TO ·" CHRISTIANITY

OP THE LATE WILLIAM HONE,

.&UTBOB. OP " THE POLITICAL BOUSB THAT lACK BUIL:r"," ETC., AND Ott "' TRK BVBBY~DAT BOOI... "TABLB BOOK.," AND "YB.AJt BOOil. ..

WJTII FURTHER PARTICULARS OF HIS LIFE AND EXTRACTS FROAl HIS CORRESPONDENCE.

£u.onh QEhithm, nlristh.

LONDON: FRANCIS AND JOHN RIVINGTON. KESWICK: JAMES IVISON.

lSSS. L ·J JAMES IVISON, PRIN1.ER, KESWICK.

t"' ., b this sketch of William Hone in his latter years, some of his early friends have seen a want of adequate notice of his literary reputation and his intellectual eminence. It was in his christian character that he was chiefly known to the writer, who, at the commencement of the acquaintance, knew little of his writings and nothing of his previous life. His Year Book, Day Book, and Table Book, equally entertaining and inStructive, seem to have given the impulse to the Penny and Saturday Magazines and otheT useful periodicals. His publications on " The case of Eliza Fenning," hanged for murder on what is now thought unsatis­ factory evidence, have been thought greatly to influence the present amelioration of our criminal code. The man who has done this, has not lived in vain. Even when under the influence of higher motives, in referring to this part of his life, be always expressed thankfulness to the Author of all good, who had thus made him an instrument of public benefit. The mention made of him and of his works by so competent a judge as Southey will be satisfactory ; in May, 1830, be writes thus;- " Hone might have thriven if be bad gone on as badly as he begun ; but he was meant for better things, and published, at a cost which could only be covered by a large popular sale, more curious things than these penny purchasers were prepared for ; so in out-marching the march of intellect, be ' out-ran the constable' at the same time. His old sins averted from him one set of cus­ tomers, and his better mind indisposed others.'' In another letter be writes, "I have bought Hone's Every Day Book, and his Table Book, and am sorry I had not seen them before my Colloquies were printed, that I might have given him a hearty good word there. I have not seen any miscellaneous books that are so well worth having ; brimful of curious matter, and with an abundance of the very best wood-cuts. Poor fellow, he out-went the march of intellect, and I believe his unwearied and alm06t uparalleled industry has ended in bankruptcy.'' A

SOME ACCOUNT OP TBE CONVERSION OP THE LATE WILLIAM HONE.

AN incorrect copy of the lines written by Mr. W. Hone, on the blank leaf of a Bible, having been given in the report of the Loughborough Bible Society, a more correct one, as retained by a friend, to whom he had repeated them himself, was sent to the newspaper in which it appeared. It was stated on the same authority, that however edifying he might feel the little girl's love of her Bible there mentioned, it was by no means the commence­ ment of his conversion to the faith he once despised. About New Year's Day, 1835, he publicly joined a Chris­ tian community, receiving the Lord's Supper as a member of it; but the memorable conversion of a most determined foe into a humble disciple of Christ had been some time accomplished. The friend above alluded to, early in the spring of 1832, being resident in a village near London, observed daily in the garden of an adjoining cottage a fatherly looking person, with the appearance of a respectable retired tradesman, evidently an invalid, but every morning seated in a little arbour, with a small table before him, and a large family Bible on it, in which he read much, at intervals walking up and down the garden conversing with his children. The gardens were only separated by a trellis-work, the quiet inmates of the one cottage therefore unavoidably heard much of the conversation of the large family occu­ pying the other, who lived a great deal in the open air. A 2 This affectionate parent was frequent and earnest in striving to impress his children with the importance of religion, and to instruct them in its principles. The strong sense and energetic simplicity of his language were very soon remarked ; so was his early rising and devoted study of his Bible, and his constantly taking his family to a place of worship, generally three times on the Sunday. Some weeks elapsed before the name of these new comers was ascertained, and still longer before it occurred to any one to identify the name of this quiet regular family witlt one that had so different au idea attached to it in general. Those privately acquainted with Mr. Hone, even while the adversary of Christianity, are, however, well aware that, as. a husband and a father, he failed only in the one, but most important, duty of religious instruction. Those who knew him only from h!s public character could never re­ cognise him in the simple-minded humble Christian, whose daily life and conversation were thus unintentionally the subject of unbiassed observation for some months, and afterwards of admiration and astonishment at the power of Divine grace exhibited in him. Great self-distrust, re­ markable humility, and submission to severe temporal trials then distinguished the man who had thus characterized his own former disposition :-

The proudest heart that ever beat Hath been subdued in me. The .wildest will that ever rose To scorn Thy Word, or 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.

