Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/554

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NOTES AND QUERIES. ( iis. vi. DEO. 7, 1912.

In the church at Little Glemham are several memorials of this family. One to Sir John Glemham, Knight, is so curious in the language of its inscription as to merit reprinting in ' N. & Q. ; :- Here graued is of Glemham's auncient race John Glemham Knight, a worthy Ancestor Among thes few though first to stand in place Yet long before that name hath lasted here In good Account thought tyme and small regarde Their due accordes thos olders hath ....

Of Bakonsthorpe a Bakon was his

And of that howse Coheire by just descent

Within this graue entombed also heir

In sweete accord thei liued most content

In heaven their soules enjoye that lasting blisse

Wherewith the God of mercy meedeth hys.

The said Sir John Glemham died in the yere 1535 they had yssxie Christofer, Edward, and Francis, daucghters Elizabeth and Dorothy.

C. W. S. R. CLOKE. 2, Little Turnstile, High Holborn, W.C.

Jlo&s on

William Hone. By Frederick W. Hackwood. (Fisher Unwin.)

HONE by general readers has been so associated with those valuable contri butions to a knowledge of bygone times and manners ' The Every- DayBook,' the' Year-Book,' and 'The Table Book, 'that his services in the cause of the freedom of the Press are almost forgotten ; indeed, Lamb, writing to him on the 7th of February, 1834, said : " Your little political heats are many years past. You are now remembered but as the Editor of the ' EveryDay ' and ' Table ' Books."

This authoritative memoir, compiled from private papers, will remind people of the debt they owe to Hone on public grounds. It is strange that few references have been found among the papers to his friendship with the Lambs, but a chapter dealing witlTthis has been supplied by Major Butterworth, who is well known as an authority on Lamb, Coleridge, and Wordsworth, and gives our readers the benefit of his researches. There is a short autobiography, which extends only to the first twenty years of Hone's life ; but there is appended a summary of the chief activities of his subsequent years, with a sort of apologia for his life's mistakes : as his biographer says, '' it is almost the revelation of a soul in revulsion from its blind heretical lapses."

Hone was born on the 3rd of June, 1780. His father was at the time clerk to a corn merchant at Bath, but three years afterwards obtained settled employment in the office of Mr. Ludlow, a London solicitor, and resided with his wife and son, first at Graf ton Street, and afterwards on the west side of Tottenham Court Road. From the latter meadowland extended to Gray's Inn Lane. This upper part of Tottenham Court Road remained open country into the thirties, and Stebbing, the first editor of The Athenceum, went to reside there on that account.

Hone's father was deeply religious, and early taught his son to read from the Bible, and the

boy's " 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." His father, however, made the mistake of causing the Bible to be a task book, which naturally led to its becoming distasteful to the boy.

Young Hone's education was desultory, but he had a great love of reading, saving all his spare money to buy books ; he was even in the habit of making his own every scrap of printed and written paper, whether from cheesemongers' or other shops. In this way he met with an old printed leaf which had a great effect on his future opinions. The matter on this " seemed to be part of an energetic defence of some man," but \vho it was he could not discover. " At last I obtained the information from a bookseller who possessed a copy of the book : it was the trial of John Lilburne." He bought it, and " 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 pronounced him to be free from the charge."

In July, 1800, Hone, who was then residing in Lambeth, married the daughter of his landlady, Mrs. Johnson, and the three attended Surrey Chapel, " where the fervid and fearless pi-eachinjf of the Rev. Rowland Hill amused me." Hone, though naturally industrious and hardworking,, was, from lack of business methods, singularly unfortunate all through his life. His first shop- was in Lambeth Walk, in the house of his mother- in-law, who lent him one hundred pounds to set up as a bookseller ; but he soon removed to St- Martin's Lane, returning, however, to Lambeth,, where he had many notable customers, among these being Lady Augusta Murray, the consort of the Duke of Sussex, who would bring her young son and daughter with her to his house. Hone's daughter relates that she often talked to hei- father " of the Duke in terms of deep affection,, and would weep over the cruelty of their separa- tion." A great dandy, Sir Lumley Skeffington,. was another regular visitor. He invented for the Prince Regent a new colour, the " Skeffing- ton brown," and was caricatured by Gillray as " Skeffy Skip-ton." A man of a different stamp was Charles Townley, whose collection of ancient statuary was purchased by the British Museum. Another noted character is'introduced to us by Hone's daughter, Mrs. Burn " the soi-disant Princess Olive, who repeatedly requested my father to inspect the documents which she said proved her claim " ; but he paid her only one visit. Our founder Thorns published in 1867 reprints from ' N. & Q.' of Hone's articles on Hannah Lightfoot ; Queen Charlotte and the Chevalier D'Eon; and Dr. Wilmot's "Polish Princess." In addition there was a short article for the first time published, ' Lord Chatham and the Princess Olive,' in which Thorns further disproves this " remarkable claim," and closes by asking his readers if they are " surprised if I confess thai my infidelity becomes more and more intrepid," and stating that " I feel assured that, after what I have shown them, they will attach just as much to value these certificates as I do, and no more."