribery.
Question. What meanest thou by this word Test?
Answer. I mean an outward visible sign of an inward
intellectual meanness, ordained by the Minister himself
as a pledge to assure him thereof.
114 WILLIAM HONE
" Question. How many parts are there in this Test?
" Answer. Two ; the outward visible sign and the
inward intellectual meanness.
" Question. What is the outward visible sign or form
of Passive Obedience?
" Answer. Dangling at the Minister's heels, whereby
the person is degraded beneath the baseness of a slave,
in the character of a Pensioner, Placeman, Expectant
Parasite, Toadeater, or Lord of the Bedchamber.
" Question. What is the inward and intellectual
meanness ?
** Answer. A death unto Freedom, a subjection unto
perpetual Thraldom ; for being by nature born free,
and the children of independence, we are hereby made
children of Slavery."
This was the kind of " twopenny trash " which brought
William Hone into national notoriety.
The second parody was " The Political Litany," " to
be said or sung until' the appointed change come." It
commenced with invocations in this strain :
" O Prince, ruler of the people, have mercy upon us,
thy miserable subjects.
" O Prince, Ruler, &c.
" O House of Lords, hereditary legislators, have
mercy upon us, pension-paying subjects.
" O House of Lords, &c.
" O House of Commons, proceeding from corrupt
borough-mongers, have mercy upon us, your should-be
constituents.
" O House of Commons, &c"
One deprecation will suffice :
" From an unnational debt ; from unmerited pensions
and sinecure places ; from an extravagant civil list ;
and from utter starvation,
" Good Prince, deliver us! "
AN ALERT PUBLISHER 115
The few obsecrations here given are a very fair sample
of the whole :
' That it may please ye to place within the bounds
of economy the expenditure of all the Royal Family ;
' We beseech ye to hear us, O Rulers!
' That it may please ye to deprive the Lords of the
Council, and all the Nobility, of all money paid out
the taxes, which they have not earned ;
' We beseech ye to hear us, O Rulers!
* That it may please ye to bless all the people with
equal representation, and to keep them safe from
borough -mongering factions ;
" We beseech ye to hear us, O Rulers. 1 "
V-/V
-
The third parody was ' The Sinecurist's Creed/'
modelled on that of St. Athanasius. It begins :
Whosoever will be a Sinecurist : before all things
it is necessary to hold a Place of profit."
The conclusion of this parody is so remote from the
tginal model, that it is all but unintelligible :
" And Coleridge shall have a Jew's Harp, and a
bbinical Talmud, and a Roman Missal ; and Words-
worth shall have a Psalter, and a Primer, and a Read-
ing Easy ; and unto Southey's Sack-but shall be duly
added ; and with Harp, Sack-but, and Psaltery, they
shall make merry, and discover themselves before Derry
Down Triangle, and Hum his most gracious Master,
ose Kingdom shall have no end.
" This is the Sinecurist's duty, from doing more than
ich except he abstain faithfully, he cannot be a
Sinecurist.
" Glory be to Old Bags, and to Derry Down Triangle,
to the Doctor. 1
"As it was in the Beginning, is now, and ever shall
if such things be, without end. Amen."
1 See pp. 218 and 221 for identification of these.
116 WILLIAM HONE
On February 22nd Hone stopped the sale of these
pamphlets, for which there was a brisk demand at that
time. Immediately they were suppressed the demand
for them increased, and wherever they were to be
had enhanced prices were freely given for them. To
complicate matters, Hone had no sooner withdrawn
them from sale than they were reprinted and sold by
another Radical publisher, namely
" by R. Carlile, at the Republican Office, No. 183
Fleet Street, and sold by all who are not afraid of
incurring the Displeasure of His Majesty's Ministers,
their Spies and Informers, or Public Plunderers of any
denomination. 1817. Price Two-pence."
As one instinctively gathers from such an imprint,
this reissue was directly contrary to the wishes of
Hone, who wrote this note to Carlile :
11 67 OLD BAILEY
" Sth. August 1817.
" SIR, I shall be very glad of a call from you as soon
as possible Now if you can make it convenient at
any rate before you publish the Parodies, which Mrs.
Hone tells me you have just informed her you are
about to do.
" I am, Sir,
" Yours Obedly,
" W. HONE."
The appeal to Carlile was without avail. On
May 2oth a Portsea printer was apprehended under
a warrant from Lord Ellenborough for printing Hone's
Parodies on the Litany, Creed, &c. He was admitted to
bail.
Richard Carlile not only reprinted Hone's Parodies,
but wrote a series of imitations of them, for which he
got eighteen weeks' imprisonment. He was an avowed
AN ALERT PUBLISHER
117
Freethinker, a courageous champion of the Press, the
publisher of a Radical paper called the Black Dwarf,
a great friend of George Jacob Holyoake, and alto-
gether a very remarkable man, a proof of which is
that for the sake of his opinions he spent an aggregate
of nine years and four months in prison.
VII
IMPENDING PROSECUTION
FOR three successive years, immediately after the close
of the great war namely, in 1 8 1 6, 1817, and 1 8 1 8
there were bad harvests. If a shortage of food
supplies followed thus closely on the heels of an
exhausting war, is there any wonder that the land was
filled with murmuring and discontent? And whenever
was there general discontent that did not find expres-
sion through some of. the bolder spirits of the time?
Instead of remedial legislation, instead of seeking
to remove the causes at the root of the national discon-
tent, an Administration working on traditional lines
had no panacea to offer other than repression. It
was always repression. The people asked for parlia-
mentary reform, and the Government switched off their
liberties.
The suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in 1817
was aimed at the popular agitation for reform ; to the
side of the governing class had rallied the propertied
classes, and all who .viewed with vague and apprehen-
sive fear any movement of the common people towards
general freedom and advancement.
The bitter cry of a starving and over-burdened
population was to be interpreted as sedition, and to
meet this new domestic difficulty the liberties of the
nation were suspended with as little compunction as
they had previously been for wars and rumours of wars.
Neither Whig nor Tory had any clear conception of
118
IMPENDING PROSECUTION 119
pular rights ; both parties were equally devoid of
sympathy with the growing aspirations of the masses.
Any concession to the demands of the reformers
was regarded as nothing but an invitation to a feast of
revolution.
The Government of the day had little or no hesitation
straining the law in every way possible, to meet
their own purposes ; and to make the way of trans -
ressors hard, the judges who were entrusted with the
rrying out of the law were appointed undisguisedly
political grounds. In the approaching struggle for
litical freedom, what quarter reformers and agitators
e William Hone and William Cobbett were likely
to get may easily be imagined. Yet it was in 1817
that the spell of despotism was first broken, and a
brighter horizon began to open out than had prevailed
during the dismal period of the war, when the prosecu-
tion of Home Tooke, of the Times, the Chronicle,
and the Examiner, had marked ,the darkest days of
Ke English terrorism.
The first incident which brought Hone into disfavour
th the Court was the alleged insult to the Prince
;gent. The Prince opened Parliament on
January 28th, and the speech from the throne ex-
pressed in ominous terms the resolution of the Ministry
" to omit no precaution for preserving the public peace,
and for counteracting the designs of the disaffected.'*
Yet on his way from Parliament the crowd expressed
their decided disapprobation of the threat, by hissings
and groanings loud and deep, and, as it is alleged by
some, by overt acts of violence. Such an outrage
on so exalted a personage was not to be tolerated.
In the same month William Hone had issued two
numbers of a serial entitled Hone's Weekly Com-
mentary, which he had now discontinued or, as was
stated in the advertisement, merged in the Reformist's
Register. The price of the Commentary had been
sixpence, that of the Register was only twopence.
120 WILLIAM HONE
In the January of 1817 Cobbetfs Register, having
been reduced in price to twopence, this " twopenny
trash " as its enemies scornfully dubbed it was being
sold at the rate of 50,000 copies a week. At this
juncture Francis Place came forward to assist William
Hone in the publication of a similar paper.
The first number of the Reformist's Register was
published on February ist, in time to report the incident
of the " insult." The editor of the Register turned the
alleged outrage into ridicule ; in a vigorous article
bristling with notes of exclamation, with a profusion
of italicised passages, and closely dotted with capitals-
most of Hone's political writings are wonderful to
behold in this respect he asked for evidence of any
" outrage." The editor was satisfied, after examining
all the available evidence, that the noble lord who made
the allegation was too frightened to distinguish between
a stone and a bullet he shrewdly opines that gentle-
man would scarcely have thrust his hat into a broken
carriage window to keep out missiles from a firearm.
Hone's view of the matter was no doubt the correct
one ; but that his journal dared to reflect public opinion
and public feeling in the true light was vexatious to
the Court party. The sycophantic spirit of that party
is well exemplified by the form of solemn thanks-
giving which was drawn up for the occasion, to be
used througjh the convenient medium of the State
Church :
" Almighty God, &c., who in compassion to a sinful
nation, hast defeated the designs of desperate men,
and hast protected from the base assaults of a lawless
multitude the Regent of the United Kingdom . . .
shield him from . . . the madness of the people."
The people who asked for the rights of citizenship
were mad, and the Ruler who lived in luxury and
licentiousness was to move the grateful heart of the
nation.
FRANCIS PLACE.
Author of "The Principle of Population."
To face p. 120.
IMPENDING PROSECUTION 121
The second number of Hone's Register, issued
February 8th that year, contained Francis Place's reply
to Brougham, entitled " Universal Suffrage and Annual
arliaments against Mr. Brougham and the Whigs."
n the 1 7th of the month was published a special
'ourth number of this little paper, with the title of
The Register Extraordinary. It was produced in the
attempt to get that statesman to desist from attacking
the Reformers, and contained the "report of a speech
delivered by him at the City of London Tavern, in
June, 1814, at a time when he expected to become
the Reform candidate for .Westminster. This publica-
K>n had only the effect of exasperating Brougham,
d making him attack the Reform party more fiercely
in ever.
While petitions for parliamentary reform were pour-
ing into the House of Commons, the Government was
concerning itself only with the methods whereby the
spirations of the people could be most effectively
uenched. In Hone's Register of March ist appears
e significant passage : -
' To my utter astonishment last Saturday morning
it appears, that the night before, whilst I was at the
printer's correcting the proof of my Register for pub-
lication, His Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home
Department, Lord Sidmouth, was actually causing a
Bill to be read in the House of Lords, for suspending
the Habeas Corpus Act ; when it was read a first
time without opposition, and ordered to be read a
second time on Monday ; when the noble Lord passed
it through the two remaining stages."
More than this, and touching him personally, Hone
iscovered that his " Parodies on the Scriptures and
e Church Liturgy " had been specially referred to
as requiring the notice of the Government along with
other dangerous agencies, such as political clubs, secret
meetings, and outspoken Radical newspapers.
122 WILLIAM HONE
It was tolerably certain that the Government had
determined to strike a blow, and that the blow would
not improbably fall upon William Hone. Yet his
conduct, in view of such contingency, seems to have
been extremely maladroit. To have shown contempt for
Lords Sidmouth and Castlereagh might have been con-
sistent with a courageous and independent spirit ; but
to alienate Whig friends like Lord Holland and Mr.
Waithman was scarcely prudent under the circum-
stances, and particularly in the case of a man who had
a profound dread of imprisonment. It was certain
he would need all the friends he could muster, and
all the support they could afford him. But William
Hone was never worldly-wise.
The oligarchical Government had set its teeth in a
grim determination to uproot all forms and phases of
sedition ; the people's demand for reform it had
laughed out of the High Court of Parliament. And
Hone, knowing full well he would be too poor to employ
counsel should the need arise, and profoundly convinced
that in a law-court he would be no match against Sir
William Garrow, the Attorney-General, nor able to
withstand the fierce sarcasms and thundering denuncia-
tions of the Lord Chief Justice, Ellenborough Hone,
fully cognisant of all this, still went on with his big
capital letters and italics, the prolific use of which
was intended to intensify the fierceness of his language,
attacking friends and foes alike when they fell short
of the standard of reform he had set up in his
Register.
Hone, who was no physical-force reformer and had
nothing to do with secret societies or suspicious com-
binations of any kind, was marked out for prosecu-
tion simply because it was possible to construe his
" Parodies " as blasphemies ; and the authorities hugged
to themselves the knowledge that when charges of
sedition had failed to convict a man, a conviction for
blasphemy had been secured from the most public-
!
:
"
a:
IMPENDING PROSECUTION 123
spirited juries. All sensitive minds shrink from the
ridiculing of sacred subjects, and the average man,
whatsoever his creed, resents it as an unpardonable
liberty ; it would, therefore, be comparatively easy
o fasten the blasphemy on Hone, if the charge against
him were so preferred as to keep the sedition in the
background.
Lord Sidmouth, in moving the suspension of the
Habeas Corpus Act, declared that libellous and blas-
phemous publications were scattered over the country,
and that many of them had been selected for prosecu-
tion ; that ignorant people were pointed to defects in
the Constitution as the cure for distresses, and
grievances ; that there had been riots in London, and
that even the sacred life of the Regent had been
threatened. Lord Grey, on the other side, declared the
suspension of the people's liberties to be entirely
uncalled for, and Lord Holland held similar views.
In spite of Government spies and Government agents
inciting to sedition and treason, not the slightest sign
of insurrection had been discerned in any quarter. The
ubscription to the Spa Fields Riot in the December
f the previous year had amounted to only 10 ; the
ammunition-wagon had contained fifty balls and a few
ounds of powder, and these had not yet been paid for.
'he whole affair was more of an uproar than a riot, the
outcome of hunger, misery, and the depression in trade.
In the Commons, Lord Castlereagh made much of
e alleged attack on the Regent, and sounded the note
f alarm against tumultuous assemblies, debating
ocieties, secret oaths, and political organisations with
" fraternised branches " in various parts of the country.
Sir Francis Burdett promptly avowed himself a member
of a number of clubs, one of the so-called " traitors ", ;
but he denied that to speak of constitutional reform
was treason. Other speeches on the same side tended
to show that William Hone was a little mistaken as
to the attitude of some of the Whig statesmen.
124 WILLIAM HONE
The Government pressed forward their measure at
high speed, their ignoble policy also including a
Seditious Meetings Bill, a Treasonable Practices Bill,
and an Army and Navy Seduction Bill. The Habeas
Corpus Suspension Act became law on March 4th,
and other Bills followed. The year 1817 was a memor-
able one in the history of the struggle for constitu-
tional liberty.
William Hone had been watching events with a
keen eye, and recording them with a critical pen. He
was a man who courted publicity, and therefore the
breathing out of threats and slaughterings against secret
assemblies had no terrors for him. But the Government
net was purposely cast wide to take in seditious writings
also, and it was here he stood within the peril.
On March 2/th Lord Sidmouth dispatched his famous
circular to the Lords-Lieutenant of counties, in which
he declared that in the opinion of the Government
the justices of the peace might issue a warrant to
apprehend any person charged before them on oath
with the publication of blasphemous or seditious libels,
and compel him to give bail to answer the charge.
Now, considering the jealousy with which any
political interference with the liberty of the Press was
regarded, and that by Fox's Libel Bill even the judges
were held unfit to decide on the character of a libel,
which was to be left to the decision of a jury, it is
difficult to conceive a more high-handed procedure
than that of the Home Secretary. It was palpably a
scandalous interference with constitutional privileges.
Considerable use was made of these instructions,
yet on the whole with so little success that the Govern-
ment secured but a single conviction. The trials of
William Hone were the most important of the series,
and the failure of the Government in these must have
shown how odious and useless were these attempts
to stifle the free expression of opinion. The Tory
policy, dictated by fear and a dread of popular violence,
IMPENDING PROSECUTION 125
though it temporarily hushed the agitation for reform,
was gradually alienating all classes, and giving rise
to hopefulness for the future in the breasts of the
optimistic and far-seeing.
Five numbers of Hone's Register were written by
Francis Place. He was conducting a considerable
business at this time, and was therefore unable to find
the leisure necessary to continue the work.
" My other avocations," he states, " would not
permit me to write Weekly Registers and I was obliged
to desist. . . . The crisis was now past. . . . The
Whigs were scoffed at by Ministers and despised by
the people ; I had put Hone's Register on its legs ;
the profits were considerable, and I was in hopes he
would be able to continue it, and by its means have
found a maintenance for his family ; to this he was
unequal the sale soon declined. The work lingered
on till October 25th and then expired." (See " Life
of Francis Place," by Graham Wallas.)
It may not be without interest to the present-day
politician to recall the kind of abuse the Register had
to expose in the struggle then being made for parlia-
mentary reform. In borough-mongering no more
glaring example could be found than that of Gatton,
Surrey, a borough of six houses, where the franchise
s vested in the freeholders, and in the inhabitants
paying scot and lot. The main facts of this particular
case were amusingly set forth by Hone, in his issue
of August Qth, in an article suggesting that the Prince
Regent might usefully make a tour of observation
through the country to instruct himself at first hand
how the people of England were really represented
in Parliament. On his arrival at Gatton, for instance,
e might be received by Sir Mark Wood, who had
ecently purchased the property, and then been made a
baronet ; " not because he was a borough-proprietor "
oh, no ! but on account of some subtle merit dis-
covered in him by a discerning Administration. The
126 WILLIAM HONE
interview, says the Register, would proceed somewhat
on these lines :
' You are the proprietor of this borough, Sir
Mark? ' ' I am, may it please your Royal Highness.'-
' How "many members does it send to Parliament ?'-
'Two, Sir.' ' Who are they? ' ' Myself and my son.'
' You are much beloved, then, in the borough, Sir
Mark? ' ' There are not many tell me otherwise, your
Royal Highness.' ' Were there any opposition candi-
dates? ' ' None, Sir.' ' What is the qualification for
an elector? ' ' Being an inhabitant and paying scot
and lot.' 'Only six electors, then? for I see you
have only six houses in the place? ' ' Only one elector,
please your Royal Highness.' ' What ! one elector,
and return two members ; how is that? But what
becomes of the other five householders? ' ' By buying
the borough, I am the freeholder of the six houses ;
I let five by the week, pay the taxes myself, live in the
other ; and thus, being the only elector, return myself
and my son as members at the election."
With telling illustrations such as this did the pamph-
leteer enliven and enforce his preachment to the people
of England or as many of them as subscribed to
the Reformist's Register.
William Cobbett, having two or three years pre-
viously suffered a sentence of imprisonment in Newgate,
in addition to the imposition of a heavy fine, for his
violent political utterances, fled to America on the
suspension of the Habeas Corpus. Hone, as if he
were Cobbett 's accredited representative, immediately
began to address the latter's readers in vindication of
the fugitive. " Fellow-countrymen," he wrote, " every
one of us who feels he has a country now feels his
mind distressed, his heart heavy, his courage fail
him." Was it to be wondered at, after this, he
asked, if Cobbett should seek the protection of the
American flag? that Mrs. Cobbett and their two
daughters should prepare to follow him? Staunchly
Hone pr
IMPENDING PROSECUTION 127
one promised to make his Register the vehicle for
Cobbett's thoughts ; Cobbett's patrons should now
become his subscribers. Conscious that in literary
power his appeal might be less effective than that of
the " exile/' he doubtless hoped to make good any
deficiencies of style by the sincerity of his advocacy.
In all this we seem to have first-hand evidence
that Cobbett's principles were Hone's principles, and
that their thoughts ran in the same groove indeed,
that Hone had become a hero -worshipper, and that
obbett was his hero.
or
Sti
?.
' The last time I saw Mr. Cobbett," he writes, " was
on Saturday, March 1 5th, at his house in Catherine
Street. I seem to have the sound of his voice in my
r. I see his very attitude, as he sat in his chair
hen I left him by his fireside in Catherine Street,
cannot get these little incidents out of my head. We
attach importance to such trifles when they are con-
nected with recollections of those whom we esteem
and admire, and whom we shall perhaps see no more."
Surely there is the ring of sincerity in all this.
Cobbett's Register was partly suspended ; Hone's
had just come into being. It cannot be conceived
that Cobbett contemplated or suggested that he would
write in safety in America, and send his writings for
Hone to publish in a terrorised England. If Cobbett
held, as it is declared, that no man was bound to
Krifice himself and his family for the general good,
may be credited with applying the principle to
ers as well as to himself. This line of argument is
induced by the very different complexion which is
placed upon the subsequent relationships of the two
men by the private papers which have been preserved
by the Hone family. If Hone himself ever admired
Cobbett, it is evident his family did not share in that
admiration their dislike of the man is apparent
everywhere in the papers alluded to.
128 WILLIAM HONE
According to these documents, the estrangement of
Hone and Cobbett had actually commenced before the
date of the friendly meeting in Catherine Street ; and
it was clinched by an incident occurring three years
later, which if true, and not the distorted impression
of a jaundiced imagination it would be difficult to
describe in adequate terms of reprehension. It is
given here for what it is worth and in estimating the
relative values of the two men, the independence of
Cobbett's life will always stand out in contrast to the
dependence of Hone's.
In 1816 Hone announced the publication of "The
Life of William Cobbett, Author of the Political
Register, written by himself " ; the authorship of which,
however, that writer almost immediately repudiated,
and stigmatised as a fraud on the public, alleging it
to be full of errors, omissions, and suppressions.
Cobbett objected to Hone, as a rival " reform "
publisher, offering this work, " containing as much as
a half-crown pamphlet " at a low price of fourpence.
How well it sold at this price is evidenced by the
number of editions through which it quickly ran ; and
the quarrel it bred may be realised by Hone's challenge
to Cobbett printed on the advertisement to the seventh
edition a challenge full of sound and fury, asseverating
the authenticity and genuineness of his fourpenny
publication. With two copies of Cobbett 's Weekly
Political Register, dated respectively October i2th
and October igth of that year, found among Hone's
papers, there is a memorandum in his (the latter 's)
handwriting, to the effect that they were brought to
him for an estimate of cheap printing, which he gave,
but afterwards heard no more about, though he dis-
covered subsequent issues were being cheaply produced.
" Then I published Cobbett's Life, by himself," says
the memorandum. So that the estrangement between
the two has all the appearance of originating in a
business disagreement.
IMPENDING PROSECUTION 129
But (as the family papers disclose) Hone was scarcely
the kind of man to fraternise with Cobbett. He was
never a man of violent principles, and often expressed
his dislike to Cobbett 's violent writings. The two men
did not meet more than two or three times, and in each
case it was Cobbett who sought the interview. Two
of these meetings, if the family papers may be relied
upon, seem to bear a sinister significance.
In the early part of 1817, while the ex-offlcio infor-
mations were pending, William Cobbett, accompanied
by a person who was a stranger to Hone, called at
his house and discoursed very freely on the iniquitous
prosecutions which were then hanging over him,
suggested the prudence of his seeking safety by
quitting the country, and entered on the persuasive
detail of funds that were ready to effect his immediate
departure to America.
The fugitive's wife and family were to be cared
for, and quickly follow him. Hone calmly told
Cobbett he never entered on any important business
without discussing the question with his wife, and he
had an idea that she would never be favourable to the
proposal. Mrs. Hone opportunely entered the room
at that moment, and Cobbett reiterated his suggestions
to her, in his usual plausible manner. " What shall
we do, my dear?" said her husband. "Stay where
we are," was her reply ; and turning to Cobbett, she
continued: "You don't know my husband if you
imagine he is the coward to desert a cause he believes
to be right ; but if he determines that he ought to go,
whenever it may be, Mr. Cobbett, we all go together, ;
there will be no following."
There was nothing hesitating or indecisive about
this, and so ended Cobbett's mission to Hone. As we
know, while the latter faced his prosecution, Cobbett
fled to America rather than stand a similar trial.
His Political Register appeared again on July i2th,
and from that date was regularly published in London
9
130 WILLIAM HONE
under the supervision of his son, Cobbett contributing
some of the articles from America.
Mrs. Burn, upon whose testimony alone this episode
rests, writes :
' The last occasion on which he saw Mr. Cobbett,
was when he called one afternoon and pressingly invited
my father to accompany him to a meeting of politicians
at the * Hole in the Wall ' in Barbican. My father
declined, and on Mr. Cobbett still urging him to go,
my mother, who had reason for distrusting the man,
said: * No, Mr. Cobbett, Mr. Hone and I have not
spent an evening together since his Trials ; all our
young people are on a visit, and he has promised that
we shall take tea together this evening ; I cannot let
him forego that prpmise.' Cobbett stayed and took
tea with them and later in the evening my father; went
to Newgate, to see John Cam Hobhouse, who was
imprisoned for his pamphlet ' A Trifling Mistake.' '
There would have been nothing 1 very extraordinary
in Cobbett 's calling and trying to prevail upon William
Hone to attend a meeting of Liberals, had it not
occurred on the 23rd of February, 1820 ; but on that
evening, from Barbican, the meeting not of Liberals
or Radicals, but a band of miserable cut -throats and
incendiaries adjourned to a loft in Cato Street, hired
for them by their instigator, the miscreant Edwards, a
Government Spy. Here they were captured, with the
exception of their leader, Thistlewood, by a posse of
Bow Street officers aided by Foot Guards. As the
officers ascended to the loft, the foremost, Smithers,
received a sword thrust through the heart from Thistle -
wood, who leaped out of a back window, and escaped
to a friend's house, where he was captured in bed the
next morning, by the Bow Street officers.
Mrs. Burn continues:
" My mother's belief that Cobbett was ' a dangerous
bad man ' was fortified by the fact of his having
IMPENDING PROSECUTION
131
endeavoured to persuade my father to associate him-
self with such a gang as had been gathered together in
Barbican. My father and Cobbett never met again.
" In the course of his last illness, while conversing
with his family, the name of Cobbett turned up. He
remarked, ' Cobbett was a bad man ; he once
endeavoured to persuade me to adopt a course which
I knew would be wrong, urging the necessity of a
man studying the interests of himself and his family
before that of the public, and he said he should not
mind seeing London knee -deep in blood, if it served
his family.' "
VIII
THE ARREST
THE gradual decline of the English labourer had
marked the course of the great French War, and after
Waterloo the impoverished state of the country was
deplorable. Tens of thousands were out of work ; and
though their fierce cries for bread rent the air, the
fashionable preachment of the clergy and those superior
persons who did not even faintly realise all that was
involved in a patient endurance of the miseries of semi-
famine was resignation and the cultivation of a spirit
of contentment. A ballad by that " searcher after
happiness," Hannah More, was hawked about London,
inculcating this comfortable doctrine. The village
labourer, whose children were perishing for food, was
expected to put aside these trivialities of life and sing,
like some merry villager of the mimic stage, to the
lilt of " The Cobbler there was and he lived in a
Stall " :
11 The parliament men, altho' great is their power
Yet they cannot contrive us a bit of a shower ;
And I never yet heard, though our rulers are wise,
That they knew, very well how to manage the skies ;
For the best of them all, as they found to their cost,
Were not able to hinder last winter's hard frost."
There is plenty more in this strain, but the quoting
of one other couplet will amply suffice :
" So I'll work the whole day, and on Sundays I'll seek
At church how to bear all the wants of the week."
THE ARREST 133
When the people cried for bread this was the kind of
stone offered them. Platitudinous philosophy of this
description was well calculated to rouse the ire of a
man like William Hone, and he was railing his loudest
at the ineptitude of the ruling powers the subject
engaging his pen at the particular moment was Political
Priestcraft when his arrest was determined upon. It
was never discovered how offensive satire was till a
humble individual like Hone used it with sledge-hammer
ferocity. As a polished weapon in the hands of a
statesman, or a dignitary of the Crown, as used by
Bolingbroke and Canning, or by Swift, it was
endurable. But an obscure bookseller daring to set
his pen and tilt at exalted and mighty personages
from his shabby little shop, " 63, Old Bailey,
three doors from Ludgate Hill," must be made an
example of.
The power of ex-officio information had been ex-
tended so as to compel bail by an Act of 1808 ; but
from 1808 to 1811, during which forty such informa-
tions were laid, only one person iwas held to bail.
It was under this Act that William Hone was arrested,
May 3, 1817, and committed to prison on three separate
charges, the misdemeanours set down against him being
the " printing and publishing certain impious, profane,
and scandalous libels." Of course the truth of the
matter was that the prosecution was really for its satire
on the Ministers and Government of the day.
K These arbitrary ex-officio informations were laid at
suit of the King, by his Attorney-General, without
application to the court wherein they were filed for
leave, and without giving the defendant any opportunity
*show cause why they should not be filed.
Similar were the proceedings which had been taken
against William Cobbett, who promptly fled to America
(March 28th), suspending the publication of his
Register for four months.
The first victim of Sir William Garrow was at least
134 WILLIAM HONE
able to reach his friends and sympathisers through the
medium of his paper.
" I wrote my last Register at home in the midst
of my family. Since then the Reign of Terror has
commenced, and I now write from prison."
Very circumstantially he then recounts the incidents
of his arrest :
" He [Sir William Garrow] has filed three criminal
informations against me, and, assisted by the Court
of King's Bench, put me into confinement. The reader
shall be circumstantially informed how this has been
effected. On Saturday last, in the afternoon, not having
been out during the whole of the day, I left home
about half -past four o'clock. On my return I pur-
chased two articles from the catalogue of Mr. Major,
bookseller, in Skinner Street, one of them written by
Samuel Johnson, in the year 1692, entitled ' An Argu-
ment, proving First, That the People of England did
actually Abrogate or Dethrone King James II. for Mis-
government, and Promoted the Prince of Orange in
his stead ; Secondly, That this proceeding of theirs
was according to the English Constitution, and Pre-
scribed by it.' Just before I got to Fleet Lane in the
Old Bailey, walking towards my own door, I opened
this pamphlet to look at it. At the corner of the lane,
two men rushed upon me, and one taking hold of
me, said, ' You are my prisoner. I have a judge's
warrant against you.' I was at that moment reading
these words in the pamphlet ' Shall a poor pickpocket
or a highwayman be hanged for a little loose money,
and these wholesale thieves, who strip a nation of their
lives, liberties, and estates, and all they have, not be
looked after? ' I shut to the pamphlet, and putting
my finger between the leaves that I might not lose
the place, said to the man :
" * Very well, walk home with me, and I will go
with you.'
" Officer. ' No, I shall not suffer you to go home.'
THE ARREST
135
" Myself. ' We are going past the door. You will
surely step in with me, and let me speak to my wife? '
" Officer. i No, you must go with me.'
" Myself. ' Why did you not call upon me at home?
hy take me in the street? '
" Officer. ' I did not expect to find you at home.'
' Myself. ' I am almost constantly at home. I am
y seldom out ; I have not been out the whole of
the day, till lately.'
*' Officer. ' I did not call, I tell you, because I did
t expect to find you.'
" Myself. ' Well, I am willing to go with you ; but
of course, wish to apprise my family of what has
happened.'
'* Officer. * I tell you I shall not let you go home.
e bail is very large ; you must not go home at all.'
Myself . * What has the bail to do with my going
home or not going home? Go along with me ; I shall
not detain you, or run away from you.'
" Officer. ' It does not signify ; you shall not go
home.'
I" Myself. ' Very well. Do as you please. I am
your power. Where are you taking me to? '
" Officer. ' Here is the judge's warrant Lord Ellen-
rough's warrant. Read it.'
" Myself. ' No, not here. I will read it at the place
u take me to.'
" Officer. ' No, read it at once here it is.'
" Myself. ' There is no necessity for it now, in the
ha
eet.'
" Officer.
" Myself.
Yes you had better read it here.'
Very well.' t (I stood against a post and
ving read the warrant, returned it to him. It was
dated April 28th, five days before, and signed Ellen-
rough.)
41 Officer. ' There, now go with me.'
" Myself. 'By all means. Where are you taking me
now crossed the way toward Newgate
? ' (We
treet.)
Officer.
' To a lock-up house.'
" Myself. ' Whose? ' (The officer named one or two
136 WILLIAM HONE
near the Bank. I objected to going to a lock-up house
in that direction ; telling him I preferred Hopwood's,
in Chancery Lane, or some other towards Temple Bar,
it being nearer my friends.)
" Officer. ' I will take you to the Compter, if you
do not choose to go where I tell you.'
" Myself. ' I am in your power, and therefore you
will do with me as you please.' (A coach being called,
I got in, and the officer followed.) "
The prisoner was driven to a house of detention
in the neighbourhood, and there found he was pre-
cluded by the form of warrant from obtaining bail
without forty-eight hours' notice. He could not have
read it carefully in the street, and why he was taken to
a sponging-house is not quite clear.
Arrested on Saturday, May 3rd, Hone was called
upon the following Monday in the Court of King's
Bench to plead to a criminal information for printing
and publishing a certain blasphemous libel, entitled a
" Parody on the Catechism in the Book of Common
Prayer " ; and also two other blasphemous libels, the
one being a " Parody on the Prayer of Our Lord
Jesus Christ, entitled the Lord's Prayer," and the other
being a " Parody on the Ten Commandments in the
Book of Common Prayer, aforesaid."
Before the information was read the defendant took
a primary objection that having been taken into custody
only on Saturday, he had not had an opportunity of
consulting with any one as to the course he should
take. He complained that he was illegally detained.
The Attorney-General said the course before the
defendant was simple he could plead either guilty or
not guilty. Lord Ellenborough said that any applica-
tion to the court upon the subject of his apprehen-
sion the defendant could make after the reading of
the information. To Hone's request that he might
be permitted to sit during the reading of the informa-
THE ARREST 137
n, owing to his indisposition, Lord Ellenborough
sharply said " No ! "
The first count was now read, and when the Master
the Court came to that part reciting the " Parody
on the Lord's Prayer " the Attorney-General apolo-
gised to the court for its being necessary to offend their
ears by repeating such blasphemy.
Hone declined to plead till he had been supplied
with a copy of the information. The court stated that
there were no funds with which to supply the copies
asked for. The defendant replied that he had no funds
for such purpose. He pleaded that it was impossible
to carry all the contents of the information in his
mind there were several counts, to part of which he
might think it right to plead guilty. The court re-
mained obdurate on the ground of precedent and
custom. Hone persisted after each of the other charges
that he could not conscientiously plead without the
informations before him to peruse.
In the end the Attorney- General moved that the
fendant be committed till the first day of the next
term. Hone was then informed that he might be at
large upon giving notice of bail on all informations ;
for each of the first two on personal recognisances of
200 and two sureties of 100 each, and for the
t in similar .bail for half the amount in each case.
When brought up on Monday, the iQth, he com-
plained of the impossibility of giving the forty-eight
hours' notice of bail, and recounted the circumstances
of his arbitrary arrest, thirty yards from his own house,
and the officer's refusal to let him go home to speak
to his wife ; hoiw he threatened that he would be
taken to the Compter, was then immediately taken
to Serjeant's Inn Coffee House, and thence to Hemp's
Lock-up House ; and how he was subjected to other
exceptional and uncalled-for severities at the hands
of the tipstaff. After some sharp passages between
Lord Ellenborough and the defendant, who pleaded
138 WILLIAM HONE
his ignorance of judicial forms, the latter said his
motion was that he should be discharged out of the
custody of the Marshal of the Marshalsea, on the ground
that his commitment did not truly state the reason of
his committal he had not prayed a further day to
plead. Lord Ellenborough told the prisoner his refusal
to plead legally amounted to this, and remanded him
in custody.
He found in a fellow-prisoner named Wooler another
sufferer in the same cause, with whom he was in close
sympathy.
Thomas Jonathan Wooler was a Radical journalist
who had succeeded Cobbett as editor of the Statesman,
and on the collapse of that journal appealed to a
larger public in the Black Dwarf, which was published
by him every Sunday morning. For a particularly
pungent attack on the Ministry in the tenth number
of this paper he was prosecuted 1 for libel. The case
was tried before Mr. Justice Abbott and a special
jury on June 5, 1817. On a second count Wooler
was found innocent of libel, and on the first was granted
a new trial, in which he defended himself so ably
he again came off victorious. On his release he
attacked the special jury system vigorously, and for
many years afterwards took a very active part in
politics. In Cruikshank's caricature of George IV. as
Coriolanus, Wooler (who was really tall of stature)
is depicted as a " black dwarf " by the side of the
gigantic Cobbett.
Wooler's advocacy of his own cause and ultimate
acquittal, in the earlier part of the year, may have
inspired Hone to undertake his own defence and
prompted him in making the elaborate preparations
to answer the charge against him.
His intercourse with Wooler certainly induced him
to review the working of the Government spy system.
The Reformist's Register of June 28, 1817, charges
the Government with fomenting public excitement as
THE ARREST 139
pretext for the subvention of constitutional rights
and liberties. An exposure is made of the treacherous
C'dng of the Government spy system :
I shall relate one or two facts in support of this
ion. Mr. Wooler, who is here in confinement with
me, in a letter which appeared in the Morning
Chronicle, stated that Oliver, the Informer, called on
him shortly after his commitment to this prison, to
induce him to put in bail and go down into the country
in order to further insurrectionary movements, and next,
to obtain him to print bills for the same purpose, in
both which objects he failed.
" From the description Mr. Wooler gives of this
man, I am persuaded he visited me about the same
time. I was confined to my bed from illness, in the
King's Bench, when a person entered my room express-
ing sorrow at my situation. He said he came from
the country, that everything was in a very bad state,
the people greatly distressed, the whole population of
some districts ripe for anything ; that with leaders
and proper encouragement they would inevitably over-
whelm the Government. He strongly recommended
persons who were objects of persecution or likely to
become so, to turn round on the Government at once
and crush it. I told him that however distress might
prevail, there was an increase of knowledge diffused
throughout the country, and I was assured that patience
and right thinking would induce those who felt the
most pressure to attempt constitutional means only,
*r redressing their grievances.
" He replied by urging the necessity of immediate
action, and that it was an opportunity not to be missed,
and he particularly represented that it could do no
harm to encourage the people a little to come to
London in bodies, and show their strength. He asked
me if I had ever been at Birmingham, or other manu-
facturing towns where the workmen were unemployed?
I told him, no. He then inquired if I knew anybody
at Birmingham, or Liverpool or Leeds, as he was going
make a journey, and would be glad to take letters
140 WILLIAM HONE
for me, or visit any of my friends at either place. To
this I observed that he was a stranger to me, that I
could ,not think of troubling him with mere letters of
business, which I was then too ill to write ; that I
never had any secrets or entertained sentiments beyond
those which I had frequently expressed in print, and
I deprecated all attempts to further incite or goad
the people to acts which would endanger the public
safety.
" He attempted with much ingenuity and suavity to
reason down what he called my scruples, and want of
confidence, which he said prevented public men from
uniting to obtain a complete victory over the Govern-
ment. I was then obliged to tell him that he had
mistaken his man, and that he would be no friend to
the people or to me who recommended such measures.
He continued to prolong the conversation a consider-
able time, very dexterously feeling his way, and return-
ing to his points, interlarding his remarks with praise
and flattery ; I at length informed him I was too ill
to talk much, which he met by saying that though I
did not know him, he would soon satisfy me who he
was ; that he knew several of my friends, and would
convince me that when he called again I might trust
him, and said he was going to call on Mr. Wooler in
an adjoining staircase, and inquired if I knew him.
" He further inquired if I was generally alone. I
ended by telling him I had no friends who would act
in the way he described, and that if he called again, I
should have a third person present. He took his
leave with great civility and many professions of regard,
and I saw him no more. As I related before, he fully
answered Mr. Wooler's description of Oliver. I forgot
to mention that he told me he wanted several thousand
political bills printed, which he said I should do. I
wholly declined the offer, or even to look at the MS.,
which he said was not quite finished.
" Previous to my confinement, I had several strangers
call on me, who used violent language, and who I am
well persuaded were emissaries to entrap me. I always
manifested my displeasure to such persons, and desired
THE ARREST 141
them to withdraw. I have received bushels of manu-
script of very dangerous tendency, which I have
destroyed as soon as I received them, sometimes much
to the displeasure of those who afterwards claimed
them.
" One manuscript was of so peculiar a description
that I shall show how it came into my hands, what it
was, and how I disposed of it. It is not my fault that
it is not in the green bag now lying on the Table
of the House. If it is, I hope means have been
taken by the Suspension Committee to discover the
author.
" On Saturday the 22nd of March, about 8 in the
evening, I received a letter by the two -penny post,
signed with initials. It stated the necessity of imme-
diately adopting measures to show the Government
the strength of the people, for which purpose it
requested that I would cause several thousand copies
of a bill, the MS. of which was enclosed, to be printed
immediately as a poster or Placard. I was assured
that I should receive liberal payment, and was directed
to send them off by different conveyances, so that
they might reach every part of the Kingdom on the
same day.
" It mentioned particular towns to which they should
most especially be sent. They were to be forwarded
to every person throughout the country who I might
know, or suppose to be likely to dispose of them as
directed, and where names could not be collected, it
was requested they might be forwarded to Book-
vendors, Blacking, or other agents of small wares, or
persons keeping similar shops in every town. Each of
these persons was to be requested to take charge of
the bills, and post them up before sunrise on a day
named. The Posting Bill was an Address to the
People, acquainting them that the whole nation would
be in arms on the same day, namely, the 7th of April,
by each Parish meeting in its Churchyard on that day,
armed with a rake and a small sword or dagger (most
minute instructions for making which instruments were
given in the bill) and thus armed, every man was
H2 WILLIAM HONE
required to remain at the place of meeting for one
hour, and then return home. Figures of the arms
were very neatly drawn in the MS. and required to be
engraved on wood, to be inserted in the bill.
' This bill and the instructions to myself were cir-
cumstantially drawn up at great length, and copied
in a neat law hand. Conceiving as I still do, that this
communication was a wicked plan to entrap me, I put
the papers in my pocket, and immediately went down
to the Office of the Secretary of State at the Treasury.
No officer of the establishment was in attendance,
but I was informed that Mr. Beckett, the Under
Secretary, lived in Great George Street, where I went,
but finding him at dinner, I retired to Ireson's Hotel
until 10 o'clock, when his servant said he would leave
the dinner-table. At that hour I sent in a signed
note to Mr. Beckett, requesting to see him, and he
received me in the parlour, saying, ' What business
can you have with me,, Mr. Hone? ' I told him I had
just before received a letter by the two -penny post,
enclosing a paper which I considered dangerous to
possess, and desired to put both letter and paper into
his keeping. He read each of them deliberately ; as
soon as he had done so, I departed, no further conver-
sation taking place. Having thus presented the papers
to the Under Secretary of State, which, if found in
my possession might have subjected me to I know
not what suspicion, imprisonment, and punishment, I
was surprised to find that the attempts of this same
instigator were renewed upon other persons.
" On the 1 7th of April, ten days after that, when
according to the before-named bill, the nation was to
have been in arms, Messrs. Hay & Turner, Printers,
of Newcastle Street, Strand, received a bill of like
import, appointing the arming of the nation for Sunday,
the 4th of May. Their bill was much shorter than
mine, and without diagrams or figures. The letter of
Messrs. Hay & Turner differs from that to me, as
it directs them to forward the bills to a Mr. Nicholls,
an Attorney, 29 Bennet St., Stamford St., Blackfriars
Road.
THE ARREST 143
" On receiving the letter and bills, Messrs. Hay
& Turner addressed a note to Mr. Nicholls, designedly
to acquaint him they had an order for bills to be
addressed to him, and requesting the 10 to be
remitted previous to their proceeding to print. Hear-
ing nothing from Mr. Nicholls, they had almost for-
gotten the matter, until nearly a week afterwards,
when it occurred to them that it was perhaps dangerous
to hold such a paper, and they went to Sir N. Conant,
at Bow Street, who recommended such an application
to Mr. Nicholls as they had already made, and sent
them to the Secretary of State's, where they were intro-
duced to Mr. Noble, one of the senior clerks, who
took charge of the papers, and said they should see
Lord Sidmouth. He left them in an ante-chamber.
About ten minutes afterwards a person entered the
room and sat down with Messrs. Hay & Turner, in
silence. This person was presently familiarly beck-
oned into another room, by a servant in waiting, and
was immediately closeted with Lord Sidmouth.
" Messrs. Hay & Turner waited upwards of an hour
for him to come out, and from other engagements were
obliged to leave the office without seeing his Lordship.
To their astonishment, they afterwards discovered this
person to be Mr. Nicholls, the Attorney, to whom they
were to have sent the bills.
" Letters and posting-bills to the like effect were
also received by Mr. Harvey, a Printer of Black-
friars Road ; by Mr. Molineux, a Printer of Bream's
Buildings, Chancery Lane, and by several other
printers. They were to be sent to the same Mr.
Nicholls, whom Messrs. Hay & Turner left closeted
with Lord Sidmouth, His Majesty's principal Secretary
of State for the Home Department.
* There appears to have been a deliberate plan
to ensnare persons connected with the press, because
these papers affected to announce risings on the 7th
of April and on the 4th of May ; whereas the Reports
of the two Houses which notice various intended risings
do not mention either to have been designed to take
place on those days. Is it possible that the employment
144 WILLIAM HONE
of spies and informers, now unblushingly avowed, has
subjected us to such dreadful machinations as these?
Having escaped the insidious and horrible attacks of
concealed assassins, surely in a prison, and under three
Government prosecutions, men might suppose them-
selves secure from further persecution, and yet Oliver's
attempt to entrap Mr. Wooler and, I believe myself,
shows the unrelenting earnestness with which these
wretches prosecute their cruel purposes. Surely we
have a right to supplicate for vengeance.
" WILLIAM HONE."
That Hone's suspicions were not unwarranted appears
from the fact that Edwards, the notorious Fleet Street
spy, took lodgings opposite the shop of Richard Carlile,
professing to be a sculptor, an art for which he had
some talent, in a plot to entrap that daring publisher,
a piece of villainy which happily failed.
That the wretch Oliver was really fomenting sedition
in various parts of the country, as indicated in the
Reformist's Register, and doing so with the knowledge,
if not the connivance, of Lords Sidmouth, Liverpool,
and Castlereagh, is tolerably clear from an exposure
which appeared in the Morning Chronicle of July 12,
1817. The seditious bill sent to the printers to which
allusion has been made affords an interesting com-
mentary on the state of public feeling at that time:-
" BRITONS !
" Petitioning avails you nothing ! The Ministers
say you are disaffected, and that the Meetings to peti-
tion for Reform have been under pretext for treason-
able purposes. You were unarmed, and obeyed the
laws ; yet your liberties are at an end. There is
now only one way left you, and that is, to show them
with arms in your hands, that you can be obedient to
the laws. The whole nation will assemble on Sunday,
the 4th May, at five minutes past nine in the morning,
THE ARREST 145
each parish at its own Church Yard, armed as
follows :
' ARMS.
" Take a stick like a broom handle, nine feet long ;
bore a hole at the top, and fill it with rosin ; take the
blade of a strong dinner knife, heat the shaft of it,
and put it in the hole ; when cool it will be fixed, the
same as in a knife handle, and m'ake an excellent pike ;
the knife must be pointed. Each m'an should have
a belt, and a good sized carving knife therein, as a
sword. Being armed thus, meet as above ; and exactly
as the clock strikes ten, disperse, and go quietly home.
You will be surprised the effect this proceeding will
have ; but should it fail in effect, our countrymen will
hear further from us."
Hone's correspondence at this time also indicates,
like a political barometer, the actual state of public
feeling, the temperature of which would not improbably
affect his position.
Here is a letter from Mr. Robert Ogle (of Ogle,
Duncum and Cockrane, Holborn) to Hone soon after
Is apprehension in May, 1817 :
DEAR HONE,
"' I just called in to hear after your welfare and am
ad to find that Mrs. Hone and you are both in good
spirits. I find on enquiry that we may see you, which I
did not know was permitted. So do not think that I
am one of your sunshine friends, or afraid to visit you,
although there are many timid people about, ready
to take alarm at their own shadows.
" Now for the Parodies there is an Article in the
ible Magazine ' respecting a parody on a Psalm
ich we Christians allow to be applicable only to
rist and to the Church. In this version it is applied
' Old George ' ; was there ever any thing more in
point? I engage to furnish you with the name of the
I'.ter of this Article, who I believe is a clergyman of
Established Church, whom you may subpoena as a
146 WILLIAM HONE
witness, and if you have not a Jury of the most base
hirelings of corruption that ever crawled, you must
be acquitted*
' Things look very bad all over the world slavery
and despotism are triumphant but I doubt not God
will ere long confound their devices in a way we least
think of.
14 I think you should have said a few words in
exculpation of the charge of blasphemy, in your
' Reformist's Register.' The Catechism, Litany, St.
Athanasius Creed, and so on, are not part of Scripture.
A Presbyterian would as soon learn his child an Ave
Maria as the Athanasian Creed. The Catechism was
John Wilkes', I understand, and as for the Litany and
the Creed, they are no part of the Holy Writ, but a
composition of men.
" Yours very truly,
" R. OGLE."
About the same date the following letter came from
Francis Place :
" About a dozen of the Whigs are to dine at the
Crown and Anchor on the 23rd at the Anniversary
of Burdett's Election ; among them Brougham who
has again committed himself in writing. Something
might be said in the ' Register ' in praise of Burdett,
and introductory to his motion on the 2Oth.
" The Dwarf has taken up your defense on the
right point, and so far as he has gone has done it
remarkably well.
" I have just now heard that Brougham intends on
the 20th to speak ' right out ' in favour of Annual
Parliaments, and is determined to go as far as any
one on the 23rd we shall see.
" Let me have all the references you can find to
Parodies on Holy Writ, and on Creeds, &c., for the
purpose of a good row which will be made respecting
them and you in Parliament by Brougham and others.'*
The monotony of prison life was relieved by much
letter -writing. The twopenny post brought him, on
THE ARREST 147
May 26th, a letter from another political friend, Major
Cartwright, founder of the Hampden Club, and author
of " A Plan of Radical Reform," in which the prisoner
is kept well informed of the proceedings of Parliament,
particularly with reference to ex-officio informations.
The case, being one of great political significance,
was brought up in Parliament.
On May 1 2th Earl Grey mentioned in the House
of Lords that a Mr. Hone, a pamphleteer who
recently had so much amused them, was pro-
ceeded against for publishing some blasphemous
parody ; but he had read one of the same nature
written, printed, and published some years ago by other
people without any notice having been officially taken
f it. The parody to which Earl Grey alluded, and
portion of which he recited, was Canning's famous
parody, " Praise Lepaux " ; and he asked whether the
authors, be they in the Cabinet or in any other place,
would also be found out and visited with the penalties
f the law.
