Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/555

 us. vi. DEC. 7. Mia] .NOTES AND QUERIES.

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The first public question which engaged Hone's attention was the condition of lunatic .-(syluins. This was in 1814, when he with Alderman Waithman and James Bevans formed a committee of investigation. They found the cruelty practised to be most appalling. An illus- tration is given of one William Norris as he was confined in Bethlem, where he had been chained to a wall for more than twelve years. Hone's next public work was to agitate in favour of 1 ..ord Cochrane, afterwards Lord Dundonald ; and then he took up the case of Elizabeth Penning, a poor servant-girl who in June, 1815, was hanged for a supposed attempt to poison her master, a law stationer in Chancery Lane. Hone believed her to be innocent, and obtained signa- tures to a petition to the Crown for mercy. The master of the girl was asked to sign, but, at the instance of the Recorder, he refused. The girl was given a public funeral, at which ten thousand people were present. Hone's report of the trial contains her portrait by I. B. Cruik- shank. The writer on her in the ' D.N.B.,' however, regards her as rightly convicted of the crime.

Hone soon began to find that those in authority were watching him with no friendly eye. After various removals, he had established himself in Fleet Street, and in 1815 he was " brought up before the Wardmote Inquest of St. Dunstan's for placarding his shop, 55, Fleet Street, on Sundays, and for carrying on a retail trade as bookseller and stationer, not being a freeman." Then, in connexion with George Cruikshank, he commenced the publication of those political satires which for the time made his name so prominent, ' The Political House that Jack Built ' passing through fifty editions. He also published several pamphlets on the Princess Charlotte, besides ' The late John Wilkes's Catechism.' This parody of the Creeds and Catechisms was made the pretext for Hone's arrest. At the trials, which lasted for three days, he spoke, alone and unsupported, for six, seven, and eight hours respectively ; and on the verdict of acquittal being given, " the multitude broke forth into cries of ' Long live an honest jury ! An honest jury for ever ! ' It was a notable achievement to have fought singlehanded in defence of two great constitutional rights the liberty of the Press and Trial by Jury." On the conclusion of the trials a national subscription of sympathy with Hone was started, the subscribers including the Duke of Bedford, the Earl of Darlington, and the Earl of Sefton (each giving a hundred guineas), Lord Cochrane (100?.), and ' a whole host of clergymen and other ministers of religion, who, while disapproving the Parodies, entirely acquitted Hone of intentional profanity."

It is unfortunate that there was an estrange- ment between Hone and Cobbett ; the two reformers should have worked hand in hand. Cobbett's Register at the time of Hone's prosecu- tion had a sale of 50,000 copies weekly. Of Cobbett's other manifold publications our readers have a systematic record in the complete Biblio- graphy which -lately appeared in our columns, so carefully compiled by our valued contributor Mr. Lewis Melville.

Hone towards the close of his life suffered from paralytic attacks, and was only able to earn 21. a week, doing minor work on The Pal riot ; but in the memoirs of Daniel Macmillan it is noted that

" some good friends have resolved to get him rid of his burden, or, as he [Hone] puts it, ' to send the old horse to grass.' Binney, who is a noble, generous-hearted fellow, is at the bottom of this." Thus his last years were tranquil, and compara- tively free from care, and he passed peacefully to his rest on the 6th of November, 1842.

At the funeral in Abney Park Cemeteiy the Rev. Thomas Binney and the Rev. Joshua Harrison took the service. Dickens was present, while among the mourners were Hone's old friends- Cruikshank and Jacob Unwin. The latter was a friend of Binney, and was connected with The Patriot newspaper ; his son appropriately publishes this most interesting memoir. The 27 illustra- tions add greatly to the value of the work.

England under the Old Religion, and Other Essays. By Francis Aidan Gasquet, D.D. (Bell & Sons.)

ABBOT GASQITET has collected these essays into a volume for the sake of accessibility. That which gives the book its title is of general interest. It may be hoped that his words on Erasmus will impress those who regard the great humanist as a Lutheran, a thing he never was. People who observe that a book's chances of publica- tion still depend more on its selling qualities than its worth will smile wrily when Abbot Gasquefe writes : " Our early printers were clearly men of business. .. .this class of religious literature obviously commanded a sale." Essays on matters still vitally controversial cannot be reviewed here. This much may be said -that the paper on ' Anglican Ordinations, 1 by one of the participators in the Inquiry, is welcome among the books recently issued on the subject ; students who realize that an " un- biased " narrator is as impossible as undesirable hail advocates of all sides. The essay on ' Scot- land in Penal Days ' might be opportunely studied by those who fancy that persecution is the monopoly of one set of people. History's verdict is that unlimited power is one of the most cor- rupting of temptations. The essay on ' S. Gre- gory's, Downside,' tells again the story of that successful school, tucked away, with its beautiful abbey church, in the folds of the Somerset hills. Those who realized the failure of the English newspapers to grasp the facts, much less their significance, of the struggle between the Holy See and the French Republic, will read with interest ' France and the Vatican.' But for that failure, surprise at the recent revival in France might have been less naive.

The book's sting is where it should be, in the tail. The last essay, ' Editing and Reviewing,' is pungent. How the " presses " of our ancient Universities replied when this article appeared in 1902 the present reviewer knows not. That Dr. Gasquet's appeal for scholarship in editing and honesty in reviewing is needed none of those who watch closely the output and the reception of books can doubt. It is much more than time that the flood of trash should be stayed. Lite- rature, in the broad sense, is one of the principal formative influences in national life. As national safety should be kept outside party politics, so national literature should be lifted above com- mercial considerations. Every writer who honours his calling will thank Dr. Gasquet for including that final essav.