Page:Eight Friends of the Great - WP Courtney.djvu/86

 66 was delighted with the " Captive." Nothing but Terrour could restrain a patriotic publisher from printing it. But this was what the reactionary followers of Pitt were aiming at " nothing presently would be published beyond a Primer or a Child's guide." So, with Warner's praise the " Captive " occupied the whole of volume I. of Cumberland's collection of Original Tales. The last sentence of Warner strikes the keynote of his life during the dying years of that century. The war with France which ended after long years of a wasteful contest with the return of the Bourbons to temporary power, and the repressive measures of the Tory ministry to crush out the opposition of their antagonists, were distasteful to the doctor who strenu- ously advocated the cause of parliamentary reform and threw himself with augmented zeal into the arms of the advanced liberals. The claims of Home Tooke to public recognition went home to his heart. He adjured Cumberland if he knew " any opulent friend whose children do not call for all he can spare in such times as these and has still, in spite of Mr. Pitt, money enough to make a patriotic present, now is his time by contributing to raise an annuity — too much wanted — for the most meritorious Public man in the Kingdom . . . and that man I need not tell you is our friend Home Tooke." Warner and his colleagues in the movement hoped to make the fund worth Home Tooke's acceptance. The subscriptions ranged from £50 to £300. Cumberland duly responded to the invitation and received from Warner, who was then staying at Wimbledon with Home Tooke, warm thanks for his letters " and for their very agreeable accompaniments." His attention was also drawn to Tooke's "tight little correspondence" with the clerk to the income tax commissioners. The patriot at Wimbledon had filled up the schedule of his income with great minuteness of detail and had ended with the statement " I have been