This hint to the obscure publisher against whom
iese ex-officio informations had been filed for blas-
phemous and seditious parodies was effectually worked
Jut by him in the solitude of his prison and in the poor
welling where he had surrounded himself, as he had
done from his earliest years, with a collection of old
id curious books.
From these he had gathered an abundance of know-
.edge that was destined to perplex the technical acquire-
ments of the Attorney-General, to whom the sword and
buckler of his precedents would be wholly useless,
and to change the determination of the boldest judge
in the land to convict, at any rate, into, the prostration of
helpless despair. Altogether, the three trials of William
Hone are amongst the most remarkable in our constitu-
I' mal history. They produced more distinct effect upon
e temper of the country than any public proceedings
that time. They taught the Government a lesson
;
ai
we
i
d(
(
J
148 WILLIAM HONE
which has never been forgotten, and to which, as much
as to any other cause, we owe the prodigious improve-
ment as to the law of libel itself, and the use of the
law, in our own day an improvement which leaves
what is dangerous in the Press to be corrected by the
remedial power of the Press itself, and which, instead
of lamenting over the newly acquired ability of the
masses to read seditious and irreligious works, depends
upon the general diffusion of this ability as the surest
corrective of the evils that are incident even to the
best gift of Heaven that of knowledge.
The apt illustration quoted by Lord Grey was a
parody of the " Benedicite," which had appeared in
the Anti-Jacobin in 1798. It was supposed to be
a " brilliant satire," in which Canning had gibbeted
his Republican opponents for their worship of Lepaux
and other French revolutionary demigods :
" All creeping creatures, venomous and low,
Paine, Williams, Godwin, Holcroft, praise Lepaux."
Whether this was satire or profanity, it showed the
difficulty and danger of leaving to a magistrate the
deciding of when or when not to prefer a charge of
blasphemy, as had been required by Lord Sidmouth's
outrageous circular letter to the justices.
The case of Hone is not without its ludicrous aspect.
Here was a poor bookseller who spent his life in the
quest of <rare and curious books, and in the
accumulation of more knowledge than wealth,
challenged to a duel with the Government because
his Parodies had made the Administration the laugh-
ing-stock of the world.
;
cd,
:
IX
THE FIRST TRIAL
IT may not have been altogether a surprise to Hone
to find himself in the position of a prisoner placed
n trial for what was practically sedition. His early,
association with the London Corresponding Society,
from which he undoubtedly absorbed his democratic
principles, may have prepared him for this culmination.
The French Revolution had kindled an ardent love for
political justice in the breasts of thousands of thoughtful
Englishmen.
The London Corresponding Society, in the early days
f the great French upheaval, held great public meet-
ings on the fields near Copenhagen House, Highbury,
at which the Government were alarmed and the Tories
trembled with fear and rage. The most threatening
f these meetings was held on October 26, 1795, when
'helwall and other sympathisers with France and the
cause of liberty addressed a concourse of forty thou-
nd persons, throwing out hints that the mob should
urround Westminster on the 2 9th, when the King
would go to the Houses of Parliament. The hint
as taken, and on that day the King was shot at, but
scaped unhurt.
In 1794 many members of the Corresponding
Society, including Thelwall, Hardy, Holcroft, and
Home Tooke, were tried for high treason in connection
with the doings of the Society, but were all acquitted.
Even so grave a matter as a trial for treason could
150 WILLIAM HONE
not repress Home Tooke's jocularity. As he was
returning from the Old Bailey to Newgate one cold
night a lady placed a silk handkerchief round his
neck, upon which he gaily said, " Take care, madam,
what you are about, for I'm rather ticklish about the
neck just now.*' While the trial was proceeding, Tooke
one day expressed a wish to speak in his own defence,
and sent a message to that effect to Erskine, saying,
"I'll be hanged if I don't," to which Erskine wrote
back, " You'll be hanged if you do." After his acquittal
Tooke remarked to a friend that if a certain song ex-
hibited at the trial of Hardy had been produced against
him, he would have sung it to the jury, that, as there
was no treason in the words, they might judge if there
was any in the music.
William Hone, though so very different from these
men having neither the stern determination of the
author of " Political Justice " nor the levity of his
fellow-admirer of John Wilkes could not have flung
himself into the stream of active politics without some
dim foreboding of what might possibly be in store
for him from a Government that was still fearful and
suspicious of every manifestation of a popular move-
ment towards liberty.
Brought into court again on Thursday, June iQth,
Hone was informed that if he still refused to plead
to the indictment he would be brought up in a few
days to receive judgment. Forced to it, he then
pleaded Not Guilty, and asked for permission to go
to the Crown Office to make copies of the information,
which was peremptorily refused. He thereupon pro-
tested that the proceeding of the Attorney-General was
illegal and unconstitutional. Lord Ellenborough re-
joined, " Well, protest " ; and after being informed
that he would be tried at " Sittings after this Term,"
at Guildhall, he was removed in custody.
On June 27th Hone preferred the request that he
might be liberated from the King's Bench Prison on
THE FIRST TRIAL 151
his own recognisances to any amount, in order to have
the opportunity to provide for the maintenance of his
seven children, concerning whose welfare he was
naturally anxious.
He wrote from his prison to the Crown Office at
the same time to protest against the jurors nominated
to try his issue, challenging the legality of the whole
proceedings. The correspondence certainly discloses
more than a suspicion that the selection of the special
jurors, from the lists furnished by the sheriffs, had
been anything but impartial ; indeed, there was un-
mistakable evidence of a secret intention on the part
of the law officers of the Crown to secure a con-
viction by means of an incompetent or partial jury.
A reply was obtained from the solicitor for the prosecu-
tion waiving the nomination of the special jurors.
That ancient institution, Trial by Jury, was in danger,
for there had been discovered a precious art of making
the jury-lists to carry only certain classes of names,
from whence by the same high art special juries were
selected. When the fierce laws of 1817 enhanced the
dangers of this pernicious system, it had to be fought in
the interests of justice generally, and in the case of
Hone particularly. Mr. Charles Pearson, a city
solicitor, and a friend of Hone, took an active part
in this struggle.
" When I went to the Crown Office," he said, " with
Mr. Hone to strike the Jury, and endeavour to abolish
that system which has sent many persons as innocent
as he to dungeons and death, I found there the ostlers
of the Augean stable, with the hacks of the court in
waiting, and the Jehus of the law ready mounted to
ride over the liberties of the people. They said,
' Gentlemen, there shall be no selection there shall
an indiscriminate taking ; you may proceed to any
part of the stable,' well knowing that the sorry jades
in that stable, almost worn out in the service of cor-
ruption, were ready to give us the long trot the moment
b e C
152 WILLIAM HONE
they were employed. I was fortunate enough to
produce an opposition to that system. I stated my
determination to attack in every way a system detested
by good men in all times, a system reprobated on the
trial of Mr. Home Tooke, a system, the principle of
which those who have been the victims of it never took
on themselves to investigate, because they felt so many
strong prejudices embarked in favour of what appeared
to be a fair jury. We, however, sent their hackneys
back to the stable, and I am happy to say I have now
secured stable and all, I have them in my possession."
When, in November, the court was forced to admit
openly that the " jury-lists had been illegally, im-
properly, and partially prepared," the battle was
virtually won.
It may be mentioned that a year or two later the
Common Council of London instituted an inquiry into
the state of the Jury Lists, and the report disclosed the
existence of an alarming and most discreditable state
of things. Although many citizens were qualified, by
the possession of 100 worth of property, to serve as
special jurors, very few names got upon the lists, and
these lists were left with the Master of the Crown Office
for weeks on purpose to give him the opportunity of
learning the politics of the persons whose names were
on in fact, when the question was put whether the
Crown Office had made the alleged inquiries into the
politics of these jurymen, no direct denial was forth-
coming, the witness resorting to the miserable subter-
fuge that he had " no recollection " of such inquiries
being made, whereupon the Examiner caustically re-
marked that Non mi ricordo was far from being
exclusively Italian. Another journal was equally wrath-
ful on the subject. The Morning Chronicle argued
that the prevailing method of selecting jurors was
absolutely destructive of the purity of trial by jury,
and made it a mockery to talk of the freedom of the
Press under the Blasphemous and Seditious Libel Act,
THE FIRST TRIAL 153
especially in the presence of a body which had just
sprung into existence, calling itself the Constitutional
Association for the Prosecution of Seditious and Blas-
phemous Libels. A libel, said the Chronicle, is any-
thing that twelve jurymen can be induced to call such,
and all depends on the nomination of the jurors.
; ' Who does not know, for instance, that twelve Tory
jurymen would, without a moment's hesitation, pro-
nounce a publication containing Whiggish sentiments
libellous that twelve Whig jurymen would consider
deserving of praise? "
Returning to Hone's case, a series of events of much
personal and political interest during the next few
months are to be gleaned from the pages of the
Reformist's Register.
In the issue of July 5, 1817, Hone writes: "I am
now at home. I was this morning released from prison,
after being confined from May 3rd. The Crown
abandons its Special Juries."
He and his fellow-prisoner, Wooler, had been
enlarged upon their own recognisances.
In the final number of the Reformist's Register
Hone refers to the sad case of Mr. Evans and his son
(a mere youth, but twenty years of age), who had been
f prisoned under the suspension of the Habeas Corpus
t, for nearly three years without trial.
*' When taken before the Privy Council, they were
simply asked whether they knew Mr. Thistlewood and
Dr. Watson? and this accident of personal acquaint-
ance with these individuals has been the only cause
ever hinted for their arrest and continued im-
('sonment."
Mrs. Evans being in great pecuniary distress, Hone
ongly appeals in his columns for friends to come
her assistance. The proprietor-editor concludes :
" I now take a very unwilling leave of my readers.
This is the last Register I shall publish." It appears
154 WILLIAM HONE
he had suffered for some time both from bad health and
from the dishonesty of country agents, who received
large weekly consignments of Registers and other goods
but never, remitted a sixpence to him.
' This is the death -throe of the Register, and with
pain I bid my readers farewell. 67 Old Bailey, 23rd
Oct. 1817,
" WILLIAM HONE."
This journal had only been running from
February ist of that fateful year.
Finally he adds, " I shall now return to my busi-
ness as publisher " having no suspicion that in the
following month he was to receive notice of trial for
the Parodies, which he had suppressed in the February,
almost immediately after their publication.
In Hone's copy of the Reformist's Register is found,
written in some unknown hand :
' This is a very valuable, but painfully interesting
Work, containing much of the Personal History of Mr.
Hone, and the cruel persecution and suffering he under-
went during the period of its Publication.
" If ever England shall have what has never yet
appeared an honest Historian he will here find ample
materials for a narrative of events of 1817, in the bold
and unflinching exposure of Plots and the Spy System,
Special Jury abuses, ex-officio Informations, Police and
Blood Money Villany, Arbitrary Proceedings of Parson
Hay and other Manchester Justices, The Overbearing
insolence of Chief Justice Ellenborough, the bullying
barefaced profligacy of Brougham, the unabashed
mendacity of Castlereagh, et cam muttis aliis"
The day appointed for the trial arrived. Here we
quote Charles Knight
" On the morning of the i8th of December there
is a considerable crowd round the avenues of
THE FIRST TRIAL 155
Guildhall. An obscure bookseller, a man of no
substance in worldly eyes, is to be tried for libel.
He vends his wares in a little shop in the Old
Bailey, where there are, strangely mingled, twopenny
political pamphlets, and old harmless folios that the
poor publisher keeps for his especial reading as he sits
in his dingy back parlour. The door-keepers and
officers of the court scarcely know what is going to
happen ; for the table within the bar has not the usual
covering of crimson bags, but ever and anon a shabby
boy arrives with an armful of books of all ages and
sizes, and the whole table is strewed with dusty and
tattered volumes that the ushers are quite sure have
no law within their mouldy covers.
" A middle-aged man a bland and smiling man
with a half-sad, half-merry twinkle in his eye a seedy
man, to use an expressive word, whose black coat is
wondrous brown and threadbare takes his place at
the table, and begins with the aid of his young brother,
to arrange and turn over the books which were hisi
heralds. Sir Samuel Shepherd, the Attorney-General,
takes his seat, and looks compassionately, as was hia
nature to do, at the pale man in threadbare black." (Sir
William Garrow had resigned the Attorney-Generalship
on May 5th, the day Hone had been first brought up.)
" Mr. Justice Abbott arrives in due time ; a special jury
is sworn ; the pleadings are opened ; and the
Attorney-General states the case against William Hone,
for printing and publishing an impious and profane
libel upon the Catechism, the Lord's Prayer, and the
Ten Commandments, thereby bringing into contempt
the Christian religion. ' It may be said,' argued the
Attorney-General, * that the defendant's object was not
to produce this effect.' I believe that he meant it, in
one sense, as a political squib, but his responsibility
is not the less."
As the Attorney-General proceeded to read passages
from the parody upon the Catechism, the crowd in
court laughed ; the Bench was indignant, and the
Attorney-General said the laugh was the fullest proof
156 WILLIAM HONE
of the baneful effect of the defendant's publication.
And so the trial went on in the smoothest way, and
the case for the prosecution was closed.
Then the pale man in black rose, and with a
faltering voice set forth the difficulty he had in
addressing the court, and how his poverty prevented
his obtaining counsel. And now he began to warm in
the recital of what he thought his wrongs, his commit-
ments, his hurried calls to plead, the expense of copies
of the information against him, and, as Mr. Justice
Abbott, with perfect gentleness, but with his cold
formality, interrupted him, the timid man, who all
thought would have mumbled forth a hasty defence,
grew bolder and bolder, and in a short time had
possession of his audience as if he were " some well-
graced actor," who was there to receive the tribute of
popular admiration.
They were not to inquire whether he were a member
of the Established Church or a Dissenter ; it was
enough that he professed himself to be a Christian ;
and he would be bold to say that he made that pra-
fession with a reverence for the doctrines of
Christianity which could not be exceeded by any
person in that court. He had his books about
him, and it was from them that he must draw his
defence. They had been the solace of his life. He
was too much attached to his books to part with them.
As to parodies, they were as old at least as the invention
of printing, and he never heard of a prosecution for
parody, either religious or any other. There were two
kinds of parodies ; one in which a man might convey
ludicrous or ridiculous ideas relative to some other
subject ; the other, where it was meant to ridicule
the thing parodied. This latter was not the case here,
and therefore he had not brought religion into con-
tempt. This was the gist of William Hone's defence.
To show fully how this argument was worked, with
what readiness, what coolness, what courage, would be
THE FIRST TRIAL 157
to transcribe the whole proceedings of the three days.
It was in vain that the Attorney -General urged that
to bring forward any previous parody was the same
thing as if a person charged with obscenity should
produce obscene volumes in his defence. It was in
vain that Mr. Justice Abbott repeated his wish that
the defendant would not read such things. On he went,
till interruption was held to be in vain. It was worse
than vain, it was unjust. Truly did Hone reply to
Mr. justice Abbott:
" My Lord, your Lordship's observation is in the
very spirit of what Pope Leo the Tenth said to Martin
Luther ' For God's sake, don't say a word about the
indulgences and the monasteries, and I'll give you a
living,' thus precluding him from mentioning the very
thing in dispute. I must go on with these parodies,
or I cannot go on with my defence."
f Undauntedly he went on, from the current literature
the time, such as grave lawyers read in their few
hours of recreation, to the forgotten volumes of old
theology and polemical controversy, that the said
grave lawyers of modern days are accustomed to regard
as useless lumber. The editor of Blackwood's
Magazine was a parodist he parodied a chapter of
Ezekiel ; Martin Luther was a parodist he parodied
the First Psalm ; Bishop Latimer was a parodist, and
so was Dr. Boys, Dean of Canterbury ; the author
of the *' Rolliad " was a parodist, and so was Mr.
Canning. Passage after passage did Mr. Hone read
from author after author. He thought it was pretty
clear that Martin Luther did not mean to ridicule the
Lord's Prayer ; that Mr. Canning did not mean to
ridicule the Scriptures. Why, then, should it be pre-
sumed that he had such an intention?
As soon as he found that his parodies had been
deemed offensive, he had suppressed them, and that
he had done long before his prosecution. It was in
158 WILLIAM HONE
vain that the Attorney-General replied that Martin
Luther was a libeller, and Dr. Boys was a libeller.
The judge charged the jury in vain. William Hone
was acquitted after a quarter of an hour's deliberation.
To the slowest perception it was clear that the Bench
was influenced by a spirit of tyranny, revenge, and
persecution. That parodies intended to advance the
cause of Reform could be interpreted as part of a
great conspiracy against the Throne and Constitution
was more than the plain, honest citizen was prepared
to admit.
Immediately on a declaration of a verdict of Not
Guilty the court rang with acclamations of " Long
live the honest jury ! " and when order was again
restored Mr. Justice Abbott delivered a stern repri-
mand, desiring those who felt called upon to rejoice
at the decision to reserve [their expressions of satis-
faction for a fitter place and opportunity. Accordingly
the crowd surged forth into the streets with their
jubilations.
The trial of the information against William Hone
for a parody on the Litany was ordered by the court
to come on the next morning at half -past nine o'clock.
CLOSE OF THE TRIALS
E announcement having been made by the Attorney -
General at the close of the first day's proceedings that
he intended to persevere in the trial of the second
information against William Hone, public curiosity was
roused to an extraordinary pitch, not only by the
importance of the case, but far more by the trium-
phant defence the accused had made to the first charge
against him.
Consequently, at a very early hour on Friday, Decem-
r i Qth, all the avenues of the court were literally
blocked up by a multitude of spectators, anxious to
become auditors of the proceedings ; and when the
doors of the court were opened, not one -twentieth
part of the multitude could find standing
accommodation .
It was very generally supposed that Hone having
been acquitted on one of the informations, the Attorney-
General would not proceed against him on either of
the others. It appeared, however, that any such
supposition was unwarranted, and at a quarter after
nine the accused entered the court, followed by several
large bundles of books, all carefully tied up. He
took his station at the end of the court table, and
having untied his books, he ranged them before him,
ering nearly a fourth of the table.
At twenty minutes before ten Lord Ellenborough
tered the court and took his seat on the bench.
159
160 WILLIAM HONE
His lordship's appearance was unexpected, it being
generally supposed that Mr. Justice Abbott, who was
afterwards Lord Tenterden, having conducted the first
trial, would have presided at any subsequent proceed-
ings in the cause.
Mr. Justice Abbott, on his way home after the first
trial, called on Lord Ellenborough, who expressed his
surprise that the whole day had been occupied by the
one trial of Hone. " Well I and the verdict? " asked
his lordship.
" An acquittal ! " was the reply.
" An acquittal 1 " angrily exclaimed the judge.
" Why 1 how did you charge? "
" How did I charge? Constitutionally, my lord ! "
" I'll go to him myself to-morrow."
Can there be any doub!t that political passion was
influencing the judgment-seat? The severity of the
Lord Chief Justice to the reforming Member for West-
minster, Lord Cochrane, must not be forgotten.
When the morrow arrived, notwithstanding that it
was a foggy morning, the Lord Chief Justice, enfeebled
with illness as he was, doggedly rose from' his bed
and of set purpose proceeded to the Guildhall, to prosti-
tute his great talents as a partisan. He had been
deeply mortified by the acquittal of a man named
Watson for high treason ; ,he was now resolved that
the political libeller should not escape punishment.
He swore, says Lord Campbell, that at whatever cost
he would himself preside in court that day, that a
conviction might be made certain and the law
vindicated.
With lowering brow Lord Ellenborough took his
place in the judgment-seat which he deemed had been
too mercifully filled on the previous day. The mild
firmness of the poor publisher, and his gentlemanly
sense of the absence of harshness in the conduct
of his first trial, had won for him something like
respect ; and when on one occasion Mr. Justice Abbott
CLOSE OF THE TRIALS 161
asked him to forbear reading a particular parody, and
the defendant said, " Your lordship and I understand
each other, and we have gone on so good-humouredly
hitherto that I will not break in upon our harmony,"
it became clear that the puisne judge was not the
man to enforce a verdict of guilty on the second trial.
Hone was this day indicted for publishing an im-
pious and profane libel called *' The Litany, or General
Supplication."
Again the Attorney- General affirmed that whatever
might be the object of the defendant the publication
had the effect of scoffing at the public service of the
Church. Again the defendant essayed to read from
his books, which course he contended was essentially
necessary for his defence. Then began a contest which
is perhaps unparalleled in an English court of justice.
Upon Mr. Fox's Libel Bill, upon ex-afficio informa-
tions, upon his right to copies of the indictment without
extravagant charges the defendant battled with his judge
imperfect in his law, no doubt, but with a firmness
and moderation that rode over every attempt to put
him down. Parody after parody was again produced,
and especially those parodies of the Litany which the
Cavaliers employed so frequently as vehicles of satire
upon the Roundheads and Puritans. Hour after hour
his argument never failed ; the defendant never faltered
to the end, though his relevancy was often in doubt-
one man against all the power of a Government, and
his poor knowledge of the law opposed to that of a
14 legal lion."
The Lord Chief Justice at length gathered up his
exhausted strength for his charge, and concluded in a
strain that left but little hope for the defendant.
' He would deliver the jury his solemn opinion,
as he was required by Act of Parliament to do ; and
under the authority of that Act, and still more in
obedience to his conscience and his God, he pronounced
11
162 WILLIAM HONE
this to be a most impious and profane libel. Believing
and hoping that they, the jury, were Christians, he
had not any doubt that they would be of the same
opinion."
The jury in an hour and a half returned a verdict
of Not Guilty.
It might have been expected that these prosecutions
would have here ended. But the chance of a convic-
tion from a third jury upon a third indictment was
to be risked. On December '2Oth Lord Ellenborough
again took his seat on the bench, and the exhausted
defendant came late into court, pale and agitated.
The Attorney-General remarked upon his appear-
ance, and offered to postpone the proceedings. The
courageous man made his election to go on. This
third indictment was for publishing a parody on the
Creed of St. Athanasius, called " The Sinecurist's
Creed." After the Attorney-General had finished his
address Hone asked for five minutes' delay to
arrange the few thoughts he had been committing to
paper. The judge refused the small concession, but
said that he would postpone the proceedings to another
day if the defendant would request the court to do
so. The scene which ensued was thoroughly dramatic.
" No ! I make no such request. My lord, I am
very glad to see your lordship to-day, because I feel
I sustained an injury from your lordship yesterday
an injury which I did not expect to sustain. . . .
" If your lordship should think proper, on this trial
to-day, to deliver your opinion, I hope that opinion
will be coolly and dispassionately expressed by your
lordship. . . . My lord, I think it necessary to make
a stand here. I cannot say what your lordship may
consider to be necessary interruption ; but your lord-
ship interrupted me a great many times yesterday, and
then said you would interrupt me no more, and yet
your lordship did interrupt me afterwards ten times
CLOSE OF THE TRIALS 163
much. . . . Gentlemen, it is you who are trying
me to-day. His lordship is no judge of me. You are
my judges, and you only are my judges. His lordship
sits there to receive your verdict. ... I will not say
what his lordship did yesterday ; but I trust his lord-
ship to-day will give his opinion coolly and dispassion-
ately, without using either expression or gesture which
Kn be construed as conveying an entreaty to the
ry to think as he does. I hope the jury will not be
seeched into a verdict of guilty."
When Hone began to repeat his speech of the two
>revious days and to allude to the parodies published
by others he was interrupted by the judge, who said :
I think it necessary thus early to apprise you,
that if you wish to show that as a sample of publica-
tions of the like tendency which have been written, or
for the purpose of proving that the sacred Scriptures
have been ridiculed and brought into contempt by other
subjects of the realm as well as yourself, I shall not
:eive it. The commission of crimes, by how many
>ever persons they may have been committed, does
)t qualify the guilt of the individual committer. It
my decided purpose not to receive this in evidence :
id therefore you may use your discretion, whether you
ill dwell further upon a matter of evidence which I
jclare, judicially, to be inadmissible."
It was solemnly laid down in this case that " the
ristian religion was part of the law of England."
The plea of poverty which the defendant made must
ave had a powerful effect upon his hearers. He
humbly apologised for the shabby clothes in which he
was compelled to appear before them, but what little
money he had recently possessed had been swallowed
up by the law ; within the last twelve months his
children had been without beds to lie upon ; he could
not in the imminent peril in which he stood employ
Iunsel for his defence because he could not fee
unsel ; he had been asked when he would publish
164 WILLIAM HONE
his " Trials," but he could not pay a reporter, and
at that moment he had no reporter in court. In subdued
tones he proceeded :
" Seven or eight years ago I went into business with
a friend in the Strand. I had then a wife and four
children, and I was separated from them by evils accu-
mulated from endeavouring to help those who could
not help themselves. I attempted, in conjunction with
the friend, who originated the plan, to establish some-
thing of an institution similar to the savings' banks
that are now so general. There was a number
associated for this purpose, and I was their secretary.
Our object was to get the patronage of ministers to
our scheme. Mr. Fox was then in power. It was the
Whig Administration. We hoped to throw a grain
into the earth which might become a great tree in
other hands it has succeeded. It was very Quixotic
we were mad ; mad because we supposed it possible,
if an intention were good, that it would therefore be
carried into effect. We were not immediately dis-
couraged, but we met with that trifling and delaying
of hope which makes the heart sick. I find I am
entering into too much detail. I meant simply to state
that I lost everything, even the furniture of my house.
With that friend I got again into business. We became
bankrupts, owing to the terms on which we commenced
it. But, on the meeting of our creditors, the first
question was, ' Where is your certificate? ' All signed
it at once, save one, who was unintentionally the cause
of my failure two and a half years ago, when I went
into prison for debt, and was discharged by the
Insolvent Act."
And so, while arguing the justice of his cause, he
won the sympathy of his auditors.
On the case for the Crown being closed, after this
surprisingly able, novel, and animated defence on the
part of the defendant, the noble judge, who had
appeared oppressed with indisposition during the latter
part of the trial, delivered his charge to the jury,
CLOSE OF THE TRIALS 165
but in so faint a tone that it was scarcely audible
beyond the bench. The Chief Justice was un-
mistakably ill.
The triumph of the weak over the powerful was
complete. " The frame of adamant and soul of fire,"
as the biographer of Lord Sidmouth terms the Chief
Justice,, quailed before the indomitable courage of a
man who was roused into energies which would seem
only to belong to the master-spirits that have swayed
the world. Yet this was a man who, in the ordinary
business of life, was incapable of enterprise and per-
severing exertion ; who lived in the nooks and corners
of his antiquarianism ; who was one that even his old
political opponents came to regard as a gentle and
innocuous hunter after " all such reading as was never
read " ; who in a few years gave up his politics
altogether, and, devoting himself to his old poetry and
his old divinity, passed a quarter of a century after
ds conflict in peace with all mankind, and died the
ib -editor of a religious journal.
It was towards the close of this remarkable trial that
ie judge, who came eager to condemn, sued for pity
his intended victim. The defendant quoted War-
irton and Tillotson as doubters of the authenticity of
ie Athanasian Creed. " Even his lordship's father,
ie Bishop of Carlisle," he believed, " took a similar
r iew of the Creed." And then the judge solemnly
tid : ' Whatever that opinion was, he has gone, many
irs ago, where he has had 1 to account for his belief
id his opinions. . . . For common delicacy forbear."
Oh ! my lord, I shall certainly forbear." Grave
id temperate was the charge to the jury this day,
ind in twenty minutes they once more returned a
;rdict of Not Guilty.
There had been huzzaing in court several times during
ie altercations between the defendant and his oppo-
tents ; the verdict evoked round upon round of cheers,
id the excitement soon spread to the streets.
166 WILLIAM HONE
The Liberal, or Opposition, journals were jubilant
in recording the final verdict, and popular feeling ran
very high. It was estimated that twenty thousand
people had been present, partly in the hall and partly
in the crowded avenues.
The law officers of the Crown had strangely mis-
calculated the talent, the erudition, and the unflinching
courage of the man they had resolved to crush ; the
man who now fearlessly confronted his judges and
dared to argue with " the proud Colossus who in past
years by his memorable defence of Warren Hastings
had poised his powerful eloquence against the lofty
appeals of Burke, the impassioned oratory of Sheridan,
and the sublime rhythms of Fox.'* For Edward Law,
now the ermined Baron Ellenborough, was the
triumphant advocate in the historic trial of the
ex-Governor of India, Warren Hastings.
Lord Campbell has an anecdote of the Chief Justice
which indicates the struggle he made against any
display of his deep mortification at the issue of this
prosecution :
" Bishop Turner, who was present at the trial, and
accompanied the Chief Justice home in his carriage,
related that all the way he laughed at the tumultuous
mob who followed him, remarking, ' that he was afraid
of their saliva, not of their bite ' ; and that passing
Charing Cross he pulled the check-string, and said,
' It just occurs to me that they sell the best red
herrings at this shop of any in London ; buy six.' '
Lord Campbell adds :
" The popular opinion, however, was that Lord Ellen -
borough was killed by Hone's trial, and he certainly
never held up his head in public after."
There is a more conclusive evidence of his feelings
than popular opinion. On Sunday, December 2ist,
CLOSE OF THE TRIALS 167
the day after this last trial, Lord Ellenborough wrote
thus to Lord Sidmouth :
" The disgraceful events which have occurred at
Guildhall within the last three or four days have led
me, both on account of the public and myself, to con-
sider very seriously my own sufficiency, particularly in
point of bodily health and strength, to discharge the
official duties of my station in the manner in which, at
the present critical moment, it is peculiarly necessary
they should be discharged. ... I wish to carry my
meditated purpose of resignation into effect as soon
as the convenience of Government, in regard to the
due selection and appointment of my successor, may
allow."
After an illness of considerable duration Lord Ellen-
borough resigned all his judicial employments, and in
about three weeks after ceased to exist. His lord-
E" lip's death occurred on Sunday, December 13, 1818,
the seventieth year of his age, and a little less than
year after the Hone trials.
Hone defended himself partly because he could not
Ford to pay counsel and partly (he said) because he
Doubted the courage of any one else to stand up against
ord Ellenborough, while confident in his own deter-
ination not to be browbeaten by that cynically open
artisan ornament of the justice-seat. As a matter of
act, a Mr. Williams, a banker, of Birchin Lane, had
ffered to employ counsel for Hone's defence if he so
esired. As to the employment of his brother the
arrister, he felt the delicacy of the religious differences
hich divided them.
When the defendant submitted himself to the court
or advice his lordship curtly replied : * The court
as too much to do to become the advisers of all
rsons who conceive themselves aggrieved. ... It
is really not our business to give such advice." He
herefore had to struggle on, making good his lack of
168 WILLIAM HONE
legal knowledge by drawing upon his vast stores of
general reading.
Hone always, and not without good reason, main-
tained that his politics were the cause of his persecu-
tion, while irreverence to religion was merely the pre-
text. The juries manifestly accepted this view of the
case ; and considering him the victim of a political
prosecution, undertaken, perhaps, for the ridicule he
had so often heaped upon the Government of the day,
acquitted him of any intention to bring religion into
contempt for that was the charge brought against him
by the prosecution.
On the three days he spoke, alone and unsupported,
six, seven, and eight hours respectively, and it is esti-
mated that he was heard on those occasions by an
aggregate of nearly twenty thousand persons, the best
feelings of whose hearts would have been naturally
outraged by profane parodies, arid yet who rejoiced
in the success of his appeal to an English jury's sense
of justice. At the conclusion of the trials the multitude
broke forth into cries of " Long live an honest jury I
An honest jury for ever ! " It was a notable achieve-
ment to have fought single-handed in defence of two
great constitutional rights, the Liberty of the Press
and Trial by Jury.
The most noticeable result of the trials upon the
man himself was that while his political principles
underwent no change, and he remained to the end
of his days a Radical reformer, he was utterly
ashamed of ever having been charged with an offence
against religion, and showed his remorse, perhaps some-
times too ostentatiously, in all his after-life.
His own account of this, the chief event of his life,
written later, emphasises the point of his religious
attitude at that time :
"On the morning of the i8th of Dec. 1817,
the first of three remarkable days that will never be
CLOSE OF THE TRIALS 169
blotted from my calendar, I rushed from my wife and
children in bitter agony, leaving them sorrowing, and
hopeless of seeing me repass the threshold of their
home a home no more to them, if I could not defeat
the powers then gathering themselves in Guildhall for
my destruction. At that moment, or at any time before,
I was in no custody, and no one was under recog-
nisances that I should appear ; but the charges were
untrue, and I loved truth too well to fly from falsehood.
The advocates against me were able and eloquent, and
the judgment -seat was occupied by talent and experi-
ence. The archers shot at me, but I climbed beyond
their reach. I stood upon truth as a rock of sure
defence, and from that vantage ground I refused to
be forced or enticed.
' Early in my first day's defence, I referred to the
numerous pieces I had published, the greater part
written by myself ; and addressing the Attorney-
General, assured him that if in any one of these pieces
he could lay his finger on a single sentence of a pro-
fane or irreligious nature, or tending to degrade or
iring religion into contempt, I would refrain from
:tering another word in defence. . . . Impressed by
ie most solemn feelings, ' You will not,' I observed
the Jury, * hear me say one word that I do not utter
un my heart and from perfect conviction. It is of
:tle consequence whether I am a member of the
Established Church, or dissent from it ; it is enough
,t I am a Christian, and I make the declaration with
reverence for Christianity not to be exceeded by
.y person in this Court.
' In my third day's defence, referring to the extreme
;pression under which I had laboured at the com-
Lencernent, from illness and debility, produced by the
two former days' exertions, and long previous anxiety,
I could not forbear from thus expressing astonishment
at the resuscitation of my faculties. ' If Providence
ever interfered for the protection of the weak and the
defenceless, that interference is most surely manifest
in my case. It has interposed to protect me, a destitute
id helpless man, from the rage and malice of my
170 WILLIAM HONE
enemies. I can attribute my defence to no other
agency, for I am weak and incapable, and at this
moment I am a wonder to myself.' "
Hone's trials must be regarded as a landmark in
the history of the public Press, taking their place with
such historic struggles for the freedom of political
comment as the affair of John Wilkes and his North
Briton (1762), the prosecution of the printers of the
"Letters of Junius " (1767), the trials of John and
Leigh Hunt for their comparatively mild articles in the
Examiner on the " very susceptible " Prince Regent
(1812), and the nearer episode of Cobbett's heavy fine
and imprisonment for a very ordinary piece of political
criticism. All of these were but successive episodes
in the same struggle for freedom which the public
Press of this country has been compelled to wage in the
past against parliamentary privilege and the law of libel.
Up till the time of James I. there was no news-
paper. Such a publication made a first appearance
in the days of the Star Chamber, when its conductor
risked the chances of dungeons and torture. Subse-
quently an Act was passed to the effect that only twenty
persons should be associated with a newspaper, and
that no newspaper should be published except in
London, at York, or the two Universities. In the days
of Queen Anne a daily paper was published, but no
political discussions were allowed in its pages and those
were the glorious days of such writers as Addison,
Steele, Swift, and Bolingbroke. In the reigns of
George I. and II. the newspaper contributors were
men of the calibre of Pope, Goldsmith, Johnson, Sterne,
Gray, and Fielding, whose writings sparkled with wit
and satire or the polished gems of English literature ;
and yet not one word of political criticism appeared
till the famous " Letters of Junius " challenged the
authority of the censor, and took up that defiant atti-
tude which the House of Commons called " the
CLOSE OF THE TRIALS 171
scandalous licentiousness of the Press." The pillory,
the prison, and the imposition of ruinous fines did their
deadly work for a time, but failed in the end, as
they were bound to fail, to repress the Englishman's
inherent love of liberty and the ultimate liberty of
the Press was brought well within sight at Hone's
ial, when Lord Ellenborough quailed before the storm
>f public opinion.
The proceedings of the Government in the libel
latters of 1817 were signal failures. A few miserable
iwkers were held to bail, or sent to prison under
,ord Sidmouth's Circular ; some ex-officio informa-
ions were filed, with only one conviction that of a
>rinter in the country, who republished one of Hone's
>arodies, and was tried before Hone himself was tried,
to the three acquittals we have described, it is
perfectly evident that three juries, consisting of
jspectable London merchants, would have assuredly
mvicted the defendant, had they not felt that the real
:ing of the alleged profaneness was the severity of
political satire. Although the indictment stated
iat these parodies were seditious as well as profane,
ie sedition was studiously kept in the background,
'ad they not been really prosecuted for their political
>ctrines, their unquestionable indecency and impro-
iety must have carried a verdict against them on
ie first trial. The second and third trials looked like
:rsecution, and public opinion threw its shield over
ie offender. There was a feeling, moreover, that
>litical passions were influencing the judgment-seat,
'he severity of the Lord Chief Justice to the reforming
[ember for Westminster, Lord Cochrane, was not
forgotten.
Hone promptly announced a full and exhaustive
:count of the proceedings against him, and in January,
8 1 8, appeared :-
' The Three Trials of William Hone for publish-
ig Three Parodies, viz. ' The late John Wilkes's Cate-
172 WILLIAM HONE
chism/ ' The Political Litany/ and ' The Sinecurist's
Creed/ on * Three Ex-Officio Informations/ at Guild-
hall, London, during Three Successive Days, December
1 8th, 1 9th, and 2Oth, 1817, before Three Special Juries
and Justice Abbott, on the First Day, and Lord Chief
Justice Ellenborough, on the last two days."
Although the price was four shillings, there was
evidently a good sale for the work. In more recent
years a new edition has been issued by William Tegg &
Co., with Introduction and Notes by William Tegg
(1876).
A dispassionate perusal of the work will leave no
doubt in the reader's mind that the prosecutions were
a grievous mistake, and that Hone's triumph really
lay in his tact in conducting his defence as an appeal
from the Law to Public Opinion.
A number of satirical cartoons belong to Hone's
earlier years, published while he was in the first full
stride of his political propaganda. The exuberance
of his satire was not subdued by his trials, as is
evidenced by the issue of :
" Great Gobble, Gobble, Gobble, and Twit, Twittle,
Twit ; or Law versus common sense Being a
Twitting Report of successive attacks on a Tom
Tit, his stout defences and final victory. A new
song with original music by Lay Logic, Esq."
The coloured illustration by George Cruikshank on
the front page depicts a farmyard scene. On the
rail of the fence sits Little Tom Tit (William Hone)
twittering, " Let me remind you, gentlemen, of your
own vile nonsense, Twit twittle twit, twit, twittle, twit " ;
while the Geese cackle "O law ! O law! shocking,
horrible. This twitting is most blasphemous, nay
worse, illogical cackle cackle, cackle " ; and the
Turkey-cock (Lord Ellenborough) ejaculates, " This is
not to be borne ! What I are we to be twitted to our
CLOSE OF THE TRIALS
173
faces, and must I stay here for ever, the object of
profane diversion? Fellow ! I charge thee! no more.
Gobble, gobble, gobble ! " Mr. Justice Abbott, in the
guise of an Owl, flies off, with the remark, " This
light is too glaring for learned eyes, I shan't stay here
be made a butt of."
A coloured print by George Cruikshank was published
S. W. Fores (" 50, Piccadilly, 10/1/18"):-
' William the Conqueror, or The Game Cock of
Guildhall,"
^presenting William Hone having fought and con-
iered the prostrate figures of the " Game Cocks,"
>ir Samuel Shepherd and Mr. Justice Abbott. William
Hone has his foot planted upon " Trial by Jury."
A monochrome print is
" Out witted at last or, Big Wig in the Wrong
Box."
This represents the Scale of Justice, with Hone and
'rial by Jury, surmounted by Liberty of the Press,
weighing down the Scale against Law, Rule of Court,
id the Attorney-General.
The best of this series is the one entitled
; ' Law versus Humanity, or a Parody on British
Liberty. And the Recording Angel lets fall a tear. Sterne."
This represents Hone on the first day's trial, in
;reat physical suffering, asking, " Pray, may I be
[lowed to sit ? " Mr. Justice Abbott roars out such
surprisingly elongated " No-o-o-o-o-o-o-o," that it
:tends right across the court, and the Recording Angel
rops a tear, while Hone's supporters cry, " O Loh ! "
XI
AFTER THE TRIALS
CONGRATULATIONS poured in from all sorts of people
and from all quarters. From his brother, Joseph,
barrister-at-law, Gray's Inn, came an affectionate
epistle :
" DEAR WILLIAM, I have already, through your
family, expressed the singularly high gratification I ex-
perienced on your recent triumph.
" I rejoice the more that it should have been the
result of the most firm and manly, but, above all,
respectful appeals to a British Jury, that I ever heard
or read of it is in your recollection my telling you
last Sunday sennight, that, in my judgment, such a line
of conduct would blunt the weapons of your adversaries,
if not wrest them from their hands.
" Had the first verdict been followed by an abandon-
ment of proceedings on the two last Informations, great
as the victory would have been on your part, some
degree of praise would have been due to those at whose
instance they were filed ; but the subsequent measures
were unworthy and disgraceful in the extreme, and
obviously founded in the most persecuting spirit that
could possibly have been evinced.
" It appears to me that Lord Ellenborough has placed
himself in a situation somewhat novel, but not particu-
larly enviable. He states upon his oath that your
Publications were Libels, but the People of England,
through their constitutional organ (the jury) also upon
their oaths say that the Publications were not libellous.
174
AFTER THE TRIALS 175
The Lord Chief Justice of England is therefore at
ue with all Englishmen.
" You have, however, done more for your own
personal character by your letter in the papers of
ednesday, than you can possibly conceive it dis-
s all who would yet contend with you on the score
an impious and blasphemous intention.
" .With great pleasure I hear of the intended Meeting
at the London Tavern May God Almighty incline a
host of friends to rally round you for your pecuniary
protection. I trust it may be the means of re-instating
you in business, and of extricating you from every
difficulty. My best wishes, now and for ever,
I" Believe me, dear William,
" Most affectionately yours,
"J. HONE."
The relationship between the two brothers is not easy
r the plain man to understand. The " affectionate "
Joseph, though a qualified barrister, does not come
forward to undertake the defence of his brother William
the hour of his direst need, even after the latter has
oclaimed to all the world his inability to pay for
professional assistance in an uneven encounter with
e disciplined legions of the law. Joseph Hone, like
father, was shocked at the freethinking propensities
of William having said which, the matter may be
smissed with this observation what a cheap way
expressing religious zeal can always be found in
prosecutions for " blasphemy 'M William, on the other
nd, always dealt very tenderly with Joseph. In a letter
his friend Scott (other extracts from which are given
on pp. 280 and 323) he pleads : " As to my brother,
poor fellow, you will oblige me by refraining from
stricture upon him. He is gone out to Van Dieman's
Land as Master General in the Law Courts there.
e parted as brothers should, and my most affectionate
ards go with him."
The attitude of his father weighed very heavily with
r*'
?
176 WILLIAM HONE
the offender. Mr. Howard, in his not unbiased
pamphlet, writes:
" I think it due to his memory to record a circum-
stance in connection with his Trials which does credit
to his filial feelings, and also places the character of
his father before us as a man of stern principle. Hone
used to relate that when his father became acquainted
with what had happened, he came to him and said,
' William, what have you done? ' Seeing his father's
grief, Hone promised faithfully to suppress all further
issue of the Parodies. To this promise he adhered,
although a very tempting offer was made to him by a
bookseller, whilst under confinement, which would have
put him in possession of money, of which he was sorely
in need."
From Dr. William Lawrence, who continued a lasting
friend, came this:-
" COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS,
" 22nd. Deer. 1817.
" I learn from the Times Newspaper of this day
that it is proposed to call a meeting for the purpose
of evincing in a more substantial form that public
sympathy and approbation which your persecution and
your noble resistance to it have already called forth.
That you may not in the mean time suffer from that
poverty and distress, in which I have this day for the
first time learned that you are involved, I beg your
acceptance of the inclosed ; which I present also as a
tribute of my admiration of your talents, your inde-
pendent mind and undaunted spirit, and of gratitude
for my share of that public benefit which must flow
from so signal and successful an exertion in the
cause of liberty.
" With unfeigned respect, believe me to be,
" Your sincere well-wisher,
" WILLIAM LAWRENCE."
Dr. Lawrence was the author of a work entitled
" Lectures on Man," which contained such materialistic
AFTER THE TRIALS 177
passages as caused him to be regarded for a time as
a member of a free-thought party.
The Hones were honoured at this juncture with a
last visit from Sir Philip Francis on December 23,
1817. The conversation was miscellaneous, and
proved highly interesting, for care was taken that he
should both lead and select the subjects. They talked
of the news of the day. He was astonished at the
times in which he lived ; Mr. Hone had displayed great
talents in his defence ; had beaten both judge and
counsel ; three different trials for three different counts
of the same libel. ; this was intolerable. There was
a general diffusion of knowledge ; everybody wrote,
and wrote well now-a-days ; he had read Wooler's
productions ; Cobbett was able, but hurt his cause
by his violence. And so rippled on the pleasant
converse of the incomparable Junius.
The courage, learning, and mental vigour displayed
by Hone in his three speeches in his own defence
excited much public sympathy for him. A public
meeting was held at the London Tavern, Decem-
ber 29th, for the promotion of a subscription for the
purpose of showing some practical sympathy with the
victim of a spiteful prosecution, in an appropriate
and a substantial manner. It was with the aid of
money thus raised that he was enabled to remove
from the Old Bailey to a large shop at 45, Ludgate
Hill, where he started on another period of pub-
lishing.
*Fhe prime mover in this effort was a city friend of
ne for Hone was " a citizen of credit and renown,"
n that he had always taken his share in the work
local self-government the well-known Alderman
Waithman.
Robert Waithman was a draper, his first shop
standing on the site of the obelisk erected to his
memory at Ludgate Circus. He was a bustling
politician who had made his first speech in 1792 at
12
178 WILLIAM HONE
Founders' Hall, Lothbury, nicknamed '* The Cauldron
of Sedition " ; on which occasion he and his fellow-
orators put to flight the constables sent by the Lord
Mayor to disperse the meeting. Four years later he
was elected to the Common Council for the Ward of
Farringdon Without; he became Sheriff, and in 1823
was Lord Mayor. He was for some years one of the
most prominent Radicals in London, a staunch friend of
William Hone, and much hated by Cobbett, who ill-
naturedly says of him that he was " illiterate and eaten
up of self-conceit." No one who follows his history,
however, can deny that in the cause of political reform
he evinced considerable talent, and displayed a vast
amount of energy.
A public meeting of the " Friends of Liberty of the
Press and Trial by Jury " was held at the City of
London Tavern, Monday, December 29, 1817, Mr.
Robert Waithrnan in the chair. A full report of this
meeting occupied nearly a whole page in the following
day's Times. Among the resolutions passed were
these : 5
" That a hypocritical prostitution of Religion, and
a pretended zeal for its defence when used by corrupt
Statesmen as a mask for political persecution, must
ever be held by all sincere Christians as the worst
profanation of its sacred name."
" That the extensive knowledge, the varied talents,
the manly intrepidity, the energy of mind, and the
unshaken perseverance, which enabled Mr. William
Hone so dauntlessly to resist the reiterated assaults
of Ministerial persecution, entitle him to the grati-
tude and support of every friend of constitutional
freedom."
" That a subscription be now opened, and that the
money which may be subscribed be placed in the hands
of a Committee, to be used in such way as shall appear
to them best calculated to promote the permanent
welfare of Mr. Hone and his family."
AFTER THE TRIALS 179
Mr. Waithman became treasurer to the fund, and Sir
Francis Burdett was thanked for his spontaneous offer
of co-operation.
The proprietors of several " independent " country
newspapers opened " Books for Subscriptions " at their
respective offices, and the movement went along briskly
in many directions.
With all this burning zeal for right and justice,
for constitutional liberty, and the integrity of British
statesmanship, it is sad to relate that of the 3,000
raised, 1,000 was swallowed up in expenses, another
1,000 was stolen, and only a poor remnant of 1,000
r er reached Hone's hands.
The first published subscription list was a lengthy
one, at the top appearing the names of the Duke of
Bedford for 105, the Earl of Darlington 105, the
Earl of Sefton 105, Lord Cochrane 100, " a Member
of the House of Lords " 100, the Marquis of
Tavistock 50, and other members of the aristocracy
for varying amounts. The names of that incorrigible
scandal-monger, Thomas Creevy, and many other
notable personages of the time, are to be found in the
list.
One of the jurymen contributed, and many of his
id friends, like Sir Francis Burdett. There were
donations from Manchester, Henley-in-Arden, Broad-
way, Cambridge, Sheffield, Stamford, Darlington,
Scotland, and other distant places ; from Americans
and Mussulmans ; from Reformers, friends, and
admirers under no end of adopted names to express
their admiration of the man and his achievement, and
their detestation of his persecutors ; Samuel Parr, D.D.,
and a whole host of clergymen and other ministers
of religion who, while disapproving the Parodies,
entirely acquitted William Hone of intentional profanity.
i Letters in support appeared in the papers from a
number of influential and prominent personages ; sym-
pathetic references were made in the great London
180 WILLIAM HONE
papers, the Dublin Freeman, and various provincial
journals ; meetings or committees actively promoted the
cause in Liverpool, Lewes, Norwich, and other large
towns. The movement to recognise Hone's efforts and
achievements was national.
From Leeds, and the ** Friends of Freedom " in other
distant centres of population, came congratulations,
together with numerous orders for copies of ' The
Trials " which Hone with his customary business
alertness had already announced. One correspondent
compares William Hone to Gilbert Wakefield (who had
lain two years in Dorchester jail for a " seditious "
answer to Bishop Watson) as being an equally
deserving recipient of a national subscription.
Mrs. Burn has left a note on the subject of the public
subscription :
" It is difficult to realise that out of the handsome
sum of 3,000, not more than a third part was
secured for his use.
" Newspapers were, at that time, heavily taxed, and
advertisements charged high. The subscription was
extensively advertised, and the Principals of a leading
Journal very kindly suggested to my father that his
committee should discontinue the advertisements, other-
wise the whole sum would be absorbed ; expenses
already incurred having amounted, according to their
computation, to at least 900.
" About ten years later, strolling one evening in the
neighbourhood of Belvedere Place (my father having
on his grey studio coat) we came upon a man, stand-
ing behind an open fence, about twenty yards from
us. * You see that man? ' said my father ; ' his name
is ; he robbed me of a thousand pounds he
acted as a collector or secretary to the Subscription
Fund in 1818, and instead of paying the moneys into
the hands of Alderman Waithman, the Treasurer, he
went off to America with a thousand pounds which
should have come to me. I could not allow Alderman
Waithman, who was much harassed with other matters,
AFTER THE TRIALS 181
to be troubled by making the affair public. The fellow
has come back and is now a prisoner in " The Rules."
I have learned all about him, and have several times
met him in the street, but he cannot look at me.' My
father's reticent nature would probably never have
revealed this circumstance but for the chance meeting
with this man."
The great diminution in the capital relied upon to
set him up in business at 45, Ludgate Hill, was the
beginning of a series of embarrassments which even-
tually resulted in his failure, arrest, and loss of all
pecuniary interest in " The Every-Day Book," ;< Table
Book," &c.
The trials naturally aroused a vast amount of interest
in the country, which found expression in the Press,
and even in Parliament.
In the House of Commons one honourable Member
(Mr. W. Smith) moved for " An account of the sums
received at the Crown Office for the several Informa-
tions filed by his Majesty's Attorney-General against
William Hone, together with a statement of the
authority upon which the same were demanded and
the purposes to which the same were applied." The
motion was too awkward for the Government, and the
Attorney-General opposed it. Of course it was lost,
but not till it had raised an animated discussion, and
served the useful purpose of ventilating a grievance.
In the Press some of the comments were " severe,"
and not a few were " lively." In the course of a bold
and outspoken article, attacking Mr. Wilberforce for
his aristocratic leanings, which a month or so afterwards
appeared in the columns of the Scotsman, occurred
t* is passage :-
" We are morally certain that scarcely anything
)uld induce him to take Mr. Hone by the hand ; but
r. Canning, who wrote a parody on the I43rd Psalm,
182 WILLIAM HONE
is his Right Honourable friend, and esteemed fellow-
labourer in the cause of anti-jacobinism."
And if this article truthfully reflects the spirit of
the times, then it becomes painfully apparent that the
time had not yet arrived when the plain, honest trades-
man might presume to hold, and to express, an opinion
of his own on all that concerns Church and State and
the government of the country.
As to those who held opposite views, Hone relates
that travelling outside a coach in 1 8 1 8, the conversa-
tion turned on politics, when one gentleman uttered
some sharp remarks on *' that fellow Hone." Another
said, " I expect you would not be surprised to meet
him furnished with hoofs and a tail." " Well, I do
not think I should," was the rejoinder. The other
passengers joined in a laugh ; the remainder of the
journey passed in cheerful conversation, and on parting,
the first-named gentleman, presenting his card, ex-
pressed a wish to " improve an acquaintance." " Per-
haps you may be less desirous when you know
the dangerous company you are in," said William Hone,
as he gave his card in exchange. The other, astonished,
stammered out his surprise and an apology, expressing
regret at having so unjustly prejudged a highly
informed and entertaining gentleman and one, it must
be added, with whom he afterwards long continued
on terms of friendship.
This anecdote of a Satanic resemblance is the
favourite story in the Hone apocrypha.
A month or so after the trial came a note of con-
gratulation from a member of the Childs family, of
Bungay, in Suffolk. Messrs. Childs were a large firm
of printers there, and seem previously to have been
unknown to Hone. But they were all ardent Radicals,
and appear to have been so struck with the gallant
fight which Hone had made in defence of the liberties
of the Press, that they made friends with him, and
AFTER THE TRIALS
183
El staunch and true to him from this period to
of his life. Here is the letter which began
an acquaintanceship that ripened into a lifelong
riendship :
" qth. Feb. 1818.
To MR. HONE.
" I beg to offer you my gratulations on the glorious
dctory you achieved over ministerial hypocrisy, and
idicial tyranny May you long live to enjoy the laurels
nobly won ; and that you may receive a liberal
support from the people whose rights you so bravely
supported is the sincere wish
" Of your obedient servant,
"R. CHILDS."
As surely as the festive season of Christmas came
mnd, so surely did the annual present of a turkey
:om John Childs of Bungay make its appearance
it Hone's house. The usual courtesies of correspond-
ice were observed every year, but it is not necessary
quote all the letters which passed on such occasions,
"he motive which inspired the annual observance of
ie compliment is thus expressed in a letter which
:ompanied one of the many presents :-
" Believe me, it affords me the highest gratification
recur to those days when you stood before the
dckedest tribunal that ever existed in this country,
ind were saved by the common sense of a few plain
ten.
" The remembrance of that day ought to be kept
'esh in the memory of both old and young. My
>ung ones shall not forget it if I can help it, for on
y Christmas Day, I give them the history of your
>rosecutions, and give the toast, ' Mr. Hone and his
iry ' which I and my eight sons drink with all the
loise we can make."
184 WILLIAM HONE
Charles Phillips wrote to Hone, from Ireland (the
postage on the letter was 43.) on July 4, 1818:-
" I assure you, my dear Sir, you only do me justice
in supposing that I participate most sincerely in the
triumph which all liberal men must feel at the success
of such a man as Waithman. Thank God, the
Ministry are likely to feel in the next Parliament, the
just consequences of their profligate corruption in the
last. . . .
" I saved the life of Mr. Grattan yesterday during
his chairing he was most ferociously attacked by the
people, whom he has certainly treated very cavalierly
of late brickbats, clubs, and stones and every kind
of missile were not spared. He took refuge in a house
after having had his chair torn to shivers, and his eye
almost knocked out, but I hope he will not lose it. The
mob waited in thousands outside the house, when luckily
I happened to catch their attention, and by some
flattery and the remembrance of old times, I persuaded
them to leave his life. What a thing is popularity ! A
few years ago, if a man but breathed on Grattan, he
would be torn to pieces."
The latter incident relates to Grattan 's re-election for
Dublin without opposition the attack was made upon
him as he was leaving the hustings. The " triumph "
mentioned was Waithman's election, after several
previous defeats, as one of the Members for the City of
London.
Early in 1818 appeared Hone's full and complete
account of his " Three Trials," in the Preface to which
he announced his intention conducting his bookselling
business " on a more respectable footing than hitherto "
to prepare an enlarged Report in a more permanent
form, and one more acceptable to the library. For this
hurried production was in three parts (corresponding
with the three separate trials), each issued at a shilling ;
or, bound up with the Proceedings at the Public
Meeting, to sell at four shillings. There was a great
A MEMENTO PUBLISHED BY J. HEAD, OF 141, FETTER LANE (FEB. 6, l8l8).
To face p. 185.
AFTER THE TRIALS 185
demand, and Hone at one time proposed to embody
the result of his extensive studies in the history of
parody in this volume of his Trials ; but the idea
was given up for various reasons, among which were
the desire to get the Trials out quickly, and more
particularly the remonstrance of the Rev. Dr. Parr and
others against the re-publication of any parodies other
than those to which he had referred in his defence.
He therefore next proposed to publish his " History of
Parody" as a later volume ; between 1820 and 1824
it was advertised to appear at the price of two
guineas, but the proposal at last went into limbo.
Concerning Hone's prompt publication of an authori-
tative account of his trials it is curious to note in the
Scotsman a few months later, " in answer to numerous
inquirers," that " a second supply of the ' Three
Trials ' was shipped last week on board a London
smack and is hourly expected " in Edinburgh.
In a small way quite a literature of the Hone Trials
grew up. John Fairburn, of 2, Broadway, Ludgate
Hill, in January, 1818, issued "The Discontented
Hypocrites, a Scene from a Dramatic Entertainment
lately performed with Great Applause in London."
The dramatis persance were Lord Sadmouth, Lord
Hellborough, Old Bags, Derrydown Triangle, George
Cunning, &c. Here is a sample of its quality :-
" George Canning:
Well, Hone's acquittal is poor Christmas fare !
Sadly this chap has hauled me over the coals.
*****
By our good luck we were, alas, forsaken ;
But needs I must declare, this crafty Hone
We ought entirely to have left alone."
Later, the same publisher got out a parody on
Hone's " House that Jack Built," which was headed
186 WILLIAM HONE
by a woodcut of William Hone and underneath
was :
" This is the Man who published the Parodies
Thrice he routed all his foes
And thrice he slew the slain."
Popularity is all very well for those who court it,
who have a love for all the movement and excitement
of public life, and who, above all, have the physical
robustness to carry it through. But soon after his
trials Hone became a physical wreck, and was found ere
the year was out, not only broken in health and spirit
but once more impoverished. The disheartening story
of a year's ineffectual endeavour may be learnt from
a letter to his newly-made friend :
"45 LUDGATE HILL
" 8/7*. Jan. 1819.
" MY DEAR SIR, On the 2ist. of last month,
or so soon after as conveniently could be con-
veyed, I received from you what, in London,
we call ' an Alderman in chains ' this was re-
served for our Christmas Day dinner, when we,
that is my wife, and our seven young ones, played
our many parts and drank your health, and carolled
away till our eighth little one crowed herself so hoarse
that we were obliged to adjourn our mirth. It was not
forgotten that the day of the date of your note was the
anniversary of the day after the Trials, which Ministers
and their myrmidons designed should send me to keep
Christmas in the custody of the Marshal of the Marshal-
sea of our sovereign Lord the King. It was not for-
gotten, either, that this attempt brought me acquainted
with some of the best of my countrymen, who, with
stout English hearts in their bodies, are unsubduable
by all the powers of despotism ; nor was it forgotten
that, to a contempt for tyranny and a proud hate of it,
Britain is indebted for all her liberties, and I for my
Christmas dinner.
AFTER THE TRIALS 187
" My dear Sir, my wife and I thank you heartily for
ur kindness ; it was my duty to have done so before
ut (now for a civil lie) procrastination is the thief
of time, and I put off, and put off, even unto this day,
when, finding my conscience troublesome, that is, the
burden of the reproach greater than I could bear, I
mustered courage to say ' thank ye ' with my pen my
art and mind having done so as often as I thought
you.
" I have been, and am, ill dying, but not dea'd.
lood at the head, apoplectic affection cupping bleed-
g blistering lowering a fortnight at Bath, &c.
xation at home and habitual melancholy which
creases upon me ; all these are indications of that
re and certain event which happeneth unto all, and
hich may happen to me in an instant. I am, in fact,
a very bad way the Trials have given me a physical
shake which has compelled me to abandon what I
tered upon with alacrity and spirit, the sales by
uction of Libraries &c. for which I had made
pensive and extensive arrangements and had neg-
lected my other business to further. I have, therefore,
w to begin the world afresh nearly.
From my bad health the Prospectus of the Trials
been delayed of course the Trials themselves are
t much forwarded. When the prospectus is ready
will send you some down, knowing they will be where
they will be used. Wishing you and yours health and
fppiness
" I am, My dear Sir,
11 Yours faithfully,
" W, HONE.
" To MR. CHILDS,
11 Bungay."
:
JS
exi
188 WILLIAM HONE
previously had laid him in a dangerous condition on
a sick-bed, " under the routine of blistering, cupping,
and lowering," as a result of which his nervous system
was demanding complete repose. He added paren-
thetically that he was relinquishing one department
of his business, which was found to " agitate and
harry " his spirits too much.
At the same time Hone protests his never-failing
attachment to the principles of public liberty, and his
great desire to be present at the banquet. And although
he was not in the habit of attending public dinners, we
find his name on the committee of the Friends of
Parliamentary Reform, who arranged a similar cele-
bration in honour of " Purity of Trial by Jury the
Palladium of British Liberty," in November, 1821,
which was the twenty-seventh anniversary of the
acquittals of Thomas Hardy, John Home Tooke, and
John Thelwall.
XII
THE CRUIKSHANK CONNECTION
was in 1 8 1 8, when William Hone commenced the
issue of his " Facetiae," that the relationship between
iim and George Cruikshank was placed on a business
>oting. There was a tradition in the Hone family
lat the acquaintanceship between the two had begun as
ir back as 1811 ; that the elder man had befriended
ie younger, then nineteen, on the death of his father,
isaac Cruikshank, who was also a caricaturist. The
tore probable date is 1815.
Cruikshank etched several caricatures on the result
of the trial as well as a series of reduced copies of some
igravings by Gillray, which Hone intended to publish
a work justifying his Parodies.
Hone's first acquaintance with George Cruikshank is
LUS described by Mrs. Burn:
" I think our father's
irtist was his wanting
inc
CO
first acquaintance with the
was ms wanting a plate re -touched (either
apoleon or Byron), and Cruikshank was recommended
a young artist with a light purse by (I think) Mr.
eely of Sherwood's house. He had been finishing
etchings for them of some plates his father had left
complete. Then he sketched Meg Merrilies, and Kean
Bertram, and afterwards the caricature ' Mat de
cocagne ' (the greasy pole). Our father took great
interest in the young, and almost self-taught artist, and
encouraged him to the exercise of a talent in which he
189
190 WILLIAM HONE
was unrivalled. Caricature was one of the fashions of
the time, and most were by a Jew named Marks, (I
think), the coarse features delineated always betraying
an Israelitish origin. Fores was the chief publisher.
In time George Cruikshank eclipsed all others in that
line. It was not acknowledged, I believe, but it is
certain that my father first actually employed and
brought him into notice. Beyond that, both our mother
and father sought to draw him from the loose com-
panionship he indulged in, by keeping him at home in
the evenings, and often to sleep he was the only one
our mother ever had a bed made up for. In all the
work he executed for William Hone, our father himself
was a ruling spirit, conveying the motif of the design,
by description in words, for George Cruikshank to
carry out with his pencil."
To what intimacy the connection afterwards grew
is evidenced by this letter :
Air. Hone to Mrs. Cruikshank.
" LUDGATE HILL,
" 8ta. July 1822.
" Whatever of kindness I entertain, and I entertain
much, for your son George, has been from admiration
of his talents and respect for his honourable disposition.
For everything that could diminish either of those
qualities, I have expressed to him not only deep regret,
but remonstrated with him more severely than any
one but a sincere friend, feeling deeply for his best
interests and real welfare, would venture to do. If he
has, as you say, left your house for three years, you
must be better acquainted with the reason for his seek-
ing a home elsewhere, than I am."
During the long intimacy with the Hone family,
many of George Cruikshank's drawings were inspired
or suggested by William Hone, and his artist son,
Alfred, sometimes by means of rough sketches, but
THE CRUIKSHANK CONNECTION 191
oftener the ideas were conveyed by verbal description.
Hone's vein of pungent criticism is to be traced in
much of Cruikshank's work as a political caricaturist,
and perhaps sometimes as a delineator of social life
and manners, in which he was akin to Hogarth.
Cruikshank considered that the " great event of his
artistic life" was the Bank Restriction Note, 1820,
designed by him, at Hone's suggestion.
In 1819 Hone wrote his well-known "Political
House that Jack Built," which soon ran through fifty-
four editions. Numerous imitations were published,
among them " The Dorchester Guide, or a House that
Jack Built," the " Royalist's House," the " Financial
House," and many others. It is generally conceded
that the extraordinary popularity of the " Political
House " was largely owing to the forcible woodcuts of
Cruikshank, who adorned in the same style Hone's
other squibs on the Regent and the various poli-
ticians whom he lampooned. Without the pictures the
iting would have missed much of its piquancy, for it
as the artist who gave the necessary point to the
author.
On the occasion of the illuminations, November 1 1
15, 1820, "to celebrate the victory obtained by
3 Press for the liberties of the people, which had
en assailed in the person of the queen," it was
uikshank who painted for Hone's shop-front a
transparency, engraved in the " Political Showman."
tici
wa
:
" Hone " (says W. Hamilton, a biographer of
ruikshank) " has been accused of meanness towards
the artist, yet he probably paid him more than others
ould have done, and being engaged in a very
ngerous business, he took all responsibility on him-
If. No slight risk, for it must be remembered that
e Government frequently prosecuted him for various
blications, and Hone was never at any time a rich
an. Hone was at least a man of his word ; he paid
ruikshank what he agreed to pay, for he well knew
192 WILLIAM HONE
how true was the advice that an opposing critic
tendered him :
" Make much of that droll dog, and feed him fat ;
Your gains would fall off sadly in amount,
Should he once think your letterpress too flat,
And take to writing on his own account,
Your libels then would sell about as quick, sir,
" As bare quack labels would without th' elixir."
If the employer was a poor man, the artist was wild
and careless. " He does just what is suggested or
thrown in his way," wrote Professor Wilson (in
Blackwood') in 1823. His biographer says he always
" made money enough for his pleasures, even when
drawing wood blocks for Hone at ten shillings and
sixpence each. He could execute two or three in the
course of a day." On a later page the same authority
says: "According to a reviewer of 'Three Courses
and a Dessert/ in Fraser (June, 1830), the whole
sum received by Cruikshank from Hone was 18. But
this was not so."
Nor was it. A memorandum in Hone's handwriting
contains a list of the blocks drawn by George Cruik-
shank for the " Facetiae" ; there were seventy-eight of
them, and the price paid was 60:
For " The House that Jack Built " ... 13 drawings.
"Man in the Moon" ... ... 15
" Queen's Matrimonial Ladder " 20
" Non mi ricordo " ... ... 3
" Political Showman " ... ... 24
" Right Divine " 2
" Form of Prayer "... i
There are also preserved three accommodation bills,
bearing in big, bold characters that dashing signature
of George Cruikshank, which even in the tiny reductions
at the foot of his pictures never fails to strike the eye
L c
THE CRUIKSHANK CONNECTION 193
bills for varying amounts and a total of forty-seven
pounds, all accepted by William Hone between the
years 1821 and 1824, the period in which the latter
was publishing his " Facetiae." For the twelve illustra-
tions he supplied for the " Every-Day Book " Hone
paid him 36.
The political cartoons, says Blanchard Jerrold', haunt
the imagination. Then he adds: "To Cruikshank
they were productive of nothing but the fame of their
cleverness and the odium of their politics." With
the imprimatur of the audacious Hone and the biting
illustrations of George Cruikshank, there can be little
doubt they did irretrievable damage to the Ministry.
It is worth quoting this biographer of the artist
at length :
" Very early in his career," says Jerrold, " George
Cruikshank came into contact with Hone. Of this
connection, Dr. R. Shelton Mackenzie has given an
account which is stamped with the authority of the
artist, since, in ' The Artist and the Author ' he cites
the doctor as armed with information given by himself.
"In the year 1819, while Cruikshank was a mere
youth, Mr. William Hone observed his peculiar ability,
and determined to exercise it. He illustrated * The
Political House that Jack Built ' in January, 1819, at
the age of 19^ years.
I" At that time the political condition of this country
was about as unpleasant and unsatisfactory as it could
be. The people clamoured for reform, which the
Government steadily and sturdily resisted. Then came
the struggle between Right and Might ; and by means
of what was called ' the strong arm of the law,' the
right was baffled for a time, albeit not beaten. To
add strength to ' the strong arm ' in question, the
Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, and six Acts were
passed.
" These were the enactments avowedly framed to
nvent the expression of public opinion, whether at
194 WILLIAM HONE
public meetings or by the medium of the press. The
anti-press ordinances of July, 1830, which were the
means of hurling the Bourbons from the throne of
France, were scarcely more tyrannical than the Gag-
ging Acts in question. They drove Cobbett to America.
We believe that they were especially levelled against
him and his plain-speaking Register. ... At this crisis
the late Mr. William Hone, who felt warmly in politics
and had a particular antipathy to Castlereagh, Canning,
Sidmouth, and Wellington, determined to try what
might be done by bringing the Fine Arts against the
Ministry. At that time Canning was chiefly known as
a flashy, clever speech-maker. . . . Castlereagh . . .
was the most unpopular man in the kingdom. . . .
Lord Sidmouth, to whom Canning had given the
sobriquet of ' The Doctor * (from his father, Dr.
Addington) was peculiarly hated, as Home Secretary.
. . . The Duke . . . was disliked at that time. . . .
The four thus named were the principal members of
Lord Liverpool's Cabinet. The Premier himself was
a nobody. . . ."
The London Journal of November 20, 1847, is also
worth quoting :-
" At such a crisis, and against such a Ministry,
William Hone had the boldness to enter the lists. He
commenced the publication of cheap pamphlets, in which
the literature was below par, and the main reliance
was upon the telling points of the woodcuts. The first
was ' The Political House that Jack Built,' with
thirteen cuts, after designs by George Cruikshank. . . .
This was a parody upon the old nursery rhyme. It
took amazingly. Upwards of 100,000 copies were sold.
. . . Every one laughed at what Hone had issued, and
though it did the Ministry a thousand times the actual
damage which even Cobbett's Register could have done,
they could not prosecute it. The Attorney-General
would have been laughed out of Court had he attempted
anything of the kind. The light weapons of ridicule
went through the armour which a heavier weapon could
THE CRUIKSHANK CONNECTION 195
not enter. All the world laughed ; Canning, Castle-
reagh and Company enjoying the joke, no doubt, as
well as the rest of the people."
The warm and intimate friendship between Hone and
Cruikshank, which had begun about 1815, lasted without
interruption till 1827,; and the unfortunate estrange-
ment which then sprang up between them cannot be
attributed to the fault of either of the principals, but
to the evil machinations of one who in the words of
a private letter so wormed himself into the confidence
of his employer, William Hone, that he even dared, by
his insinuating plausibility, to produce a rupture within
the family circle. This man^ whose name was Percy,
as confidential business adviser, had assumed the entire
control of Hone's money affairs, keeping his employer
in the dark as to the actual state of his obligations,,
and for a long time successfully postponing the day
of reckoning by the usual expedient of accommodation
bills. It was in one of these wretched transactions
t iCruikshank became involved, and the matter
rminated, not only in the ruin of Hone's credit, but
the destruction of the twelve years* friendship
tween him and the artist.
Hone was always lacking in common prudence in
nancial matters, and in this matter appears to have
en very much imposed upon by this manager, who
up such extravagant bills for advertising, that what-
er profit accrued from the work was more than
allowed up by the expenses.
' That man," writes Mrs. Burn, " sat daily at our
ble for years, took his six pounds every Saturday,
,nd when he had cleared out all the ready cash, left
my father starving at his work on the * Every -Day
Book ' within the Rules of the King's Bench Prison,
extricably involved in debt."
B<
The breach with Cruikshank was a source of the
deepest regret to Hone, and had the two parties been
196 WILLIAM HONE
brought together the briefest of explanations would
have sufficed to heal it. But they never met again till
the close of Hone's life, when Cruikshank came in
response to his old friend's wish, and was so affected
by the interview he declared to the mutual friend who
accompanied him that never again would he have a
lifelong difference with any man.
In a subsequently published work called " Aspersions
Answered," Hone appends a note in which he makes
this allusion to the publishing period during which
Cruikshank was associated with him :
' The pieces I brought out, with which the public
are best acquainted, were the products of my own pen.
Be their merits or demerits what they may, one real
service has resulted from them. By showing what
engraving on wood could effect in a popular way, and
exciting a taste for art in the more humble ranks of
life, they created a new era in the history of publication.
They are the parents of the present cheap literature,
which extends to a sale of at least four hundred
thousand copies every week, and gives large and con-
stant employment to talent in that particular branch of
engraving which I selected as the best adapted to
enforce, and give circulation to, my own thoughts.
" Besides this, I have the high satisfaction of know-
ing that my little pieces acquainted every rank of
society, in the most remote corner of the British
dominions, with the powers of Mr. George Cruikshank,
whose genius had been wasted on mere caricature till
it embodied my ideas and feelings. . . . Robert Burns
had not more kindly feelings when he wrote ' Auld lang
syne,' than I have towards my friend George Cruik-
shank. ' We twa hae paidl't,' and though as regards
me, his occupation's gone, our mutual esteem is
undiminished.
" The Parodies formerly published by me, I may,
perhaps, be allowed to repeat, I always considered as
mere political squibs, and nothing else. It is now two
years and a half since I commenced to publish, in the
THE CRUIKSHANK CONNECTION 197
course of which time I have issued upwards of one
hundred and thirty pieces, chiefly of my own produc-
tion. Not a week has elapsed during that period,
without my having compiled or written something ; but
whether it were prose or verse,
' Grave to gay, or lively to severe,'
I console myself with the reflection that, amidst all I
have put on paper, there is
11 ' Not one immoral, one indecent thought,
One line which, dying, I would wish to blot ! ' "
XIII
A BANK RESTRICTION NOTE
ANOTHER publication of Hone's in 1819 had made
a considerable stir, and that on account of its piquancy,
its appositeness, and direct bearing upon a burning
question of the day. Its inception was a sudden in-
spiration, as in the case of " The Political House that
Jack Built. "
As a piece of wit and invention the thing was
rather poor, and the appeal somewhat shallow ; but it
was not inapt, and as an appeal to the popular imagina-
tion it went home at once.
Hone had announced the publication of full and
accurate reports of the trials of no less than twenty-two
innocent persons who, during the last century, had been
executed, the victims of circumstantial evidence. But
it was just as easy in those days to comrnit a capital
offence as to get hanged undeservedly, one particular
form of felony through which many arrived at the
gallows being the forging or uttering of the banknotes
then so largely in circulation. On December 16, 1818,
three men, convicted on September I2th, were hanged
at the Old Bailey for this offence.
With such fatal facility could banknotes be imitated,
there were presented at the Bank of England in
1816 as many as 17,885 forged pieces of paper
money.
Sir Samuel Romilly was at the height of his crusade
198
me
ha<
A BANK RESTRICTION NOTE 199
gainst the death penalty for small offences ; and
though his Bill to effect this passed the Commons, it
was thrown out by the Lords on May 22, 1816. It was
then a capital offence to steal privately in a shop to the
lue of five shillings. In 1785 ninety-seven persons
ad been executed for the offence in London alone.
The capital sentence was often evaded by juries com-
mitting a pious fraud, and finding the stolen property
Rless value than the statutory five shillings. At the
ry moment Romilly's Bill was thrown out, there was
child of ten years of age lying in Newgate under
ntence of death for this offence against the sacred-
ness of property.
But here we are concerned more directly with the
crime of forging banknotes, the problem being would
the number of offences increase if the death penalty
were removed? Or would it be wiser to legislate for
the removal of the temptation which led to its perpetra-
tion upon so large a scale?
The circulation of i notes unquestionably led to
much forgery and to a melancholy waste of human
life. These small-value notes were rough and even
rude in their execution, and counterfeits were circu-
lated with as much ease as they were produced. The
perpetration of this class of offence had increased out
of all proportion to every other class of crime ; and
if any man in London was cognisant of this fact, it was
William Hone, whose residence was within view of the
Id Bailey.
It was this execution, with its peculiar attendant
rcumstances, which put into Hone's head the idea of
vising and issuing his famous Bank Restriction Note,
aving made his rough sketch, he sent for George
ruikshank, who immediately made an elaborated copy
f the design, and etched the plates.
The " Bank Note " was published January 26, 1819,
d the announcement of it advertised in the Times
200 WILLIAM HONE
" Books published this Day.
' BANK RESTRICTION NOTE, PRINTED ON BANK-
POST PAPER.
" Price is.
" An Engraved specimen of a Bank Note, not to be
imitated ; submitted to the consideration of the Bank
Directors, and the inspection of the Public ; with the
Bank Restriction Barometer, or scale of effects on
Society of the Bank Note System, and Payments in
Gold.
" By Abraham Franklin, Published by William Stone,
"Ludgate Hill."
The typographical error in Hone's name in this
advertisement (which ran to February 8th) was
corrected the second day. The " Note " and the
" Barometer " were sold together, and Hone prosecuted
one street-hawker who was found selling the " Notes "
without the " Barometer," when an investigation re-
sulted in the discovery that a great number of the
" Notes " had been purloined from the printing-office
by the errand-boy employed there.
This note, in external appearance, bore some resem-
blance to the ordinary Bank of England note, being a
copper-plate engraving, and printed on what is termed
Bank-post paper, but on minute inspection is found
to differ very materially. The greater part of the
face of the note exhibits the figure of a gallows, from
which are suspended several male and female figures,
with caps over their faces, the usual appendage to
such a situation ; over this gallows appears in letters
as a substitute for the number, " No. ad lib." The
part where the word expressive of the value of the note
is placed exhibits the black wall of a prison, through
which are seen several human countenances ; to this
is prefixed a rope, the various circumvolutions of which
form the letter " L." The promissory part of the note
is to the following effect :
" I Promise to Perform, during the issue of Bank
RESTRICTION NOTE
Specimen of a Bank Note not to be imitated
Submitted to thf Consideration oftficBaakDiredvrs and the. inspection, o^
To face p. 200.
A BANK RESTRICTION NOTE 201
Notes easily imitated, and until the Resumption of
Cash Payments, or the Abolition of the Punishment
of Death, for the Gov r . and Compa. of the Bank of
England, J. Ketch."
One wag, looking at a specimen in Hone's window,
observed that this ingenious note was " a wonderful
execution."
The Bank of England suspended payments in cash
in 1797, and by 1817 the bank paper in circulation
amounted to twenty-nine and a half million pounds,
while the amount of bullion in the bank at that time
represented but a fraction of that amount in 1819
it had only three and a half millions in gold. Peel's
Act (1819) provided for the gradual resumption of
cash payments to begin in 1823 as a matter of fact
the Bank exchanged its notes for gold, on demand, in
1821 and the withdrawal of all notes under 5.
Immediately on the publication of Hone's satire
the Examiner had said : " This banknote is by Mr.
Hone, and ought to make the hearts of the Bank
Directors ache at the sight."
In later years arose a dispute between the representa-
es of William Hone on the one hand and of George
ikshank on the other, as to whom the credit of
esigning the caricature note really belongs. James
Routledge years ago failed to trace the design to its
actual origin, but says that at least one newspaper of
the year 1819 (the Examiner} attributes the draw-
ing to Hone. The disputants on either side gave very
circumstantial accounts of how the idea was conceived.
Let us take the evidence of one of the principals first.
e following letter, dated from 263, Hampstead Road,
December 12, 1875, and headed "How I put a stop
to Hanging," is addressed by George Cruikshank to the
editor of Whitaker's Journal :
"DEAR WHITAKER, About the year 1817 or 1818
there were one pound Bank of England notes in circu-
202 WILLIAM HONE
lation, and unfortunately, there were forged one pound
bank notes in circulation also ; and the punishment
for passing these forged notes was in some cases
transportation for life, and in others death.
" At that time I resided in Dorset Street, Salisbury
Square, Fleet Street, and had occasion to go early one
morning to a house near the Bank of England, and in
returning home between 8 and 9 o'clock down Ludgate
Hill, and seeing a number of persons looking up the
Old Bailey, I looked that way myself, and saw several
human beings hanging on the gibbet opposite Newgate
prison, and to my horror, two of these were women,
and, upon enquiring what these women had been hung
for, was informed that it was for passing forged one
pound notes. The fact that a poor woman could be
put to death for such a minor offence had a great effect
upon me, and I at that moment determined, if possible,
to put a stop to this shocking destruction of life, for
merely obtaining a few shillings by fraud ; and well
knowing the habits of the low class of society in London,
I felt quite sure that in very many cases the rascals who
forged the notes induced these poor ignorant women to
go into the gin-shops to ' get something to drink,' and
thus pass the notes and hand them the change.
" My residence was a short distance from Ludgate
Hill, and after witnessing this tragic scene I went home,
and in ten minutes designed and made a sketch of this
' Bank note not to be imitated.' About half an hour
after this was done, William Hone came into my room
and saw the sketch lying upon my table ; he was
much struck with it, and said, ' What are you going
to do with this, George? ' * To publish it,' I replied.
Then he said, * Will you let me have it? ' To his
request I consented, made an etching of it, and it was
published. Mr. Hone then resided on Ludgate Hill,
not many yards from the spot where I had seen the
people hanging on the gibbet, and when it appeared in
his shop windows it created a great sensation, and the
people gathered round his house in such numbers that
the Lord Mayor had to send the City police (of that
day) to disperse the crowd. The Bank Directors held
A BANK RESTRICTION NOTE 203
a meeting immediately upon the subject, and after that
they issued no more one pound notes, and so there
was no more hanging for passing forged one pound
notes ; not only that, but ultimately no hanging, even
for forgery. After this Sir Robert Peel got a Bill
passed in Parliament for the ' Resumption of cash
payments.' After this he revised the penal code, and
after that there was not any more hanging or punish-
ment of death for minor offences."
In a letter Mrs. Burn writes:
" I remember George Cruikshank did engrave a
second plate for the note. Of the night work I know
not, nor of the 700 cleared. How could George
Cruikshank know, what I believe our father knew
not? the copies sold were many, but who knows how
many? Do any of the family? Who worked the
plate? I recollect the street being cleared, but as
several popular squibs were out at the time, each may
share the notability, and I rather think the Matrimonial
Ladder was the other chief attraction at that time. But
the blockade of people in front of the house was usual
on the appearance of every new pamphlet."
Mrs. Burn in one of her family epistles writes on
the subject of this controverted origin :
" I was much surprised to hear that George had
claimed it. I remember distinctly the heads within
the bars, as sketched by our father, and also the
rope."
With regard to the circumstance of a second plate
having to be engraved, a circumstance on which some
stress is laid, it may be explained that at that period
the only material used for etching was copper, a metal
so soft that after 2,000 or 3,000 impressions had been
taken from it, the plate was quite worn out. Hence,
when the demand for the engravings was large enough
204 WILLIAM HONE
to exhaust the first impressions, a second plate was
necessary for the production of a second edition.
Alfred Hone wrote a letter, dated March 18, 1878,
to the Athenceum, claiming the credit of the design for
his father, and giving a number of interesting details
concerning the production of the work.
In the Daily Telegraph of May 2, 1878, appeared
the following advertisement:
" MRS. CRUIKSHANK will feel obliged if the printer
in whose hands the undermentioned steel plates are
lodged will forward them to her address, 263 Hamp-
stead Road, ' The Fairy Library ' (Cinderella, Jack
and Bean-stalk, and Puss in Boots), ' The One-Pound
Note ' ; ' The Children's Lottery Picture.' '
Immediately upon seeing the advertisement Alfred
Hone addressed this letter to Mrs. Cruikshank :
" MADAM, Early intimacy with Mr. Cruikshank, and
the associations arising out of it, have caused us always
to entertain great respect for him, and it is with much
regret I feel it incumbent on me to write you on a
subject which has from time to time given us much
pain.
" An Advertisement in the Daily Telegraph, to which
my attention has been directed, requests that certain
Steel plates may be furnished to you, among them that
of the One-Pound Note, from which we infer it is your
intention to re -produce what we know to have been
an error of Mr. Cruikshank's memory concerning the
note, in the forthcoming memoir of him.
" Our mother was especially hurt by the claim Mr.
Cruikshank made in 1862 to the Design as his own ;
whereas the Design originated with, and was made by,
my father, who, having been long grieved by the
frequent executions for forgery and the uttering of
forged bank notes consequent on the circulation of
cheap paper currency, had resolved to attack the law
A BANK RESTRICTION NOTE 205
authorising it, when opportunity served for him to do
so with any prospect of success."
An echo of this controversy appeared in the Cape
Argus during 1892, a member of the Hone family
then residing in that colony.
XIV
INDUSTRY WITHOUT BUSINESS METHODS
FROM this time forward the career of our subject is
more or less affected by the state of his health, which
remained precarious to the end of his days. But not-
withstanding enfeebled health, he toils on from year
to year, always finding an incentive to unremitting
labour in the growing requirements of his large family.
His activities at this period are chiefly in the direction
of political pamphleteering.
Energetic and full of activity as he was, Hone never
enjoyed robust health, as may be gathered from the
MS. memoranda of Mrs. Burn.
Besides the severe nervous debility that often unfitted
him for mental exertion, he used to have frequent
attacks of illness, and in his early years was subject to
quinsy. About 1809 he had rheumatic fever, which
settled in his right hand, and for a long time he wrote
with the left. Quinsy again troubled him several times,
in 1814 occurring the most severe attack. Then Dr.
Cribb (who was the last medical man to wear a pig-
tail in London) told him he must avoid another, or it
would prove fatal. The doctor gave him many hours
of personal attendance, and told him to gargle his
throat every morning with the rinsings of the bottoms
of old port-wine bottles, saying with a quizzical air,
" Don't drink the stuff, Hone, and you will have no
more quinsy." This advice was followed for years,
and thejre was no return of the malady.
206
INDUSTRY WITHOUT BUSINESS METHODS 207
In 1815 came the first apoplectic fit. ; another
occurred in 1819. Mrs. Burn writes:
"About 1821, tense with nervous excitement, my
father fancied he saw one day the upper part of him-
self on the opposite side of Fleet Street ; another day
his legs only were there ; another time after being
from home he could not approach the house (45 Lud-
gate Hill) from any part, because he fancied it was
surrounded by a wall of fire. This he told me very
seriously as we sat one day by his office in Bolt Court.
Then he immediately remarked on the goodness of
God who relieved him of such terrible weariness of
body and mental suffering.
" Father and I used to talk on the subject of dreams
and hallucinations ; and we concluded they were the
effects, the former generally of vivid impressions from
peculiar circumstances ; the latter, the results of
indigestion or in extreme cases were caused by an over-
wrought state of the brain. To such causes he ascribed
those strange sensations when he fancied he saw the
upper part of himself passing along on the opposite
side of Fleet Street ; and the dread which possessed
him when he approached home, night after night,
always to find the house blockaded from his approach
by a dense wall of fire. (I believe Matilda at length
had to bring him home.) He confided to me that his
mind was as nearly wrecked as it could be, and his
frame as well, solely from the effects of over-work,
and ever-present monetary embarrassments."
His medical attendant at this time, Mr. Anderson,
directed that he should never be allowed to go outside
the house alone.
This evidence shows that Hone had a neurotic
tendency which manifested itself chiefly when he was
fatigued with overwork, a not uncommon condition
with highly strung people. The tendency was probably
hereditary, as his father had been subject to hallucina-
tions, and particularly to abnormally vivid and dis-
208 WILLIAM HONE
ordered dreams. It is very generally recognised that
in some neurotic subjects visual hallucinations are pro-
duced in fatigued states ; but the seeing of half things,
sometimes the top, sometimes the lower half, cannot
be readily explained, and may not improbably be
attributable to defective eyesight rather than to a dis-
ordered brain. The other symptom appears akin to
obsession, such as fear of open spaces, of which there
are several phases known to exist.
To those who believe in the " duality of the mind/'
and seek to explain the impressions of some imagined
scene in a pre -existence, an anecdote he relates of his
own experience serves as a useful illustration.
Being called, in the course of business, to a house
in a certain street in a part of London quite new to
him, he had noticed to himself, as he walked along,
that he had never been there before.
" I was shown," he said, " into a room to wait. On
looking round, to my astonishment everything appeared
perfectly familiar to me : I seemed to recognise every
object. I said to myself, ' What is this? I was never
here before, and yet I have seen all this : and, if so,
there is a very peculiar knot in the shutter.' '
He opened the shutter, and found the knot ! Now,
then, thought he, " Here is something I cannot explain
on my principles ; there must be some power beyond
matter."
And he proceeds to indulge himself in psychological
speculations.
As to his untiring industry and business ineptitude, a
memorandum of his activities and misfortunes in the
year 1818 has been left by Mrs. Burn :
" Preparing Trials for publication.
" Determining on advices by friends for business
Bookseller & Auctioneer.
" Taking House, 45 Ludgate Hill. Invaded by
INDUSTRY WITHOUT BUSINESS METHODS 209
Authors to publish sometimes as many as twenty MSS.
per day on numerous Subjects from Politics to Poetry
which at length necessitated a ' Reader/ and the
return of all save the very few worth printing.
" Receiving numerous visitors from all parts of the
country.
44 Replying to some of the hosts of letters involved
a large amount of correspondence.
44 Collecting Books for Stock arranging Catalogue
of same and others for Auction Sales.
44 Settling the Boys at school Mr. Dawson."
A further note by the same daughter reveals the
private family affairs of the next few years, and inci-
dentally how the money raised by public subscription
was frittered away.
44 Message from the Times Mr. Walter advised his
informing 4 The Committee ' that their continued
advertising Subscriptions in most of the papers had
absorbed one -third of the amount subscribed.
44 A Collector appointed who levanted with another
third.
4 The business was loosely conducted, rather allowed
to drift ; for a working Committee was never
inaugurated, and eventually, out of over 3,000 sub-
scribed and promised, he was benefited only to the
extent of one thousand.
44 The writing 4 Aspersions ' seeing through the
press and also Curran's Speeches Hazlitt's Essays
and other works.
' 4 Formed extensive and valuable collection for
4 History of Parody ' and 4 Trials.' Embarrassments
obliged the deposit for a sum to relieve pressure
could not redeem the collection, therefore sold and
dispersed, which cost him a bitter heart pang It was
a terrible wrench.
44 Health gave way several times had fits of
apoplexy weakness obliged change of air and scene
journey to Bath can remember no particulars could
have been on that occasion he visited Dr. Parr? and
210 WILLIAM HONE
Rev. Henry White of Lichfield? I believe he travelled
some long distances.
" I do not remember when Percy first took his seat
in the counting-house at a salary of three guineas per
week, which he scrupulously possessed himself of every
Saturday evening during his location also dining and
sitting over his glass, and frequently two glasses of
Rum and water, at his own convenient time. Spirits
and wine were introduced at table for no one but him.
Unhappily, by a certain plausibility, he acquired an
influence fatal to the credit and peace of his employer,
keeping him ignorant of his financial position he led
him into a system of accommodation bills, and practised
petty manoeuvrings of his own, under guise of our
father's short -comings, who to the last was unaware
of his own insolvency. Percy's conduct was a course
of treachery. He founded the difference between
W. Hone and G. Cruikshank by an action of double
treachery. He betrayed an accommodation affair to
J.H.B., who revealed his knowledge to my father."
This is a rough note, made long after the events
recorded, by an aggrieved person, who has evidently
not allowed her grievances to fade from her mind.
A letter from Hone to his friend Childs shows that
he is deriving good returns from the sale of ; the
" Banknote," and occupying himself with the projected
" History of Parody " to accompany his " Trials."
" LONDON,
" 2gth. Jan. 1819.
" MY DEAR SIR, Sincerely do I thank you for your
honest and friendly advice respecting the Book, and I
shall be glad of your opinion further, after reading
the enclosed prospectus, which will appear in the
Quarterly, Gentle marts Magazine -, Monthly Repository,
Monthly Magazine and Eclectic.
" The affair of the Note (which is going like wild-
fire) hurries me just now, so that I can write you but
little, nor would you have that, but for my being unable
to send you one without a line.
INDUSTRY WITHOUT BUSINESS METHODS 211
*' Your invitation is most kind, but (curse these
1 buts ') I cannot, must not stir. The Trials shall
have my full attention they shall. But before this, I
must get my Note throughout the kingdom. I have
set my heart on its going into every nook and cranny
where a Bank-note goes. Do write me by return, and
tell me your opinion of the thing, and what to do ;
but mind, no post paid.
" To return to the Trials. Your letter on the
necessity of my doing them with all my might, and
to a plan, is weighty and has weight with me mind
that with me. I will do them uninterruptedly, and
you may rely on it with a good deal of inspiriting from
your epistle, which I shall take up and look at every
now and then, when I find myself likely to flag. My
wife desires me to tell you that she has read your
letter, and that she thinks it the best letter I have
ever received she made me promise this and I not
only keep my promise, but agree with her opinion.
" We join in hearty thanks for your remembrance
and enquiries, and beg our respects to Mrs. Childs,
who we may some time or other have the pleasure
of seeing perhaps in this world.
" I am, My dear Sir,
" Most sincerely yours,
" W. HONE.
" MR. JOHN CHILDS,
14 Bungay."
In another letter, a few weeks later, he makes
allusion to the perplexities with which he is assailed
in mind and estate.
" LUDGATE HILL,
" 3rd. Feb. 1819.
" MY DEAR SIR, Yesterday I could not get off
the Notes on account of a spurt which ran us out before
I was aware of it to-day you have 2 worth enclosed.
' Your kind offer of prospectus -using I most thank-
fully embrace ; indeed, such have been my troubles
of the brain that if I fail in my undertaking, it would
It be wonderful to myself.
212 WILLIAM HONE
" Could I be persuaded of realising something like
certainty for my wife, and be assured that my children
would be so placed in the world as to give her no
uneasiness for their fate, I could pass with cheerful-
ness to ' where the weary are at rest and where the
wicked cease from troubling.' Perhaps water drinking
and sunshine and good digestion, and a conscience
void of offence towards God and man, may dispel some
of the perilous stuff about my heart, and yet it has
increased on me of late till sense has nearly suffocated
I feel that my mind is not as it ought to be, I am
very miserable and for want of a friend to sympathise
with, carry about my burden unseen and in silence.
" Old De Foe is a man after my own heart, respect-
ing whom and his works I know more, perhaps, than
any other living admirer of him his * Jure Divino '
is indeed a famous old book, and yet I fear would not
(I wish it would) bear re -printing.
" I dined at John Hunt's on Sunday with Mr.
Hazlitt, for whose work on the prospectus I have just
concluded a bargain, and given Mr. Creery this morn-
iiig copy to begin with Hazlitt is a De Foeite.
' The affair of the Bible prosecutions instituted by
Strahan & Spottiswoode, King's printers, might be made
of great service to the booksellers. I am morally
certain that by firm co-operation and stout attack, the
patent might be thrown open. The Booksellers' Com-
mittee meet and enquire, and enquire and meet, and
will make a Report which will end in smoke.
" My wife presents her respects to Mrs. Childs. I
am rather late for the mail.
" I am, My dear Sir,
" Yours most truly,
" W. HONE.
" MR. JOHN CHILDS."
Whether conversing with customers and callers at his
shop or slaving with his pen at the desk, there was
always at the back of Hone's mind at this period o,f
his life his projected work " A History of Parody,"
which was to be his chef d'ceuvre. As it was to be
INDUSTRY WITHOUT BUSINESS METHODS 213
a complete vindication of his character, and a final
answer to all his critics, there was no labour or expense
to which he was not prepared to go.
The title-page of the projected work was drawn up
in his own handwriting thus (the date appended
appears to indicate that the work was expected to
occupy him about ten years) : -
" WILLIAM HONE'S
Enlarged
REPORTS
of his
THREE STATE TRIALS
In Guildhall, London,
On the 1 8th, iQth, and 2oth December, 1817,
On Ex-officio Informations
for publishing
THREE PARODIES.
With
A HISTORY of PARODY from
the invention of printing :
Including
Parodies by Royal, Noble, Ecclesiastical
and Learned Personages of England
and Specimens of the Literature
of the Multitude.
ILLUSTRATED BY ENGRAVINGS.
ISLINGTON.
Printed for William Hone, Lower Street,
1829."
Hone's account-books show that he had collected
845 books for this work, at a cost of 443 195., and
this private memorandum is appended :
" I have been nearly 2 years engaged in the Inquiry.
Have made long journeys.
Viewed Public Edifices.
Examined Collections.
Turned over many thousands of prints.
Collected under my own inspection.
214 WILLIAM HONE
Most other subjects were indifferent to me, but this
is a Work nearest my heart."
He had formed an extensive and valuable collection
of prints and books for his " History of Parody "
when pressing .embarrassments crowded upon him.
The whole collection was deposited as security for an
advance of cash by a few friends, with the hope of its
affording permanent relief. Still the cloud hovered,
and gradually increased until the storm of ruin broke
over him. The loan could not be returned, and the
collection which had cost him so much labour, time,
and money was sold under the hammer.
The dispersion cost him a wrench of feeling which
few persons can realise, and a sensible depression of
energy ensued from Which he never fully recovered.
A Note by Alfred Hone.
' The collection was deposited with Alexander
Galloway for security, and when it was determined to
recover the advance by the sale of the books and
prints, I accompanied father daily for about a week
to Mr. Galloway's business house on Snow Hill, where,
in a room over the shop*, the chests or boxes, with
their contents, were kept among machine models and
lumber, and covered with dust. Here father worked
with difficulty, seated on one box, and using two for
a table .
" Mr. Galloway did not look in during the time, the
shopman having been told to give Mr. Hone access
to the room during the time the shop was open. Thus
my father prepared the catalogue for the sale of his
treasured collection."
The catalogue was most carefully compiled, every
volume with the date of its issue, ranging from 1 6 1 1
to 1817.
That this ill-starred undertaking of Hone was against
the advice of his best friends is disclosed in his corre-
INDUSTRY WITHOUT BUSINESS METHODS 215
spondence, of which the following is only a fragment
of that bearing on the subject.
" BLACK SWAN INN,
" WARWICK
" 315^. March 1819.
" SIR, Believing it to be my duty to assist to the
utmost in defending Russell, the Birmingham printer,
I arrived here on Monday to be present at his trial,
and put into Mr. Denman's hands the most efficient
of the materials I used in defending myself on each of
my Trials in London.
" Russell's affair having terminated by the Prose-
cutors withdrawing the Record this morning, my busi-
ness here is ended, but I 'cannot be in the neighbourhood
of Hatton without recollecting your public kindness
to me, nor can I leave it without soliciting the honour
of paying my respects to you personally, after my
return to-day.
" I have the honour to be, Sir,
" Most respectfully and obediently your faithful servant,
" m. HONE."
Received from Dr. Parr by William Hone.
" HATTON,
" April i$th, 1819.
11 DEAR SIR, I was much disappointed at not seeing
you on the Wednesday. I hope that you returned safe
to London, and found your family there in good health.
14 I have reflected very seriously indeed upon your
situation, and I shall not insult you by making an
apology for suggesting to you some precautions. Are
you quite sure that a publication of your Trials may
not subject you to a second prosecution? For it was
some time ago declared from the Bench, that there
were circumstances under which the occurrences of a
Court of Justice could not be published without a
penalty. You are well aware of the peculiarities which
distinguish your Trials. Again : I cannot reconcile my
mind to the introduction of any other parodies than
those to which you adverted before Lord Ellenborough.
216 WILLIAM HONE
The authors and the printers may have escaped notice,
but you, by publishing them, may become responsible
for the contents. . . . Nobody will confine that declar-
ation to parodies written by yourself, and as to those
which were written by other men, it may be said well
that the number to which you appealed upon youjr
Trials was sufficient for your vindication. I think that
you will alienate many of your well-wishers and provoke
your enemies by the introduction of new matter. More
particularly I entreat you from the best motives, and
upon the best grounds, to spare all ludicrous repre-
sentations of the Trinity. I say this plainly for your
own sake, and I also say it because I am seriously
and decidedly an enemy to levity upon subjects which
are sacred in the judgment of all believers, whether
heterodox or orthodox. I am sure that your genius
and your heroism will stand high in public estimation,
if you will confine yourself strictly to that which passed
when you were in Guildhall.
I am, dear Sir, unfeignedly your well-wisher,
" SAMUEL PARR."
From the MS. of Mrs. Burn we learn that that
literary celebrity Dr. Samuel Parr was wont to call
upon Hone at his Ludgate Hill residence, while the
latter sometimes visited the doctor at Hatton.
Calling one day at Ludgate Hill, in 1820, the Doctor
made particular inquiries about Hone's family of five
daughters and four sons. " And now you have another
son, sir ; what name do you intend to give him? "
" We think of calling him Samuel, after my youngest
brother," replied Hone. ' Then add my name," re-
joined the Doctor, " and let him be christened Samuel
Parr." And this was the name conferred, the baptism
being performed at Islington Church by the Rev.
Daniel Wilson, afterwards Bishop of Calcutta.
Dr. Parr was a great scholar, a voluminous writer,
INDUSTRY WITHOUT BUSINESS METHODS 217
a prominent man in his day, and was regarded as
the " Whig Johnson."
We find Hone undertaking coach journeys and even
journeys by water to various parts of the country,
sometimes on business of a quasi-political character,
the real purport of which is not always obvious. His
journey to Warwick appears to have been to show sym-
pathy with, if not to assist, Russell, who was prosecuted
for publishing atheistic literature. But wherever he
goes he never fails to be keenly observant, always
accumulating in his mind those stores of information
of which he made good use in his later and more
popular works.
The rural descriptions which are to be found in his
" Every-Day Book " and " Table Book " necessitated
many trips to the localities mentioned, which he made
in company with White, Samuel Williams, and other
artists, and which cost him both time and money.
XV
POLITICAL PAMPHLETEERING
FROM 1818 to 1825 he was increasingly occupied, at
first with auctioneering and then with publishing. How
busy he was with the latter the long lists of his
publications advertisements will testify. He wrote,
besides the " Political House that Jack Built " and
" The Bank Restriction Barometer," " The Apocryphal
New Testament/' " Ancient Mysteries Described," and
many others, besides letters innumerable, all the time
collecting much material for a History of Parody. And
yet, with all this pen work, his time was incessantly
called upon for political business and ward affairs, and
in another direction for the investigation and relief
of those private cases of distress, in which an appeal
to him was never made in vain.
Ministers had not crushed Hone. They had conferred
on him immense popularity ; they had made him
formidable ; and he went on as vigorously as ever
attacking them, and the Prince Regent, in a succession
of stinging squibs " The Political House that Jack
Built," 1819; "The Queen's Matrimonial Ladder,"
in allusion to Queen Caroline's unhaippy union (1820),;
" The Political Showman" (1821), in which Lord
Sidmouth figured as the " Doctor " (his father having
been one), and Nicholas Vansittart, the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, as " Old Bags."
The political celebrity which accrued to William
Hone may be attributed to the folly of the mistaken
218
POLITICAL PAMPHLETEERING 219
policy of the Government in his case. Had his Parody
squibs been allowed to run their day, in a short time
after publication but a few would have been in exist-
ence, and those mostly hidden away in the libraries of
collectors.
His sense of the ludicrous was shown by the titles
and positions into which he worked the public
personages of his political " Facetiae " and the vein of
humour which often runs through the descriptive
sketches of more serious writing.
The activity of his mind often led him into the
error of framing projects far beyond his power of
performance ; hence the delays which depreciated the
monetary value of some of his works, and totally
precluded the production of others.
Hone's political publications in woodcuts and verse,
being something between the newspaper and the
pamphlet, hold a unique position. They were always
topical and full of invention, and by a happy combina-
tion of caricature and satire, oftener than not accom-
plished the particular purpose they aimed at more
effectively than any ordinary newspaper could have
done. They moved the heart of the reader in the
cause of liberty, roused the spirit of the patriot, and
poured scorn and contempt on the hypocrite, the slave,
and the tyrant. In word and picture they constituted
an entertaining and instructive admixture of notorious
matter-of-fact with emblematic allusion. " To Mr.
Hone " (said the Examiner of December 24, 1820) " is
England indebted for originating this important branch
of publication." And their success being immediate
and very considerable, Hone found imitators in a Mr.
Dolby and Mr. Fairburn.
Hone has an anecdote to relate as to the way the first
:he satires occurred to him :
I was acquitted but," said he, putting both his
ids to his forehead, " my brain has never recovered ;
220 WILLIAM HONE
it was overwrought ; I have never been since, what
I was before that day. After my trials, the newspapers
were continually at me, calling me an acquitted felon.
The worm will turn when trodden on. One day, when
I had been exasperated beyond bearing, one of my
children, a little girl of four years old, was sitting on
my knee, very busy, looking at the pictures of a child's
book ; ' What have you got there? ' said I* " The
House that Jack Built " 'an idea flashed across my
mind ; I saw at once the use that might be made of
it ; I took it from her. I said, ' Mother, take the
child, send me up my tea and two candles, and let
nobody come near me till I ring.' I sat up all night
and wrote ' The House that Jack Built.'
" In the morning I sent for Cruikshank, read it to
him, and put myself into the attitudes of the figures
I wanted drawn. Some of the characters Cruikshank
had never seen, but I gave him the likeness as well
as the attitude."
And so well did he mimic the character to be intro-
duced, the original of which Cruikshank had never seen,
that the drawing which resulted had a most whimsical
resemblance to the original intended. He went on to
say: '* I was told that, at the Privy Council, soon after
it was published, the Prince laid it on the table without
saying a word, and that after he was gone, some one
present said, ' We have had enough of William Hone '
and no notice was taken of it."
A letter to his friend John Childs hints at the same
possibility of another prosecution being provoked.
The " Political House that Jack Built," with draw-
ings by George Cruikshank, was not only the first,
but was the best of the series, every line in the design
on the title-page being pregnant with meaning. It
represents a great military commander-in-chief throw-
ing a sword into the scale, in which lie Bank Restric-
tions, Bills of Indemnity, ex-officio documents, the whole
of them outweighed by the opposite scale in which lies
THE WEALTH THAT LAY IN THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT."
To face p. 221.
POLITICAL PAMPHLETEERING 221
a pen. The label underneath is " The Pen and the
Sword/' and the meaning is obvious. On page three is
drawn a chest containing Magna Charta, the Habeas
Corpus, the Bill of Rights, and about it lie bags of
wealth and loose coin ; beneath which is inscribed,
" This is the wealth that lay in the House that Jack
Built." To this picture is applied an aptly selected
motto from Cowper :
7
" Not to understand a treasure's worth
ill time has stolen away the slighted good,
Is cause of half the poverty we feel,
And makes the world the wilderness it is."
There follow in succession representations of the
military, the magisterial, the legal, the clerical, and the
ministerial oppressors :
" The Vermin that plunder the Wealth
That lay in the House that Jack built."
.
W
Then comes a printing-press :-
HE THING, that in spite of new Acts
And attempts to restrain it, by Soldiers or Tax,
ill POISON the Vermin that plunder," &c., &c.
The clerical magistrate is a striking picture a
double-bodied and disgustingly inconsistent monster,
looking and discoursing two ways ; holding up the
cross and preaching peace and love among all Chris-
tian people, and at the same time dealing out
tathemas against presumed political offenders.
Castlereagh, depicted with a cat-o'-nine-tails, is
lied " Derry-D own-Triangle " ; the last term having
reference to that instrument of torture used in Dublin
Yard, and Derry-D own connecting him with the nation
for whose education the cat was used. Sidmouth,
rawn with an infant's feeding-bottle, had had the
222 WILLIAM HONE
nickname " Doctor " conferred upon him long before,
by Canning when they were political opponents.
Canning was a " Spouter of Froth."
Into the real merits of these statesmen it is not
necessary here to inquire ; Hone's rhymed description
of them runs:
"This is the DOCTOR of Circular fame,
A Driv'ller, a Bigot, a Knave without shame ;
And that's DERRY -DOWN-TRIANGLE by name
From the Land of Misrule and half-hanging and
flame ;
And that is the SPOUTER OF FROTH BY THE
HOUR,
The worthless colleague of their infamous power."
There is nothing mincing in these denunciations, and
the squib took the popular fancy at once. " Of Circular
fame " refers to the infamous circular issued to the
Lords -Lieutenant of counties, already dealt with.
Not the least cutting bit of pictorial satire is the
corkscrew suspended from the watch of the " Dandy
of Sixty " (otherwise the bibulous Prince Regent),
while real pathos appears in the print of John Bull's
starving, weeping, ragged family, with the massacre
of the people in the background.
" Portentous, unexampled, unexplained,
What man, seeing this,
And having human feelings, does not blush
And hang his head to think himself a man?
I cannot rest
A silent witness of the headlong rage
Or heedless folly by which thousands die,
Bleed gold for Ministers to sport away."
A publication so popular, and commanding such large
sales as " The Political House that Jack Built,"
naturally produced imitations in several quarters. One
piracy perpetrated, of which some of the woodcuts are
C-ive
QUALIFICATION.
In love, and in drink, and o'crtoppled by debt;
With women, with wine, and with duns on the fret.
THE FIRST ILLUSTRATION IN "THE QUEEN'S MATRIMONIAL
LADDER."
To face p. 223.
POLITICAL PAMPHLETEERING 223
still in existence, was " printed for L. Carvelho,
London " ; another, printed by " J. Dawson, Norwich,"
was embellished with a mediocre woodcut of " The
Clerical Magistrate, Law & Gospel." There can be
little doubt that much of the success of Hone's satires
was due to the excellence of the cartoons.
The imitations essayed by the " courtly " booksellers
were weak and washy as compared with Hone's, and
he therefore never felt any serious rivalry,; lacking
point and inventiveness, those of the opposite party failed
to hit the popular taste, or to promote the cause they
advocated. Rarely did he publish political satires from
other pens than his own ; one of the very few was
" The Man in the Moon." About the same time he
issued "A Political Christmas Carol."
It was in connection with this work of ^William Hone
that George Cruikshank suddenly rose to supreme
popularity. . . . The work which Cruikshank did for
Hone, as " The Political House that Jack Built," the
" Political Showman," and lastly A Slap at Slop,
produced at the time of Queen Caroline's trial, enjoyed
an extraordinary popularity and commanded an
immense circulation, the first running into over fifty
editions. " The Queen's Matrimonial Ladder " was
another great success. The caricaturist's pencil gave
the necessary finish to the work of the satirist's pen.
Rhe drawings of the last-named, " all by Mr. George
ikshank," as Mr. Hone advertised, were severely
satirical throughout, from the first, where the royal
husband drunk, with a broken wineglass in his hand,
the garter falling from his leg, cards and dice and
bottles scattered at his feet, and the candles guttering
in the sockets ; to where the fat Adonis is being
borne away in a barrow to the English cry
of "Cat's meat." " Non mi ricordo " was another
squib of this year, ; it was founded on the convenient
memory of Theodore Majocci, one of the principal
witnesses against the Queen, who, when cross-examined
224 WILLIAM HONE
touching some actions of the King which bore very
much against his Majesty, pleaded that he " did not
remember." This tract contains satire of the bitterest
and keenest ; George IV.'s towering false hair, whiskers,
padded garments, and enormous bulk were rendered
ridiculously real by the cuts. The affectation of youth
by the " dandy of sixty who bows with a grace," was
ludicrously obvious to the most clownish capacity.
It was in 1822 that Hone brought out A Slap at
Slap and the Bridge Street Gang, a very cleverly
written broadsheet, newspaper size, with fictitious adver-
tisements and intelligence, every line of which has a
direct political or personal aim. This, too, had the
advantage of being illustrated by Cruikshank, who was
responsible for the idea. Hone, at this time the gossip
and companion of Sir Francis Burdett and other
reformers, was dining with the artist one day at the
Spotted Dog chop-house in Holywell Street, when
Cruikshank proposed to Hone to publish a sort of comic
newspaper interspersed with caricatures, and consisting
of all sorts of curious and eccentric paragraphs. The
idea was a happy one, and was acted upon at once,
though Hone transformed the original suggestion into
a burlesque of the New Times, the organ of his mortal
enemy, Stoddart.
The object of the satire, which ran through several
editions, was Dr. John Stoddart, who had been a
leader-writer on the Times, but having had a difference
with the proprietors, had parted from them, and in
1817 had started a rival daily paper, which he called
the New Times. In this sheet he constituted himself
the champion of " the Bridge Street Gang "Hone's
name for the " Constitutional Society."
Though Hone stigmatises Stoddart's work as
" sloppy," he was a capable journalist, a good lawyer,
and a sound scholar. His lick-spittle sycophancy won
him a knighthood from George IV. in 1826 ; two years
later the New Times ceased to exist.
POLITICAL PAMPHLETEERING 225
On the day of his third trial Hone had encountered
Dr. Stoddart in the precincts of the Court, and there
found cause to complain bitterly of his conduct.
Stoddart 's journal was always ready to perform any
dirty work which would be deemed acceptable to those
in power ; and he had maliciously circulated a report
that a man had been tried and convicted by a jury,
and summarily sent to punishment for publishing the
very parodies for which Hone, the arch-offender, had
been twice acquitted. The defendant's wrath and
indignation were intense ; he would proclaim Dr. Slop
(a name given to Stoddart before he was dismissed
from the Times on account of the profane curses lavished
by him on Napoleon Buonaparte) a villain to his face,
whenever and wherever he should meet him. Thence-
forward Hone's hatred of Stoddart will be found to run
through all his political publications. As for " the
Bridge Street Gang," he regarded that party as the
embodiment of all political evil.
The Slap at Slop, in the form of an amusing
burlesque newspaper, had three pages of parody, and
the fourth occupied by a history of the life of the
individual aimed at the venal ministerial time-server
" Dr. Slop," who was not only stripped naked, but
flayed, dissected, and exposed to the core by this
unsparing censor. As Stoddart had been virulent in his
abuse of Hone, so now in turn Hone paid him back
in his own coin. Even the mock advertisements in
this make-believe newspaper were so many minor
hits at all sorts of sore places in Church and State, many
of them illustrated by woodcuts, grotesque, ludicrous,
and stinging, all from the practised hand of George
Cruikshank.
The " Man in the Moon," which appeared in
January, 1820, and to superintend the publishing of
which he excused himself from attendance at the " Fox "
dinner, at Norwich, was the second of these facetious
Iphlets, and, like its predecessor, distinguished by
226 WILLIAM HONE
fancy and satiric wit. The frontispiece represented
the back view of a lusty, pot-bellied, elderly gentleman,
with very curious skirts to his dandy coat (George IV.),
holding up a blanket on a long sword, with which he
endeavours to hide the light of an allegorical solar repre-
sentation of the Press ; he is at the same time address-
ing a speech to a most fantastical group of twingling!
little stars, upon spider legs, who are assembled in the
lunar senate-house. As one critic said of Cruiksliank's
drawing, it " was the very poetry of the pencil." There
was surely a spice of malice in Hone's dedication of
the work " to the Right Hon. George Canning, Author
of the parodies on Scripture (to ridicule his political
Opponents), and colleague with the Prosecutors of
Political Parody: Who, after lampooning Lord
Sidmouth, and holding him up to the scorn and
contempt of all England, as a Charlatan and prime
Doctor to the Country, now takes a subordinate part
under him as a Prime Minister" &c. &c. This " Speech
from the Throne to the Senate of Lunataria " such
was the sub-title of the " Man in the Moon " ran
quickly through a number of editions, the twelfth being
advertised concurrently with the forty-first edition of
the " Political House that Jack Built."
The " Christmas Carol,'* which followed, had for a
frontispiece a handpress, encircled with a serpent,
emblem of eternity this was an expression of Hone's
faith in the enduring nature of that institution.
" The Political Showman," with twenty woodcuts by
Cruikshank, purports to be an exhibition of such rare
and curious " creatures " as Court sycophants and sub-
servient Ministers ; and though the portraits are
striking and even stinging likenesses of the public
men portrayed, at this distance of time it would be
of little use to recall the details for any purposes
of identification. The " creatures " and their ways
have all been long forgotten. On one fine plate
are seen:
THE
MAN IN THE MOON,
Sec. &c. &c.
If Caesar can liide the Sun with a blanket, or put the Moon in liis pocket, we
will pay him tribute lor light." Cyinl/clinc.
%\1TH FIFTEEN CUTS.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY AND FOR WILLIAM HONE,
45, LUDGATE-IIILL.
ONE SH11J.INC.
POLITICAL PAMPHLETEERING 227
" COURT VERMIN that buzz around
And fly-blow the King's ear ; make him suspect
His wisest, faithfullest, best counsellors
Who, for themselves and their dependents, seize
All places and all profits ; and who wrest
To their own ends, the statutes of the land
Or safely break them."
This quotation is from Southey's " Joan of Arc " -<
Hone dedicates this brochure to the Poet Laureate and
an equally apt and pungent quotation accompanies each
" curiosity " exhibited by the Showman. Though
Hone's favourite, it did not have so large a sale as
the others. The illustrations should have won it a
wider favour.
The Statesman, in reviewing the work, calls it one
of the most humorous publications issued from the
Press. The Champion of May 6, 1821, calls it "an
ingenious and laughter-moving satyric squib." Though
it is Cruikshank's drawing which arrests and holds
much of the attention, the literary side of the work is
not without merit, for Hone lays under contribution
Southey and Cowper, Montaigne and Bacon, Fletcher
and Shakespeare, Swift and Goldsmith, and even the
Right Hon. George Canning himself, in the cause of
political waggery ; and the appositeness of the
descriptive text is as marked as that of the pictured
caricature. If evidence of this fidelity of the portraiture
were wanting, it is to be found in the fact that some
political leader-writers of the time referred their readers
to the study of particular pages of " The Political
Showman " for the elucidation of the problems or
mysteries which formed the subject of them.
This series of political pamphlets, which did much
injury to the Government, was beyond the pale of
prosecution. They drew admiring crowds to the
windows of Hone's shop on Ludgate Hill. The series
numbered five, with the titles of " The Political House
that Jack Built," " The Matrimonial Ladder/' " The
228 WILLIAM HONE
Man in the Moon," " The Political Showman at Home,"
and " Non mi ricordo." These were published during
the years 1819-22. Cruikshank received half a guinea
each for the thirteen cuts which embellished ' The
House that Jack Built ", ; and if above 100,000 copies
of the work were sold, as stated, it is to be presumed
that the publisher pocketed by the transaction nearly
one thousand pounds.
The popularity of the squibs equalled their merit ;
altogether more than a quarter of a million copies were
sold, while some went into a thirtieth edition. The
tailpiece of " Non mi ricordo " gives a true picture oi
the feelings of the subject of these satires. The King
is represented as on a gridiron, literally grilled by th
fire of cross-examination ; his contortions are a mixtur
of the painful and ridiculous ; the print is calle
;< The Fiat in the Fire." After the publication <
A Slap at Stop Cruikshank retired almost wholly fro
political caricaturing, and no more
*' To party, gave up what was meant for mankind."
Publications so trenchant, so biting, could not escape
criticism. The Quarterly Review, in a notice or
Hazlitt's " Table Talk," compared Hone, Hunt, anc
Hazlitt to three asses. The Examiner of January 6
1822, retorts thus (so far as Hone is concerned) tc
what it describes as " Mr. Gifford's gloomy endeavoui
at pleasantry ":
" He assuredly must be allowed to be a very singulaj
specimen of the race, partaking little of the dull, sub'
missive, bearing-burthen character of the long-earec
tribe, or he never could have caused by his movements
such a hubbub and alarm among all the reverend anc
irreverend orthodox animals in Church and State. H<
most certainly cannot be of the patient and half-starvec
breed of English asses, but must rather be able tc
boast of his sprightly, and vigorous Spanish; blood
POLITICAL PAMPHLETEERING 229
or perhaps, which is still more likely, he may be one
of the Zebra or ' Queen's ass ' tribe a wild and hitherto
untameable race, as we all know. If these suppositions
will not satisfy the inquiring naturalist, he may consult
some of the hundred thousand purchasers of the
* House that Jack Built,' the ' Matrimonial Ladder,'
.and the Slap at Slop, who may possibly be better able
o decide upon the breed and merits of this frolicsome,
ugh-mettled, independent, and not-to-be-ridden beast."
?
All the same, Gifford of the Quarterly Review was
;a "man of vigorous intellect, and accounted the first
'critic of his day.
Pamphlets with a political aim, now regarded as
?nere curiosities of literature, had then a real import-
**nce. Their justification was found in the peculiarities
\i the times, when men were tried on false pleas ;
'fyien men, women, and children in lawful assembly were
r fable to be trampled under foot by the military ; when
enumerable social and political injustices were rampant
n this country. One of Hone's fierce pleasantries is
to call attention in an advertisement to the receipt of
a prize by Dr. Malthus " for his essay on the moral
restraint of war and the blessings of famine, the
advantages of pestilence, the comforts of disease, and
the piety of decease." Another shows how the
pyramid of the Constitution may be inverted and upheld
by bayonets.
Hone never repented of his satirical efforts, and, in
fact, reprinted some of them years after their first issue.
He strove, by their means, to keep in touch with popular
feeling, using business channels for the promulgation
of the political opinions he held with real earnestness.
The " Facetiae and Miscellanies, by William Hone,
with one hundred and twenty engravings drawn by
George Cruikshank," constituted a volume issued a
few years later (republished for William Hone, by
Hunt and Clarke, Tavistock Street, 1827) in which
these pamphlets, revised, with others of his works,
230 WILLIAM HONE
were all bound together. On the title-page was a
vignette showing a table, at one end of which was seated
the author, in the attitude of writing, and at the other
end the illustrator, with pencil in hand both excellent
portraits, and, of course, the work of Cruikshank. The
motto is " .We twa hae paidl't." One biographer of
Cruikshank (W. Bates, 1879) says of this volume, that
he regards it as " perhaps the most interesting and
permanently valuable in the whole cycle of Cruik-
shankiana." There is an Introduction, of which the
scene is the interior of Hone's shop, 45, Ludgate Hill ;
the time A.D. 1822, the date of the first collection;
and it takes the form of a dialogue between the pro-
prietor and a lady customer, who in buying the satires
particularly desires to know the name of the author of
them. According to the self-satisfied author she is
annoyed to learn the truth. He distinctly claims the
whole collection, except " The Man in the Moon," as
the product of his own pen.
The pamphlets, by the introduction of good draw-
ing and good wood engravings, made a new era in
political caricature. In word and picture they were so
true, nearly everybody admitted the truth and apposite-
ness of them.
Hone lit these squibs and flung them among the
mob ; and people, even those who disagreed with
them, bought them, read them, laughed, and said,
" D the fellow ! "and waited for the next.
r^ m *
]" :
*
XVI
THE QUEEN CAROLINE AFFAIR
IMMEDIATELY after the accession of George IV. the
public mind was agitated more profoundly than ever
over the affair of Queen Caroline. How far the unfor-
tunate woman herself was to blame for all the trouble
which gathered round her need not be inquired into here.
There can be no doubt she had for years been deeply
calumniated in 1813 a series of charges formulated
against her was published in " A Delicate Investiga-
tion into the Conduct of H.R.H. the Princess of Wales,
before Lord Erskine ; containing the depositions of
all the evidences, copies of Letters, Narratives, Reports,
&c., superintended by the Rt. Hon. Spencer Perceval,
and then suppressed^ ; with the Defence.'*
William Hone, as one of the most prominent
publicists in the metropolis, was well to the fore in the
agitation of course, ranging himself on the side of
the weaker party, whom he regarded, as did many
thousands of others, as the victim of a vile Court
conspiracy.
Is it possible for the present-day reader to realise
the political conditions under which the people of this
country were compelled to live a century ago? Let
us quote a graphic table which was printed in 1813
in the Independent Whig, at a time when the resources
of the country were being drained by the exhausting
Napoleonic wars, and ask what terrific and devastating
storms would break over the land now if the people
231
232 WILLIAM HONE
were called upon to breathe such an electrically sur-
charged political atmosphere as that generated by the
extravagances of a licentious ruler. From the 1812
Budget of Mr. Perceval, it appears that the Civil List
provided a sum of little less than one and three-quarter
millions of money for the upkeep of the Prince Regent's
household. The appalling magnitude of this sum,
required to support a profligate prince and his concu-
bines, was thus set forth in the newspaper named:
"1,700,000. Weight (in gold) Fifteen tons,
twelve cwt. three quarters,
seventeen pounds, six ounces
and two dwts.
" The daily pay to His Royal Highness is
4,657 : 10 : 8
" Each hour, drunk or sober
194 :8 :o
" Each minute, asleep or awake
Is it difficult, with this exposure before us, to trace
to its source the nation's cry for peace, retrenchment,
and reform?
To understand the episode of Queen Caroline's
troubles into which Hone now plunged, it will be neces-
sary to recall as briefly as may be the main events in
the matrimonial career of that unfortunate princess.
Brought to England for the royal espousal in 1795,
Greenwich was the place of debarkation of the Princess
Caroline of Brunswick, who landed here in order to
become the much injured and unhappy wife of George,
Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.). From this
place she passed on to London, in the midst of universal
shouts of popular joy, her progress being almost a
triumphal procession. Alas ! (exclaims Walter Thorn-
bury) in how short a time she was destined to rue
the day !
Says Thackeray, in " The Four Georges," that
THE QUEEN CAROLINE AFFAIR 233
scathing exposure of the founders of the royal line of
Brunswick:
" Malmesbury gives us the beginning of the marriage
story how the Prince reeled into Chapel to be
married ; how he hiccuped out his vows of fidelity
you know how he kept them ; how he pursued the
woman whom he had married ; to what a state he
brought her ; with what blows he struck her ; with
what malignity he pursued her ; what his treatment
of his daughter was ; and what his own life. He
the first gentleman of Europe ! "
The Princess of Wales, as is too well known, had
anything but happiness in her married life with this
royal libertine and drunkard. If the Prince ever really
cared for any wonian, it was for Mrs. Fitzherbert. The
Princess of Wales always spoke highly of Mrs. Fitz-
herbert ; she would say :
.
' That is the Prince's true wife, she is an excellent
oman ; it is a great pity for him he ever broke
vid her. Do you know, I know de man who was
present at his marriage, the late Lord Bradford. He
declared to a friend of mine that when he went to
inform Mrs. Fitzherbert that the Prince had married
me, she would not believe it, for she knew she was
erself married to him."
Mrs. Fitzherbert, with whom the Prince of Wales
had gone through a form of marriage in 1782, was a
Roman Catholic, and by a legitimate alliance with her
he would have forfeited the throne.
Within a few months of the marriage between the
Prince of Wales and the Princess Caroline, domestic
differences arose, and these unhappy differences, from
whatever cause they sprang, terminated in a separation
of the royal couple, three months after the birth of
their only child, the Princess Charlotte, in 1796.
234 WILLIAM HONE
The Princess Caroline lived by herself at Shooter's
Hill and Blackheath, the object of much public sym-
pathy. Then reports to her discredit were carried
to the old King, who determined on an investigation.
In May, 1806, was instituted a Royal Commission,
consisting of Lords Erskine, Grenville, Spencer, and
Ellenborough, all then members of the Cabinet, to
inquire into the charges brought against her. She
was found to have been imprudent, but guilty of
nothing criminal. In 1814 she obtained leave to
visit Brunswick, and eventually she got to Italy, where
the life she led was at least eccentric 1 , if not very
indiscreet.
On her return to England in 1820, her husband
having succeeded to the throne, the Government pressed
proceedings against her for adultery. The trial having
lasted from August iQth to September 7th, the
case against the Queen closed, and an adjournment
took place, to allow time for her counsel to prepare
her defence. On October 3rd Mr. Brougham delivered
his speech for her defence, at great length, and with
astonishing eloquence and effect. The case, in the
apprehension of what was perhaps the majority of the
nation, was left in that state which Scotch lawyers call
"not proven." The Government then abandoned their
Divorce Bill, November 8th.
Thus ended, in defeat and disgrace to the new King,
an indecent and scandalous contest, which had rilled
right-minded men with unutterable disgust, and which
had made every Englishman hold down his head and
blush for his sovereign and his country.
At the close of these unpopular proceedings London
was illuminated for three nights, and on the 2 9th
the Queen went to St. Paul's Cathedral to return
thanks .
In honour of the Queen's visit to the cathedral Hone
exhibited from his upper windows in Ludgate Hill a
blue silk flag, on which was inscribed in letters of
THE QUEEN CAROLINE AFFAIR 235
old " The People," and from an early hour in the
evening he illuminated his house with a brilliant trans-
parency, and a design in blue lamps of the royal
monogram, C.R., within a wreath of laurel, typical of
victory. The streets were crowded to a late hour,
and many of the tradesmen in Fleet Street and the
Strand who had failed to follow Hone's example in
the matter of illuminating had their shop windows
smashed in. The bells of several of the City churches
rang merrily throughout the day. Mr. and Mrs. Hone
gave a party that night, at which one of the danc.es
and some of the items of music were specially arranged
for the occasion one being a new anthem entitled
" God Save the Queen/' the motif of which was
borrowed from the National Anthem, " God Save Great
George our King." In Hone's advertisements of that
date there appears " A Form of Prayer, with Thanks-
giving " for her Majesty, which was also of his com-
position. The Birmingham Mercury (December 1 i,
20), in referring to it in commendatory terms, effec-
ely defended the author from the false and
alumniating charges of blasphemy which " Minis-
terialists were fond of bringing against him."
The pathetic ending of it all remains to be told.
e unfortunate Queen, Caroline of Brunswick, pre-
senting herself for admission to the Abbey in order
be crowned with her husband, George IV., as his
Queen Consort, was rudely repulsed from the doors,
both at Poets' Corner and at the western entrance.
is was on July 19, 1821. Little more than a fort-
ight afterwards, on August 7th, she died at Branden-
burg House, the victim of a broken heart, or, as Hone
puts it in A Slap at Slop, she " died of the dagger
of Persecution."
On the 1 4th, when her remains were removed for
interment at Brunswick, a shameful riot took place in
the streets of London. For some reason or other, which
was never explained, the Queen's corpse was ordered
id
s
se
.Q 1
bi
nis
236 WILLIAM HONE
to be carried into Essex, en route for Hardwick, not
through the heart of the city but by the circuitous
route of the New Road. The people, who had made
common cause with the injured lady, regarded this as an
indignity, and in opposition to the King's Ministers and
in defiance of the authority of the Horse Guards, they
succeeded in forcing the funeral cortege to pass through
the Strand and St. Paul's.
The " Matrimonial Ladder " very happily illustrated
popular feeling, and excited the public laughter at
the expense of the exalted personages whose conduct
had merited the nation's derision. It described, in
well-marked steps, the whole progress of the question
at issue between the King and the Queen ; it was
issued in the usual pamphlet form, containing pregnant
verse and spirited etchings, and the pamphlet was
accompanied by a toy in the shape of a strip of card-
board with more etchings in black and white, doubled
to stand of itself like a step-ladder the two sold at
a shilling.
Not the least amusing illustration represented the
Regent in a fainting fit and Sidmouth, as the doctor,
attempting to restore him. Another clever picture was
' The Joss and his Folly," accompanying a racy
description of the Pavilion at Brighton.
It was at the Southampton Coffee House in Chancery
Lane that Hone, Hazlitt, and Cruikshank were wont
to meet to discuss the squibs on the Queen's trial, when
the artist " would sometimes dip his finger in the ale
and sketch his suggestion on the table." Hone's own
account of the origin of this Squi'b is given in Miss
Rolleston's pamphlet.
" I was very sore about my Trials ; I thought it
hard that Canning's Parodies had led to place and
power, and mine were prosecuted. I wanted to write
a ' History of Parody.' I was reading in the British
Museum for that purpose that was the time of the
Queen's business, and some of her chief partisans
THE QUEEN'S
MATRIMONIAL LADDER,
PRINTED BY WILLIAM HONE,
l.UDCATE HILL, LONDON.
Pricr ( u-ith th+Pnmt.Met ) One Khill
THE PICTURES ON THE TWO LEGS OF THE CARDBOARD TOY LADDER.
To face p. 236.
THE QUEEN CAROLINE AFFAIR 237
came to me. They urged me to write something for
her. I refused for some time, till at last they said,
' The Queen expects it of you ' ; and I felt I could no
longer refuse, but it troubled me very much. I had
gone there to be quiet, and out of the way of politics,
about which my mind had begun to misgive me that
is, as to my interference with them. Observe, though
God has changed my opinions about religion, I have
not changed my politics.
" I did not like my task ; I could not see how to do
it, nor yet how to avoid it ; so, a good deal out Of
sorts, I left the Museum.
" Instead of going straight home, I wandered off
towards Pentonville, and stopped and looked absently
into the window of a little fancy shop. There was a
toy, * The Matrimonial Ladder.' I saw at once what I
could do with it, and went home and wrote ' The
Queen's Matrimonial Ladder.* Soon after, a person
whom I shall not name, came and offered me 50 to
suppress it. I refused and was offered up to 500.
I said, ' Could you not make it 5,000? Even if you
did, I should refuse it.' '
This origin, like that given for "The House that Jack
Built," has sometimes been discredited as " legendary,"
as the product of Hone's post-conversion days.
As a partisan there was nothing half-hearted about
William Hone. He records with evident relish the fact
that the Prince Regent was frequently hissed in public,
and that when he accompanied the Allied Sovereigns
on their visit to the City of London he was careful
to take the Duke of Wellington with him in his
carriage, sheltering himself under the hearty cheers
accorded to the popular hero.
When it was proposed that Queen Caroline's name
should be omitted from the liturgy of the Churcih,
Hone's mockery was put into the bitter sentence, " I'll
ot have her prayed for I "
Hone had been mentioned by name in the parlia-
entary proceedings on the Divorce Bill. The Solicitor-
:
238 WILLIAM HONE
General in his reply, Monday, October 30, 1820, is
reported by Hansard to have said:
" But, my lords, what makes it still more extra-
ordinary, my learned friend has not even the merit
of invention and novelty in this the parallel is not
his own ; for I find in a newspaper which I hold in
my hand, published some days before the speech
delivered by my learned friend, an advertisement in
these terms, * Nero Vindicated ' published by whom,
my lords? by a name well known, an individual of
whom I know nothing, except through the publications
he has ushered into the world ' printed by William
Hone, Ludgate Hill.' And my learned friend con-
descends to make himself the instrument of such a
person as that whom I have described to prefer such
charges as these in this high and august assembly
against the monarch of this country."
Hone was the publisher of " The Printers' Address
to The Queen, and Her Majesty's tribute to the Press,
in answer." j
The Address was presented to the Queen at Branden-
burg House on Wednesday, October 1 1, 1820, by
a deputation of 138 compositors and pressmen, who
were most graciously received, and had the honour to
kiss Her Majesty's hand. It concluded with the follow-
ing paragraph:
" In future times, should the page of history record
the present era as one in which overwhelming power
combined with senatorial venality to crush an unpro-
tected female, we trust it will also preserve the grati-
fying remembrance that the base conspiracy was
defeated by the irresistible force of Public Opinion,
directed and displayed through the powerful medium of
a Free, Uncorrupted, and Uncorruptible British Press."
Her Majesty's reply included the following
" The press is at present the only stronghold that
THE QUEEN CAROLINE AFFAIR 239
Liberty has left. If we lose this we lose all. We
have no other rampart against an implacable foe."
Here is a letter which shows that Hone had been
busying himself in the Queen's affairs from the com-
mencement of the year. The old King had died on
January 29th.
To Rev. R. Aspland.
"Feb. 1820.
" MY DEAR SIR, You witnessed, I presume, Dr.
Lindsey's appalling death. It is a loss to the nation,
and I fear, a very great one at this time.
" The Queen's affairs will miss his directing mind,
when its real wisdom was most essential to her interests.
" The Whigs are sad dogs they engaged to get
her 50,000 per ann. by private contributions ;
brought down a message in her name, refusing that
annuity from Parliament ; and now cannot agree among
themselves to give her a shilling.
11 I am, My dear Sir,
" Yours truly,
" W. HONE."
The Rev. Robert Aspland, of Hackney, was a
prominent Unitarian divine, and editor of the Christian
Reformer and several other religious periodicals of
the time. It was he who had stood by Hone's side
at his trials in the Guildhall to manage the voluminous
books of reference used in his defence ; on each of
the three days Mr. Aspland had found the authorities
to be quoted, furnished hints in the use of them, and
prompted Hone time after time in his memorable
speeches. Many of the books had been borrowed by
the reverend advocate from Dr. William's Library
he was a man attracted by, and indefatigably active in,
political and religious efforts of this kind.
Further correspondence throws light on Hone's
:tivities in ,this matter.
240 WILLIAM HONE
To Mr. Hone.
" SLIGO,
"July 3o//z, 1820.
" MY DEAR SIR, I write to you in a hurry from a
circuit town, but the subject admits of no delay. I am
writing a few pages on the present crisis, which I hope
soon to have ready, and after our intercourse, you are
the man in England who I would soonest have for
my publisher. I will leave the terms entirely to your-
self. You will give me whatever sum you choose on
each edition, and I am only sorry that a poor man's
claims prevent his presenting it to you altogether. If
you are satisfied with this, do not lose a moment in
inserting the following advertisement.
" ' THE QUEEN.
' In the press, and immediately will be published,
THE QUEEN'S CASE STATED.
By
Charles Phillips, Esq., Barrister-at-Law.
1 You shall surely answer it when the poorest rag
upon the poorest beggar in this island shall have the
splendour of your Coronation garment.' Vide
statement.
'' Write to me the moment you receive this, and
direct to me at * Galway.' I shall, by return of post,
enclose to you, if not the whole, at least the greatest
part of the Manuscript. Excuse haste and believe me,
Dear Sir, relying on your immediate answer,
" Yours most sincerely,
" C. PHILLIPS.
' Tell me all the news and give my best regards
to Mr. Aspland. I need not say I am the Queen's
friend."
To Charles Phillips, Esq.
" LONDON,
" 23rd. Oct. 1820.
" MY DEAR SIR, I do indeed, as you suppose, think
the Queen triumphant ; hers is, in my honest, sincere
THE QUEEN CAROLINE AFFAIR 241
opinion, the triumph of honour and innocence, over
sensuality and subornation to perjury. I am glad to
hear that she has noticed the pamphlet. She is a
frank, open-hearted, unsuspicious woman. I have seen
and conversed with her. She is shrewd, witty, sarcastic
and gay, and so disloyal as to speak what she
thinks. . . .
" If you come here, you will have to live down some
very strong dislikes, and that will take time, unless you
prefer the other course, viz. to declare that certain
good and valuable considerations have assured you of
the error of your ways, and afforded you the means
of parting from your conscience, till you meet it in
the other world.
" You see what a rascal Donoughmore has become.
He was ever a most violent declaimer against the
King personally he is bought but the price is not
known exactly. Lord Hutchinson has been always a
private friend of the King, and the unhappy man has
not had the courage to resist the blandishments of
royalty.
" The Editions of your pamphlet are 500 each, and
it is now in the I9th. edition, which it has arrivejd
at from the means I have adopted, peculiar to myself.
Nothing operates more effectually upon a man than
interest, and as mine is co-equal with yours in this
affair, and my experience of a better kind, in a matter
of this sort, than any other man's in London, you
have, perhaps, the best security an author can have
for everything effectual being accomplished to promote
his object.
'* I am, my dear Sir,
" Yours faithfully,
" W. HONE."
The Lord .Hutchinson here mentioned by the writer
was the close personal friend of George IV. who was
commissioned to meet Queen Caroline at St. Omer and
make her an offer of 50,000 a year on condition that
she relinquished all English titles of royalty, and never
isited England. The Queen indignantly spurned the
16
242 WILLIAM HONE
suggestion, and started next morning (June 5th) for
England. Lord Donoughmore was Hutchinson's elder
brother, who had been on the Liberal side but now
supported the Government against Queen Caroline ;
hence Hone's just wrath against his time-serving
" rascality."
XVII
ANTIQUARY AND CONTROVERSIALIST
MENTION has been made (p. 218) of works other
than political and topical which were also engaging
Hone's attention during this period perhaps the period
of his greatest activity. At no time did he ever
willingly relinquish his researches in the records of
antiquity, and he was always too ready to flourish his
pen in religious controversy.
As an antiquary, part of his time Was taken up in
writing his " Ancient Mysteries " and the " Apocryphal
New Testament " ; as a controversialist he was answer-
ing the " Aspersions " of the Quarterly Review.
The researches which he made to support his plea
at the trials familiarised him with an obscure
section of literature, which, in 1821, resulted in the
publication of a curious and interesting volume, " The
Apocryphal New Testament, being all the Gospels,
Epistles, &c. attributed in the first four centuries to
Jesus Christ, His Apostles, and their Companions."
No sooner was the work published than it was
fiercely attacked all round, the most savage onslaught
being made by the Quarterly Review, the sting of
which was the reviewer's pretended assumption that
Hone was only the " editor," being " a poor, illiterate
creature, far too ignorant " to have written it himself.
Hone was furious. He addressed a letter and a
challenge to the Quarterly, and in 1824 published
Aspersions Answered : An Explanatory Statement
" Aspersi
244 WILLIAM HONE
addressed to the Public at large, and every Reader of
the Quarterly Review in particular."
The same malignant spirit in the Quarterly which
had assailed poor Keats was now manifesting itself
against William Hone. He replied to a second article
in it by publishing a pamphlet, " Another Article for
the Quarterly Review." In the same spirited manner
he engaged in a controversial correspondence with Dr.
Samuel Butler, Archdeacon and Headmaster of Shrews-
bury School, who, in 1836, became Bishop of Lichfield
and Coventry." Dr. Butler, whose grandson of the
same name, it is interesting to recall, is the author of
" Erewhon," retracted his aspersions and afterwards
became friendly with Hone.
The second of these twin antiquarian publications,
being less polemical, may be dismissed more briefly.
" The Ancient Mysteries Described, especially the
English Miracle Plays, founded on the Apocryphal New
Testament Story," appeared in May, 1823. Hone
printed eight of these Mysteries or Ancient Miracle
Plays, the precursors of the English drama, which he
had found in MS. at the British Museum and now
gave to the world. To these he added, as varia-
tions and illustrations, other ancient ecclesiastical
shows, such as " The Feast of Fools," " The Feast
of the Ass," " The Boy Bishop," " The Descent into
Hell," and even " The Giants in the Guildhall "not
all exactly ancient, though all of them curious and
diverting. It was in this way Hone supplied interest-
ing and amusing matter to the uninitiated, and won
for his antiquarian publications a wide and well-
deserved popularity. The illustrations to this book,
thirteen in number, were more than usually quaint.
Underneath the frontispiece, representing the Fool with
his Bauble, were the lines:
" When Friars, Monks, and Priests of former days,
Apocrypha and Scripture turned to Plays,
ANTIQUARY AND CONTROVERSIALIST 245
The Festivals of Fools and Asses kept
Obey'd Boy Bishops, and to crosses crept,
They made the Mumming Church the people's rod,
And held the grinning Bauble for a God."
An interesting correspondence passed between Hone
and Walter Wilson, the biographer of De Foe, the latter
desiring assistance in the collection of his material.
Hone had to refuse his request, being so fully occupied
in bringing out his " Ancient Mysteries " ; but the
tone of the letters shows the closeness of their intimacy.
A number of other books, none of which made any
particular stir in the world, were being issued by Hone
at this time. His best publishing period lasted from
1818 to 1826, during which his output, having regard
to the class of literature in which he trafficked and
the methods of publication then employed, was really
considerable.
But, though Hone had " found himself," though
he took an intense pleasure in the work with which
he busied himself unremittingly day by day, he was
never getting one penny the richer, no matter what
quantity of stuff he was selling. How seldom it is
that the bookish man is equipped to encounter the
actualities of business bargaining ! In William Hone,
indeed, it would seem that the competitive spirit was
all but absent.
The Hone period of publishing, be it remembered,
was par excellence the age of parody and piracy, and
the market was flooded with hundreds of cheap and
trashy reprints which are now either extinct or repre-
sented by the few rare copies treasured in the libraries
of the chap-book collectors. They were mostly pro-
duced by unscrupulous and impecunious printers, men
who defied the law because, being little better than
literary scavengers, they were not worth prosecuting.
Hone did very little in this line ; for though he printed
a lot of trash, it was trash honourably paid for, as far
as his means allowed.
XVIII
THE "EVERY -DAY BOOK"
HAVING abandoned his career as a satirist, Hone
devoted his later years to antiquarian research for the
purpose of publishing antiquarian information in a
popular form, and presenting it in such a manner as
not only to be understanded of the people, but
accessible to those of average means. To this con-
genial work he brought to bear his well-tried powers
of research, and displayed all that indefatigable perse-
verance which always characterised his labours, what-
ever they were. The result of all this was the
publication of the '* Every-Day Book" in 1825 and
1826, the " Table Book" in 1827, and the " Year
Book " in 1832.
Had the public realised the true value of Hone's
work at the outset, he might, perhaps, have been saved
the ignominy of a debtor's prison. At that stage in the
history of periodical literature publishing was by no
means a lucrative trade, and the publisher who meddled
in political affairs usually found himself labouring under
an additional disadvantage.
The first number of " The Every-Day Book " was
published January i, 1825, and as projected the
issue of the work was to occupy twelve months.
A " number," consisting of a sheet of thirty-two
columns, with engravings from original designs
by " superior artists," or from rare old prints
and drawings, was published every Saturday, at the
346
THE "EVERY-DAY BOOK" 247
price of threepence. The " Monthly Parts," com-
prising four of these weekly numbers, were " sold by
all vendors of periodical works in town and country "
at one shilling each.
Such was the success of the work, a second volume
was announced in January, 1826, which duly appeared,
and ran a similar course in popular favour. By the
close of the year the " Every-Day Book " had been
completed in 104 numbers, or 27 parts, and was being
offered in two octavo volumes of 1,700 pages, at 143.
each volume.
A letter, dated February 15, 1825, addressed to
S. J. Button, Esq., Pilgrim Street, shows the pecuniary
straits to which he was constantly reduced while bring-
ing out these works.
"Mv DEAR SIR, Can you favour me with a loan
of 25 till the 27th? I am sadly tied by the leg here
and the booksellers will do nothing by sending to ;
so that by their indifference to messages and my indis-
pensable attention to * Every Day/ I am really in a
vexatious plight. I have artists to pay, and they, poor
fellows, cannot be put off. The work is doing better
every week, and yet it keeps me poor by its very success
in the country where it is increasing fast. Withal I
am very unwell for want of a run out, and I dare not
venture on it till Saturday. If you can do this for me
it will serve and inspirit."
There are other letters of a similar nature which
disclose an almost chronic state of impecuniosity ; this
must suffice here it well illustrates the struggles
common to literary men whose love of letters dulls their
quaintance with figures.
Hone's accounts of the expenses incurred by him
in getting up the '* Every-Day Book," in respect of
drawings and cuts, are so admirably kept, item by
item, each under its respective date, from January i,
1825, when No. i was first put into preparation, to
ac
248 WILLIAM HONE
the last entry for No. 66, April i, 1826, that one
wonders why such a show of business habits and such
exactitude in accountancy never resulted in the man's
commercial success. The name of the draughtsman
and of the engraver in each case is given with the cost
set against it, as :
s. d
Feb. 8. No. 2. Twelfth Night. Drawing. G. Cruikshank 220
Feb. 8. No. 2. Twelfth Night. Cutting. H. White 200
Sept. 3. No. 36. Candler's Fantoccini. Drawing. G. Cruikshank 220
Sept. 3. No. 36. Candler's Fantoccini. Cutting. White 215 o
Dec. 24. No. 52. Bungay Watchman. Drawn by self
Dec. 24. Bungay Watchman. Cutting. White o 12 o
Jan. 21. No. 56. f Skating on the Drawing. G. Cruikshank 330
Jan. 21. No. 56. 1 Serpentine. Cutting. White 3 3 o
The total charges for designing and engraving the
whole of the illustrations amounted to 660 125. 6d.
This includes a lump sum of 150 for "out-of-pocket
expenses," set forth as under:
" Charges on the above Engravings and Numbers
of the * Every-Day Book ' for fees to Parish Clerks,
Sextons, and Porters ; Gifts to Showmen ; Civility
money to persons exhibited ; Gratuities for informa-
tion and permission to sketch, and for Stage hire and
other travelling expenses every week, to Islington,
Canonbury, Hagbush Lane, Hornsey, Highgate, Totten-
ham, West Wickham, and Greenwich, and to Bullock's
Museum, Cross's Menagerie, Bartholomew Fair,
Charlton, and other Fairs, and different places in town
and country ; frequently accompanied by Artists, and
always bearing their charges ; besides sums paid for
the loan of books, prints, and drawings, &c., &c., at
least, 150."
The illustrations, not only those of Cruikshank but
many of the others those of S. Williams, for instance
compare favourably with the best woodcuts of the
present day.
Hone sometimes made sketches himself. In
THE "EVERY-DAY BOOK" 249
Volume II. he gives a long account (p. 321) of the
elephant which was shot dead in Mr. Cross's Menagerie,
Exeter Change, in consequence of the dangerous
symptoms which it had developed. The initials to the
drawing of the unfortunate elephant as he lay dead show
that William Hone and George Cruikshank visited the
scene together.
During the summer of 1825 Hone took some quiet
lodgings near Pentonville, in order that he might get
on with his work without the interruptions incidental
to shopkeeping in the city.
In the " Every-Day Book," under date May 8th,
is a description of a walk out of London towards
Canonbury, in which the following passage occurs :
14 Having crossed the back Islington Road, we found
ourselves in the rear of the Pied Bull. Ah, I know
this spot well ; this stagnant pool was a ' famous '
carp pond among boys. How dreary the place seems ;
the yard and pens were formerly filled with sheep
and cattle for Smithfield market ; graziers and drovers
were busied about them ; a high barred-gate was con-
stantly closed ; now all is thrown open and neglected,
and not a living thing to be seen. We went round to
the front, the house was shut up, and nobody answered
to the knocking. It had been the residence of the
gallant Sir Walter Raleigh, who threw down his court
mantle for Queen Elizabeth to walk on, that she might
not damp her feet ; he, whose achievements in Virginia
secured immense revenue to his country ; whose indi-
vidual enterprise in South America carried terror to
the recreant heart of Spain ; whose lost years of his
life within the walls of the Tower, where he wrote the
' History of the World/ and better than all, its inimit-
able preface ; and who finally lost his life on a scaffold
for his courage and services.
"By a door in the rear we got into ' the best
parlour,' this was on the ground floor ; it had been
Raleigh's dining-room. Here the arms of Sir John
Miller are painted on glass in the end window, and we
250 WILLIAM HONE
found Mr. John C leghorn sketching them. This gentle-
man, who lives in the neighbourhood, and whose talents
as a draughtsman and engraver are well known, was
obligingly communicative, and we condoled on the
decaying memorials of past greatness.
" On the ceiling of this room are stuccoed the five
senses ; Feeling in an oval centre, and the other four
in the scroll-work around. The chimney-piece of
carved oak, painted white, represents Charity, supported
by Faith on her right, and Hope on her left. Taking
leave of Mr. Cleghorn, we hastily passed through the
other apartments, and gave a last farewell look at Sir
Walter's house ; yet we made not adieu to it till my
accompanying friend expressed a wish, that as Sir
Walter, according to tradition, had there smoked the
first pipe of tobacco drawn in Islington, so he might
have been able to smoke the last whiff within the walls
that would in a few weeks be levelled to the ground."
Now, evidently this description was written from actual
experience, though the walk was not taken precisely
on the day of the month already named. Preserved
among the family papers is the following memorandum
in Hone's neat and legible handwriting, and having at
the top of it a humorously drawn figure of a pied bull
smoking a pipe the drawing apparently executed by
the same hand :
" PIED BULL, ISLINGTON,
" 2ist. May 1825.
" Memorandum made on the spot, by us the under-
signed, now assembled for the purpose of looking at
this house, previous to its being pulled down. That
we have done so, and each of us smoked a pipe, that
is to say, each of us one or more pipes, or less than
one pipe, and the undersigned George Cruikshank
having smoked pipes innumerable or more or less and
that each of us did cause to be brought, or did bring,
to wit, by and through the undersigned David Sage,
whose father, David Sage the elder, is about to pull
down the house, many to wit, several pots of porter, in
aid of the said smoking, and that the same being so
THE "EVERY-DAY BOOK" 251
drunk, he, the said David Sage, at the suggestion, and
by desire of the not so undersigned, brought wine,
to wit, port wine at 3/6 per bottle (duty knocked off
lately) wherewith, and with other ingredients, bowls
of negus were made by the undersigned William Hone
and partaken of by each of us the first toast being
given * To the Immortal Memory of Sir Walter
Raleigh.' Intervening sentiments and toasts being
expressed arid drunk, the next of importance was the
Country of Sir Walter and ourselves ' Old England '
We, the first three undersigned, came here for the
high veneration we feel for the memory and character
of Sir Walter, and that we might have the gratification
of saying hereafter that we had smoked a pipe in the
same room that the man who first introduced tobacco
smoked in himself. The room in which we do this,
is that described in the Every-Day Book of this day
by W. H. In short, we have done what we have said,
and there is nothing more we can say, than this, that
as Englishmen we glory in the memory and renown of
our revered countryman.
"WILLIAM HONE, Chairman.
" GEORGE CRUIKSHANK.
" JOSEPH GOODYEAR.
" DAVID SAGE."
The signatures are autographs, and they were doubt-
less a very merry party who honoured the memory of
Raleigh that fine May day. This is one of the few
glimpses we get of Hone away from the cares of
business, and in the merry mood of pleasure -making.
Joseph Goodyear was an engraver on wood, born in
Birmingham, where he was apprenticed to Tye.
Legend says that William Hone took up his residence
in Canonbury Tower far a short time during the writing
of Volume I. It is precisely the kind of thing he would
do, on account of the literary associations which cluster
so thickly round that ancient structure. Oliver
Goldsmith is supposed to have produced some of his
works here about the year 1767 ; Samuel Humphreys,
252 WILLIAM HONE
author of "Ulysses," died here in 1737, and Chris-
topher Smart, the " mad poet," once rented rooms in
the building. A number of other eminent names in
literature have added lustre to the history of Canonbury
Tower, all of which would be known to William Hone,
and perhaps suggest the atmosphere of the place to
him as the source of literary inspiration. And it was
perhaps a safe retreat from duns.
M Oh for a year without quarter-days ! " Thus
sighed the man whose whole time, thoughts, and
energies were occupied upon a glorified calendar.
William Hone was living at 45, Ludgate Hill on the
site now occupied by the railway-bridge' and the time
of stress and tribulation which wrung this exclamation
from his lips was the " inevitable " quarter-day which
arrived in March, 1826. The final blow in the long-
impending disaster fell on April 4th, when he was
arrested for debt, and carried off to the Lock-up House.
Upon his surrender to the " Rules of King's Bench,"
he was lodged for a time at Mr. Poole's, tobacconist,
2, Suffolk Street ; whilst his wife and family, being
thrust out of the Ludgate Hill premises, found a
temporary refuge with his father, until a small house at
22, Belvedere Place, Southwark, was secured for them,
it being the custom then for a debtor to " reside within
the Rules."
The King's Bench Prison, Southwark, was one pile
of buildings occupying an extensive tract of land,
and having within its high walls 224 rooms, a coffee-
house, and two public -houses ; also shops and stalls
for the sale of meat, vegetables, and the other neces-
saries of life while the people walking about, or
enjoying themselves in various forms of amusement,
was little calculated to impress a stranger with the ideas
of insolvency and distress or even of confinement.
The Prison buildings had been burnt down by the
Lord George Gordon rioters in 1780, the year of Hone's
birth ; but they had been very speedily rebuilt. Im-
THE "EVERY-DAY BOOK" 253
prisonment for debt, it may be noted (except when
fraudulently contracted) was abolished in 1861.
Referring to this break-up of the home, a rather
pathetic note, considered from a literary man's point
of view, made by the son Alfred in later years, is
found among the family papers:
" A perfect set of father's publications was kept
in a chest in the little lumber-room at the top of the
house, at Ludgate Hill. When the break-up came,
this chest was forgotten and left behind ; mother had
a perfect recollection of this."
Settled down, Hone occupied himself with literary
work " within the Rules," almost as unconcernedly as
if he were entirely free. Others before his time, and
since, have similarly employed their talents under the
shadow of this prison. Here, for instance, Dr. Syntax,
otherwise the eccentric William Coombe, wrote his
"'Tour in Search of the Picturesque" in 1822 ; and
not literature alone has been wooed " within the Rules "
a few years later poor Haydon painted his " Mock
Election," which was purchased by George IV. for
500. Art is a kinder mistress than letters at least,
for writers of the solid type of William Hone.
From January i, 1825, the impecunious author had
been engaged upon his " Every-Day Book," getting
it out regularly in threepenny numbers. He continued
his writing in the prison, getting out the current weekly
number in the lock-up, the publishing being taken
over by Hunt and Clarke, who issued for him the
shilling monthly part that April.
Here is a business letter from Mr. Hunt, addressed
" Mr. Hone at Mr. Poole's, tobacconist, 2, Suffolk
Street, near the King's Bench Prison " : -
" April 22nd. 1826.
"Mv DEAR SIR, We will at all costs advance the
>o to save the furniture. It seems difficult (though
254 WILLIAM HONE
I don't know why it should be so) to persuade you that
nothing could cause the hesitation on our part but the
actual difficulty of finding the money. To do it next
Wednesday will occasion great inconvenience for it
cannot be done without putting off payments that ought
not to be postponed.
" I mention this simply in order to convince you
(taking for granted that you give me credit for
sincerity) that since Mr. Evans first explained the
receipts, there was only one question with us, namely,
could we advance the money?
" I forgot to remind you to-day of the general
advertisement for our catalogue, which the printer waits
for. It must not be long.
" Can you let Cox have some part of the proof of
Index to-morrow morning to correct?
" Very truly yours,
" H, L. HUNT/'
The plight he was in, and the course he proposed to
pursue, are best set forth in his own words, as we find
them in a letter to his old friend John Childs.
" IN THE RULES OF KING'S BENCH PRISON,
" 24 April, 1826.
" * Every-Day Book:
" DEAR CHILDS, My family is thrust out from Lud-
gate Hill, and I am in the Rules of King's Bench
Prison. From the moment I found my affairs irre-
trievable, which was within two hours after I was
arrested (it being made plain to me by my Solicitor,
and I had not dreamed of it before) I worked like a
horse to put the ' Every-Day Book ' beyond the reach
of destruction, by transferring it to Messrs. Hunt &
Clarke, in trust for my Creditors, and every sheet of
every thing out of my own power, or the power of any
one man to touch in preference to another. All was
removed into their Warehouse in a few hours, and my
papers secured with the books necessary to the conduct
THE "EVERY-DAY BOOK" 255
of the work ; and I was transferred hither, after writing
a number in the Lock-up House. Since then, I have
got out last week's, arranged the Index, so as to make
the first volume an immediately productive asset,
and have just got the proofs from the printer's, which,
when read, will go to press.
" My wife and family are in great distress. They
ran for shelter to my Father's, and I went to prison
with 3/6 in my pocket and this a week before one
of my daughters was to have been married.
J< It is not possible, I think, that my creditors will
refuse the proposition that will be submitted to them
generally, and to which those who have been already
seen have assented, for the continuation of the ' Every-
Day Book,' and employing me, under Trustees, at such
a rate as shall maintain my family on the smallest
weekly allowance, until I have satisfied them in full.
It is my wish, and will be my endeavour to do it, and
nothing short of being allowed to make that endeavour,
and pay them 2O/- in the , will satisfy me.
' To remove all suspicion that I might desire the
benefit, as it is called, of the Insolvent Court, I have
forborne entering the Prison walls, which is a requisite
enjoined by the law, before a debtor can petition for
relief. Bankruptcy seems altogether out of the
question. It would be the best thing for me, and
the worst for my creditors, and as I am willing to
work for them, at the price of bare existence, they will
scarcely reject the offer.
" My direction is ' Mr. Hone, at Mr. Poole's, Tobac-
conist, 2 Great Suffolk Street, opposite the old Windsor
Castle, Borough, London.'
" Though I have lacked necessaries, I mean meals,
since I have been here, I have not made known that
I had not the wherewithal to obtain them, for I am
not a beggar. Had I been dishonest to my creditors,
I should not have been in want.
" I am, dear Childs,
" Yours sincerely,
" W. HONE."
256 WILLIAM HONE
With what mixed feelings the bankrupt received, a
month or so later, the following letter from his
publisher, addressed to him at Belvedere Place, may
be best imagined by those who have most endured
life's bitter ironies. The newspaper cutting is care-
fully pasted at the top of the note-paper, thus:-*
" 'According to the Colonial Times (a Hobart's Town
paper), Mr. HONE, the brother of the political squib
writer of that name, is receiving from his various
appointments in that colony, the following salaries :
s. d.
As Master 480 15 4
For House Rent 115 7 4^
As Commissioner of the Court of Requests 298 13 4
As Chairman of the Quarter Sessions ... 177 J 7 6
Total ... ^"1072 13
" If to this sum. is added his present salary, as Acting
Attorney-General, Mr. HONE'S income will not be far
short of 2,ooo/ per annum 1 ! ! When the gentlemen
of Westminster-Hall read this statement, they will be
of opinion that Mr. HONE has been, at least, tolerably
successful.'
" MY DEAR SIR, I send you the above from this
day's Herald, that you may rejoice at the fact, and
laugh at poor Thwaite's spite.
" Will you oblige me with an answer, by bearer, to
my queries of yesterday? I must know, in order to
make the requisite arrangements for publishing.
" Very truly yours,
" HENRY L. HUNT.
" Wednesday } 2$rd. August."
An extract from a letter at the close of that fateful
year shows William Hone, though nominally a prisoner
in confinement, still busily and industriously engaged
THE "EVERY-DAY BOOK" 257
on the work which ever had a fascination for him, and
by means of which he hoped to extricate himself
and his family from difficulties.
" 22 BELVEDERE PLACE,
*' SOUTH WARK,
Dec. iSth. 1826.
". . . I think I begin to see daylight through the
gloom of my late distresses, and if I can turn my per-
verted faculties a little more to the right, I may struggle
through at no distant period. Be this as it may, I
shall wait patiently, and endeavour silently.
14 I end the ' Every-Day Book ' with the next number,
and hope is resolving into certainty that the work,
when completed, will yield something, which those who
have expected nothing will be glad to divide, though a
trifle, amongst themselves, and the rest who have taken
vengeance in their own hands, and obtained nothing
unhappily, but a good bill from their own legal
advisers, will have the option of the same dividend.
"As to ' being in the world again,' I am scarcely
more out of it than I was at Ludgate Hill. It's true
I have not so many friends fluttering about me, but
in other respects I am altogether as I was, ' except
these bonds.' I thank God, however, that in this small
house we are more comfortable than I could imagine
possible."
e dedication of the first volume ran :
To CHARLES LAMB, Esq.
"DEAR , Your letter to me, within the first
two months from the commencement of the present
work, approving my notice of St. Chad's Well, and
your afterwards daring to publish me your * friend,'
with your proper name annexed, I shall never forget.
Nor can I forget your and Miss Lamb's sympathy and
kindness, when glooms overmastered me ; and that
your pen spontaneously sparkled in the book, when my
mind was in clouds and darkness. These ' trifles '
17
258 WILLIAM HONE
as each of you would call them, are benefits scored
upon my heart, and
" I dedicate this volume
" To you and Miss Lamb,
" With affectionate respect,
"W. HONE.
" May $th. 1826.*'
On the completion of the work Lamb paid that
graceful rhymed compliment to " friend Hone " which
is so often quoted. In the middle of the volume there
was also an interchange of rhymed compliments
between the two, the well-known Quatrains to " in-
genuous Hone," and his laboured Quatorzians in reply.
The second volume of the " Every -Day Book " was
" respectfully dedicated by William Hone, to the Right
Honourable the Earl of Darlington ' as an encourage-
ment of the old Country Sports and Usages chiefly
treated of in my Book'; 27th. February 1827."
Of the " Every-Day Book " he said he could have
continued it for six volumes full of interesting matter.
He told a friend that he remembered Brand, the anti-
quary, and described him as
" a tall, robust, Johnsonian sort of man, without John-
son stoop. He loved his bottle of port and dessert, to
loll over his wine with some noble friend, turn over
his illustrated Pennant, and recall interesting anecdotes
of the characters of past times. Sunday was his work-
ing day and he used to say on Saturday, ' Oh ! I
have to preach to-morrow.' '
Brand's " Popular Antiquities " was doubtless a
source of inspiration to the later antiquary.
XIX
THE " TABLE BOOK "
MONTH after month, for another year, the work of
completing the first, and writing the second of his
famous Miscellanies, went steadily forward. But under
what bodily strain and mental suffering these well-
known works were produced, few who are familiar with
them seem to know.
On Christmas Day, 1827, the indomitable scribe
makes the note :
' The next number of the ' Table Book ' is the last-
so wills the public. ... W. H."
The man of letters being " no man of business," his
affairs were now taken in hand by a friend, who inter-
viewed Messrs. Hunt and Clarke, and found that the
" Every-Day Book," representing the unremitting toil
of many weary months, would result in no pecuniary
benefit whatever to its author. It was found, further,
that a sum of 400 was still required to settle with
Hone's creditors before his liberation could be effected.
But the year 1827 was fraught with other, and
deeper, distresses than unproductive labour. Writing
to a friend, William Hone makes this allusion to his
ns William and John :
' I have the satisfaction to say that my eldest son
has remitted half his pay, since he has been at sea, in
liquidation of debts he had contracted previously, and
260 WILLIAM HONE
he has written so as to persuade me that the good seed
is outgrowing the tares.
" Little Jack,, whom I shipped off to France, has
returned, after a six months' voyage, and I have put
him to a good school (I have found one) where the
little chap is fagging with all his might and delight
at navigation, that he may get off to sea as quickly as
possible, and, in spite of all my teaching, and though
he saw above thirty sail wrecked off Yarmouth, and
not a soul saved, he is eager to go aboard again, and
actually desires to have ' a brush,' as he calls it, at
fighting ! This is a son of mine ! "
The elder boy had been appointed to H.M.S. Procris,
commanded by Captain Waldegrave. Let a letter
disclose the beginning of a series of domestic afflic-
tions which added to the imprisoned debtor's other
distresses :
"22, BELVEDERE PLACE, SOUTHWARK,
" 1 3 th. December 1827.
" DEAR CHILDS, Since you were here in the
Summer, distress has poured upon us in floods. One
fact, from the interest you took in our son William's
welfare, you ought not to be ignorant of he is dead !
You may have learned, perhaps, by the papers, that
our second son, Alfred, was run over in the Strand
a week ago. His skull was fractured, and at that
time there was every appearance of mortal termination.
From the time he was brought home, he vomited blood
for fifteen hours, and was insensible. He is now
gradually recovering, though not out of danger, and
I wished to write William, from whom we had not
heard of late, though we wrote him letters. My wife
went yesterday to receive his pay, but chiefly for the
purpose of inquiring where his ship was stationed ;
she was answered that his pay was stopped, and this
mode was feelingly adopted to prepare her for the
intelligence of his death. She dragged herself home
scarcely alive, with a paper indorsed that he died i8th.
October. Her grief was too absorbing to leave thought
THE "TABLE BOOK" 261
or anxiety for particulars. If I do not mistake that
date was the day of the battle of Navarino. This is
all that I know or conjecture.
' You will do me a favor if you communicate this
to Mr. Filby, whose kindness, as well as yours, 1
will remember. I am too full of sorrow to say more
than God bless you and yours.
" W. HONE."
An extract from another letter will supply a few
details of the bereavement :
" First, however, I must thank you for the con-
solatory sentiments you express towards us in our
affliction, for the loss of our poor boy, William, respect-
ing whom we have since heard that he was found
dead in his hammock, in Leith Roads, and that he
appeared to have expired three hours before, having
gone to rest in apparent health."
It was little comfort to the bereaved family to
receive the captain's testimony to the deceased's intelli-
gence, ability, and officer-like conduct.
Then the son John " little Jack," as his father
fondly calls him gets his appointment to H.M.S.
Gannet in the following year, and goes to sea again.
Strangely enough, he soon afterwards meets with his
death by a fall from the yard-arm.
But this is anticipatory. To return to the close of
1827, we learn from a letter that Hone himself was
bodily suffering :
" MY DEAR SIR, If you can let me have the Legend
of the Bridge, with some notice of the painter of the
picture, which is in the hands of the engraver, it will
oblige me particularly so, should it be convenient to
drop it to me on Monday the wood block will be
ready, and they might appear next Saturday.
" To say truth, I am o'er wearied with my troubles,
and my spirit is too severely wounded to get up when
?ant it, and at this moment the Article would help
262 WILLIAM HONE
me, for I have only one engraving for my sheet next
week, save yours, and for the life of me cannot devise
another.
" Let me not, however, press you inconveniently-
merely do me the favor of a line by bearer a word
aye or nay and I shall arrange accordingly.
" Since I wrote you last, I have been under the
hands of the surgeon for a complaint I had unwit-
tingly neglected and the operation, and the altogether-
ness of my difficulties in this place, have prevented
me from writing T.Q.M. 1 as I purposed I have literally
been unable. You, I am sure, must be aware that
' the heart alone knoweth its own sorrows,' and that
there are times when it can neither make them known,
nor bear the weight of ordinary business in addition.
I pray you let this be (as it truly is) excuse and apology
for seeming neglect. Will and power I have been
little able of late to connect.
" I am, My dear Sir,
" Yours sincerely,
" W. HONE.
"22 Belvedere Place,
" is/. Dec. 1827.
" To C. C. Wilson, Esq."
The advertisement which offered for sale " The
Every -Day Book Complete " also announced a new
work to commence on January i, 1827, which, like
its predecessor, was to be issued in weekly and
monthly sections. This was the " Table Book," the
first number of which appeared with the New Year,
1827. To this work Hone invited the communications
of correspondents on topics of interest, and current
gossip on events of the day, which, with his own
writings and the embellishments of his artists, he hoped
to make into a literary kaleidoscope, which would blend
information with amusement, utility with diversion, or,
as he put it in rhyme :
1 A frequent contributor to the "Table Book."
THE "TABLE BOOK" 263
" Cuttings with cuts, facts, fancies, recollections,
Heads, autographs, views, prose, and verse selections.
Notes of my musings in a lonely walk,
My friends' communications, table-talk,
Notions of books, and things I read and see,
Events that are, or were, or are to be,
Fall in my TABLE BOOK and thence arise
To please the young, and help divert the wise."
Hone laid many of his literary friends under contri-
bution, as may be noted by the observant reader of
this compilation.
How one contributor was obtained is disclosed in
the autobiography of Mrs. Charles Cowden -Clarke ;
it is the story of a first literary effort which led to
many very notable achievements by the same pen.
Miss Mary Novello, as she then was, had just become
engaged at the age of seventeen to her future husband.
It was of the year 1826 she thus writes in "My Long
Life" (T. Fisher Unwin, 1896):-
" I made my first attempt in literary production.
My only confidant was my sister Cecilia. I wrote one
short paper, entitled * My Arm Chair,' signed merely
' M.H.' These initials I meant to represent ' Mary
Howard,' because my father had in his juvenile days,
enacted the part of Sir John Falstaff as ' Mr. Howard '
at some private theatricals. I sent my paper to the
office where Hone's ' Table Book ' was published,
and to my great joy, and to that of my sister-confidant,
my paper was promptly accepted, making its appearance
in an early subsequent number of that interesting
periodical. To figure in the same volume where dear
and honoured Charles Lamb was contributing his
selections from the ' Garrick Plays ' was in itself a
greatly-to-be-prized distinction, but my happiest triumph
was when I showed the paper to my Charles, telling
him it was written by a girl of seventeen, and watched
his look of pleased surprise when I told him who that
girl was.
264 WILLIAM HONE
" I may here mention that this contribution of mine
to Hone's TABLE BOOK was followed by five others,
respectively entitled ' My Desk,' ' My Home, ' My
Pocket -Book,' ' Inn Yards,' and a paper on the
' Assignats ' in currency at the time of the French
Republic of 1792. The paper was headed by a
printed facsimile of an ' Assignat di dix sous,' from
one that had been given to me by my kind old tutor,
Monsieur Bonnefoy."
Life in the King's Bench must have appeared but a
dull grey thing to a bright young girl in the first bloom
of womanhood. Mrs. Cowden-Clarke, in her charming
reminiscences, tells us of her intimate acquaintance in
early life with Leigh Hunt, John Keats, and other
literary lights with whom her family were on visiting
terms. Here is an episode of the kind which occurred
soon after she still Miss Mary Victoria Novello had
become engaged to Charles Cowden-Clarke :
44 Another visit, but of a very different kind, that
year, was paid by my Charles and me together. He
took me to see William Hone, who was then detained,
by temporary money difficulties, ' within the rules ' of
the King's Bench Prison ; so dingy and smoky were
the regions through which we had to pass ere we arrived
there, that a morsel of smut found its way to my face
and stuck thereon during the first portion of our inter-
view with Mr. Hone. When Charles perceived the
black intruder, he quickly purled it off and went on
with his conversation.
44 A day or two afterwards, when Hone again saw
Charles, he said to him, ' You are engaged to Miss
Novello, are you not? ' * What makes you think so? '
was the reply. ' I saw you familiarly blow a smut
off the young lady's face, to which familiarity she
made no objection ; therefore, I naturally guessed you
were engaged to each other.' '
The " Table Book," like its predecessor, soon became
popular ; the reception it met with may be gauged by
THE "TABLE BOOK" 265
the high commendation passed upon it by Christopher
North :
" Reader, did you ever see Hone's Every-day Book?
You cannot do better than buy it directly. . . . You
will meet with spirit-stirring descriptions of old
customs, delightful woodcuts of old buildings, as well
as many a fine secret learned among the woods and
fields, and whispered by the seasons' difference. . . .
He has deserved well of the Naturalist, the Antiquary,
and the Poet by his Every-day Book, and also by
his Table Book."
Hone's edition of Strutt appeared about this time.
Probably there was no other man then living more
capable of editing Joseph Strutt 's " Sports and Pastimes
of the People of England," which had been first
published in 1801, the year before the author's death.
Part I. of Hone's edition of " Strutt's Sports," to
be issued in ten monthly parts, with 140 engravings,
was announced for February i, 1828. The price was
to be one shilling each part, or on superior paper, two
shillings, and if coloured, three shillings. The
publishers were Hunt and Clarke. In 183/1 a new
edition, " with copious index," was published by Thomas
Tegg & Son.
XX
WILLIAM HONE AND CHARLES LAMB
WE have nofw reached a period in Hone's life when
something requires to be said of an acquaintance with
one who holds a more distinguished place in our litera-
ture than any who have hitherto been mentioned ; one,
too, who arouses in his admirers the most intense
and ardent affection. There is a sheer pleasure in
even writing his name Charles Lamb. Sir Walter
Scott or Oliver Goldsmith may be the most beloved
of writers, but Charles Lamb " has not left his peer " ;
he, far beyond all others, is the best beloved, and it is
impossible to imagine that any other author will ever
appeal to us so compellingly as he does.
When the two met cannot, in the present state of
our knowledge, be definitely stated. In his " Life
of Charles Lamb " Mr. E. V. Lucas remarks that
" to the best of his knowledge " the acquaintance began
after Hone had sent to Lamb a copy of his " Ancient
Mysteries." This book was published probably some
time in May, 1823, as Lamb acknowledged its receipt
in a letter dated the iQth of that month and it was
announced in the June number of the London Magazine
as having been " lately published." Mr. Lucas, how-
ever, is in error as the above-named letter was not the
first one that passed between the two, for, some eighteen
months earlier, Lamb had written to Hone in reply to
a communication in which the latter had, evidently,
sent some details concerning " Graces," perhaps after
having read in the November number of the London
WILLIAM HONE AND CHARLES LAMB 267
Magazine the Elian essay, " Grace Before Meat." So,
at least, one judges from the letter referred to, which
was first printed in 1870 in "The Complete Corre-
spondence and Works of Charles Lamb." The letter
runs thus :
" 9 Nov., '21.
" DEAR SIR, I was not very well nor in spirits
when your pleasant note reached me, or should have
noticed it sooner. Our Hebrew brethren seem to
appreciate the good things of this life in more liberal
latitude than we, to judge from their frequent graces.
One, I think, you must have omitted : ' After conclud-
ing a bargain.' Their distinction of * Fruits growing
upon trees,' and * upon the ground ' I can understand.
A sow makes quite a different grunt (her grace) over
chestnuts and pignuts. The last is a little above Elia.
" With thanks and wishing grace be with you.
" Yours,
" C. LAMB."
One is inclined to -surmise that some sort of an
acquaintance may have taken place even earlier than
the preceding date, although we have no evidence of
such, for in his journeyings to and fro between his rooms
in Great Russell Street, Covent Garden, and the East
India House in Leadenhall Street, Charles Lamb must
have passed Hone's shop in Ludgate Hill (where the
latter had set up as a bookseller since 1818) at least
twice daily and, quite conceivably, may have entered it
in search of some literary treasure or other, and by
some humorous or witty remark have engaged Hone's
interest. Another possible source of introduction may
have been Lamb's friend, Hazlitt, who in 1819 em-
ployed Hone as the publisher of his " Political Essays."
Either of these assumptions seems more probable than
that the intimacy should have originated as the result
of Hone's having first written to Lamb after the appear-
ance of the essay in November, 1821. For it should
be txm< in mind that the contributions to the London
268 WILLIAM HONE
Magazine were signed with a pseudonym, and all that
Hone would have known would be that their author
was a certain " Elia " whose identity with Charles Lamb
was known to a few friends only. And even supposing
that Hone had written to Elia under care of the editor
of the magazine and the letter had been forwarded by
the latter, it is hardly likely that he would "give himself
away " by signing his proper name as Lamb did in his
reply. And, of course, if Hone communicated directly
with Lamb by letter addressed either to the India House
or elsewhere he must have been less of a stranger than
has hitherto been assumed. If it be objected that, had
the two been known to each other at the date in
question, Lamb could quite easily have popped into
the shop in passing and so thanked Hone personally
and would doubtless have done so, we reply that
Lamb was then temporarily living in Dalston and his
route lay some distance away from Ludgate Hill.
The third letter to Hone is one of thanks for an
" excellent pamphlet " which is apparently that
published by him early in the year 1824, entitled
"Aspersions answered: an Explanatory Statement to
the Public at large and every reader of the Quarterly
Review" Two other letters follow, undated, but con-
jecturally belonging to the same year.
It is not until the year 1825, shortly after Hone had
begun the publication of his " Every-Day Book," that
the friendship appears to have become established.
From that time onwards up to 1834, the year of Lamb's
death, the intimacy continued and the various editions of
Lamb's Letters contain some twenty-six letters written
to Hone, most of them bearing on Lamb's contributions
to the " Every-Day Book " and " Table Book," in the
latter of which appeared the " Garrick Extracts " from
the old dramatists which were published in 1835 along
with the third edition of the '* Dramatic Specimens."
In the London Magazine for May, 1825, were printed
Lamb's pleasant and kindly verses " Quatrains to the
WILLIAM HONE AND CHARLES LAMB 269
Editor of the ' Every-Day Book * which opened with
the line, " I like your book, ingenuous Hone/' and
of which the conclusion ran as follows :
" Dan Phoebus loves your book trust me, friend
Hone
The title only errs, he bids me say :
For while such art, wit, reading, there are shown
He swears, 'tis not a work of every day"
The phrase " friend Hone " seems to have called
forth all his rapturous gratitude, for in his Dedication
of the first volume of the periodical to Charles Lamb
in May, 1826, he refers to it, as he had done previously
in a letter now published for the first time :
" GATE HOUSE, HIGHGATE,
" Sunday, May, 1825.
" DEAR SIR,' My dear Sir,' at the head of a letter
to you, is too formal I think it much better to say,
then
" DEAR LAMB,
' Because, to be plain, I must call you so.
' Friend Hone ' in print is so kind, and then there's
such courage, in public, to say you dare to encourage
my friendship, in private I cannot resist a glow o,f
affection for such an assistance towards a poor mortal
like me, who only is, (sic) and never can be more
than, a creeper, where others are runners.
"Now for my ' say ' There being some sun this May
morning, I purpose to shock Miss Lamb and you about
2 o'clock, with a call and an appetite, such as it is, and
to eat out my thanks, and excite all your risibility,
lavity, compassion and gravity for melancholy, mirth,
id I are one.
"I'm more than
" Yours sincerely,
" W. HONE."
The Quatrains were copied by Hone into No. 30 of
" Every-Day Book " which appeared on July 23rd
were followed by his own quatorzians (irregular
mnets), two of which are here given :
270 WILLIAM HONE
" In feeling, like a stricken deer, I've been
Self -put out from the herd, friend Lamb ; for I
Imagined all the sympathies between
Mankind and me had ceased, till your full cry
Of kindness reach'd and roused me, as I lay
' Musing on divers things unknown ' : it bid
Me know, in you, a friend ; with a fine gay
Sincerity, before all men it chid,
Or rather, by not chiding, seem'd to chide
Me, for long absence from you ; re -invited
Me, with a herald's trump, and so defied
Me to remain immured ; and it requited
Me, for others' harsh misdeeming which I trust is
Now, or will be, known by them, to be injustice.
* * * * *
"As to the message from your friend above :
Do me the favour to present my best
Respects to old ' Dan Phoebus ' for the * love '
He bears the Every -Day Bo,ok: for the rest,
That is, the handsome mode he has selected
Of making me fine compliments by you, 'tis
So flatt'ring to me, and so much respected
By me, that, if you please, and it should suit his
Highness, I must rely upon you, for
Obtaining his commands, to introduce me
To him yourself, when quite convenient ; or
I trust at any rate, you'll not refuse me
A line, to signify, that I'm the person known
To him, through your friend Lamb as
" Your Friend,
" WILLIAM HONE."
It is quite evident that Hone was no poet, and we
have not quoted his very prosaic verses for the purpose
of poking fun at him or of depreciating his poetic
efforts, but merely to show the effect on him of Lamb's
kindly sympathy and '* friending," and how sincere was
his gratitude. The concluding quatorzian is also neces-
sary to understand Lamb's reference to " this last
interlineation," in his letter to Hone of July 25, 1825,
printed on page 273.
WILLIAM HONE AND CHARLES LAMB 271
In the surrimer of 1825, Lamb's health having broken
down, it was found necessary for him for a while
to leave Colebrook Cottage, Islington, where he had
been living since the autumn of 1823. He sought
health and quiet farther afield in the village of Enfield,
and while there his cottage was occupied by Hone, who,
on a broiling day in July, penned the following amusing
epistle which he used as " copy " for the " Every-Day
Book " in which it was printed in the number for July
23rd, the same number in which Lamb's verses and his
own appeared. It is headed " A Hot Letter " and is
addressed to " Captain Lamb, Brighton."
" MY DEAR SIR, I anticipated a sojournment in
your ' neat little country cottage ' during your absence,
with more pleasure than I expressed, when you made
me the offer of it. I imagined how much more comfort-
able I should be there, than in my own out-of-town
single-room. I was mistaken. I have been comfort-
able nowhere. The malignity of an evil star is against
me ; I mean the dog star. You recollect the heat I
fell into during our Hornsey walk. I have been hot
ever since, ' hissing hot, think of that Master Brook ' ;
I would that thou wert really a brook, I would cleave
thy bosom, and, unless thou wert cool to me, I would
not acknowledge thee for a true friend.
" After returning from the coach wherein you and
your lady-cousin l departed, I ' larded the lean earth '
to my own house in town. That evening I got into a
hackney-coach, to enjoy your ' cool ' residence ; but
it was hot ; and there was no ' cool of the evening ' ;
I went to bed hot, and I slept hot all night, and got up
hot to a hot tea breakfast, looking all the while on the
hot print opposite, Hogarth's * Evening,' with the fat
hot citizen's wife sweltering between her husband and
the New River, the hot little dog looking wistfully
into the reachless warm water, her crying hot boy on her
husband's stick, the scolding hot sister, and all the other
heats of that ever-to-be warmly-admired engraving.
1 " Bridget Elia," of course.
272 WILLIAM HONE
' The coldest picture in the room, to my heated eye,
was the fruit-piece worked in worsted worsted in the
dog-days I
" How I got through that hot day I cannot
remember. At night, when, according to Addison,
' evening shades prevail ' the heat prevailed ; there
were no * cool ' shades, and I got no rest ; and there-
fore I got up restless, and walked out and saw the
Morning Star, which I suppose was the dog star, for
I sought coolness and found it not ; but the sun arose,
and methought there was no atmosphere but burning
beams ; and the metropolis poured out its heated
thousands towards the New River, at Newington ; and
it was filled with men, and boys, and dogs ; and all
looked as * comfortable ' as live eels in a stew pan.
" I am too hot to proceed. What a summer ! The
very pumps refuse ' spring ' water ; and I suppose,
we shall have no more until next spring.
" My heart melts within me, and I am not so
unhuman as to request the servant to broil with this
letter to the post office, but I have ordered her to !
give it to the newsman, and ask him to slip it into
the first letter-box he passes, and to tell him, if he
forgets, it is of no consequence, and in no hurry ; he
may take it on to Ludgate Hill, and Mr. Hone, if he
please, may print it in his ' Every -Day Book.' I dare
say he is too hot to write, and this may help to fill
up ; so you'll get it, at any rate. I don't care if all
the world reads it, for the hot weather is no secret.
As Mr. Freeling l cannot say that printing a letter is
privately conveying it, I shall not get into hot water
at the post-office.
" I am, my dear Sir,
" Your warmest friend, till winter,
" I. FRY.
" COLEMAN COTTAGE,
" Sun Day.
" P.S. I am told the sight of the postmen in their
scarlet coats is not bearable in London ; they look
red-hot."
1 Francis Freeling, Secretary to the G.P.O.
WILLIAM HONE AND CHARLES LAMB 273
To this letter, over which he must have chuckled when
he read it in the " Every-Day Book," Lamb replied :
" ENFIELD,
[25 July, 1825.]
" DEAR H , The Quotidian came in as pleasantly
as it was looked for at breakfast time yesterday. You
have repaid my poor stanzas with interest. This
last interlineation is one of those instances of affectation
rightly applied. Read the sentence without it, how
bald it is ! Your idea of ' worsted in the dog-days '
was capital.
" We are here so comfortably that I am confident
we shall stay one month, from this date, most probably
longer ; so, if you please, you can cut your out-of-town
room for that time. I have sent up my petit farce
altered ; and Harley is at the theatre now. It cannot
come out for some weeks. When it does, we think not
of leaving here, but to borrow a bed of you for the
night.
" I write principally to say that the 4th of August
is coming, Dogget's Coat and Badge Day on the water.
You will find a good deal about him in Gibber's
Apology, octavo, facing the window ; and something
haply in a thin blackish quarto among the plays, facing
the fireside.
' You have done with mad dogs ; else there is a
print of Rowlandson's, or somebody's, of people in
pursuit of [one] in a village, which might have come
also Goldsmith's verses.
" Mary's kind remembrance,
" C. LAMB.
' MR. HONE,
" Colebrook Cottage,
11 Islington."
t was, probably, while Hone was living at Highgate
that the following incident, related by the author of
" Some Account of the Conversion from Atheism to
Christianity of the late William Hone," took place:
" Next to Peckham Rye, or rather before it, he [Hone]
loved Hampstead Heath ; there he used to see much of
18
I
274 WILLIAM HONE
Charles Lamb, of whom he always spoke with true
affection. He told me, * One summer 's evening I was
walking with Charles Lamb, and we had talked our-
selves into a philosophic contempt of our slavery to the
habit of snuff-taking ; with the firm resolution of nevei
again taking a single pinch, we threw our snuff-boxes
away from the hill on which we stood, far among
the furze and brambles below, and went home ir
triumph ; I began to be very miserable, was wretchec
all night ; in the morning I was walking on the same
hill ; I saw Charles Lamb below, searching among
the bushes ; he looked up laughing, and saying, " What !
you are come to look for your snuff-box too? " " Oh,
no," said I, taking a pinch out of a paper in my waist-
coat pocket. " I went for a half penny- worth to the
first shop that was open."
During the two years (1825 and 1826) that the
" Every-Day Book " ran, Lamb contributed several
articles, all more or less characteristic of his delightful
style. It was not, however, until Hone brought out
his " Table Book " in the year following the cessation
of the former publication that Lamb became a constant
contributor. His extracts from the Garrick plays
appeared, with few exceptions, every week during 1827.
He found during the latter part of the preceding year
much pleasant occupation at the British Museum, which
greatly relieved the tedium of having so much spare time
on his hands following his retirement from the India
House. In September, 1826, he told his Quaker friend,
Bernard Barton, that he was going through a course of
reading at the Museum and that he had two thousand
of the Garrick plays to go through, a tithe of which he
had '* despatched " in a few weeks. It was, he said,
" a sort of office to me ; hours, ten to four, the same.
It does me good. Man must have regular occupation,
that has been used to it." The first extract appeared
in the fourth number, and the concluding one in
No. 53.
WILLIAM HONE AND CHARLES LAMB 275
He introduces the series in an interesting letter to
the editor :
" DEAR SIR, It is not unknown to you, that about
sixteen years l since I published ' Specimens of English
Dramatic Poets, who lived about the Time of Shake-
speare.' For the scarcer Plays I had recourse to the
Collection bequeathed to the British Museum by Mr.
Garrick. But my time was but short, and my sub-
sequent leisure has discovered in it a treasure rich
and exhaustless beyond what I then imagined. In it
is to be found almost every production in the shape of
a Play that has appeared in print, from the time of
the old Mysteries and Moralities to the days of Crown
and D'Urfey. Imagine the luxury to one like me, who,
above every other form of Poetry, have ever preferred
the Dramatic, of sitting in the princely apartments, for
such they are, of poor condemned Montagu House,
which I predict will not speedily be followed by a hand-
somer, and culling at will the flower of some thousand
Dramas. It is like having the range of a Nobleman's
Library, with the Librarian to your friend. Nothing
can exceed the courteousness and attentions of the
Gentleman who has the chief direction of the Reading
Rooms here ; and you have scarce to ask for a volume
before it is laid before you. If the occasional Extracts,
which I have been tempted to bring away, may find
an appropriate place in your ' Table Book/ some of
them are weekly at your service. By those who
remember the ' Specimens ' these may be considered
as mere after -gleanings, supplementary to that work,
only comprising a longer period. You must be content
with sometimes a scene, sometimes a song ; a speech,
or passage, or a poetical image, as they happen to
strike me. I read without order of time ; I am a poor
hand at dates ; and for any biography of the
1 It was really nineteen years since the first edition
appeared (1808), but, as he confessed, he was "a
poor hand at dates."
276 WILLIAM HONE
Dramatists, I must refer to writers who are more
skilful in such matters. My business is with their
poetry only.
" Your well-wisher,
" C. LAMB.
" January 27, 1827."
Most of Lamb's letters to Hone during this period-
over a dozen relate more or less to these extracts.
In pursuing our narrative of the course of this
notable friendship it will be necessary to anticipate in
some slight degree the events of the next few chapters.
The " Table Book " was short-lived ; it ran only
for twelve months. During the next two years, 1828
and 1829, very few letters passed between the two
friends, so far as the published letters of Charles Lamb
enable us to judge. Friendly intercourse, however,
was not at an end, as we find Lamb, in a letter usually
dated May 2, 1828 but almost certainly written on the
2 1 st of the month of that year, inviting Hone to En'field
for the following day to meet their common friend,
Walter Wilson, whose " jLife of De Foe," in which both
Lamb and Hone were much interested, was to appear
a year or so later.
In 1830, Hone's worldly affairs were at a low ebb
and his friends were endeavouring to set him up as
a coffee-house keeper in Gracechurch Street. Lamb,
ever ready to help a friend in time of need, was very
active in his behalf. To Southey he wrote the following
charming letter :
" May 10, 1830.
" DEAR SOUTHEY, My friend Hone, whom you would
like for a friend, I found deeply impressed by your
generous notice of him in your beautiful ' Life of
Bunyan ' which I am just now full of. He has written
to you for leave to publish a certain good-natured
letter. I write this not to enforce his request, for we
are fully aware that the refusal of such publication
would be quite consistent with all that is good in your
WILLIAM HONE AND CHARLES LAMB 277
character. Neither he nor I expect it from you, nor
exact it ; but if you would consent to it you would
oblige me by it, as well as him. He is just now in a
critical situation ; kind friends have opened a coffee-
house for him in the City, but their means have not
extended to the purchase of coffee-pots, credit for
Reviews, newspapers and other paraphernalia. So I
am sitting in the skeleton of a possible divan. . . .
Our object is to open a subscription which my friends
of the Times are most willing to forward for him, but
think that a leave from you to publish from you would
aid it.
" But not an atom of respect or kindness will or shall
it abate in either of us if you decline it. Have this
strongly in your mind.
" Those ' Every-Day ' and ' Table Books ' will be
a treasure a hundred years hence, but they have failed
to make Hone's fortune.
" Here his wife and all his children are about me,
gaping for coffee customers ; but how should they come
in, seeing no pot boiling. . . .
" C. LAMB.
" P.S. . . . I write from Hone's ; therefore Mary
cannot send her love to Mrs. Southey, but I do.
" Yours ever,
"C.L."
T ,
" certain good-natured letter " had been written
to Hone by Southey and contained kindly and appre-
ciatory references (see pp. 297-8).
In the issue of the Times containing these letters was
printed a subscription list headed by the name of
" Charles Lamb, Esq." who contributed the sum of
10. Other subscribers were "Five old Friends of
Mr. Hone each 10 " ; " Mr. Tegg, Cheapside, 20 ";
" His Grace the Duke of Bedford 20," and several
more. In all, in this first list, a total of 165 was
contributed.
To help further in the good cause Lamb also wrote
iis friend Basil Montagu, who was told that he was
to hi;
278 WILLIAM HONE
a good soul of himself and needed no spurring, " but
if you can help a worthy man," added Lamb, " you will
have two worthy men obliged to you."
In a short time enough money was obtained, and
Hone opened the coffee-house on June iQth, as may
be seen from the following letter written by Hone to
Eningham Wilson of the Royal Exchange. Wilson was
a bookseller, who published among other works the
poems of Alfred Tennyson, <a review of which by
A. H. Hallam appeared in Moxon's Englishman's
Magazine for August, 1831.
" 13 GRACECHURCH ST.
" 1 8 Jane 1830.
" MY DEAR SIR,, We have finally resolved on open-
ing this house to-morrow Saturday and there are
announcements in the window to that effect. You may
inform any of your friends therefore, and all you can
mention it to in the course of the day, that the ' Grass-
hopper ' will be opened at 6 in the morning.
" Yours sincerely,
" W. HONE.
" ' Good Beds and early Breakfasts/ '
Hone's occupancy of the " Grasshopper " lasted for
about three years, and he still found time for literary or
journalistic pursuits, for in the following year he edited
his " Year Book," a periodical meant " to supply
omissions upon subjects that the * Every-Day Book '
and the ' Table Book ' were designed to include."
Lamb did not contribute any articles, but two of his
poems appeared there for the first time, viz., ' To
C. Aders, Esq. on his Collection of Paintings by the
Old German Masters," and in the last number but one,
" The Change," lines written on his old friend Louisa
Martin. John Clare, the Northamptonshire peasant
poet, whose friendship with Lamb dated from the time
when the latter was contributing his Elia essays to
WILLIAM HONE AND CHARLES LAMB 279
I (melon Magazine , sent 1 1 one a sonnet in praise of
" Friend Lamb."
After 1830, so far as we know, Lamb wrote only
two letters ; one in 1833, the other in 1834, early in
the year in which he died. The first one is in acknow-
ledgment of " a note from me to C.L. (Hone endorses
the letter) written in January preceding and sent by
young Will Hazlitt. Received in my paralysis."
*' March i, 1833.
" DEAR FRIEND, Thee hast sent a Christian epistle
to me, and I should not feel clear if I neglected to
reply to it, which would have been sooner if that vain
young man, to whom thou didst intrust it, had not
kept it back. We should rejoice to see thy outward
man here, especially on a day which should not be a
first day, being liable to worldly callers in on that
day. . . .
" Our little r book is delayed by a heathenish injunc-
tion, threatened by the man Taylor. Canst thou
copy and send, or bring with thee, a vanity in verse
which in my younger days I wrote on friend Aders'
pictures? Thou wilt find in it a book called the Table
Book. 2 Tryphena and Tryphosa, whom the world call
Mary and Emma,3 greet thee with me.
" CH. LAMB.
" 6 th of 3^ month 4 th day."
It is not clear why Larmb used Quaker phraseology
in this letter to Hone, whose recent conversion was
certainly not to Quakerism.
The last letter, with which we close this chapter on
the intimacy between Lamb and Hone, was written
in response to an appeal from the latter for Lamb's
support in his application to the Literary Fund Society.
1 "The Last Essays of Elia," published in 1833.
2 Here Lamb's memory was at fault ; the poem was
printed in the " Year Book."
3 Emma I sola, the Lambs' adopted daughter.
280 WILLIAM HONE
Writing to John Scott on February i, 1834, Hone
informs him that he had written to his " friend Mr.
Charles Lamb " who was, he stated, the only man who
knew him intimately, " but," he goes on, " I fear
from Miss Lamb's illness, which is of a very peculiar
nature, he may be ill himself, and though I have
written to Enfield it is just possible I may not hear from
him in answer." Hone's references to Lamb's being
at Enfield show that he could not have heard from
him for some considerable time, for the Lambs had left
that village almost a year previously. He was distinctly
in error in supposing that Lamb, whatever sorrow
might be overshadowing him at the time, would be
neglectful of an old friend who was in distress and
needed help, or fail to come to his assistance with
monetary or other aid if such assistance were neces-
sary and possible. The reply was written from
Edmonton the day after the date of Hone's letter and
runs thus :
" CHURCH STREET, EDMONTON.
" 7 th Feb. 1834.
" MY DEAR SIR, 1 I compassionate very much your
failure and your infirmities. I am in affliction. I am
come to Edmonton to live altogether with Mary, at
the house where she is nursed, and where we see
nobody while she is ill, which is alas ! the greater
part of the year now. I cannot but think your applica-
tion, with a full statement to the Literary Fund, must
succeed. Your little political heats are many years
past. You are now remember 'd but as the Editor
of the ' Every-Day ' and ' Table Books.' To them
appeal. You have Southey's testimony to their
meritoriousness. He must be blind indeed who sees
aught in them but what is good hearted, void of offence
to God and Man. I know not a single Member of the
Fund but to whomsoever you may refer to me I am
1 This formality was due to the fact that the letter
was to be seen by other eyes than Hone's.
WILLIAM HONE AND CHARLES LAMB 281
ready to affirm that your speech and action since I
have known you ten or eleven years I think have
been the most opposite to anything profane or irre-
ligious, and that in your domestic relations a kinder
husband or father, as it seemed to me, could not be.
Suppose you transmitted your case, or petition, to Mr.
Dilke, Editor of the Athenceu.m, with this note of mine-
he knows me and he may know some of the Literary
Society. I am totally unacquainted with them.
" With best wishes to you and Mrs. Hone,
" Yours faithfully,
" C. LAMB."
XXI
GETTING OUT OF KING'S BENCH PRISON
WE find Hone at last rousing himself and making an
effort to get away from confinement ; and when the
full tale of his troubles has been told it will be acknow-
ledged that he was not easily spurred to action. In
the following appeal to his trusty legal friend Parkes
we seem to recognise in the piteous writer a sort of
modern Job, upon whose unfortunate head calamity
had succeeded calamity, till the poor wretch was over-
whelmed with the burden of his miseries :
" BELVEDERE PLACE,
" SOUTH WARK.
" DEAR PARKES, During the last few weeks I have
often wished you were in Town, for I should have had
your advice and the benefit of your co-operation with
an unexpected friend in an unhappy crisis of my affairs.
Possibly, however, you may essentially advantage me
even at a distance.
" Since I saw you, one of my young sons who had
taken a liking to the sea was confirmed in it by a trip
to Charente, on board a vessel in the wine trade, and
in my endeavours to bind him apprentice, which the
difficulties of my constraint rendered nugatory, I acci-
dentally stumbled upon a gentleman who in a day or
two bound John to a respectable shipowner and fitted
him out on board an East India Trader.
" In the course of the summer, he has actively turned
his attention to me, and insisted on my accepting his
services to get me out of this place. I laid open to
him the whole of my affairs in every particular, and
GETTING OUT OF KING'S BENCH PRISON 283
instead of being disheartened by the thorough view
I gave him of them and of myself, he said rvrr\ thing
was just as he expected from what he had heard and
observed of me, and that mine was precisely the case
he knew how to deal with. He accordingly had inter-
views with Messrs. Hunt & Clarke in order to deter-
mine what proposition the state of accounts might
enable him to m'ake the creditors. From the day I
came hither, I had been doing all in my power to
increase assets, and had proceeded with hope, and
latterly with cheerfulness from Messrs. Hunt & Clarke's
repeatedly assuring me that things were going on
very well. The accounts took a considerable time
making out, and when they were completed to the
3oth. of September, to the surprise of Mr. - - and
scarcely less of Messrs. Hunt & Clarke themselves,
they presented this miserable result that my unremitted
exertions for more than a year and a half in the
purlieus of a prison, have involved me so much deeper,
as to leave me without the least power of drawing sub-
sistence for my family beyond a few weeks further, or
of even extricating my person from restraint.
* This turn in my affairs is to me appalling, but
Mr. , who is a thorough man of business, and
who has a warm heart and a cool head, is undismayed.
He has seen some of the parties interested, and well
considered all the circumstances, and determined to
persevere, under the conviction that with a sum of
400, he can finally settle with every creditor, and
obtain my liberation ; at the same time this mode will
ultimately ensure some permanent advantages to my
family, which any other proceedings would inevitably
destroy. Under a firm persuasion that this sum may
be privately obtained, among a few individuals, he
urges me to disclose my situation where I can with
propriety. He knows not whom to point out, but
leaving that to me to discover, he desires me to reckon
on his personal exertions till he has got me out ; and
on the sum of 50 from himself as part of the 400,
adding as a reason for not doing more, that though
his business is prosperous, his family is large, and he
is far from opulent.
284 WILLIAM HONE
'It is better known to you, perhaps, than any one
else, that my stay-at-home habits and literary indul-
gences were ill calculated to the formation of friendships,
and that, in fact, while I have been known to all the
world, I am without any personal friends, except your-
self and one or two who have no means wherewith
to assist me. You may also have derived, from your
knowledge of mankind, that this place of retirement is
as little inviting as the centre of an Irish bog, and I
assure you I have had the benefit of entire seclusion,
for from those who knew me before I came hither, I
have not had a single solicitation to be allowed an
opportunity of disclosing their earnest desire to serve
me. In short, I know not whither to look for aid, yet,
through the exertions of an excellent man I can be
extricated from all my difficulties, and by his long-
sightedness, and judicious arrangement, be assured of
final benefit to my family.
" From the opportunities you have had of seeing and
knowing me, I think you would almost vouch that dis-
honour could not be coupled with my name, yet as
you have known very little of my concerns since you
left London, I think it necessary to affirm that were
even an enemy to write the history of my frightful
distresses and embarrassments, he would be unable
to point out a single transaction that would lessen my
integrity in the estimation of those who at any time
have been pleased to think well of me. Notwith-
standing this, and chiefly on account of my solitary
habits, I scarcely know to whom, except yourself, I can
represent the circumstances.
" Although I have not been within the walls of a
prison, I and my family have had a large share of
suffering. With the coming in of the summer, disease
came in upon us, generated by our sleeping amid the
malaria of this place, which I can well remember to
have been a marsh. For the last four months sick-
ness has not been out of the house, and during that
time, till within the last three weeks my daughter
Matilda has been in most imminent danger with
inflammation of the lungs, which almost wore out my
wife and myself through our night watchings.
GETTING OUT OF KING'S BENCH PRISON 285
" In the midst of all my wife fell dangerously ill
of a fever, and while she was lying helpless in one
bed, my daughter was almost a corpse in another and
at the same time the scarlet fever was among five of
the young ones. At last I became ill myself, from a
complaint I had neglected, in my earnest anxiety for
those about me, and through the necessity I was under
of almost hourly trying my invention for the weekly
sheet which gave us bread. At last, about ten days
ago, I became so bad as to require immediate surgical
advice and I made it known to Mr. Lawrence, who
came over, examined me, and determined on an oper-
ation immediately, which I underwent on Friday last.
In short, out of this place I must get, or I shall pass
out of life. Had not Mr. unexpectedly arisen to
my relief, my spirit must have broken under the con-
flict. If happily I can be got out, he has a plan for
obtaining me something of a public nature in the City,
which his influence and connections can secure. In
that event, I shall have the prospect of passing a few
years with my excellent wife in comparative happiness,
and the end will be better than the beginning of my
life, for I have hitherto had nothing but vicissitudes,
and if I had not considered my children the burthen
of my evening prayers would have been that I might
not awake to the miseries of another day.
" I commit myself, my dear friend, to your consider-
ation, with a sure hope that in my extremity you will
effect whatever may be in your power. Since- 1 began to
write Mr. - - has been here. In addition to his own
he has obtained another 50, and by to-night's post I
shall address myself in another quarter. Do not think I
design to press too heavily upon you on this occasion.
" And believe me, dear Parkes,
" faithfully yours,
" W. HONE."
Since my Trials, I have struggled amidst mental
letter to another friend makes allusion to this
llness, and gives an interesting resume of the events
of the past two years or more :
" Sii
286 WILLIAM HONE
infirmities and pecuniary embarrassments for the sup-
port of a large family. I had been out -reasoned by
sincere friends, desirous of my welfare, into the notion
that I could become a man of business, and they per-
suaded and assisted me, till my unfitness for the
position became apparent to them as well as to myself,
and I could go on no longer.
" Under the hope of retrieving my affairs, I com-
menced the ' Every -Day Book' in January, 1825,
whereon I persevered with unassisted labour until the
month of April in that year, when the state of my
mind and faculties rendered me unable to proceed
without bodily exercise in the fresh air. I therefore
left my home, with my books and papers, for a room
at the back of Pentonville, and being unfit for society,
spent the summer in a solitary manner, overwhelmed
with hypochondria, working out my book, sheet by
sheet, and taking fitful and lonely walks in a state of
miserable distraction till the weather drove me back
to Ludgate Hill. I there found the November term
was approaching, by an influx of writs and Sheriffs'
Officers.
" How I struggled through that fearful winter, at
what expense of money in fees and costs, and with what
wear and tear of mind and loss of spirits, I have no
remembrance ; my recollection of it is as a long and
terrible dream. At last, on the 4th. April, 1826, I
was carried to a Lock-up House, and there, on the
next day, I was made sensible of what I had before
no idea, that my affairs were irretrievable, and by
the advice of Messrs. Hunt & Clarke of Tavistock
Street, who were my creditors as well as friends, I
surrendered to the King's Bench, and abode within
the Rules, while they undertook the management of
my publication. Proposals were made to my creditors
which they rejected, and in the opinion of Mr. H. L.
Hunt, nothing remained for me but to finish the ' Every-
Day Book,' and do anything else in my power to
produce assets, and hitherto I have laboured on in
this place to that object. In the spring of the present
year Mr. - - insisted on my accepting his endeavours
to settle my unhappy affairs and set me free, and to
GETTING OUT OF KING'S BENCH PRISON 287
whom I thoroughly disclosed them, and referred him
for other requisite particulars to Messrs. Hunt & Clarke,
who furnished him their accounts as soon as they could
be made out to the 29th. of September last.
' Their accounts are appalling they almost as much
surprised Messrs. Hunt & Clarke as they did Mr. -
and me ; my unremitted exertions during more than
a year and a half of alternating hope and despondency,
have involved me so much deeper that I am without
the power of further maintaining my family, or of
extricating my person from duress. I wish I could
explain without running in to wearisome details, by
what means I have fallen into necessitous circum-
stances. This being the Term, by obtaining what is
called a 'day- rule, I could and would have waited on
you, but on Friday last I was obliged to submit to an
operation at the hands of Mr. Lawrence, which has
placed me in a condition not to move about. I scarcely
need to add that I shall await, with no small anxiety,
in expectation of a line.
" I am, dear Sir,
" Your most respectful,
" W. HONE."
The " thorough man of business " who had taken
upon himself the active management of the helpless
debtor's affairs was Moxhay, a biscuit baker, who had
large contracts with the East India Company. He
seems to have been one of those fussy, incompetent
busybodies ; and though at first he inspired Hone with
immense confidence, all his efforts to extract the debtor
from his difficulties, without recourse to the Insolvency
Court, proved to be unavailing ; and by the end of
September, 1828, William Hone was gazetted a bank-
rupt, and released from the King's Bench, after a con-
finement of nearly two and a half years.
Whether the poor author's affairs received the best
of attention and fair treatment at the hands of his pub-
lishers is rather doubtful ; but the dealings between
them were certainly complicated by the failure of Hunt
288 WILLIAM HONE
and Clarke. The gossips of the time spoke of this
unexpected insolvency as the "most awkward failure"
the trade had known ; and although the firm's position
must have been known a long time to the managing
partner, H. L. Hunt (a nephew of Leigh Hunt), no
one seems to have been more surprised at the collapse
than the other partner, poor Cowden-Clarke.
From the rough draft of a circular letter evidently
intended for his creditors found among his papers it
seems that Hone now took, or at least proposed to
take, matters into his own hands. The draft, having
appended to it a list of nine creditors, to whom there
is a total indebtedness of nearly 300, is thus
worded :
" 22 BELVEDERE PLACE, BOROUGH RD.,
' ' 2 oth September, 1828.
" SIR, The issuing of a Commission of Bankruptcy
against me, after the unfortunate failure of a measure
which you had kindly assented to for my release,
emboldens me to urge upon your recollection that I
have now been in custody nearly two years and a half.
Under these painful circumstances, and as the proceed-
ings at your suit have long since ceased, I venture to
entreat your instructions to your Solicitor for my liber-
ation, which can be effected by his addressing a simple
note to the Marshal, authorising my discharge. This
course will assist my free surrender at the first meeting
of the Commissioners on Tuesday next, will enable you
to prove your debt, and I scarcely need to add that it
will confer on me a lasting obligation.
" I am, Sir,
" Yours most respectfully,
' W. HONE."
Released from the prison " rules," Hone and his
family at once removed to Newington Green, Isling-
ton, where he had no sooner arrived than he sat down,
as usual, to his desk to commence upon a new work,
the latest projection of his busy brain. This was " Poor
GETTING OUT OF KING'S BENCH PRISON 289
Humphrey's Calendar," which, according to the
advertisements, was to be entirely written and got
out within three months, New Year's Day, 1829, being
announced as the date of publication. Being without
the means of paying for the woodcuts, for the paper
and the printing, his good friend John Childs came
to his assistance, and the work progressed without
further hindrance.
" Poor Humphrey's Calendar " happily appeared to
time, bearing the name and address of Matilda Hone
as publisher. It was in the usual tabulated calendar
form, a folio to each month of the year 1829 ; its
contents being a gallimaufry of eventful dates and
remarkable characters ; of curious conceits and pithy
sayings, mysterious warnings, and marvellous prognosti-
cations ; of odds and ends of antiquarian lore and
fragments of great poetical beauty all brought together
in a delightful jumble of exquisite fooling, as only a
compiler of such wide research and sound literary judg-
ment could bring together in the space of fifty brief
pages. Hone could caricature with his pen the follies
and quaintness of antiquity with just the same facility
as Cruikshank manifested with his pencil in the treat-
ment of such subjects. Posing as a sort of burlesque
Nostradamus, he called himself " Poor Humphrey,"
" the only seventh son of an only seventh son," " an
Unborn Doctor of the High School of Freeknow-
ledgists," " the sole Resolve r of all Lawful Questions
to Inquiring Students in the College of Learning."
The brochure was an amusing satire upon the old
astrological almanacs :
k" All who are over wise
All who are otherwise
All who are never wise
All who are weather wise.
Over or other, or never or weatherwise
tread Humphrey, and be altogether wise.
So saith Poor Humphrey ."
19
290 WILLIAM HONE
Here we have, in fact, poor William Hone masking
in the cap and bells of a jester, while there was no
fire on his hearth, no bread in his cupboard. The
pathos of the situation is but too transparent in certain
matter printed on the back page it is an appeal " to
the Reader," soliciting patronage for " Matilda Hone,
at 29, Russell Court, Brydg'es Street," who has on sale
(we learn from the family papers the extent of her pitiful
little stock-in-trade) "Engravings by ancient and modern
Masters, with a moderate price marked on each print."
Is it necessary to look to the foot for the signature, when
we read that the advertiser, taking the public into his
confidence, with a personal familiarity, will " gratefully
esteem the kindness of encouragement " which he
"entreats " for the little print shop? Who else would
wind up an advertisement with anything so characteristic
of the signatory as this :
" Let me add, that I have not the slightest pecuniary
interest in the undertaking, but I have a deep anxiety
for my daughter's welfare, and endeavour to further
it by the present urgent address, and by making her
the publisher of this little work.
" W. HONE."
Hone, in issuing this Calendar, was again a vindicator
of the freedom of the Press. For a long time the
Stationers' Company and the Universities of Oxford
and Cambridge had prevented any one else issuing
almanacs without their licence, claiming under certain
vague letters patent the exclusive right to publish them.
Not till the end of the eighteenth century had any one
challenged this claim to privilege, and it was 1834
before the heavy stamp duty of is. 3d. per copy on
almanacs was repealed by Parliament.
For the little print-selling business upon which h(
had launched his daughter Hone had rummaged
own possessions to the utmost scrap in order to mak<
GETTING OUT OF KING'S BENCH PRISON 291
up her modest stock-in-trade. But there was no
demand for prints in Russell Court or Bell Alley. He
was living at Newington Green, happy in the thought
that he was occupying the house in which old Doctor
" Civil Liberty " Price had once received the visits of
such men as Hume, Franklin, and Canton.
Having resolved to extricate himself from the toils,
Hone anticipated by a week or so his formal release
from the Rules of the King's Bench Prison, and is
found by the first day of August far away in the north
country, enjoying his newly found freedom with all the
zest which a long and close confinement would naturally
confer. How he was furnished with the means for
this excursion is not known ; but it is not improbable
he had received money on account of some literary
commission he had undertaken, which necessitated
travelling and personal investigation. In an unfinished
letter this notable writer, whose career ended almost
before the railway era dawned, gives a description from
actual experience of the birth of a pioneer railway, and
a personal impression certainly a very faint one of
George Stephenson. He appears to have been present,
as an invited guest, at the opening of the Bolton
Railway, August i, 1828.
In the following August we find William Hone again
in the North of England. Probably the pressing needs
of a wife and ten children had driven him to con-
template some great change in life, to make a desperate
effort to extricate himself at once and for ever from
his harassing monetary difficulties. He pays a visit
to Liverpool with a view to raising money for " a
certain purpose " of the utmost importance to his
familyand undertakes what was perhaps the most
momentous expedition of his life. The mission proved
a failure ; he failed to inspire confidence owing to
the evil reputation still clinging to his name as the
author of the " Parodies " ; opulent patrons declined
his overtures whatever they were and he was unable
292 WILLIAM HONE
to obtain an interview with Dr. Raffles, the eminent
Independent Minister, to whom he wrote a most urgent
letter.
A fortnight later he is still in Liverpool on this
" affair of the utmost importance to his family " ; and
he even purposes going farther north, apparently on
the same errand, the importance of which will not
permit of his keeping a promise of very old standing
to review the book of his dear friend Wilson, " The
Life of De Foe." To which effect he thus writes to
another friend, Mr. Thomas Hurst, a member of the
well-known publishing firm Longmans & Co.:-
" An affair of the utmost importance to my family,
and which alters their and my destination in life, so
far as I had conceived of it two months ago, brought
me to this town about three weeks ago. At the time
of my leaving London I expected to return within
week, and to do what I could in a needful and kin<
way for my old friend Mr. Walter Wilson's Life oi
De Foe. Circumstances, however, compel me to pro-
gress further north, and will keep me from home s<
long and so alter my pursuits when I return, that I
persuaded I shall not have leisure to write such
Article for the Westminster Review as I desired, 01
perhaps ever put pen to paper for the press on an]
matter of moment to the public. It is not till I ai
assured of this that I make the communication, and 01
every account I do it reluctantly. As respects t]
work in question I had not intimated my intention t<
the Editor of the Westminster, and therefore I suggest
the propriety of your taking such steps as may seei
necessary to you for notice of the book in that Review.
The copy I received from you is locked up at Newing-
ton Green, and therefore I have not the means oi
placing it in your hands till I get back."
" MANCHESTER, 22 November.
" I had written thus far when I was called awa)
to the coach without opportunity to conclude, and undei
E I
I \
GETTING OUT OF KING'S BENCH PRISON 293
pressure of affairs since I came hither, it escaped me
till this (Sunday) morning that I had not posted off
my letter. You will do me the justice, I hope, to
believe that I much regret my inability to perform what
I had volunteered for De Foe, and should have executed
with pleasure on behalf of both author and publisher.
I certainly never devised anything more satisfactory,
or that I should have executed perhaps with better
knowledge of a subject wherein I willingly put pen
to paper. As it is I can say no more than that I
shall be obliged by your intimating to Mr. Wilson in
terms accordant with my own expressions of feeling,
that I have withdrawn upon compulsion."
A postscript adds :
" The copy of De Foe which I received, at the
same time with my own, for Mr. Hazlitt, I took to
him the same day, and left him gratified by receiving
it, and in the best disposition to set to work upon
it kindly."
The exact nature of Hone's scheme cannot be dis-
covered ; it may have been a project of a semi-social
character ; we know, for instance, he was always
interested in the savings bank movement ; but whatever
it was it never materialised. He returned to London
a disappointed, if not a broken-spirited, man. He
felt himself abandoned by those to whom he had
rendered greatest service. This mission, whatever it
was, was apparently the turning-point of Hone's life.
XXII
THE "YEAR BOOK"
To recapitulate the " Every-Day Book " was published
by Hone himself, in weekly numbers and monthly parts,
till the April of 1826, when the publishing was taken
over by Hunt and Clarke, the two volumes of this
work appearing in the course of 1825-6. The " Table
Book," published for William Hone by Hunt and
Clarke, followed immediately after, and was completed
by November, 1827. In the September of 1828
William Hone was declared bankrupt ; six months later,
in the April of 1829, Hunt and Clarke became
bankrupts.
After the latter failure the two works were printed
by W. Clowes, who sold all the printed stock and
stereotype plates to T. Tegg. This publisher apparently
did not find the work unremunerative, as he paid Hone
400 to write a companion work, the " Year Book,"
which duly appeared in 1831-2.
Inside the cover of Part II. of the < Year Book,"
issued in February, 1831, is printed the following
" Notice ":-
" To THE INDEPENDENT LIVERY OF LONDON.
" GENTLEMEN, It has been, and is now, more than
ever, my anxious desire to be one of your Bridge-
masters .
" On the present occasion, however, I will trouble
you with no more than that declaration ; but, feeling
294
THE "YEAR BOOK" 295
persuaded of your general kind wishes and friendship,
I earnestly entreat you to bear in remembrance, that
it is my intention, if I am living, to become a
Candidate on the next vacancy.
" I am, Gentlemen,
" Yours most respectfully,
" WILLIAM HONE.
1 1 3 Gracechurch Street,
"January 2ist. 1831."
It is scarcely necessary to say William Hone did
not get the appointment he sought. It is only in the
United States of America that the flowery paths of
literature lead to honourable employment in the public
service.
By 1835 all rights in the four works had passed
out of the author's hands. Tegg must have reaped
a rich harvest from the publication of Hone's " pleasing
compilations " (as the Times called them), a harvest
in which the author had no participation. By 1838
some eighty thousand copies are said to have been
sold ; and a family memorandum estimates on what
basis is not stated that a thousand copies of the
" Every-Day Book" yielded a profit of 412, and the
same quantity of the " Table Book" 206.
Till recent years this firm was reissuing Hone's
famous volumes ; indeed, William Tegg & Co. were
reprinting the " Trials " and the " Freedom of the
Press," two of his minor works, in 1876.
Tegg in 1874 reprinted the " Every-Day Book " and
the others from the stereotyped plates, properly re-
paired. The only additions were to the " Year Book "
namely, " My Father's [Hone] Narrative, written by
Himself," and " Decker's Raven's Almanack, foretelling
of the Plague, Famine and Civill Warre, that shall
happen this present yea*, 1609 ; in quarto, black
letter."
At that date (1874) none of the contributors to
the four volumes were believed to be alive, and Tegg
296 WILLIAM HONE
did not feel himself justified in further disturbing the
work of his old friend the editor and author.
Reprints of Hone's ever popular works have appeared
from time to time, Messrs. Ward, Lock & Co. in 1887
venturing on the original plan of issuing them in
monthly parts twenty -seven at sixpence each.
Had Hone written nothing else than his " Every
Day Book," "Year Book," and "Table Book," these
works alone would entitle him to the respect and esteem
of all book-lovers. It is always a matter of deep
and lasting regret that William Hone was ever seduced
from the compilation of such entertaining miscellanies
of antiquarian lore to the thorny and profitless
wilderness of polemics.
Hone's four volumes were the first of their kind.
Without under-estimating the value of that useful and
excellent work, it may safely be predicated that
Chambers's " Book of Days " owed its inception to
Hone's " Year Book." But it possesses neither the
antiquarian nor the historical value of the latter, which
enshrines a mass of curious information, much of which
would probably have been lost but for Hone's wide
research and love of the good old times. He was a
literary Autolycus, a picker up of trifles, not of great
value individually, but collectively of inestimable worth.
The home at Newington Green, humble as it was,
it was found impossible to maintain for more than
fifteen months. At the instigation of Mr. Tegg and
with the assistance of other friends a coffee-house,
known as the Grasshopper Hotel, Gracechurch Street,
was taken for the impecunious writer and his family.
The effort was well meant, but how uncongenial such
surroundings would be to one of William Hone's habits
and temperament only his more intimate friends could
realise .
At the instigation of these private friends the Hone
family took possession of the coffee-house, which was
to be managed by Mrs. Hone and her elder daughters.
DOCTOR SOUTHEY'S NEW VISION.
THE ILLUSTRATION TO HONE'S PARODY, "A VISION OF WANT OF JUDGMENT,
BY SLOBBER'D MOUTHEY."
To face p. 297.
THE "YEAR BOOK" 297
But they immediately found themselves in a painful
exigency, which increased daily. The friends then came
to the conclusion that a, public appeal would have to
be made, and the well-wishers of William Hone
throughout the kingdom were earnestly solicited to
afford the means of completing the fittings in his new
establishment, as already mentioned (p. 276). It was
pointed out in the advertisement for help that Hone had
ceased to have an interest in any of his literary produc-
tions, and that from none of them had he ever derived
any material advantage. Subscriptions were invited
to be sent to three different banks, two booksellers,
and to Messrs. Fisher and Moxhay, biscuit-bakers, 55,
Threadneedle Street. The appearance of the discarded
Moxhay 's name is interesting ; Hone mlay have mis-
judged the man.
The money was forthcoming, and for the next couple
of years or so William Hone and his family are in-
stalled in Gracechurch Street. Wherever he was, if
William Hone could find a desk and writing materials,
he could generally manage to forget most other things,
even his troubles.
He was not long in finding more congenial matters
than coffee-selling to engage his attention.
Between the parodist and Robert Southey had long
existed a deadly enmityHone had published a bitter
travesty of the poet's " Vision of Judgment." The
animosity was reciprocal, but it came to a sudden and
surprising termination soon after the publication of the
' Table Book," led up to by the generous advances of
the poet (see p. 277).
In 1830 the Poet Laureate published his " Life of
Bunyan," in which he alluded to William Hone in a
very handsome manner, greatly to the latter 's delight.
A Press notice of the new work called it " hasty and
tumultuous " compilation ; and presently proceeded :
" But that for which we chiefly notice this work
298 WILLIAM HONE
of Mr. Southey, is the very last sentence in it, wherein
is contained his frank and honourable recommendation
(though not more than they deserve) of the works
of one whom the iron hand of oppression would have
levelled with the dust
" In one of the volumes collected from various
quarters, which were sent to me for this purpose,
I observe the name of W. Hone, and notice it that
I may take the opportunity of recommending his
' Every -Day Book ' and ' Table Book ' to those who
are interested in the preservation of our national
and local customs. By these very curious publica-
tions their compiler has rendered good service in an
important department of literature, and he may
render yet more, if he obtain the encouragement
which he well deserves.
" Not only we, and the person mentioned in this
paragraph, but all the friends of pure English literature
all the curious in old English customs in short, all
intelligent men, with the hearts of Englishmen in them
owe Mr. Southey their gratitude for this recommenda-
tion : it springs from a just taste and right feeling
united."
The Times of May 21, 1830, in alluding to Southey's
patronising notice, printed the correspondence, which,
it said, " displayed in an advantageous light the modesty
of Mr. Hone and the amiable and candid disposition
of Mr. Southey."
XXIII
HONE'S POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS VIEWS
POLITICS, like religion, being controversial, exercised
a sort of fascination upon William Hone ; and, there-
fore, it is not surprising to find him taking an active
interest in the great Reform movement which was then
agitating the country, notwithstanding the shock his
faith in political friendship had received and his
abandonment of political publishing.
England was ruled by rotten boroughs, and parlia-
mentary elections were a laughing-stock, openly con-
ducted by bribery and intimidation. In Hone's time
the English people were undoubtedly ready to make
an English revolution, in emulative example of the
French as witness the Spa Fields Affair, the Luddite
Riots, and the countless agrarian disturbances accom-
panied by rick-burning and other acts of incendiarism
but they found no leaders. Hone at his best was
only a dreamer, seeing visions of constitutional reform, ;
even the more fiery Cobbett was no Danton, though
he had been a soldier and was always " a man of the
people."
The Reform Bill was first introduced into the House
of Commons, March i, 1831, by Lord John Russell.
The abandonment of the measure and the strangely
hurried dissolution of Parliament on April 23rd caused
immense political excitement throughout the country.
Between this date and June I4th, when the newly
elected Parliament assembled, political bodies worked
at high pressure, and the country was at fever heat.
300 WILLIAM HONE
Here is an informative letter addressed by our subject
to a Manchester weekly newspaper devoted to the
interests of democracy.
" To the Editor of the Voice of the People.
"13 GRACECHURCH STREET, LONDON,
" nth. May 1831.
" SIR, In the last Voice of the People, directed to
me from your office and delivered by the post this
morning, and which is the first of your Journals I
have seen, you propose to call a meeting of six hundred
Deputies ' at Mr. Hone's Coffee-house, Gracechurch
Street, London.' I desire to state, in your next Voice
of the People, that this is without previous inquiry or
communication with me, directly or indirectly.
" In consequence of this unwarranted association of
my name I wish further to represent that, in my
opinion, such a meeting of deputies in the Metropolis
will be hailed as a powerful body of auxiliaries by the
revolutionary and Tory enemies of Lord John Russell's
bill, which aims at securing a more beneficent Parlia-
mentary Reform and a greater extension of the elective
franchise, than I ever expected would be proffered in
my life-time, by any administration, or sanctioned by
any sovereign.
" The meeting cannot be held at this houseI hope
it will not be held at all.
" I am, Sir,
" Yours sincerely,
" WILLIAM HONE."
An extract front another letter which Hone addressed
about this time to the editor of an important newspaper,
but to which he did not append his name,, gives us a
further insight into his views of the bench of bishops
as legislators. He says "the office of a bishop is
high," and " episcopal incomes are notoriously exces-
sive." He proceeds:
" Allow me to suggest further, that, as Clergymen
are carefully excluded from the House of Commons,
HONE'S POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS VIEWS 301
it would be as well to consider the propriety of allowing
the Episcopal Bench to remain in the House of Lords.
A clergyman is exempt by law from all temporal
affairs, on account of the necessity for his constant
attention to ecclesiastical duties, and this spiritual
avocation has been so carefully provided for, that he
is not allowed to farm any lands or tenements, under
a penalty of ten pounds per month, and avoidance of
his lease ; on the same account, he is not either to
trade or sell, on pain of forfeiting treble the value
of the merchandise."
In all this political excitement Hone is seen as an
observer, rather than an advocate, as one recording
rather than one taking part in events. The ardour of
his political faith had cooled very considerably, and
the year after the Reform Bill passed he expressed
the opinion that the reform effected had exceeded the
wishes of moderate men including himself and he
" feared the Government had, like Frankenstein, raised
a monster they could not tame."
While his political ardour had been cooling down,
his religious views had none the less been undergoing
a change.
Years before William Hone's formal conversion
to Christianity indeed, from the very moment of his
trials he always evinced a soreness at the charge of
atheism implied in being twitted with the publication
of the Parodies that he made money out of free-
thought literature.
Nothing would provoke Hone's pen to prolixity so
much as a charge of infidelity. There are extant
interesting letters to Hume and others that bear out
this. His attitude towards Romanism is shown in a
letter to the Rev. Joseph Blanco White, the man who
taught Pusey the use of the breviary, and in another
addressed to Dr. T. I. Forster, of Hartfield, both friends
and contributors to his miscellanies.
Such was Hone's love of religious equality, we
302 WILLIAM HONE
find him 1 in 1828 raising his voice, or rather wielding
his pen, with as much earnestness as if he had himself
been a Protestant Dissenter, in the condemnation of the
Regiam Donum, a kind of State bribe to keep the
Dissenters in a condition of subservience and bondage.
His eloquent protest had no immediate result, and it
was reserved for the Liberation Society to continue
to press those objections to what the great body of
English Dissenters had long considered inconsistent
with their avowed principles.
When a little later he publicly joined a religious
community he became a devout Christian. In the
vigorous days of his early manhood in his *' way-
ward youth," as he expressed it his independence of
thought never assumed a more terrible aspect than a
mild form of Nature- worship. In consonance with
the freedom he claimed for himself, he had a wide
tolerance of other men's religions. When the time
arrived for his formal adhesion to a Christian
denomination he selected Protestantism of the most
uncompromising evangelical variety, perhaps because
he found the sect most advanced politically. Having
embraced it, he lived up to it consistently, leading a
life, not only of good works and social service, as he
had always done, but breathing an atmosphere from
which all forms of worldliness were excluded, and in
which the salvation of the individual soul is the supreme
and constant concern of each.
He was ever a kindly disposed man, and judged by
his life's work, it may be said of him that though he
might think wrong, he could not, wilfully, do wrong.
In his earlier period his religion was rooted, not in
Belief but in Life. So he became a Reformer.
Absorbed in other men's affairs, his mind was never
in contact with the realities of life, as they affected him-
self. This was the measure of his failure. In his later
years he seems to have adopted the attitude that religion
is primarily a life of pure inwardness, which for its due
HONE'S POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS VIEWS 303
expression demands, as of paramount necessity, an
organised Church. So he joined himself to the religious
community which approached nearest to his ideals, his
broad tolerance not being too nice as to the precise
label he should wear.
XXIV
CONVERSION
THE coffee-house venture, like Hone's other comrnercial
enterprises, proved ineffectual to keep his head above
water for long. How the end came is best told in his
own words, contained in a letter written to his brother
in Van Dieman's Land, recapitulating the events of
the two past years eventful years in which occurred
family changes of no small import, including their
mother's death, the writer's paralysis and broken health,
the seizure of his goods by creditors, and, mirabile
dicta ! his " conversion " to Christianity on the New
Year's Day of 1832.
" PECKHAM RYE COMMON,
" 22nd. April, 1834.
" MY DEAR BROTHER, I find among a heap of
papers which I may never have health or spirits to
sort, a letter I wrote to you near twelve months ago,
to acquaint you with our Mother's death. It was then
a great effort with me to write, for my faculties were
stunned by a paralytic stroke in the January preced-
ing, which deprived me in an instant of the use of my
right side, and for many weeks an hour of further life
was not with me a probability.
' The blow impaired my memory, and even now I
have not recovered the recollection of many occur-
rences, and I continue to forget things I did an hour
ago. In a far worse state, I received the intelligence,
on the 20th of April last, that our Mother had died
that morning, and unfit as I was to go to Percival
304
CONVERSION 305
Street, I yet went thither and with all the ability I
could muster, arranged for her funeral. I returned
home to suffer consequences from such exertion, which
I had not anticipated, and my wife went to the funeral.
" Before this event, I found myself in a furnished
lodging in Camberwell, to which I had been removed
in a helpless state from Gracechurch Street, and while
in that state, the property of the family had been
taken possession of by creditors of the business, and
finally I was stripped of every atom I possessed in the
world ; dispossessed of a home to return to, my family
dispersed, and I without a friend I could look to, but
Almighty God, who had been my merciful support
throughout my affliction.
" In my deep sorrows, He and He alone has been
my helper. This language from me will be new to you,
but you will understand it better than I did at one
time.
" For more than two years before God in His
providence laid His hand upon me, I had been led to
seek Him, if haply I might find Him, and I was
drawn to earnest and anxious prayer, to be enabled to
pray aright ; at the same time reading intently in the
Scriptures, yet comprehending little of what I read,
for I sought the conviction of my natural understanding,
and missed ground, at every step, for want of faith,
and through ignorance of the way. The Almighty,
however, was dealing with me, and ever and anon, I
had gleams of light upon His blessed Word, which
showed me the darkness in which I groped, and caused
me to pray for further illumination.
11 I picked up a little book, ' Scougal's Life of God
in the Soul of Man,' which was very useful to me,
but, above all, ' Cecile's Remains/ which had been
presented to me by a Quaker gentleman from the
country in 1825, upon the express condition that I
would read it, and which I had read. I read it again
with other eyes, so that it scarcely seemed the same
book.
" I had not been accustomed to attend a place of
worship, but shortly after my residence commenced in
20
306 WILLIAM HONE
Gracechurch Street, I went regularly to the Parish
Church of Allhallows, Lombard Street, and in most of
the supplications in the Church Liturgy, my heart
unfeignedly concurred during the service. The pulpit
was not ill filled, but to me it was not well filled. I
wanted something more than the simple, plain discourse
of a well-intentioned clergyman. I wanted food, and
came away comparatively hungry.
"At length, on New Year's Day, 1832, the first
time I had deviated from Allhallows, I sent the
children into the Church, and passed on, not knowing
or determining into what place I should go, but think-
ing of going to Surrey Chapel, I went down Fish Street
Hill, until coming to Eastcheap. It struck me that as
Mr. Clayton had left the Weigh-House, somebody worth
hearing must have succeeded him. I had been there
only once, about thirty-five years before, and making
my way upstairs, got in just before the text was given
out.
" Through the Minister, Mr. Binney, a startling
summons was delivered to me in the course of the
sermon, and I came away with my mind disturbed,
but deeply solemnised. I must be brief. In a very
short time it pleased God to break down my self-will,
and enable me to surrender my heart to Him. I read
His word with prayer for His light upon it, and I
seemed to know, though I could not comprehend, to
feel, though I could not understand, its truth. To my
wonder, everything appeared changed the world and
its pleasures, literature and its choicest works, had
lost their charms in short, I found that I myself was
changed, and the mystery of salvation, through the
blood of Christ, God made manifest in the flesh, is to
me, through the eye of faith, and by the power of
grace, a precious truth, by which my rebellious will has
been subjugated, and my heart reconciled to God. . . .
" Your affectionate Brother,
'WILLIAM HONE."
On January 27, 1832, Hone was stricken with
paralysis whilst attending the service at the Weigh
CONVERSION 307
House, the visitation being so severe that he was long
denied the privilege of Mr. Binney's ministry, only
once being able to walk so far from his house at
Peckham Rye until the June of the following year.
With one class of readers, and a very large one
too, the character of William Hone, from this epoch
in his career, will probably gain in its attractiveness, ;
it is not improbable, however, there may be others
with whom it will lose.
We have seen William Hone a strong man of inde-
pendent thought, confident in his own opinions ; we
have esteemed him as the father of a family pursuing
his daily avocations with an industry that never flagged,
and often with an enthusiasm in which his manifold
cares and responsibilities were for the time forgotten ;
we have admired him for the active part he played in
public life, and particularly for his unflinching attitude
in a position of peril, as the champion of popular
liberties.
Hone was now long turned fifty years of age, and
his life so far as men count such things had been a
failure. Bankrupt in estate and broken in health, with
the heavy responsibilities of a family still resting upon
his shoulders, what outlook had he on life ? What
hope did he possess for the future ? Would his old
friends come to his assistance again ? Or, did he not
feel that by his incorrigible commercial incompetence
he had wearied their patience, that he had completely
exhausted their indulgence? Who shall say what his
feelings were when he was now casting about for a
new anchorage ? Was he seeking new friends, or was
he realising that there was some other support, some
more abiding source of comfort, which hitherto he had
always missed? Who shall judge him?
"Aug. i$th. 1834.
"Mv DEAR MR. HONE, There is amongst us a
cordial desire to meet your wish, and to receive you
as a Brother in the Lord. The reason for our not
308 WILLIAM HONE
immediately and instantly acting, consists not in any
want of confidence in your profession and feelings, but
first, my wish to associate some of your family with]
you ; and second, in a feeling of the expediency, in
a case like yours, of a little more than ordinary delay,
for the sake of outsiders' opinion, seeing that the same
act in a Dissenting Church, is looked upon as more
important, and as implying more, than in some other
institutions that might be named. . . .
" Your Friend,
' T. BINNEY."
In a further letter on the subject Mr. Binney refers
by name to the married daughter :
MY DEAR MR. HONE, Tell your daughter Emma,
from me, that I have no hesitation about the propriety
of her wishes being met, and that if any delay may for
a little time arise, it will be from the desire that she
should be accompanied in her admission to the Church,
by those whose presence on such an occasion would add
much to the pleasure and impressiveness of the service.
" My wish is to associate some of your family with
you not only Emma but those others whom I have
seen, and who are not so far forward, or so well
known to me, as either you or she ; and secondly in
the feeling of the expediency in a case like yours
(which your own good sense will see exists) of a little
more than ordinary delay, for the sake of other people's
opinion for the sake also of the Church, and of
Christianity too. We feel that you would be glad that
there should be everything that would command respect,
and nothing to provoke the remark or observation of
those that are without. I shall hope, however, soon
to see you, and both resume this subject, and hear
how you are proceeding."
Commenting on the foregoing letter, Hone writes
thus to his daughter, Mrs. Hemsley:
" Well, my dear child, this is on Mr. Binney's part
praiseworthy circumspection he owes this caution to
CONVERSION 309
his Church,, and is bound to pursue it as its Pastor.
There is nothing in it to discourage, but much to invite
us to hold on, without shrinking or impatience. It is
the Christian's duty to wait in patience, and it is my
duty to exhort you to perseverance in faith and prayer,
and in communion with God communion with a Church
is secondary to this. However we may both desire
for ourselves, our desires go forth too, for your dear
Mother and sisters, that they too may be united, if it
please God, as I pray it may, in the visible fellowship of
a Christian community, and sure I am that it will increase
the happiness of you and myself, that they should go
with us that neither you nor I should go alone, with
the feeling that we have left some behind us in our
impatience, to whom our hearts are knit, and whose
hearts may feel that we have hastened to attain for our-
selves, while disregarding their desire also to attain the
object of our common hope, a Christian association.
" Your affectionate Father,
" W, HONE."
Dr. Binney now begins to put the matter in formal
shape, and invites Hone to prepare a " statement."
Monday Evening,
" Oct. 22nd. 1834.
" MY DEAR SIR, I believe you know our mode of
proceeding at the admission of persons to the Church
the candidates remain in the vestry, while the Church
receives some statement satisfying it of the genuine
profession, so far as we can judge, of the in-
dividuals desiring admission. Your case is peculiar,
and will excite no ordinary interest ; and it has been
thought by some, that if you would draw up some brief
statement of the dealings of God with yourself, and the
progress of religion in your family, it would be a satis-
faction to many who will wish to hear more in such a
case than in ordinary ones, and who know nothing of
you but your name. To others it appears more eligible
to make use of extracts from the letters I have in my
possession, as they would be seen not to be written
310 WILLIAM HONE
for an occasion like that before us. I thought it best
to state both views I shall feel that I am quite
furnished with the papers I have, but if you should be
disposed to take the trouble of putting down a few
things for next Sunday evening, and allow me the
liberty of using it in whole or part with anything I
have, as may appear best, I shall be obliged. If you
should feel that it would be a satisfaction to your own
mind to have the recollection of furnishing as full and
satisfactory a statement to the Church, of your change
of views and feelings as possible then, prepare it, and
it shall be used.
" Many know you as the ' notorious ' Mr. Hone-
many, I mean, of our people they would thus know you
as the humble, the believing, and the converted, bearing
his willing testimony to the power of God's grace Con-
sult your own mind and feelings.
Praying for every spiritual blessing to rest richly
upon you and yours.
" I am, my dear Sir,
' Very truly your Friend,
" T. BINNEY."
Hone was by no means reluctant to comply, and the
" statement " was duly prepared by him. This document,
not unnaturally, was looked upon by the family as one
of considerable importance, and they were much con-
cerned in after-years when it was thought to be lost.
Miss Matilda Hone interviewed Rev. T. Binney, just
before the death of the latter, respecting its where-
abouts, and writes :
" Mr. Binney said: ' There is a statement that your
father gave me, and which I read at the most impressive
Church meeting I ever experienced. Why, your mother
and sisters were there ; you must have been present.
I shall never forget that evening.' I told him that was
one object of my visit, and wished to know if it might
be printed. " I will have the Church Books searched,
hauled over ; of course if it is there, you had better have
CONVERSION 311
the original, or rather a copy of it from the Church
Books to ensure correctness."
Search was made, the original was found, and from
it this copy is now made. It is closely written on
four sides of foolscap, in Hone's neat hand. Either
from a psychological or from a religious aspect, it is
a remarkable document ; it is retrospective, it is intro-
spective, and in every way peculiarly characteristic
of the man. Accompanying it, also in Hone's hand-
writing, but on another sheet of blue post-letter paper,
is the formal list of candidates for admission to
the Church. It has actually gone through the post,
addressed :
"For
" The Rev. Thomas Binney,
" Kennington Common,"
and bears the post-office date" Ja. 3. 18 (Paid) 35."
" A STATEMENT upon which WILLIAM HONE humbly
presumes to claim fellowship with the
Church of God.
" My life has been crowded with incidents, none of
which can be particularised without extending this paper
beyond the limits obviously prescribed to it.
' When the promulgation of what was called the
1 New Philosophy ' disturbed many a happy home, I
was in my boyhood. At sixteen years of age, with feel-
ings alive to every quick-coming event, consequent upon
the Revolution in France, and with curiosity awake to
every revived opinion denominated new, I quitted my
paternal roof to work my way in the world. To my
young eyes all seemed fair and beautiful. The New
Philosophers prophesied a coming reign of universal
philanthropy and happiness, and the downfall of
superstition. In common with many other youths
I learned from their writings that Religion was a
childish dream, the Bible a fable-book, and that all
312 WILLIAM HONE
institutions for religious purposes were mere devices
of the crafty to enslave the ignorant. I became so
imbued with this wretched lore, that I should not have
believed a sincere believer in Christianity existed, if I
had not known, beyond the possibility of mistake, that
my own Father was one. I am reluctant to say how far
my desperate unbelief extended, and it is needless to
relate by what degrees it lessened in the course of
years ; but it may be an instructive fact, a kind of
lesson to be remembered by parents, and by young
persons who may become parents, that at different
periods of my subsequent life, some of the little religious
sayings impressed upon my memory in infancy, would
suddenly arise to recollection, apparently uncaused,
accompanied by unwelcome thoughts, occasioning for
a few minutes certain misgivings. I have sometimes
been startled on the recurrence of some short passage
of Scripture, which I had not remembered for years and
which seemed almost inaudibly uttered in my Father's
voice. At other times I have been surprised upon
finding myself humming a tune and stanza of one of
Watts's Songs, until that moment forgotten from infancy.
Frequently, of later years, have occurred passages
which my Father had been accustomed to cite, particu-
larly these 'My son, give me thy heart .'--' Train up
a child in the way he should go, and when he is old
he will not depart from it.' The frequent remembrance
of these passages forced upon me very serious
reflections.
" For the sake of brevity I refrain from specifying
any of the circumstances which have marked a life of
self-will, waywardness, and disquietude. After forty
years of incessant turmoil, and vain endeavour to derive
happiness from objects of sense, and the usual sources
of intellectual gratification, I have attained to that
peace which the world can neither give nor take away.
In my struggles formerly, I struck out into the gulf-
stream of Politics, and drifted into its very vortex.
There was no happiness for me in that whirlpool, and
with exhausting efforts I succeeded in reaching the
pleasant region of Literature.
CONVERSION 313
" There I strove to solace myself with books, and
renewed an old and fascinating intimacy with works
of art. Still I was uneasy. My heart refused to be
quieted even in country retreats, among calm and peace-
ful scenery, and when I sought to pacify it by walking
out in the turbulence and uproar of tempests, I did
but ' shift the place, and keep the pain.' My pen had
been engaged upon political frivolities, and, under
feverish excitement of mind, upon something worse, as
regards its tendency in a religious light. I resolved
to employ it in efforts for general instruction and
recreation. My labours in that way were heavy and
unceasing, and the fatigue increased my gloom. In
that state, I longed for the simplicity of my excellent
father's mind. He was living, and he was happy. Had
the world been mine, I would have exchanged it for
his serenity.
" Long before the recurrence of those events which
rendered my name familiar to the world, I had so
acquainted myself with the Bible as to have acquired
reverence for it, as a book containing facts more extra-
ordinary, and infinitely more wisdom than I could
gather from history, or all the writings of all the
philosophers. In my estimation their philosophy shrunk
to nothing in comparison with the vast moral wisdom
of the scriptures. I had read, and understood the
controversy between the Church of Rome and the
Reformed Churches, and detected and detested the
fraud of papal usurpation. This reading led me into
much of Theology and Controversy upon other points.
I now rushed into Biblical criticism, and with this
addition to my former reading ; I fancied I had con-
structed for myself a satisfactory religion, and, had I
been pressed to the declaration, I should have con-
scientiously affirmed myself a Rational Christian.
According to my comprehension of the Saviour's char-
acter, I admired it, and I believed as much as I could
of his Miracles. There was a glimmer of light in my
head, but no warmth in my heart. I conceived I could
be quite religious enough at home on Sunday, while
reading the New Testament, without going to any
314 WILLIAM HONE
Chapel. It was a maxim with me that * Conduct is
Worship/ and to do what is right is all that God
requires. I tried to persuade myself that all this was
perfectly true, yet I had secret fears that there was
something more in religion than I had found out. My
suspicions were speedily verified. Domestic troubles
had accumulated upon me, and under the weight of
sudden calamity, I needed powerful support ; in the
storm of my mind I turned to Rational Religion for
help it blew away from me, like a heap of chips in a
hurricane.
" The successive four years of my life were passed
in hurryings, and in stillnesses which afforded me much
leisure. Retrospective views of my circumstances were
painful, and my conceptions of what the future might
bring forth dismayed me. I refer now to my temporal
concerns. The dangers I would have shunned, I ran
upon. I considered, and it struck me forcibly that
there must have been more than common causes beyond
those that were seen, to operate upon me such a series
of misfortunes. From the moment that this view stood
out, in its reality, I took courage, and endeavoured to
disentangle my affairs, firmly believing that whatever
might be the issue, Providence would order all things
right. This was the first time I had conceived of
Providence interfering in such a way. In the midst
of this, the trouble of my soul, in relation to itself,
drove me to earnestly seek God in strong and fervent
ejaculations I had desired to pray but could not, and
now, every night upon my pillow before I slept, and
every morning before I rose, I supplicated God in
silence, that He would teach me how to pray, and what
to pray for. I persevered until, in time, I went upon
my knees. Meanwhile I endeavoured to understand
the New Testament, and prayed to God to show me
the meaning of what I read. Usually, at these
times, I read rapidly, in great agitation and left off
confusedly.
" I loved my wife and children as my own life-
blood the sight of them was terrible to me. My dear
wife, whom I had married when we were both young,
CONVERSION 315
I had detached from attending upon the worship of
God, to which she had been brought up by a pious
mother, and my children had neither been instructed
by me in any religious duty, nor had I taken them
to a place of worship. My reflections upon these
defaults were insupportable. Latterly, however, I had
led the four younger ones into a church, with the hope
that their two elder sisters who were adults, and at
home with me, might follow. While doing this my
mind became less distressed, but not less anxious. I
heard nothing from the minister in the church-pulpit
but what I assented to still, however, it was not satis-
fying it served only to increase desires for something
more.
" On New Year's Day, 1832, being Sunday, I left
my children at the church-door to enter by them-
selves, while I turned off, not knowing whither to go,
yet hoping to hear somewhere an experienced faith-
ful-hearted preacher. Until I got to the corner of
Eastcheap, I forgot the Weigh-house ; I then remem-
bered that I had been there about eight -and-thirty
years before, and there, by the Providence of Almighty
God I was led once more. I heard Mr. Binney my
conscience admitted every reproving sentence in his
discourse applicable to my own case, and on going
home I retired immediately to my own room and
fervently prayed. From that time it pleased God to
keep me in private supplication. During about three
months in that year I was in temporary lodgings at
Kingsland, and when unable to get to the Weigh-house,
I attended the faithful ministry of Mr. John Campbell
with that exception throughout the whole of 1832, I
was regularly at the Weigh-house.
" Before going to Kingsland in 1832 I perceived in
myself a growing indifference to the public occurrences
of that eventful year, and books and persons I had
formerly liked, became distasteful to me. I could not
write with pleasure upon any of my usual subjects,
and with difficulty I maintained a brief conversation
upon literary topics which I had been accustomed to
treat fluently. A change had come over me for which
316 WILLIAM HONE
I could not account. I had plenty of domestic troubles
but my heart was at rest, and my mind stayed, and I
wondered.
" I was soon led, however, to believe, and I now
firmly believe, that at that time Divine grace had said
to my tumultuous heart, ' Peace, be still.' I had been
accustomed to pray with extreme fervour that God,
of His infinite mercy, would accept my confessions of
sin, grant me true repentance, subdue me wholly to
Himself, and do with me as He pleased. I continued
to find relief and happiness in constant prayer. I
supplicated mentally while I walked the streets, and
this I continued to do after I left Kingsland, praying
in my heart all day long, while fully occupied in the
perplexing concerns of my daughter's business, which
had necessarily devolved upon me, in consequence of
her having been seized with a brain fever.
" Briefly it pleased God to reconcile me to Him-
self. I had penitently yielded to Him, as I was, a
penitent sinner, having nothing to offer to Him but a
contrite heart, softened by grace, through faith
in the atoning blood of the Saviour. I have a hope
beyond hope, even an assured peace in believing,
that if it please God to keep me, as He has
hitherto kept me, I may be testified as an example
of the Power of Divine Truth upon the Heart.
At the beginning of the last year, 1833, tne
Almighty laid His hand upon me while I was
engaged in His worship, and suddenly suspended my
mental and bodily functions ; and while under that
infirmity I was visited with heavy calamities of another
kind ; but in these distresses I have been enabled to
feel and declare that ' He does all things well.'
" I humbly thank Him that my faith has never
wavered. Every infliction from His hand has driven
me closer to Him, and been sanctified by His holy
spirit to enlarge my views of His abundant mercies,
and ne'er-failing Providence. I praise His holy name
that He enables me to declare * It is good for me
that I have been afflicted.' What I deemed the desola-
tion of my family has been, by the order of His
CONVERSION 317
Providence, a gracious answer to my prayers and tears
in their behalf. The mother of my children, my dear
wife, now dearer to me in our declining years than
when I first loved her in my youth, recalls with fond
recollections the religious teachings of her infancy.
When we were children we had been accustomed to
go together to the house of God, and now, after an
estrangement of nearly thirty years from attendance
upon His service, we again together turn our feet
thitherward and the countenance of our Heavenly
Father shines upon us. He has subdued us to Himself,
and each of us seeks union with the Saviour's Church.
With us, too, comes one of our daughters with her
husband, whose attendance upon Mr. Binney's ministry
has issued in the submission of their hearts to their
Saviour and their God. And with us come also three
of our other daughters, in whom, I believe, the deal-
ings of God with their father wrought astonishment
and caused them to enquire, * How can this thing
be? ' They have successively fallen under God's
messages through the same awakening ministry at the
Weigh-house. It is the belief of each of us that we
come in obedience to the heavenly call, each of us
praying in behalf of all, that the love of God, our
Father, and the grace of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, may be
with us now, and henceforth. Amen. Even so."
The list of candidates which accompanied this con-
fession of faith, also in Hone's clerkly handwriting,
was as follows:
" WEIGH-HOUSE,
' Tuesday, ^oth December, 1834.
ADMITTED MEMBERS.
WILLIAM HONE, of Peckham Rye Common, Parish of
St. Giles, Camberwell, County Surrey. Born
at Bath 3rd. June 1780, and baptized in the
parish church there.
Married at St. Anne's, Soho, by banns,
July 1800, to
318 WILLIAM HONE
SARAH, his present wife, formerly Sarah Johnson : Born
in Southwark 3oth. Nov. 1781 baptized some
years afterwards by the late Rev. Rowland Hill,
at Surrey Chapel.
Four daughters of William and Sarah Hone
Admitted Members, viz.
SARAH, born 20th. July 1801 married i3th. July,
1822 to Jacob Henry Burn, who is now living.
FANNY, born 5th. April, 1803 married 29th. April
1826 to Thomas Hemsley, hereafter mentioned.
MATILDA, born 26th. July 1805 unmarried She, and
her two sisters above mentioned, were baptized
in their infancy.
EMMA, born in the Parish of Christ Church, County
Surrey, I4th. March, 1814 unmarried, and
baptized by Mr. Binney at the Weigh -house,
on the above day, previous to her Admission.
Also, three other daughters of William and
Sarah Hone Baptized by Mr. Binney, viz.
ROSE, born Parish of St. Bride's, Fleet Street, City
of London 2 7th. August, 1818.
ELLEN, born . . . same parish . . . 3ist. March,
1822.
ALICE, born . . . same Parish . . . 8th. December
1825.
Likewise a son-in-law of William and Sarah
Hone, Baptized and Admitted Member, viz.
THOMAS HEMSLEY of King Street, Tower Hill, in the
Liberty of the Tower, Parish of St. Botolph,
Aldgate, Middlesex, Optician (son of Thomas
Hemsley, late of the same place, deceased, by
his wife Elizabeth, formerly Elizabeth Seaton),
born at Newington Butts, County Surrey, iith.
June 1798 married Fanny Hone, as above.
Also the three children of the said Thomas and
Fanny Hemsley were baptized by Mr. Binney,
viz.
Thomas, born Thursday i6th. August, 1827.
William, born Wednesday 27th. May, 1829.
Fanny, born Sunday 2Oth. February, 1831.
All born in the Liberty of the Tower, St.
Botolph, Aldgate, Middlesex."
XXV
LIFE AT PECKHAM
LATE in the year 1833 Hone and his family removed
to Rose Cottage, Peckhani Rye Common, and spent
three years in this pleasant spot, remaining there for
several months after he had become sub -editor of the
Patriot, and only leaving it when it was found that
the journey to town was too great a tax upon his
strength. He then removed to the office of the paper,
5, Bolt Court.
The few years spent at Peckham, being amidst
pleasant surroundings, seem to have filled him and his
family with happy memories, which they did not fail
to record in a number of reminiscent notes left by
them.
For a few months in 1833, Mr. and Mrs. Hone, with
their younger children, had lodged at Woodland
Cottages, Grove Lane, Camberwell, to recruit his health
after the stroke of paralysis. It was there he became
acquainted with Miss Rolleston, who was his next-door
neighbour.
Once more in a permanent home of his own, and
particularly in surroundings of a more congenial
character than those of a City coffee-house, the patient
began to mend, though his progress was slow.
A visit to Grove Lane, Camberwell, in the June of
1833, is described in Nates and Queries of the year
1880. The interviewer, an admiring friend, was
received in a small back room with glass doors, opening
319
320 WILLIAM HONE
on to a neat garden. Among the dicta given forth
by Hone on that occasion, was the futility of history
as a teacher, that it was a fallacy to imagine that
nations would be taught by it. He acknowledged his
indebtedness to De Foe's " Time's Telescope " for the
idea of his " Every -Day Book." The visit was repeated
a fortnight later, when Hone presented his visitor with
a rough likeness of himself, drawn in pencil by George
Cruikshank.
William Hone's personal appearance in 1833 has
been described in Notes and Queries by his friend
Fuller Russell, who says:
" He was rather corpulent, and dressed very plainly ;
he had a lofty forehead, keen eyes, grey and scanty
locks, and a very expressive countenance."
Another description is given of him by Samuel Carter
Hall in his "Retrospect of a Long Life," ii. p. 29:
" Hone was a small and insignificant -looking man ;
mild, kindly, and conciliatory in manner, the very oppo-
site of the traditional demagogue. He must have read
a vast deal ; there is evidence of that in his memorable
defences as well as in the books he edited and
bequeathed as valuable legacies to posterity."
In the summer season it seems that Sunday-school
treats on the Common were of frequent occurrence, and
it was the delight of the Hones to supply the water for
making the tea from their well, though the pump was
usually kept fastened to prevent tramps making too
free use of it. Miss Rolleston writes of these sunny
days, under date 1834:
" I found him there, happier than ever, boiling the
tea-kettle over his cottage hearth for the rejoicing party
of a Sunday School Anniversary on Peckham Rye,
running backwards and forwards with it followed by
his own little girls, with all the glee of a child."
LIFE AT PECKHAM 321
The oft-repeated statement that William Hone
became a preacher is without foundation. The only
occasion on which he held forth to a congregation
was at a camp meeting on Peckham Common in the
August of 1835. The incident is fully and circum-
stantially set forth in a letter, addressed to one of
Hone's daughters, very many years after, by the Rev.
George Verrall, who was a witness of what took place.
He was afraid he might break down, but when once
started, had delivered a short and simple address on the
existence of a God in forcible style.
Progress in the institution of family devotions is
duly reported to his spiritual adviser:
"Jane, 1834.
" MY DEAR SIR, ' Faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the Word of God.' I bless God for draw-
ing me to the hearing of your sermon on this text
on the first Sunday in the year 1832.
". . . I left Gracechurch Street, and went to lodge
with my wife and two little ones, on Kingsland Green ;
while there I heard the Rev. John Campbell, who, in
a remarkable discourse, opened to my view the eternal
power and Godhead of Christ. That discourse opened
my eyes, and raised my mind from its sleep of death
in Unitarianism. . . .
" You may remember that it was whilst I was listen-
ing to you at the Weigh -House, on Sunday, the 27th
of January last year, that I was struck by the hand of
God with paralysis, and carried into your vestry as
one dead. I have only been able to hear you once
since, until yesterday, when I walked from this place
(Peckham Rye Common) with my wife and one of
our little daughters.
' While in this quiet and remote place, we have
attended at Mr. Powell's Baptist Meeting in the Rye
Lane. It is a small Church, of poor and despised
people.
" Up to that time, much as I desired help from
God to commence His worship in my family, I had
en restrained through false shame. My wife and
322 WILLIAM HONE
children were strangers to my voice in prayer. I
came home from hiring the servant, and telling my
wife that I feared we were leading the life of heathens
in our family, proposed that we should attempt to hold
morning and evening worship. My dear wife was
affected to tears, and that very evening we commenced.
When my sons and daughters have been with us from
Town, I have persevered in this course. Mark what
has happened my two daughters, who were indifferent
to religious truth, are now under strong conviction.
Surely God, who has mercifully subdued me, is carrying
on His gracious work in the hearts of my children.
" I remain, my dear Sir,
" With great affection,
" Yours most respectfully and sincerely,
" W. HONE.
" The REV. THOMAS BINNEY."
Change of thought induces a change of custom, even
of Christmas customs :
" PECKHAM RYE COMMON,
" 24th. Dec. 1834.
" MY DEAR SIR, It has hitherto been a custom
with me and my wife, to have all our children about
us on Christmas Day that is, as many as were within
reach. This year the family meeting is to be at my
son-in-law, Thomas Hemsley's, on Tower Hill. With
the exception of Samuel (who is in the Blue Coat
School), we expect all will be present, and with them
the annual turkey, the seventeenth, which of custom,
comes from John Childs of Bungay.
" Aforetime, the day has been with us, one of rude
merriment a noisy carnival.
" We meet to-morrow under circumstances which will
solemnise our cheerfulness. I feel assured of being
able to get into the Stage Coach, and reach the Weigh -
House in the morning, when I expect to meet all my
family, with the exception of little Samuel, in the House
of Prayer
* Lord how delightful 'tis to see
A whole assembly worship Thee.'
LIFE AT PECKHAM 323
anon we may have a little chat about the superstitions
surrounding the keeping of Christmas. Our good old
Puritan forefathers loved plum-porridge, but refused
to eat it at Christmas for fear of symbolising with
Episcopacy their successors forget, or neglect, the self-
denying obligation, and the receipt for plum-porridge
having been lost, they unscrupulously, at this season,
eat plum-pudding. Well, let every man be persuaded
in his own mind.
" Forgive my smiling on paper. . . .
" I remain, my dear Sir,
" Yours faithfully,
-' W. HONE."
A letter written from Peckham Rye, in February,
1834, to his friend John Scott, presents Hone in the
character of an applicant for assistance from the
Literary Fund :
1 Your intimation of Mr. Gaspey's intention to sup-
port my proposed application to the Literary Fund
Society is very acceptable, and most kind for, in truth,
moving about is disturbing to my limbs, and the purport
of my visits painful to represent and now, such pro-
ceedings on my part are almost out of the question.
On my return home Mrs. H., who has been my most
solicitous and affectionate nurse under the calamity with
which it has pleased God to visit me, I found rather
unwell, and in less than half an hour, after putting her
feet into warm water I had the utmost difficulty in
getting her into bed, where she turned delirious, and
whence she has never since removed. This was on
Saturday, and you may imagine my situation in a lone
place, with no one in the house but my three little
girls. I am worn down by fatigue. My poor wife's
illness proceeds from over-exertion and anxiety under
our exigence. To-day the fever is abating, and my
utmost care must be directed to keep her up from
exhaustion, and prevent its termination in Typhus. You
see how much I have on my hands and heart.
" The Rev. Mr. Lambert, of the old church, Camber-
324 WILLIAM HONE
well, has, unknown to me, interested Mr. Harrison of
the Literary Fund Committee, and will place in that
gentleman's hands my statement for the purpose of
being introduced by him at the Meeting on Wednesday.
I avail myself of your friendship to say, that there is
a way in which you ' can be of use ' in this matter. So
far, and so long, as you have had a personal knowledge
of me, be so good as to certify it in writing, with that
favourable opinion of my character on which I presume
the esteem you have of me is founded. I should have
imagined that one who has so moved in the world as it
has been my lot to do, might fairly be supposed of
good character that the absence of assault in that par-
ticular, from a host of assailants on public grounds,
would be circumstantial evidence that my reputation
presented no point of weakness. I am told, however,
that I should have testimony to my ' respectability/
in a moral sense now, if you have ever heard anything
ill of me, it will be proper that you should be silent,
but as I believe you have not, because I think it is not
in the power of a living being to urge with truth any-
thing to my prejudice, so from what you may have
observed and heard of me the other way I venture to
bespeak your good opinion. Such a paper in the hands
of your friend (who I am happy through you to con-
sider in this matter my friend) Mr. Gaspey, to be
produced by him on Wednesday, I shall esteem a
service. I believe I could command a hamper of
such testimonials, but one from you would be evidence
to him, and his knowledge of you would enable him
to hand in such a paper with confidence. My friend
Mr. Charles Lamb is the only man who knows me
intimately all my other intimacies have been with
books but I fear from Miss Lamb's illness, which is
of a very peculiar nature, he may be ill himself, and
though I have written to him at Enfield, it is just
possible I may not hear from him in answer. As you
will see Mr. Gaspey, you will perhaps intimate to
him my utter needI find I owe 40 within a pound
or so the whole of it presses, for it is to little trades-
people, and for rent and taxes to Christmas last. If
LIFE AT PECKHAM 325
I am enabled to discharge that amount, I think it
possible that I may scramble on with my pen, and
under the restorative influence of that Power which
affected me, be enabled to pick up something for
the future support of my family. Already I feel the
vivifying effects of the weather, and I think this epistle
may warrant my belief that my pen may yet indite a
good matter. I have not written such a letter since I
have been here. I am sorry to say, that, for a partic-
ular reason, I do not pay its postage. With the kindest
esteem."
Thomas Gaspey was a well-known author ; among
other works he wrote " The Lollards," " The Witch
Finder," and " Other Times ; or, the Monks of
Leadenhall."
William Hone, having seriously taken on religion,
and found immense spiritual strength and consolation
in it, was not unnaturally looked upon by the devout
of his own faith as a brand plucked from the burning.
As such his soul's " experiences " could not but be
regarded as peculiarly valuable. It is therefore not
surprising that he was frequently urged, almost impor-
tuned, to write the narrative of his life and conversion.
Exactly why William Hone never wrote the narra-
tive of his conversion may be left to conjecture. It
would, seem that on reflection he had no relish for
figuring as the subject of a tract. The fact remains
that when he died, in 1842, the promised tract was
not forthcoming, much to the disappointment of his
religious friends. The same reluctance may have been
part of the reason why the autobiography of his later
years was never accomplished.
The first to rush into the breach was his admiring
neighbour, Miss Rolleston, who soon after his departure
wrote to Miss E. Hone: " Is there any autobiography
left of your dear father? He told me once that he
had a quantity of rough sketches by him. Does any
326 WILLIAM HONE
one contemplate a memoir of him? " Possibly this
officious lady was not overwhelmed with grief to
learn the truth, for with evident zest she set about
remedying the omission without delay.
To her precipitancy must be attributed the fact that
a full and authentic biography of William Hone has
not appeared till now. Without further consulting the
family or submitting the proofs of her writings to Mrs.
Hone she forthwith published a lengthy pamphlet,
entitled " Some Account of the Conversion from
Atheism to Christianity of the late William Hone."
A second edition, reprinted from the Loughboraugh
Telegraph newspaper, with additions, appeared in 1848,
and a revised issue, with " further particulars," in 1853.
While the work contained a number of interesting
details, there were certain errors of statement in it
to which the Hone family took exception and refused
their countenance. The same objection applied, to a
lesser extent, to a similar pamphlet which was written
by J. E. Howard, F.R.S., for the Religious Tract
Society. It is Tract No. 1,042, entitled " Recollec-
tions of William Hone, Thirty Years an Atheist, after-
wards a Happy Christian," and is adorned with a wood-
cut depicting William Hone inquiring of a studious
child with the Bible, " My little girl, what are you
reading? "
XXVI
SUB-EDITOR OF THE PATRIOT
IN December, 1835, William Hone became sub-editor
of the Patriot at a salary of 2 a week, and a few
months afterwards took up his residence at the office
of the paper, 5, Bolt Court.
Although convenient to him in one respect, it was
by no means a desirable place of residence for an
invalid. In October, 1836, he complains that he feels
worn out " the reporters were here in the house all
night, and all night the doors were slamming between
the goings to and fro of them, and the compositors
in the news-office ; and broken rest unnerves me."
The events of his life at this period are best gleaned
from the following letter, addressed to a friend, which
Hone wrote from Peckham Rye, March 26, 1836 :
" Soon after I last saw you Mr. Woodthorp, the Town
Clerk, proposed to me that I should undertake a busi-
ness which had been referred to him by the Court
of Common Council, namely, a revision of certain
evidence taken before the Thames Navigation and Port
of London Committee, together with a statement of
the Proceedings of the Committee relating to the Navi-
gation of the River Thames, and certain alleged obstruc-
tions to the Commerce of the Port an Inquiry which
had been entered on about three years ago in conse-
quence of complaints and communications from Sir John
Hall, on behalf of the St. Katharine Dock Company.
For this purpose the Town Clerk gave me his room, and
328 WILLIAM HONE
I proceeded to bring into order a mass of documentary
papers, and then set in doggedly to the labour of pre-
paring the whole, which, by a vote of the Common
Council, was ordered to be printed.
" Soon after Lord Mayor's day, Mr. Thomas Challis
and Mr. H. Dunn of the Borough Road School came
to see me there, and proposed to me to undertake the
Sub-Editorship of the Patriot weekly journal. I had
been prepared to expect such a proposal from conversa-
tions I had had with Mr. Binney, and accepted the
offer.
" My first Patriot appeared on the 9th. of December,
1835, since when I have attended at the office daily.
I had been led to expect that the labour would be
trifling, and that my attendance from 10 to 3 daily
would afford me, within those hours, some leisure.
Such leisure, however, I have not yet found, for the
business of the paper has often detained me at Bolt
Court until midnight.
" Meanwhile I went to the Town Clerk's at every spare
hour, sometimes between 7 and 8 in the morning, and
after leaving Bolt Court when I sometimes worked at
the Navigation Evidence also until midnight. I was
carrying on two businesses, therefore, at the same time.
" In a day or two after the opening of Parliament,
Mr. Robert Thompson obtained a committee of the
House of Commons to enquire and report on the Navi-
gation of the Port, and this movement on the part of
Government rendered nugatory much of my toil. I
had gone carefully through the Minute Books of the
Thames Navigation Committee for more than three
years past, in order to give a history of the proceedings
of the City authorities from the earliest period of their
enquiry, until its close in October. I had prepared
for printing the evidence taken in shorthand, together
with an Index for convenient reference. I have been
most cautious in avoiding the substitution of any word
that would in any degree vary the sense of a speaker's
language, but I have suppressed gross vulgarisms and
barbarisms, and made Harbourmasters, Lightermen,
Pilots, and even Common Councilmen talk something
like English.
SUB-EDITOR OF THE PATRIOT 329
'* During the progress of the whole, I have often
risen through the winter at 4 o'clock, and worked,
scarcely taking time for breakfast, until I went off by
the stage to Town, where I staid late, and returned
early the next morning, and so on, day by day.
" After I got into the Index, I had distressing
symptoms of having over-laboured. This day week
I came home at 3 o'clock, hoping that quiet for the
remainder of the day, and the rest of the Sabbath,
would restore me. I could not rally at all, and went
to bed early. On Sunday I rose about 7, and felt no
better. I walked out on the Common, invited by the
loveliness of the weather. My youngest daughter and
my grandson were with me, and we had walked a
few hundred yards when my mind became confused,
my sight obscured, and I had general indications of
oppression of the brain. Instead of returning home,
I managed to get into a stage, and sending the
children home, went on to my surgeon's, Mr. Smith,
in Gracechurch Street, from whom I got leeches and
medicine, and came home under the care of one of
my daughters. The next morning I ventured into
Town, to the Patriot Office, but was compelled to
leave I could do nothing of consequence to the paper.
Here I have remained ever since.
" My first effort was to write to Mr. Woodthorpe,
apprising him of my situation, and the necessity of
my relinquishing the Index, for, paining me as it does
to give it up, I feel that to continue it and the Patriot
would be insanity. For the present, the Patriot will
give me as much work as I can bear.
"It is important that I should keep that, for
although it yields me but 2 a week, yet that comes
regularly. The paper ought to afford more, but it
does not."
The Patriot was established as a weekly newspaper
in February, 1832, to represent the religious views
and prevailing sentiments of the evangelical Noncon-
formists, and it at once came to be regarded as the
political instructor of the Protestant Dissenters of the
330 WILLIAM HONE
country. It was the champion of " Unfettered Pro-
testantism, Evangelical Truth, and Religious Freedom,"
and did brave work in fighting against Church rates
and the other inequalities and abuses of the times.
Coming into existence in the momentous year of the
Reform Bill, its career was coincident with the era of
parliamentary reform. It took its full share in the
abolition of slavery and in the repeal of the Corn
Laws ; though generally at one with the Whigs, it
was never seduced from the paths of rectitude by Whig
policy, and at all times honestly justified its name.
Of the Free Churches there was scarcely a repre-
sentative in Parliament at that time ; and their
principles were still struggling for adequate expression
in the Press. In 1836 the Patriot was issued twice
a week, a time in its history recalled at a commemora-
tion banquet in 1853 in a speech made by one of the
staff, who said Mr. Josiah Condor, the editor, had
" the co-operation of the celebrated William Hone a
name that we cannot mention without respect, when
we consider the struggles which he made, and the
honour they conferred on that noble institution trial
by jury. And when, under the ministry of Mr. Binney,
he had been led to renounce his early views and receive
the truths of Christianity, he applied himself with the
greatest diligence and with the most indefatigable
industry to his duties upon the paper. I recollect him
well, and always entertain for his memory the highest
respect. He seemed to my mind to be the very imper-
sonation of indefatigable industry and incorruptible
honesty and integrity. It was after the change from
a weekly to a bi-weekly issue that age and infirmities
compelled the resignation of Mr. Hone."
As a sub-editor Hone does not appear to have
possessed a free hand in the control of the paper's
policy. This is brought out in the matter of the con-
troversy respecting the Scotch Bible monopoly. In
SUB-EDITOR OF THE PATRIOT 331
the Times of April 12, 1833, had appeared a long
letter from J. R. and C. Childs, printers, of Bungay,
protesting against a statement of Mr. Spottiswoode (one
of the King's Printers) that as far as comparison could
be made the price of Bibles and Testaments was less
than half the price of other books, and making express
reference to certain cheap editions of books published
by Messrs. Childs, of Bungay. The letter is too long
to quote here, but it cites the fact that Mr. Owen
Rees (of the house of Longmans 81 Co.) had proved
before a Parliamentary Committee that a King's
Printer's Bible was sold at the same price as an un-
privileged book equal in all particulars.
Another and a greater struggle, political as well as
religious in its character, came to a head while William
Hone was on the staff of the Patriot.
The struggle for the abolition of Church Rates ex-
tended over a period of nearly forty years, excited the
keenest interest throughout the country both in and
out of Parliament, and may be described as the greatest
fight for religious and civil rights since the passing
of the Toleration Act.
Organised opposition to Church Rates began in 1834.
when a national convention of Nonconformists
demanded their abolition. In that year the first
Bill dealing with the matter was introduced into the
House of Commons, but was withdrawn on the promise
made by Lord John Russell that the Government would
deal with the question. This promise was fulfilled by
a proposal that the cost of repairing the fabric of
Churches should be transferred to the Land Tax, but
this was naturally so objectionable to the landowners
and farmers who argued that it would be prejudicial
to agriculture that it was withdrawn.
In 1837 the Government proposed that the Church
Rates should cease, and the necessary funds should be
obtained from Church lands and pew rents, but the
majority in favour in the Commons was so small that
332 WILLIAM HONE
nothing more was heard of it. In 1839 and 1840
the advocates of abolition were again defeated.
The part taken by Hone in this agitation was not
altogether restricted to wielding the pen of a ready
writer and an able advocate. His daughter Matilda
was encouraged to employ herself in canvassing for
the cause ; and on one occasion he left his desk to
interview Sir Francis Burdett. It was the forenoon,
and Hone was shown into the baronet's dressing-room
whilst he was still at his toilet.
" Well, Hone, what can I do for you? " was the
genial greeting he met with. But though he pleaded
the Dissenters' cause with all his customary earnest-
ness he could elicit no pledge from the wily old
" reformer." It is difficult to estimate Hone's personal
influence at this period of his life ; Sir Francis probably
regarded him as an extinct volcano.
The Patriot of February 6, 1837, reported that on
Friday, the 3rd of that month, some four hundred
delegates from local Church Rate Abolition Societies,
from Independent and Baptist Churches in all parts
of England, Scotland, and Wales had assembled in
London,, at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, preparatory
to an interview by appointment with the Prime Minister.
According to this report the delegates proceeded to
Downing Street, and were introduced to Lord Melbourne
by Mr. Joseph Hume, M.P. His lordship listened
sympathetically to a statement of the grievances under
which Dissenters laboured in respect of Church Rates ;
and in his reply he concurred in the general principle
stated by the speakers, tactfully promising on behalf
of the Government that a Bill to deal with the subject
would shortly be introduced by Lord John Russell.
The promise, vague as it was, evidently satisfied the
deputation, who withdrew quite pleased with the result
of their efforts ; and at the subsequent meeting at the
" Crown and Anchor," where resolutions, both con-
gratulatory and declaratory, were unanimously passed
SUB-EDITOR OF THE PATRIOT 333
by the delegates before their separation, Mr. John
Childs was to the fore among the chief speakers.
At Bungay, in Suffolk, the war against Church Rates
had been fought with great pertinacity by the Childs
family, and a lengthy correspondence on the subject had
passed between Hone and his friend John of that ilk.
Among the last of the letters to pass between the
two on this topic was one of those amusing trifles
which all famous men gifted with a sense of humour
have thrown off in moments of leisure. The date
appears to be November 5, 1839, and it runs :
" DEAR JOHN,
' To-morrow never is, if not to-day
Time is, was and is as yesterday.'
Tuyfelsdrockhy Junr.
* There's Cruden for one ear, and Adams for t'other,
And each is for both, as you'll have it so Bother.'
G. Wither, Junr.
" ' Celestial scenery ' ' No Church Rates 'come !
Dick of the Kirk, and John of Bungay, come !
Secession he, and Nonconforming thee,
At five o'clock this afternoon to tea.
One lectured last night on Astronomy ;
Each talks to-night on Nonconformity ;
On Leighton, Bastwick, Prynne, who lost their ears
In Palace Yard, and left their blood and tears
A legacy to us not braver they
Than him, George Fox, the man of yea and nay,
Of greater suffering, higher principle he left
The Hat to witness of him Sturge anon.
Come at 5 I expect Dr. Dick of the same school.
" Thine, dear John,
' W. HONE."
Though the missive was nothing more than a whim-
sically worded invitation to tea, the literary allusive-
ness makes it really interesting. ' Tuyfelsdrockh "
was a fictitious German philosopher whom Carlyle
334 WILLIAM HONE
has pretended to quote, and G. Wither, jun., was
a playful pseudonym and allusion to the fiery
Puritan poet, author of " Abuses Whipt and Stript,"
who sold his estate to raise a troop of horse for
the Parliament. The first coined quotation appears
to be a parody on Roger Bacon's " Time was, Time
is, Time is past," adapted to fit the invitation to tea
that day. What Hone meant to convey in the second
" quotation " is not quite clear, unless it was to set
in antithesis the crack-brained Cruden, author of the
Concordance, and the Puritan theologian Thomas
Adams. " Celestial scenery " unmistakably relates to
the other invited guest, Dr. Dick, who seceded from
the Church of Scotland and wrote among other works,
scientific and religious, a book bearing the title of
" Celestial Scenery." The somewhat obscure allusions
in the last line apparently are, first, to the broad-
brimmed " hat," of which Fox, the founder of
Quakerism, set his sect the fashion ; and, secondly,
to the writer's intention of saying, when time and oppor-
tunity served, something about the modern Quakerism
of Joseph Sturge.
From the spirit of literary playfulness in which the
note was penned it might be imagined that the storm
of this great controversy had passed over their heads.
This was not the case. John Childs writes to Hone,
February 7, 1840:
' . . . All the people here are going to jollify
on the loth, except myself and Charles ; he is cited
to appear in the Ecclesiastical Court of Norwich on
that day, the only shop expected to be open, and the
constable has a warrant to take my wife's boilers."
And again, more than two years later, he reports the
ultimate success of their persistent contumacy :
' . . . My Brother Charles, has, after a thousand
miles travelled between Bungay and Norwich, in
SUB-EDITOR OF THE PATRIOT 335
between thirty and forty journeys, to defend himself
in the Court Christian, got a judgment in his favour,
with costs, by which decision the Churchwardens of
this parish are in a very considerable fix ! They
thought their own Courts would justify them in doing
as they listed ! "
Notwithstanding all these efforts the great grievance
was not redressed in Hone's -day. For more than twenty
years after the struggle had to be carried on.
In 1 86 1 the Abolition Bill was rejected by the
casting vote of the Speaker, amidst a scene of wildest
excitement; and in 1868 the struggle was closed by
the passing of a. Bill brought in by Mr. Gladstone.
In theory there is still subsisting a common-law
liability in parishioners for *' necessary " repairs to the
parish church and ornaments of the service, which ought
to be discharged by Church Rates, but before the Act
of 1868 it had become impracticable to enforce the
making of a rate ; and since the Act it is impossible
to enforce payment of a rate when made, except in
special cases, as where such rates are payable under
a statute or contract.
To consider our subject as a litterateur is to take
the fullest and most comprehensive view of the man
possible ; for he was author and publisher, or journalist
and editor, the whole of his working life, and a
bibliophile, if not a bibliolater, from his earliest to his
latest years.
His earliest productions were in verse, and the only
one to which his name was attached was a sonnet on
November in the Monthly Visitor (1797) ; the earlier
one he called " The Contrast," produced when a child
of twelve, and presented to the Society at the Crown
and Anchor Tavern, has already been mentioned
(pp. 44-5).
Soon after his marriage he contributed papers on
political economy to the Monthly Magazine, and became
the conductor of an established review.
336 WILLIAM HONE
Had his energies as a writer, wielding so versatile
a pen, been directed to personal objects, his efforts,
only moderately rewarded, might have placed him and
his family in prosperous circumstances. Neither by
the writing of books nor the selling of them did he
ever make a decent competency.
Prolific as William Hone's pen was, it is erroneous
to suppose that it was the implement of a ready writer.
His copy was not thrown off with that ease and rapidity
his large output might lead us to credit. He wrote
and he rewrote ; he struck out, and he interlined ;
his proofs, too, were subjected to the same remorse-
less correction, with unstinted deletions and interpola-
tions. A " revise " was strictly required, and even on
that the insertion of many afterthoughts and emenda-
tions would severely try the temper of the compositors.
He seemed never able to satisfy himself, his standard
of excellence ever urging him to greater precision.
Honest William Hone confesses to a number of his
works being compilations of the scissors and paste
variety to " work forf ex -fashion " is a phrase of his
coining. He acknowledges, too, that he often felt him-
self labouring under a heavy disadvantage in knowing
no other language than his own.
Though his writing is without any particular dis-
tinction of style, Miss Rolleston's estimate of it, as
given in her pamphlet, is fairly well justified :
" A genuine Englishman he was, knowing no country
but England, no language but his own, and over that
(it is acknowledged) he had a complete mastery.
Critics have referred with praise to ' the pure Saxon
English ' of Hone and Cobbett."
It cannot be claimed for Hone that he was a man
very variously endowed ; he was essentially a bookman
and possessed of all that keenness of pursuit which
is characteristic of the hunter transformed into the
SUB-EDITOR OF THE PATRIOT 337
searcher for literary treasure. He was a regular
reader at the British Museum, and evidently on familiar
terms with the officials there.
A few years ago it was communicated to the Press
by Mr. J. Spencer Curwen that an interesting letter
was extant written in 1820 by Vincent Novello to
William Hone, on behalf of "a friend of his," who
had a few hundred pounds at command, and wished
to embark on a business as a printer, but not being
acquainted with the technical part wanted to meet with
a partner who understood all that, so that he himself
might be free to correct proofs and manage the literary
part of the business. This " friend " is a good French,
Italian, and Latin scholar, and has received a most
excellent education. Now (says Mr. Curwen) William
Hone was a noted publisher in his day a Newnes or
Harmsworth of the period and it Was natural Novello
should appeal to him. But who was the "friend"?
Scarcely Vincent Novello's son, Joseph Alfred, who
was but nine years old at the time, and did not begin
to publish his father's books till nine years later.
Answering his own query, Mr. Curwen hazards the
guess that Vincent Novello's letter was written on behalf
of himself. " Here, then," he exclaims, " is the germ
of the Novello business ! "
The suggestion, and from such an authority, is
interesting, but not convincing, for the following
reasons. At the date of his note Vincent Novello was
an established musician, composer, and music pub-
lisher, who had devoted his whole life to music, and
had little literary knowledge beyond that connected
with his art. It was not at all likely, therefore, that
he was ready to throw up his profession to undertake
the superintendence of Hone's publications. Again,
of what use would a musician have been to Hone,
who knew nothing of music and had no dealings with
musical composers? Nor was Hone at all a likely
man for Novello to apply to for himself, for he took
22
338 WILLIAM HONE
too keen an interest in the literary part of his
business to entrust it to an inexperienced hand. From
the " friend's " knowledge of French, Latin, and Italian,
it is not unlikely that Novello was acting on behalf of
some compatriot, though why Hone should be likely to
regard a knowledge of such languages as conclusive
of fitness for such a post is not very understandable.
Or, possibly the " friend " might have been Charles
Cowden Clarke, who commenced business as a book-
seller about that date.
XXVII
RETIREMENT AND DEATH
IT became apparent to Hone's family and friends, if
not to himself, that he was overtaxing his strength.
If he were conscious that he was overworked, he never
relaxed his efforts. That one incentive, responsibility
to his wife and family, was all-sufficient to William
Hone to keep him industriously at work.
The Patriot had now become a bi-weekly. On a
Thursday at the beginning of May he writes :
" Another Patriot on Monday, and the printer
clamorous. I must stay in till I chop it presently at
Anderton's Coffee House just at hand. This evening
I appropriate to the Sunday School Meeting at Exeter
Hall."
Though William Hone was a capable and efficient
journalist, he belonged to that type which always finds
the disciplined methods of a newspaper office irksome.
In the June of 1837 he was lying ill in his room
upstairs, unable to get down to the editor's room for
the transaction of business.
These paralytic attacks, though crippling or
enfeebling his body, did not permanently impair his
intellect. They were invariably accompanied by a con-
fusion of the mind, which passed away, though the
consequent depression was more enduring. " I am
without power to do anything," he writes on one
340 WILLIAM HONE
occasion ; "a spell has bound my faculties, as it were,
until now ; a sudden movement on the piano dispels
the numbing influence on the sudden, and I hastily
snatch a pen to confess myself a fool." This was
written at Bolt Court, where he could probably hear
his own piano upstairs from his office.
Of his enforced holiday, first at Hampstead, after-
wards at Ramsgate, Hone writes :
" Thinking it possible that the voyage may rouse me,
and sea air brace my lax nerves, I propose to go with
my daughter to Ramsgate, and return on Monday.
" Mr. Conder thinks the notion good, and Mr.
Boykett also cheerfully assents. My wife is busy
unpacking our things from Hampstead, for my
departure to Ramsgate. I am certainly better, but am
unaccountably oppressed."
Every one on the staff at the Patriot office seems
to have been particularly kind to the sub-editor, none
more so than the Rev. George Ralph Miall, who in
earlier years had been a regular subscriber to all Hone's
works which came out in weekly numbers, and looked
up to him with a respect bordering on reverence.
Twelve months later another attack of paralysis
distorts his usually fine, clear handwriting ; so much
that, in self-pity, he cannot help calling Miss Rolles-
ton's attention to it in the opening sentence of the
letter he addressed to her :
' You see what is the matter. On Thursday I got
Mr. Charles Lushington to give me a frank to you
for to-day, for a long letter, and behold !
' Yesterday, 3rd. June, I entered on my fifty-ninth
year. In the morning I found my faculties of expres-
sion by tongue and hand impaired to-day they are
feebler my powers have been over- wrought. The
mind, as mind, is clear and firm. I am only to others
seeming idiotic or idiot-like. With great difficulty I
scrawl this. My surgeon says I must leave the scene
RETIREMENT AND DEATH 341
awhile, and one of my daughters is gone to Hampstead
for a quiet lodging for Mrs. Hone and me. I can
neither speak nor write clearly. . . . Farewell.
11 W. HONE."
It is evident that the salary of 2 a week, even
when it is eked out with his earnings in other literary
pursuits, is inadequate to meet his household expenses,
to which sickness and invalidity always add so
materially. So we find Hone selling his library, and
the good man is not a little querulous at having to
part with his treasures. In a letter dated December,
1838, after complaining of his loss of memory and
failing strength, he grieves at the low prices his books
sold at, and says he must have " another turn out"
to make up another sale before the ist of March.
Unhappy book- lover !
How he was " retired " is gathered from * The
Memoirs of Daniel Macmillan," on p. 95 of which it
may be read :
" Did I ever tell you that old Hone's only means of
support is doing drudge work (chiefly reading morning
papers, and making selections, and correcting the press)
for the Patriot? He hates the paper and dislikes
the kind of work ; but what was the poor man to do?
Now, however, some good friends have resolved to
get him rid of his burden, or, as he puts it, ' to send
the old horse to grass.' Binney, who is a noble,
generous -hearted fellow, is at the bottom of this."
Change of air was repeatedly tried, but without per-
manent benefit. In the September of 1839 ne stayed
a short time in Hackney, lodging at Shore Cottage,
in Shore Road. He tried Richmond, and he visited
Ripley.
In the summer of 1840 Hone found himself com-
pelled to relinquish his editorial duties, welcome as
the small but regular salary attached to that office
342 WILLIAM HONE
had been to him and his family. It is generally
believed that from the time of his retirement, in June,
1840, until his death, in November, 1842, the pro-
prietors of the paper made him an allowance of i
a week.
When presently the family settled at Tottenham it
was devoutly hoped by his best friends that William
Hone had cast anchor there to ride out the storm of
life. But even there changes of residence had to be
made for a few months No. 9, James's Place was
occupied, then No. i, Church Road, and, finally, No. 8,
Grove Place.
Here is an interesting extract from " Memoirs
of the Life and Ministry of the Rev. Thomas
Raffles, D.D., LL.D." (Jackson, Watford & Co.,
1865):-
" Dr. Raffles has recorded in his autobiographical
reminiscences, a circumstance which he always referred
to with interest, and which occurred on his passing
through London on his way home. It relates to
William Hone, the celebrated political writer.
" Dr. Raffles says: 'I never saw Hone but once.
That, however, was under circumstances which im-
pressed him indelibly upon my memory. Mr. Upcott,
of the London Institution, who knew him well, in 1822
gave him my Album, in which he wrote some beautiful
verses. Between that date and 1837, a saving change
was undoubtedly wrought by Divine grace in his heart,
and from being a sceptic, he became a humble
Christian, and a consistent member of the Church at
the Weigh-House, under the pastoral care of the Rev.
T. Binney.
" * In 1837, on my return from a tour on the Con-
tinent, I preached for Mr. Binney on a Sabbath even-
ing. After the service Mr. Hone came into the
Vestry, and introducing himself to me, referred to the
fact of his having written in my Album some years
ago ; but now, said he, "I am another man ; take
this as an evidence and memorial of the change." Then
.,/ J
3) Btuklersbusy,Z<mdffns.
The Profits will be devoted to the. cause of Education,.
FACSIMILE OF VERSES WRITTEN BY HONE, JUNE 3, 1834
To lace p. 343.
!
RETIREMENT AND DEATH 343
taking his Bible from his pocket, he tore out the fly-
leaf, on which he had written the following lines, and
which he begged me to accept as an addition to my
collection of autographs :
; ' Lines written before Breakfast, 3rd. June 1834,
the anniversary of my Birthday in 1780 :
' The proudest heart that ever beat
Hath been subdued in me ;
The wildest will that ever rose
To scorn Thy cause, and aid Thy foes
Is quelled, my God, by Thee.
Thy will, and not my will be done ;
My heart be ever Thine
Confessing Thee, the mighty Word,
I hail Thee, Christ, my God, my Lord,
And make Thy name my sign.
W. HONE."
" ' On the leaf which contains the above I wrote at
the time: " This leaf was torn out of his pocket Bible
and given to me by Mr. Hone, in the vestry of the
Weigh-House Chapel, London, July i6th. 1837.
Evidently Hone failed to keep a copy of these verses,
for a holograph letter written by Dr. Raffles to him
from Liverpool, December 12, 1838, encloses a
" correct copy " of them, with the added note, " I am
glad you are about to publish them."
On the removal of the family to Tottenham their
transfer from the Weigh-House Chapel (Congrega-
tional) to the Tottenham Baptist Church was made
in all due form, as appears on the records of the
atter. On Sunday, November i, 1840, Mr. and Mrs.
Hone and Miss Ellen Hone were received into fellow-
ship by their new pastor, the Rev. John Jordan Davies,
and his congregation.
Though there is no record of his baptism there, Hone
old the Rev. Mr. Davies that his antiquarian researches
344 WILLIAM HONE
had convinced him that immersion was the original
form of baptism. At his death were found in his pocket
his Communion ticket (" Tottenham Baptist Chapel-
Rev- J- J- Davies ") and a ticket of membership of
the Tottenham and Edmonton Mechanics' Literary
Institution.
Absent-mindedness as well as loss of memory affected
him at times. His house, No. 8, Grove Place, was
one of a row, all alike and practically indistinguish-
able to the careless observer or the absent-minded.
Hone returning home one evening, shortly before his
final confinement to the house, found an open door,
entered, and unconcernedly made himself one of a party
assembled in a neighbour's house. It was some con-
siderable time before he discovered he was not in his
own home or among his own family. When it did
dawn upon him that he was a self-invited guest in
another man's house his apologies were profuse and
sincere ; but when he essayed to take his departure
the neighbours flatly refused to hear of it ; charmed
with his conversation, they sent word to Mrs. Hone,
and prevailed upon their newly made friend to remain
with them the whole of the evening.
One day, towards the end, oblivious of the many
recent visitors he had received, he observed to one of
his daughters: "What a place Tottenham is to die
in ! who would believe there could be a place so near
London where a man could be buried alive by avoid-
ance, as I have been ! "
" My dear father," was the reply, " it is not the place
that conceals you. Once you were on the stilts of
popularity now you are hid in Christ, which is far
better." '
"Ah, yes, my child! far, far better! '
At the commencement of the illness the patient's
serenity of mind was disturbed by the strongly expressed
desire of his daughter Emma to go out to South Africa
as a missionary. In an affecting letter dictated by
;
ii
?
IT
RETIREMENT AND DEATH 345
him and enclosed in a similar one from the loving
mother she is told to take the course she herself believes
to be right. "God's will be done," he says; "my
mind is not strong enough to ponder the subject."
From a family diary some particulars of his last
illness are available :
" i Oct., 1842. Dressed for the last time but
retired to bed again, almost immediately very disturbed
night breathing with great difficulty. Mr. Woollaston
suggested an operation to relieve the breathing, a con-
siderable amount of fluid having accumulated during
the last 48 hours. He had no objection, and a pint
of fluid was drawn off, affording immediate relief."
" 5 Oct., 1842. Apparently our loved father is
rather better, but we are assured by all recent changes
that it is but the flickering of the lamp ; the end may
be sudden when it does come. He is calm and truly
happy. George Cruikshank and Charles Dickens saw
him to-day."
4 ' 6 Oct., 1842. Although from the removal of a
great weight from his mind, by the settlement of money
matters on mother's behalf, and the reconciliation with
George Cruikshank, his spirit is greatly relieved, and
a calm cheerfulness prevails, at times almost deceiving
us and leading us to hope, we dare not say he is
better, because we know the disease is making rapid
progress.
" George Cruikshank and Charles Dickens were here
yesterday. Father was greatly delighted to see them ;
they speak of calling again.
" This morning he asked me to read the death of
acob ; you may well suppose it was a difficult task
for me, and yet the clear and steady gaze with which
he looked towards heaven as I read, strengthened and
encouraged me to proceed, endeavouring to overcome
my own feelings for the sake of his enjoyment of
the passage. Speaking of his hope compared with that
f the worldling, he said that he could not help think-
ing of George and his friend in this light, when they
were here yesterday."
346 WILLIAM HONE
That evening a letter was written to her son
Alfred :
" Father desires me to write to you, telling you that
he has had another visit from George Cruikshank, and
with him Charles Dickens, with whom father was
greatly pleased. Mr. Woollaston begged we would
not hurry them ; they were with him about half an
hour ; he held George's hand the whole time. They
promised to come again soon."
On October 2Oth one of his daughters wrote to
Miss Rolleston :
" My father is gradually sinking his sun is setting,
and it reminds me of such a sunset as we often see at
this season, when after a bright and calm day, the
glorious luminary sinks serenely to his rest, without
a cloud to obscure the last rays of his departing light."
A callers' book was kept during this last illness,
and it bears among the names of members of his family,
and of business friends and acquaintances, those of
Charles Dickens and George Cruikshank. The signa-
ture of the former was written on a separate sheet
and carefully dated.
The names of the Rev. T. Binney and the Rev.
J. J. Davies appear several times, as well as those
of several medical friends, in addition to that of his
family doctor, Mr. Woollaston.
XXVIII
HONE'S FUNERAL A DICKENSIAN EPISODE
THE fact that Charles Dickens attended the funeral
of William Hone was, of course, alluded to in
John Forster's Life of the great novelist. But, un-
fortunately, some of the circumstances associated with
the incident were, to say the least of it, so grossly
misdescribed that a controversy grew out of the
disputed passage which has only recently been set at
rest with the weight of real authority begotten of a
full knowledge of the facts. For this consummation
the literary world is indebted to ** Claudius Clear "
(Sir William Robertson Nicoll) in the columns of
the British Weekly. As references to the irritating
controversy have been creeping into the public Press
from time to time for very many years, let us hope
it may be accorded unto us for righteousness to quote
this able authority at some length.
How unsatisfactory had been all previous attempts
to settle the vexed points at issue may be gathered
from the fact that John Forster, finding he had raised
a hornets' nest by this particular passage in his " Life
of Charles Dickens," inserted a lengthy note of explana-
tion in an after edition of the work, and then subse-
[uently saw fit to cut out the original passage, and
dth it, of course, the note, in his finally revised edition
the great biography. But a story of this kind
innot be easily forgotten ; nor, when characters have
in cleared and reputations set right, is the tomb
347
348 WILLIAM HONE
of oblivion altogether desirable for a story which (as
" Claudius Clear " says) " is of value first from the
character and position of those concerned, and next
for the light it throws upon Charles Dickens 's methods."
The controversy rages chiefly round the personali-
ties of three of those who attended Hone's funeral.
These were the Rev. Thomas Binney, who conducted
the service, the man to whom Hone owed his spiritual
regeneration, and whose intimacy ever since that epoch
had been almost equivalent to that of a " father con-
fessor " ; George Cruikshank, the famous etcher and
caricaturist, whose genius as an illustrator Hone had
been the first to recognise and encourage ; and last,
and least known (to the family), that great literary
luminary Charles Dickens, who was present merely as
one of the confraternity of the pen, paying the last
homage of respect to a departed brother.
Of Thomas Binney something has already been said
in these pages. He was unquestionably one of the
most eminent Nonconformist divines in London at that
time, a man of remarkably strong character, and a
force in the religious world. The man was in no sense
a " Stiggins " he was a natural Boanerges.
George Cruikshank, the artist and caricaturist, was
about fifty. He had done many effective social and
political caricatures, of which the most effective was
the so-called " Bank Restriction Note," published by
Hone. It must be remembered that Cruikshank is not
entirely trustworthy. In his rather disreputable old
age he affirmed that he suggested the stoiy and inci-
dents of " Oliver Twist," but he completely failed to
make his claim even plausible.
The third and principal character in this interlude
was Charles Dickens, then a young man of thirty, but he
was at the very height of his glory, having just returned
from his overwhelming reception in America. His
spirits never were higher. He was about this time
HONE'S FUNERAL 349
attending the Unitarian Chapel of the Rev. Edward
Tagart, but, as Sir Leslie Stephen says, " he seems
to have held that every dissenting minister was a
1 Stiggins.' ' Binney was older, being then forty-four.
These three, Binney, Cruikshank, and Dickens, all
men of note, met at the funeral of William Hone,
and nothing more was heard about the business till, in
1872, the American publisher and editor J. T. Fields
published his " Yesterdays with Authors." Therein
he included a letter from Dickens to Mr. Felt on, an
American friend. H., of course, stands for Hone ;
C. for Cruikshank ; and the unnamed clergyman is
Binney. The letter is dated March 2, 1843 :
"'You know H 's Book, I daresay. Ah! I saw
a scene of mingled comicality and seriousness at his
funeral some weeks ago, which has choked me at
dinner-time ever since. C and I went as mourners ;
and as he lived, poor fellow, five miles out of town, I
drove C down. It was such a day as I hope, for
the credit of nature, is seldom seen in any parts but
these muddy, foggy, wet, dark, cold, and unutterably
wretched in every possible respect. Now, C- - has
enormous whiskers, which straggle all down his throat
in such weather, and stick out in front of him, like a
partially unravelled bird's nest ; so that he looks queer
enough at the best, but when he is very wet, and in a
state between jollity (he is always very jolly with me)
and the deepest gravity (going to a funeral, you know),
it is utterly impossible to resist him, especially as he
makes the strangest remarks the mind of man can
conceive, without any intention of being funny, but
rather meaning to be philosophical. I really cried
with an irresistible sense of his comicality all the way ;
but when he was dressed out in a black cloak and a
very long black hatband, by an undertaker (who, as
he whispered me with tears in his eyes for he had
known H - many years was "a character, and he
would like to sketch him "), I thought I should have
been obliged to go away. However, we went into a
350 WILLIAM HONE
little parlour where the funeral party was, and God
knows it was miserable enough, for the widow and
children were crying bitterly in one corner, and the
other mourners mere people of ceremony, who cared
no more for the dead man than the hearse did were
talking quite coolly and carelessly together in another ;
and the contrast was as painful and distressing as any-
thing I ever saw. There was an independent clergy-
man present, with his bands on, and a Bible under
his arm, who, as soon as we were seated, addressed
us thus, in a loud, emphatic voice : "Mr. C , have
you seen a paragraph respecting our departed friend,
which has gone the round of the morning papers? "
" Yes, sir," says C , " I have," looking very hard
at me the while, for he had told me with some pride
coming down that it was his composition. " Oh ! "
said the clergyman, " then you will agree with me, Mr.
C , that it is not only an insult to me, who am the
servant of the Almighty, but an insult to the Almighty,
whose servant I am." " How is that, sir? " said C .
'It is stated, Mr. C , in that paragraph," says the
minister, " that when Mr. H failed in business as
a bookseller, he was persuaded by me to try the pulpit,
which is false, incorrect, unchristian, in a manner blas-
phemous, and in all respects contemptible. Let us
pray." With which, my dear Felton, and in the same
breath, I give you my word, he knelt down, as we all
did, and began a very miserable jumble of an
extemporary prayer. I was really penetrated with
sorrow for the family, but when C - (upon his knees,
and sobbing for the loss of an old friend) whispered
me "that if that wasn't a clergyman, and it wasn't a
funeral, he'd have punched his head," I felt as if nothing
but convulsions could possibly relieve me. . . .' "
Apparently the publication of this letter by Fields
attracted no immediate attention, but the situation was
altered when, in the second volume of his biography,
published a year later, Forster published the following.
He begins with a quotation from Dickens :
" ' I am going out to Tottenham this morning, on
HONE'S FUNERAL 351
a cheerless mission I would willingly have avoided.
Hone, of the ' E very-Day Book,' is dying, and sent
Cruikshank yesterday to beg me to go and see him,
as, having read no books but mine of late, he wanted
to see and shake hands with me before (as George
said) " he went." There is no help for it, of course,
so to Tottenham I repair, this morning. I worked all
day, and till midnight, and finished the slavery chapter
yesterday.'
4 The cheerless visit had its mournful sequel before
the next month closed, when he went with the same
companion to poor Hone's funeral ; and one of his
letters written at the time to Mr. Felton has so vividly
recalled to me the tragi-comedy of an incident of that
day, as for long after he used to describe it, and as I
have heard the other principal actor in it good-naturedly
admit to be perfectly true, that two or three sentences
may be given here. The wonderful neighbourhood, in
this life of ours, of serious and humorous things, con-
stitutes in itself very much of the genius of Dickens'
writing ; the laughter close to the pathos, but never
touching it with ridicule ; and this small occurrence
may be taken in further evidence of its reality.
' We went into a little parlour where the funeral
party was, and God knows it was miserable enough,
for the widow and children. . . .' ' (Remainder as
in preceding quotation.)
The passage is as in Fields, but the description of
^ruikshank is omitted. It will be observed that Dr.
Binney is not named ; but the identification was very
easy, and the passage was at once challenged, as will
be seen. Thirty years had passed, but several of those
present at Hone's funeral were still alive, and came
forward with their evidence.
Among the survivors were Dr. Binney, George
Tuikshank, and the Rev. Joshua C. Harrison, the well-
known Congregationalist minister, of Camden Town.
The reply was penned by Dr. Binney, assisted in the
> reparation of it by the Rev. Joshua W. Harrison,
352 WILLIAM HONE
and was published in the Evangelical Magazine for
January, 1873 :
" Everybody is acquainted with Dickens 's wonderful
power of description, both of incident and character.
With all his exaggerations, and his tendency to make
things and persons grotesque and ridiculous, he throws
an air of reality over the scenes he depicts. His planner
is very amusing while he deals with the fanciful and
fictitious ; but it is altogether another thing when he
professes to state facts, and to report exactly what
he saw and heard. Mr. Dickens, having attended the
funeral of the late William Hone, gave soon after-
wards to a friend in America the following account of
what he had witnessed."
The letter proceeds deliberately to challenge, and
dispose of, the Dickens " facts " one after another.
That no " other mourners " who really cared for the
dead were present in the " little parlour " is untrue, for
Dr. Binney and Mr. Harrison were there ; and the
clergyman present, though certainly dressed in black,
wore no bands and had no Bible under his arm. For
the description of the minister's voice as " loud and
emphatic " there was no warrant ; and to assert that
he wound up his address by saying, " Let us pray,"
and " in the same breath began a miserable jumble of
extemporary prayer " is a grotesque libel. The para-
graph which had appeared in the Herald that Hone
having failed at one " speculation " had " tried his
powers of the pulpit " is proved to be a cruel fabrica-
tion and a grave reflection on the dead, though who
was responsible for the statement is not so clear. As
Dickens and Cruikshank did not sit together, and did
not kneel side by side, they could not have whispered
together, as alleged. In fact, the whole episode, after
a severely critical examination, is dismissed as a " fancy
piece " of writing. If further refutation were wanting,
there is a letter, dated November 20, 1872, addressed
HONE'S FUNERAL 353
to the Daily Telegraph, in which George Cruikshank
distinctly states that the account of Hone's funeral
given by Dickens " partakes more of the character
of fiction than of reality." Forster, on this challenge,
responded by taking the earliest opportunity for correct-
ing the misstatements . The correction was first made
by the insertion of a note in the 1874 edition ; two
years later Forster decided to withdraw the whole
passage, and in the 1876 edition the episode dis-
appeared from his pages entirely.
Here at last the matter is brought to as satisfactory
a conclusion as could possibly be expected of anything
so highly controversial by the succinct and authorita-
tive setting forth of all the facts, and the weighing
of all the evidence, by " Claudius Clear," whose final
comment is :
"It is not necessary to comment at length on the
incident. Dickens, it will be remembered, was not
writing for publication. He seems, however, to have
been fond of telling the story. His way was to work
up from slight foundations an amusing narrative not
to be taken seriously, but there cannot be any mistake
as to his intense animus against Dissenting ministers,
and the exact truth of Sir Leslie Stephen's comment.
It is well that the story no longer disfigures the
standard biography of Dickens, and it is also well that
it should not sink wholly out of memory in estimating
the strong and the weak features of a truly great
character and genius."
:
There is one brief sentence in the statement of
" Claudius Clear " which needs correction. He says
.ear the beginning of his article that " Binney fre-
quently allowed Hone to occupy his pulpit." This
was not so. As already recorded in these pages, the
only time William Hone was known to address a con-
gregation was at a tent meeting organised by the Rev.
George Verrall on Peckham Rye Common. One other
point should be noted that is the disclosure by Cruik-
23
354 WILLIAM HONE
shank of the name of the person who interpolated
the offensive paragraph into the obituary notice.
The Hone family were deeply pained by the publica-
tion of this travesty of what took place at their father's
funeral, and Mrs. Burn promptly denied the misstate-
ments in Forster's Life as soon as they appeared in
1872. She said :
"Of the twenty -four individuals present, fifteen were
members of our family our mother, myself, Fanny,
Matilda, Alfred, Emma, Rose, Ellen, Alice, Samuel,
Tom Hemsley, and the four grandsons, Tom, Willy,
Henry, and Alan. There were the Rev. Thomas Binney,
Rev. J. C. Harrison, Rev. J. J. Davies, Mr. Woollaston,
Mr. Cruikshank, Mr. Hoskins, and Mr. Charles Dickens
and two others. Mr. Dickens was the only one present
with whom we had not been long associated in inti-
mate friendship ; the friendship with George Cruik-
shank dating from an earlier period than that of any
of the others."
Of the " two others " one was Mr. Jacob Unwin,
father of Mr. T. Fisher Unwin, the publisher of this
volume. Mr. Jacob Unwin was a friend of Hone and
of Binney, and was connected with the Patriot news-
paper.
William Hone was buried in Abney Park Cemetery,
and his grave at one time was visible from 1 the high-
road. In a work entitled "Walks in Abney Park,"
by James Branthwhite French (Clarke &' Co., 1883),
allusion is made to our subject :
' Turning from this road into the path which leads
towards the Elm Avenues, and going up it but a few
paces, on the left may be observed a plain headstone
with the inscription :
The Family Grave of
WILLIAM HONE,
Who was born at Bath the 3 r <* of June 1780, and
died at Tottenham the 6th of November, 1842.
HONE'S FUNEKAL 355
" So modest is this inscription that it would be
passed by most people, oblivious of the fact that it
records the name of one who made a great figure in
his day. William Hone was the author of ' The
Every -Day Book/' a work that has a charm for every
book lover. But he gained a notoriety of quite another
order than that which attaches to him from this and
other of his literary works. He was the friend of
Charles Lamb, and one of a coterie of literary
celebrities of the last generation. In the latter years
of the reign of George III., at the time of the Regency,
Hone had excited the hot wrath of the Government by
a succession of satires, for which that vicious Adminis-
tration gave but too much cause. Hone was then a
Deist, and the crimes of the Government, done in the
name of a Christian State, seemed to him to be in
some sort a reflection on Christianity."
After reference to the trials, and the public sub-
scriptions afterwards raised for the victim of a spiteful
prosecution, to Hone's conversion and the fruits of
it, and other interesting biographical details, the writer
says :
" Such are the stirring events gathered up in the
name so modestly inscribed on this tombstone."
Hone's gravestone also records the death of his wife,
which took place in 1864, and of two infant grand-
children, also of his third daughter, Matilda, born
in 1805 and died in 1884.
On the death of so well known a character a number
of obituary notices, all of them more or less compli-
mentary, were at once forthcoming in the public Press.
The Times and the Chronicle dealt respectfully with
" this literary character ", ; the Patriot, of course, gave
a long and intimate memoir, ; the Athenceum notice,
from the pen of Dr. Cooke Taylor, did full justice
to Hone's character ; but the most elaborate character
sketch was written by the Rev. Robert Fletcher for
356 WILLIAM HONE
the Nonconformist. The necrologists did him full
justice. In course of time came the personal recol-
lections ; Samuel Carter Hall, who in early life had
been a gallery reporter on the New Times, makes
allusions to Hone in "A Book of Memoirs of Great
Men and Women of the Age," and also in another
work, " The Retrospect of a Long Life " ; but the
most notable of these reminiscences are perhaps those
of John Timbs the antiquary, which appeared in the
Leisure Hour in 1871. Graceful allusions to Hone
appear in the early reminiscences of Alexander Mac-
millan, and also in the " Memoirs of Daniel Mac-
millan " ; indeed, the house of Macmillan once proposed
to publish a " Life of William. Hone," to be written by
an Anglo-Indian journalist, James Routledge ; though
the project was never carried out, this writer devoted
a large portion of his bulky volume, '* The History of
Popular Progress," to this subject. A portrait of Hone
was painted in oils by George Patten ; it is now in the
National Portrait Gallery.
APPENDIX
BIBLIOGRAPHY
IN dealing with the bibliography of an author who
was also a publisher on a large scale, at a period when
anonymity was often essential to the writer's safety,
the chief difficulty lies in distinguishing between author
and publisher. Hone lived at a period when the
political pamphleteer had the fear of the law ever before
his eyes, and though there were plenty of such writers
willing and ready boldly to assail the Government
and the evils that prevailed, there were but few
courageous enough to brave the risks of prosecution
and imprisonment by attaching their names to their
productions. Hone was one of the daring few. He
was an ardent Radical, honest in his convictions, a
detestor of the petty tyrannies of the law, ever ready
to risk his liberty in the advocacy of the freedom of the
Press. Nor, considering his temperament, was it to be
wondered at that he threw down the gauntlet, when
the terrible state of existing affairs was considered.
The greater wonder is that such legal luminaries as
Eldon, Stowell, Ellenborough, and Brougham should
have been willing, without eloquent protests, to
administer laws so Draconian in ferocity, and so utterly
opposed to common sense, to good government, and
the principles of justice and equity. When people
were sent to the gallows for the most trivial offences ;
when soldiers and sailors, the gallant defenders of
their country, were flagged to death at the triangle
358 WILLIAM HONE
and the mast-head for mere incivilities ; when fathers
of families were kidnapped in the streets by press
gangs and shipped off to fight without taking leave
of their wives and children ; when it was seditious to
write or speak against a Government they had no voice
in electing, we can understand why Hone threw himself
heart and soul into the struggle for political liberty.
The cause appealed to his emotions, and made him a
writer of a kind of literature which was far beneath
the level of his powers. That he might have done far
more honourable service to literature is proved by the
" Year Book," " Every-Day Book," and " Table Book,"
works which have elicited the warmest approval from
many of the greatest writers of his day and since.
He, however, was forced by stress of circumstances,
unfavourable to the development of his finest qualities,
to become a political pamphleteer, and to give up to
it a large slice of his life which might have been more
profitably employed in more intellectual pursuits . While
Hone fearlessly attached his name to many pamphlets,
there are many more about the authorship of which he
was discreetly silent. In this attempt to give as com-
plete a bibliography as possible, these pamphlets have
been in many cases critically examined, errors of former
bibliographers corrected, and a large collection of his
letters and papers searched for anything that would
throw light upon the authorship of the anonymous
publications. The following list is as complete as it
can be made from the materials at disposal.
1 . Hone's first literary effort, as far as is known,
was his editing of a new edition of Shaw's
GARDENER, in 1806.
2. THE RULES AND REGULATIONS OF AN INSTITU-
TION CALLED TRANQUILLITY COMMENCED AS
AN ECONOMICAL BANK. London, 1807. 8vo.
3. THE KING'S STATUE AT GUILDHALL. 1815.
Broadside.
4. REPORT OF THE CORONER'S INQUEST ON JANE
WATSON. 1815. 8vo.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 359
5. REPORT OF THE EVIDENCE AND PROCEEDINGS
BEFORE THE CORONER'S INQUEST ON
EDWARD VYSE, shot dead during the Corn
Bill Debates, from the House of the Hon.
J. F. Robinson, M.P. With wood-cut
illustrations.
6. THE CASE OF ELIZABETH PENNING. 1815.
Svo. Edited by Hone.
7. THE MAID AND THE MAGPIE. 1815. Svo.
8. APPEARANCE OF AN APPARITION TO JAMES
SYMPSON, OF HUDDERS FIELD, COMMANDING
HIM TO DO STRANGE THINGS IN PALL MALL,
AND WHAT HE DID, with coloured illustration
by Cruikshank. 1816. Broadside.
9. VIEW OF THE REGENT'S BOMB, NOW UN-
COVERED FOR THE GRATIFICATION OF THE
PUBLIC IN ST. JAMES'S PARK. 1816.
Broadside. With coloured view and illustra-
tions in prose and verse.
10. AUTHENTIC ACCOUNT OF THE ROYAL MAR-
RIAGE, containing memoirs of Prince Leopold
and Princess Charlotte, with an engraving.
Svo. 1816.
11. INTERESTING HISTORY OF THE MEMORABLE
BLOOD CONSPIRACY IN 1756, carried on by
S. MacDaniel, J. Berry, J. Egan and J.
Salmon, and their Trials and Sentences in
1756. With etched portrait of MacDaniel,
by Cruikshank. Svo. 1816. Edited only.
12. FOUR TRIALS AT KINGSTON, April 5, 1816,
including Elizabeth Miller's for poisoning
children, with 13 questions to Mr. Espinasse
respecting Elizabeth Penning. Svo. 1816.
13. TRIAL OF LORD COCHRANE AT GUILDFORD,
August 17, for escaping from the King's
Bench Prison. Svo. 1816.
14. AN ACCOUNT OF CHRISTIAN SLAVERY IN
ALGIERS. Svo. 1816.
15. THE LIFE OF WILLIAM COBBETT, written by
Himself. Svo. 1816.
1 6. AN ACCOUNT OF THE RIOTS IN LONDON,
360 WILLIAM HONE
Dec. 2, 1816. With Memoirs and Anecdotes
of Preston, Dyall, the Watson family, and
Thomas Spence. 3 parts. 8vo. 1816.
17. THE REFORMISTS' REGISTER AND WEEKLY
COMMENTARY. Issued from the First of
February, 1816, to October 25, 1817. 8vo.
1 8. THE WHOLE OF THE BURIAL PROCESSION AND
OBSEQUIES OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE.
8vo. 1817.
19. ANOTHER MINISTERIAL DEFEAT. THE TRIAL
OF THE DOG FOR BITING THE NOBLE LORD
'[CASTLEREAGH] WITH THE WHOLE OF THE
EVIDENCE TAKEN IN SHORTHAND. 16 pp.
8vo. 1817.
20. OFFICIAL ACCOUNT OF THE NOBLE LORD'S
BITE, AND HIS DANGEROUS CONDITION. 8vo.
1817.
21. BARTHOLOMEW FAIR. 8vo. 1817.
22. BAG NODLE'S FEAST, OR THE PARTITION AND
REUNION OF TURKEY, with two curious cari-
catures fol. 1817. [This is a ballad on the
alleged meanness of Lord and Lady Eldon.]
23. THE BULLET TE DEUM, WITH THE CANTICLE
ON STONE. 8vo. 1817.
24. MR. WHITBREAD'S LATTER DAYS AND DEATH
WITH A MEMOIR AND REPORT OF THE
INQUEST. Post 8vo.
25. THE LATE JOHN WILKES'S CATECHISM OF A
MINISTERIAL MEMBER. 8vo. 1817.
26. THE SINECURIST'S CREED OR BELIEF, AS THE
SAME CAN OR MAY BE SUNG OR SAID.
1817. 8vo.
27. THE POLITICAL LITANY DILIGENTLY REVISED,
TO BE SAID OR SUNG UNTIL THE APPOINTED
CHANGE COME. 1817. 8vo. (Nos. 26,
27, and 28 are the Parodies for which Hone
was tried.)
28. A POLITICAL CATECHISM, DEDICATED WITHOUT
PERMISSION TO HlS MOST SERENE HIGHNESS
OMAR, BASHAN DEY, ETC., ETC., OF ALGIERS ;
THE EARL OF LIVERPOOL, LORD CASTLE-
THE QUEEN'S
MATRIMONIAL LADDER,
8 National Cop,
WITH FOURTEEN STEP SCENES,
AND
ILLUSTRATIONS IN VERSE,
WITH EIGHTEEN OTHER CUTS
BY THE AUTHOR OF " THE POLITICAL HOUSE THAT
JACK BUILT."
t t f any individual in the kingdom shall be free from violation.'*
tier Majesty's Answer to the .Vor
jfortpfouitt) Ottum
LONDON :
PRINTED BY AND FOR WILLIAM HONE, LUDGATE -HILL.
18-20.
ONE SHILLING.
To I'ace p. 361
BIBLIOGRAPHY 361
REACH, & CO. BY AN ENGLISHMAN, ETC.,
ETC. 1817.
THREE TRIALS OF WILLIAM HONE, for
publishing three PARODIES on three Ex-
OFFICIO INFORMATIONS, at Guildhall, during
December, 1817, before three SPECIAL JURIES
and MR. JUSTICE ABBOTT and LORD CHIEF
JUSTICE ELLENBOROUGH.
30. FIRST TRIAL OF W. HONE. 1817. 8vo.
31. SECOND TRIAL. 1817.
32. THIRD TRIAL. 1817. 8vo. (Many editions
of each trial were published.) THE THREE
TRIALS, 1818 ; also WITH INTRODUCTION
AND NOTES BY W. TEGG. 1876. 8vo.
33. DANCE IN CHAINS. BY THE AUTHOR OF THE
POLITICAL HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT. 1819.
8vo.
34. THE POLITICAL HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT,
with thirteen cuts, by G. C. 8vo. 1819.
34#.THE TRIUMPH OF THE PRESS. BY THE
AUTHOR OF THE POLITICAL HOUSE THAT
JACK BUILT. "Knowledge is Power"
Bacon. Illustrated with many woodcuts. 8vo.
34&. THE RADICAL HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT. 8vo.
1819.
35. TRIAL BY JURY. 8vo.
36. THE QUEEN'S MATRIMONIAL LADDER, a
NATIONAL TOY. By the Author of the Poli-
tical House that Jack Built. With 14 Step-
scenes ; and Illustrations in verse, with 18
other Cuts, by G. C. ; viz. High and Low
He qualifies declares She accepts He
alters imputes She exculpates emigrates
remigrates consternates He accuses The
Press watches The British Lion awakes He
asks for his Crown and they give him the
Bag They degrade him The End, Cats*
Meat : Teapot the great Gone Sailing.
1819. London: Printed for William Hone,
Ludgate Hill.
37. THE DROPT CLAUSES OUT OF THE BILL
362 WILLIAM HONE
AGAINST THE QUEEN : For Mr. Attorney
General to peruse and settle ; with a
Refresher. Also, Price 6d.
38. Two shillings. THE PREROGATIVES OF A
QUEEN CONSORT OF ENGLAND ; particularly
of her ability to make and receive gifts, to
sue and be sued, and to hold Courts without
the King ; of its being Treason to plot
against her Life ; of the Modes of Trying
her for Offences ; and of her ancient Revenue
of Queen-Gold.
39. HONE'S POLITICAL SHOWMAN AT HOME !
Exhibiting his surprising Artificial Cabinet,
and the Wonderful Beasts and Reptiles, all
alive ! alive O ! By the Author of The Poli-
tical House that Jack Built. With twenty-
four Cuts of the astonishing Curiosities and
Creatures ! viz. The Monster. The Show-
man. The Show-cloth. Bags. A Crocodile.
A Mask. The Locust. A Scorpion. The
Lobster. A Prime Crutch. The Opossum.
Black Rats. Rat-Bait. A Cadge-Anchor. A
Water Scorpion. Dirkpatrick. Music. The
Bloodhound. The Doctor. A Booby. A
Twopenny Flat. The Slop-pail. My Eye.
The Legitimate Vampire.
40. By the Author of the Political House that Jack
Built. In Parliament. THE DROPT CLAUSES
OUT OF THE BILL AGAINST THE QUEEN. For
Mr. Attorney-General. To peruse and settle.
With a Refresher. Printed for William Hone,
Ludgate-hill, Solicitor for said Clauses. Price
sixpence .
41. THE QUEEN THAT JACK FOUND. 8vo. 1820.
42. THE QUEEN'S BUDGET OPENED. 8vo. 1820.
43. THE MAN IN THE MOON. A speech from the
Throne to the Senate of Lunataria, with
15 illustrations by Cruikshank. 8vo. 1820.
44. THE MIDNIGHT INTRUDER, OR OLD NICK AT
CARLTON HOUSE. 3 parts. 8vo. 1820. A
poem in three parts.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 363
45. THE POLITICAL APPLE PIE. Illustrated. 8vo.
1820.
46. A POLITICAL LECTURE ON HEADS. 8vo. 1820.
47. A POLITICAL CHRISTMAS CAROL. 2 illustra-
tions. 8vo. 1820.
48. THE DOCTOR. A Broadside, with 2 illustrations.
1820.
49. The Englishman's Mentor, the PICTURE OF
THE PALAIS ROYAL, describing its Spectacles,
Gaming Rooms, Coffee Houses, Restaurateurs,
Tabagies, Reading Rooms, Milliners' Shops,
Gamesters, Sharpers, Mouchards, Artistes,
Epicures, Courtesans, Filles, and other
Remarkable Objects in that High Change of
the Fashionable Dissipation and Vice of Paris,
with Characteristic Sketches and Anecdotes
of its Frequenters and Inhabitants, long fold-
ing COLOURED front, by, G. Cruikshank, I2mo,
boards.
50. NON MI RECORDO : BEING A FREE PARODY
ON A LATE EXTRAORDINARY CROSS-EXAMINA-
TION. Illustrated with three cuts. 1820.
51. THE FORM OF PRAYER, WITH THANKSGIVING
TO ALMIGHTY GOD, to be used Daily by all
devout People throughout the Realm for the
Happy Deliverance of Queen Caroline from
the late most traitorous Conspiracy. 1820.
8vo. (Five editions.)
52. BUONAPARTEPHOBIA : the Origin of Dr. Slop's
Name. 1820 (ten editions).
53. PLENIPO AND THE DEVIL. 1820. 8vo.
54. THE APOCRYPHAL NEW TESTAMENT : being
all the Gospels, Epistles, and other Pieces
now extant attributed in the first four centuries
to Jesus Christ, His Apostles, and their Com-
panions, and not included in the New Testa-
ment by its Compilers, translated from the
Original Tongues and now first collected
into One Volume. 1820. 8vo. Several
editions.
55. THE BANK-RESTRICTION BAROMETER. 1820.
364 WILLIAM HONE
The original edition was printed as a large
open half-sheet to serve as an envelope for
Cruikshank's " Bank Note not to be imitated,"
printed on thin bank paper.
56. THE TRIAL OF THE KING v. JOHN HUNT.
Feby. 21, 1821.
57. AN IMAGINARY INTERVIEW BETWEEN W. HONE
AND A LADY. 8vo. 1822.
58. THE RIGHT DIVINE OF KINGS TO GOVERN
WRONG. 2 woodcuts by G. C. 1821. A
Rifacimento of one of De Foe's works, with
a Preface by Hone.
59. THE MIRACULOUS HOST TORTURED BY THE
JEW, under the reign of Philip le Bel, in
1290 : being the Legend which converted the
three Daughters of Douglas Loveday, Esq.,
under the reign of Louis the XVIII. in 1821 ;
from the original French Work authorised by
the College of Theology, at Paris, in the
Publisher's possession. With Ten Cuts copied
from the same work, viz. The Arms Bar-
gaining Receiving Delivering - - Stab-
bing -- Flagellating -- Lancing -- Boiling -
Recovering Burning. 8vo. 1822.
60. A SLAP AT SLOP AND THE BRIDGE ST. GANG.
8vo. 1822.
61. BUONAPARTEPHOBIA, with a Portrait of Napo-
leon, price is. THE ORIGIN OF DR. SLOP'S
NAME ! Showing how he cursed himself,
through Napoleon, into the name of Dr. Slop,
and exemplifying the truth of the old saying,
that " a Living Ass is better than a Dead
Lion." 8vo. 1822.
62. HONE (William, 1780-1842, Author and Book-
seller) ANCIENT MYSTERIES DESCRIBED,
especially the English Miracle Plays, includ-
ing Notices of Ecclesiastical Shows, Festivals
of Fools and Asses, etc. ; illustrated with
plates after George Cruikshank, etc., that of
the " Giants in Guildhall " being finely
coloured. First Edition. 8vo. Orig. boards,
uncut, with label. Lond. 1823.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 365
ASPERSIONS ANSWERED : an Explanatory State-
ment to the Public at large and every Reader
of the " Quarterly Review." 1824. 8vo. Five
editions.
64. THE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THE APOCRYPHAL
NEW TESTAMENT REFUTED. By William
Hone. At the same time, THE SUPERFLUX.
By the same. Price is.
ANOTHER ARTICLE FOR THE " QUARTERLY
REVIEW." 1824. Svo. Five editions. No. 55
was noticed in the Quarterly Review, Aug.,
1824 ; this is a reply.
66-8. Hone's Works. THE EVERY-DAY BOOK, or
Guide to the Year, relating to Popular
Amusements, Sports, Ceremonies, Manners,
Customs, and Events in Past and Present
Times, a series of 5,000 anecdotes and
facts ; THE TABLE BOOK and THE YEAR
BOOK, containing Remarkable Men and
Manners, Times and Seasons, Solemnities and
Merry Makings, Antiquities and Novelties,
with a Key to the Almanack, by William
Hone, Complete Set, with Indexes, illustrated
with 550 engravings by Geo. Cruikshank and
others of curious customs, pastimes, antiqui-
ties, etc. 4 thick vols. Svo. 1826-7. Con-
tains contributions by Charles Lamb in
Every-Day Book, entitled The Months, Sir
Jeffery Dunstan, Captain Starkey, The Ass,
In re Squirrels, Remarkable Correspondent,
The Humble Petition of an Unfortunate Day,
Quatrains to the Editor ; in the Table Book,
Mrs. Gilpin's Riding to Edmonton, The Defeat
of Time, Gone or Going, and the 46 Extracts
from Garrick's Plays ; and in the Year Book,
two poems.
POOR HUMPHREY'S CALENDAR. An Almanack.
70. FACETIAE AND MISCELLANIES, with 120 illustra-
tions by G. C. First collected edition of these
Tracts. 1827.
7 1 . FULL ANNALS OF THE REVOLUTION IN
FRANCE. Svo. 1830.
366 WILLIAM HONE
The following were edited only by Wm. Hone:
72. THE SPORTS AND PASTIMES OF THE PEOPLE
OF ENGLAND, with 140 engravings selected
from ancient and curious paintings and illu-
minations. By Joseph Strutt, with many
additions, and an Index by Wm. Hone. Large
8vo. 1830.
73. Dr. Knox's Spirit of Despotism. In the Press,
handsomely printed in a large Octavo Volume,
price i os. 6d. in boards. THE SPIRIT OF
DESPOTISM. By the late Vicesimus Knox,
D.D. With a Preface by the Author ; and
interesting Particulars, by the Editor, of his
Interview with Dr. Knox, in February last,
authenticating the Work. W T ith Preface by
Hone.
74. In a handsome volume, in foolscap 8vo. with
a Historical Plate, price 6s. in boards,
SIXTY CURIOUS AND AUTHENTIC NARRATIVES
AND ANECDOTES RESPECTING EXTRAORDI-
NARY CHARACTERS ; illustrative of the
tendency of Credulity and Fanaticism ;
exemplifying the imperfections of circumstan-
tial Evidence ; and recording singular
instances of voluntary human suffering, and
interesting occurrences. By John Cecil, Esq.
75. In a pocket volume, with a large fold-
ing coloured Engraving, price 53. in extra
boards. THE PICTURE OF THE PALAIS-
ROYAL ; describing its Spectacles, Gaming-
houses, Coffee-houses, Restaurateurs, Taba-
gies, Reading-rooms, Milliners' Shops, Game-
sters, Sharpers, Mouchards, Artists, Epicures,
Courtesans, Filles, and other remarkable
objects in that High Change of the fashionable
dissipation and vice of Paris. With char-
acteristic Sketches and Anecdotes of its
Frequenters and Inhabitants. Printed for
William Hone, Ludgate Hill.
76. Important Legal Argument. Price eighteen
pence, THE RIGHT ASSUMED BY THE JUDGES
BIBLIOGRAPHY 367
TO FINE A DEFENDANT, WHILE MAKING HIS
DEFENCE IN PERSON, DENIED: being a
Shorthand Report of the important Legal
Argument of Henry Cooper, Esq., Barrister
at Law, in the King v. Davison, on moving
for a New Trial. With a Preface. Printed
for .William Hone, 45, Ludgate-hill.
There were no doubt a number of other squibs and
pamphlets that Hone was the author of, but being
pseudonymous or anonymous it is difficult now to dis-
tinguish them. Nor does it materially affect the
completeness of this bibliography, as they did probably
little credit to his ability and certainly added no leaf to
his literary laurels.
;
77. THE EARLY LIFE AND CONVERSION OF
WILLIAM HONE, by Himself, edited by his
son, Wm. Hone. 1841. 8vo.
78. SOME ACCOUNT OF THE CONVERSION OF THE
LATE W. HONE, with further particulars of
his Life, and Extracts from his Correspond-
ence. 1853. Sm. 8vo. Frequently con-
founded with No. 77.
Biographical notices in Gent. Mag., May, 1843,
pt. I., p. 96; "Some Account of the Conversion of
W. Hone," 1853 ; Notes and Queries, ist ser., iv. 25,
105, 241; vii. 154; 3rd ser., iv. 429; 4th ser.,
x. 351, 399, 528; 5th ser., i. 477; viii. 446; 6thi
ser., i. 92, 171, 354, 522; ii. 31, 283; iii. 426.
' The Three Trials of W. Hone," with Introduction by
W. Tegg. 1876. 8vo. For Hone's connection with
Cruikshank see G. W. Reid's Catalogue, 1871, 3 vols,
4to ; W. Bates's " G. Cruikshank," 1879, 4to ; B.
Jerrold's " Life of G. Cruikshank," 1891 ; and F. G.
Stephens's "Memoir of G. Cruikshank," 1891. For
Bibliography see Lownde's Bibl. Man. (Bohn) ii.
1103-5 > Motes and Queries, 6th ser., xii. 271-2 ; see
also lists at the end of Hone's " Political Showman,"
1820, and advertisements of Hone's editions, 1820.
The chronological list of works illustrated by George
368 WILLIAM HONE
Cruikshank, given in Stephens's Memoir of the artist,
include these among Hone's publications :-
" The Englishman's Mentor " : a picture of the
Palais Royal, 1819. " Facetiae and Miscellanies," by
Wm. Hone (120 engravings), published for William
Hone by Hunt & Clarke (1819-22), containing:
"Political House that Jack Built" (13 cuts), 1819.
"Man in the Moon," etc. (15 cuts), 1820. ' Political
Christmas Carol" (2 woodcuts), 1820. 'The Doctor"
one leaf with 2 woodcuts, 1820. " Queen's Matri-
monial Ladder "-14 step scenes, and 18 other cuts,
1820. " Non Mi Ricordo," etc. (3 woodcuts), 1820.
" Form of Prayer with Thanksgiving " (woodcut on title-
page), 1820. "Political Showman at Home" (24
cuts), 1821. "Bank Restriction Note, with Bank
Restriction Barometer," 1821 ; "Slap at Slop and the
Bridge Street Gang " (3 large folding woodcuts and 23
smaller cuts), 1822. ' The Spirit of Despotism "
(woodcut on title), 1821. "Ancient Mysteries
Described " (2 coloured etchings of the " Giants in
Guildhall," and "The Fools' Morris Dance," 1823.
" Every-Day Book." By William Hone. 2 vols. (n
woodcuts by G. C.), 1826-7. "Table Book." By
William Hone. 2 vols. (i woodcut of " Botocudo
Indians"), 1827-8.
Blanchard Jerrold's " Life of George Cruikshank "
adds to the list :
Hone's " Interesting History of a Memorable Blood
Conspiracy " (portrait of Stephen Macdaniel, etched
by G. C.), 1816. "Official Account of the Noble
Lord's Bite " (woodcut vignette on title-page by G. C.),
1817. "Another Ministerial Defeat" (woodcut vig-
nette on title-page by G. C.), 1817. "The Right
Divine of Kings to govern wrong " (2 woodcuts by
G. C.), 1821. "The Miraculous Host by the Jew
under the reign of Philip the Fair in 1290 " (illustrated
by 10 cuts), 1822.
See also Sotheby's Catalogue of the Truman Col-
lections of the Works of George Cruikshank, sold
May 7-12, 1906, particularly Lot 365 with G. C.'s
interesting note on a portrait head of Hone.
INDEX
ABNEY Park, 354
" Ancient Mysteries," 218, 243-4,
275, 364, 368
Antiquaries, &c., 70-73, 243
Apocryphal New Testament, 218,
243; 363
Arminianism, 24, 28
" Aspersions Answered," 196, 209,
243, 268, 364
Aspland, Rev. R., 239, 240
Athenaeum, 281, 355
"BANK Restriction Note," 191,
198-205, 2IO-H, 218, 348, 368
" Bank Restriction Barometer,"
200, 368
Bankruptcy of Hone, 73, 164, 291,
320
Bath, 22, 59, 187, 317
Belsize, 30-32, 39
Bettridge, Dame, 25-8
Binney, Rev. Dr., 306-11, 317,
322, 328, 342, 346, 348-9, 351-2
Birmingham, 139, 251, 334
" Black Dwarf, The," 117, 138, 146
Bolton, 291
Bone, Mr., 73-4, 76, 78
Book auctions, 46, 78, 187, 208-9
Booksellers, bookselling, 38-9, 40,
54, 69-71, 78, 80-90, zoo, 103,
106, 116, 134, 141, 148, 212, 214,
247, 357
Borrow, George, 89
Bowyer, 70
Brand (Antiquary), 258
" Bridge Street Gang," 224, 368
Burdett, Sir Francis, 79, 86-8, 91,
123, 146, 179, 332
Burn, Mrs., 18, 81, 84, 97, 130, 180,
189, 195, 203, 206-8, 216, 354
Butler, Samuel, 244
CANONBURY, 251
Carlile, Richard, ir6
Cartoons, 172-3, 193
Cartwright, Major, 147
Carvelho, 223
Catchpenny publications, 104
Catnach Press, 103
Caxton, 43
Chatham, 56, 66-7, 69, 75-6
Childs, John, 182-3, 187, 210-11,
220, 289, 322, 331-3
"Christmas Carol, Political," 223-6,
368
Church rate abolition, 330-35
24 369
370
INDEX
" City of London Tavern," 93, 121,
177
Clowes, William, 294
Cobbett, William, 74, 119, 120,
126-9, 130, 133, 170, 177-8, 194,
299> 336, 359
Cochrane, Lord, 96-8, 160, 171,
i79 359
Condor, Josiah, 330, 340
Cowden Clarke, Charles, 263-4,
288, 338
Creery, 212
Creevy, Thomas, 179
" Crown and Anchor," 45, 53, 146,
187, 332, 335
Cruden, 333-4
Cruikshank, George, 92, 101, 104,
106, no, 138, 172, 189-97,
201-4, 210, 220, 225-8, 230, 236,
248, 289, 320, 348, 351, 354, 368
Cruikshank, Isaac, 102
Curwen, J. Spencer, 337
DAVIES, Rev. J. J., 343~4> 34 6
De Foe, 212, 276, 292-3, 320
" Derry-down-Triangle," 115, 185,
221-2
Dick, Dr., 333-4
Dickens, Charles, 107, 345-9, 35,
35 2 > 353-4
" Doctor, the," 115, 194, 218, 222
236
Dolby, 219
ELLENBOROUGH, LORD, 96, 122,
136-8, 154, 159, 160, 165-7, *72,
174, 215, 234, 357
" Every-Day Book," 15, 62, 79, 181,
193, !95> 2I 7> 246-59, 262, 265,
268-9, 273-4, 277, 286, 294-6,
320, 35i
" FACETIAE," 189, 192-3, 219, 229,
365, 368
Penning, Eliza, 98-101, 103, 359
Filby, 261
Fores, 173, 190
" Form of Prayer," 192, 363
Forster, John, 347, 350, 353-4,
Forster, Dr. T. I., 301
Foxe's " Book of Martyrs," 35-7
Francis, Philip ("Junius"), 170,
177
French Revolution, 11,34-5, 44-5,
55, 77. M9, 299, 311, 365
" Friends of Liberty," 178, 180
GASPEY, Thomas, 323-5
Gatton, 125
Gentleman's Magazine, 70-73
Globe, the, 104
Godwin, 54, 148
Goodyear, Joseph, 251
Gordon Riots, 13, 252
HALL, S. CARTER, 320, 356
Hampstead, 23, 24, 30
Hardy, 188
Harrison, Joshua C., 351-2, 354
Hazlitt, 209, 212, 228,236,267, 279,
293
Hemsley, Thomas, 308, 318, 322,
354
Hill, Rowland, 57, 59
"History of. Three Days' Revolu-
tion," 62
Hobhouse, J. Camden, 130
Holcroft, 54-5, 148-9
H omewood Farm, 63
Hone, Alfred, 32, 190, 214, 253,
354
Hone, Alice, 318, 354
Hone, Ellen, 318, 325, 343, 354
INDEX
371
Hone, Emma, 308, 318, 325, 344
Hone, Fanny, 318, 354
Hone, John, 259, 260, 261, 282
Hone, Joseph, 63, 174, 256, 304
Hone, Matilda, 284, 290, 310, 354-5
Hone, Rose, 318, 354
Hone, Samuel P., 216, 322, 354
Hone, Sarah, 318
Hone, William (son) 259, 260, 261
Hone, William (senr.) 22, 23, 34,
35, 56-9, 63, 176
Hone, William his character and
temperament, 14, 20-22, 32, 47,
65, 67, 68, 73, 77, 293 ; his
opinions, 91, 95, 102 ; his poli-
tics, 14, 51, 53, 91, 104, 112-16,
242, 299-318, 357 ; his religion,
14-17, 34, 36, 51-3, 56-7, 6 1, 68,
156, 273, 299-318, 329; his
philanthropy, 92-5, 103, 320;
his literary style, 336 ; as a citi-
zen of London, 103, 177, 294-5,
327 ; his hallucinations, 207-8,
286 ; his ill-health, 18, 19, 77,
1 86-8, 285, 319, 339; his death,
18, 345-6, 354
Hone, William his various resi-
dences, lodgings, and offices :
Lambeth Walk, 64; St. Martin's
Lane, 68 ; Albion Place, Black-
friars, 76 ; Strand, 78, 164-7 5
Old Bailey, 79, 134, 154, 177;
55, Fleet Street, 101 ; 45, Ludgate
Hill, 177, 181, 207-8, 211, 234,
252, 257, 267 ; Belvedere Place,
180, 252, 257, 260, 288 ; 2, Great
Suffolk Street, 252, 255 ; Peck-
ham Rye, 273, 304, 317, 319-27,
353 ; Grasshopper Coffee-house,
Gracechurch Street, 276, 278,
2 95-6> 300, 304, 321 ; Penton-
ville, 141, 286 ; Newington
Green, 291 : Camberwell, 305,
319; Kingsland, 315, 321;
5, Bolt Court, 327, 340 ; Totten-
ham, 63, 342-4, 350-51
" House that Jack Built, Political,"
104, 185, 191-4, 198, 218, 220-22,
225, 227-8, 237
Howard, J. E., 176, 326
Hunt, Leigh and John, 170, 212,
228, 288
Hunt and Clarke, 229, 253-4, 2 56,
259, 265, 283, 286-7, 294
Huntingdon, Rev. W., 24, 28
Hurst, Thomas, 292
INFORMATIONS, ex-officio, 53, 89,96,
no, 133, 146, 154, 161, 171-2,
220
Inns "Adam and Eve," 23;
"Albion Tavern," 78; "Horn
Tavern," 75 ; " Hole-in-the-
Wall," 130 ; "Old King's Head,"
23 ; " Pied Bull," 249
JOHNSON, MRS., 34, 59, 64, 65, 84
" Joss and his Folly," the, 236
Jury system, 151-4, 168, 173, 188
KING'S BENCH, 61, 87, 96-7, 136,
150, 187, 195, 252, 264, 282-93
LAMB, CHARLES AND MARY, 19,
257-8, 263, 266-81, 324, 355
Lambeth, 34-57, 59, 64, 66, 84
Lawrence, Dr. W., 176, 285, 287
Literary Fund, 279, 323-4
London Corresponding Society,
53,66
L'Overture Toussaint, 83-4
Lowton, 73
372
INDEX
Lucas, E. V., 266
Lunatic asylums, 92-5
Lushington, Charles, 340
MACMILLAN, DANIEL, 341, 356
" Maid and Magpie," the, 100-101,
359
" Mat de Cocagne," 106, 189
Methodism, 49, 77
Miall, G. R., 340
Morgan, Lady, 105
Moxhay, 283, 286-7, 297
Murray, Lady Augusta, 80-82, 88
NAPOLEON, 80, 96, 106-9, 189, 225
New Philosophy, the, 51, 55, 311
New Road, 41
Nicholl, Sir W. R., 347-8, 353
Nichols (of Gentleman's Magazine),
70-72
" Non mi ricordo," 152, 192, 228,
368
Norris, William, 93-5, 103
North, Christopher, 265
Novello, Mary. 263-4
Novello, Vincent, 337
OGLE, ROBERT, 145-6
"Old Bags," 115, 185, 218
Olive, Princess, 84-6
Owen, Robert, 51
PADDIXGTON, 23
Paine, Tom, 45, 148
Pancras Church, 24
Parkes, Mr., 286
Parliament Houses, 63
Parodies, 15, 16, 18, 60, 61, 104,
in, 179, 196, 210, 213, 225, 236,
291, 339> 34 1
Parr, Samuel, 179, 185. 215-16
Patriot, the, 19, 319, 327-38, 355
Patten, George, 356
Pearson, Charles, 151
Percy, 210
Phillips, Charles, 99, 106-7, l8 4
240
Phillips, Richard, 88-9
" Pilgrim's Progress," 28, 30, 33,
40
Place, Francis, 88, 90, 120, 125
" Political Showman," 191-2, 218,
225, 362
" Poor Humphrey's Calendar,"
289, 365
Price, Dr., 291
Printers' Address to Queen
Caroline, 238
Pynson, 43
QUAKERISM, 279, 305, 333-4
"Queen's Matrimonial Ladder,"
192, 218, 223, 227, 229, 236-7,
361
RAFFLES, DR., 292, 342-3
Red Lion Square (and Court), 33,
41, 42, 72
Rees, Owen, 30, 331
Reformists' Register, 104, no, 119-
27, 134, 138, 144, 146, 153-4,
360
Register Extraordinary, 121
Richmond, 63, 341
" Right Divine," 192
Riots, 88, 96, 102, 123-4, J 45> 299,
359
Rochester, 68
Rolleston, Miss, 236, 273, 319, 320,
325> 336, 346
Romanism, 36, 233
Royal Exchange, 29, 59, 96
INDEX
373
Routledge, James, 201, 356
Russell, Fuller, 320
SADLER'S WELLS, 49
Savings Bank, 73
Scott, John, 175, 280, 323
Serres, Olivia, 84-6
Skeffington, Sir Lumley, 82-3
"Slap at Slop," 223-5, 229, 235,
365, 368
Socialism, 51
Society for Abolition of Poor Rate,
75-6
Spa Fields riots, 102, 299
Spy system, 96, 116, 130, 138-43
Stationers' Company, 290
Stawell, 22
Stoddart, Dr., 224-5
Strutt's " Sports and Pastimes,"
265, 366
Sturge, Joseph, 334
Southey, 227, 276-7, 280, 297-8
Southwark, 46, 73
Surrey Chapel, 57, 59, 306, 318
"TABLE BOOK," 62, 181, 217, 246,
259- 6 5> 2 74~7, 2 94-8, 351
Tallies, 63
Tegg, 172,277,294-6,361
Thelwall, 149, 188
Thompson, 47
Timbs, John, 356
Times, the, 62, 119, 355
Tooke, John Home, 54, 149, 150,
188
Townley, 65
Townson, 67
"Tranquillity," 74-6, 358
Traveller, the, 102, 104
UNITARIANISM, 16, 50
Unwin, Jacob, 354
Upcott, Mr., 342
VAUXHALL, 64
Yenning, 66, 68-9, 76
Verrall, George, 321, 353
WAITHMAN, ALDERMAN, 92, 122,
177-80, 184
Wakefield, Edward, 92-3
Wakefield, Gilbert, 180
Ward, Lock & Co., 296
Warren Street, 23-4
Watts's Songs, 33, 56, 312
"Weekly Commentary," Hone's,
119
Weigh-house Chapel, 336, 315-17,
321-2, 342-3
Wesley, John, 24, 28, 37
White (artist), 217, 248
White, Joseph Blanco, 301
Wilkes, John, 71, in, 146, 150,
170-71
Williams (artist), 217, 248
Williams (banker), 167
Williams' s, Dr., library, 239
Wilson, C. C., 262
Wilson, Emngham, 278
Wilson, Walter, 276, 292-3
"YEAR BOOK," 62, 79, 246, 294-8,
Ubc Oresbam press,
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WOKING AND LONDON.
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