When the copy, sent to the newspaper, of his verses in the Bible was submitted to him he replied thus:-" With the ·~xc~ption of a word or two your version of my verses is correcl. In consequence of many applications, and espe­ cially of the appearance of the verses, with four others ascribed to me, which I never wrote, printed in TAe Churchman, I have obtained a certified copy of what I did write, for I kept no copy, from Dr. Raflles, of Liverpool, to whom I gave the ·leaf containing them. A correct copy will be seen by you, somewhere or other, in print, next month; afterwards they may come into the paper," (Tlu Patriot-of which he was then sub-editor). The verses are here given from his own copy. At first he had written, in allusion to the seal he had engraved­ " Thy cross shall be my sign." He afterwards substituted, " And make Thy name my sign."

It is difficult to write of any in their lifetime without the power of consulting their wishes ; still more difficult to \vrite of an intimate ftieud impressions derived from confidential conversations, without knowing how far it may be done without violation of implied trust ; under such difficulties the preceding sketch was sent to the Laugh­ borough Telegraph. It is, however, said to have had a share in giving that impression of the sincerity of this remarkable convert, which latterly became almost universal. Having since that time ascertained the wish of my deceased friend that I should tell all I knew, and all that he had told me, in case. of his dying before he had written his long talked of autobiography, I am now desirous to put on paper some recollections of one whom as a Christian I so highly valued. At the time when I daily saw him from my window, sitting in his little flowery arbour at the end of the narrow slip of garden, which was to him an ample domain, he was recovering from a severe illness. My servant, herself a religious person, said "We have got a good man at next door ; I can often hear him ·talking A 3 to his children." After a wllile as I was walking in my own garden, the invalid, in his, bowed and requested leave to thank me for little attentions we had shown him ; he spoke gratefully of undeserved mercy \n his recovery from his dangerous attack. I found he had pleasure in a few daily words over the low wall and through the trellis-work which separated the gardens. Gradually these increased to conversations ; and with increasing surprise I found that the "tradesman" had an almost universal acquaint­ ance with English literature, and most with the most sterling authors ; speaking of Chaucer he quoted the familiar line, " the well of English undefiled." I asked, "Do you know where that is ?" " No," he replied, " and I never could find out." I went in for Spenser's Faery Queen, and showed it to him. He said " I have learnt l!Omething from you." I wondered rather at the expression, but thought him a very remarkable person ; he frequently spoke on religious subjects, on which he appeared to be very seriously inquiring. One day he asked, "In what books shall I find your religious opinions ?" I replied, "In one, the Bible." A day or two after, he observed, " I have been thinking much of what you said ; there is but one book, the Bible." At this time I understood his name to be Stone. The great anti-slavery petition being brought for signature I went into his house with it ; he signed, and made all his family sign, explaining to them the reasons for it, in a masterly though quite simple manner. Instead of Stones there was a whole list of Hones. " Irish Hones?" said I. "Not Irish," replied he, with rather an amused expression of countenance. He saw that I was not aware who or what he was-not suspecting that our quiet Bible-studying neighbour was the well-known William Hone, who had been prosecuted for some of his publications, • had defended himself for three days without the aid of counsel, and had

• These publications, after he became a true Christian, he deeply regretted, saying they were of a. nature to injiUe the cause of religion. 1 been finally acquitted ;-who was also the most popular and most severe satirist of the day, besides being well-know11 as an antiquarian and the author of several periodicals full of most curious and valuable information. Soon after this he was employing himself in cutting the boughs oft' some large trees in the adjoining ground, which overhung his beloved flower border ; I said, " You had better not do that ; that gentleman will take the law of you." " Madam," he replied, with a very arch expression of countenance, " all up to the sky from my fence is mine. I know some­ thing of the law, and if he did go to law with me, give me twelve good men and true, and I fear him not." As he recovered his health his remarkable powers of wit and humour began to show themselves, and the force of his character was again in action. He heard of au act of oppression to a defenceless woman in the neighbourhood, and took up her cause with his usual energy. His first visit was on this affair ; two gentlemen were present, both very clever men. When he. left us they said "That is an extraordinary man," and we discussed who and what he could be : such fearlt>ssness, such benevolence, such acute perception of the wrong, and the way to get it set to rights ! Soon after this a lady called, "Do you know who is your next door neighbour?" "A Mr. Stone," replied I. " Hone," said she, as if she had said Guy Fawkes or Napoleon Buonaparte. "I believe it may be Hone,', said I. "William Hone." "Very likely." "The Hone." "Who is 'the Hone?' " "The author of the House that Jack built." "I am thankful to hear it," said I. "He is then a brand plucked from the burning, for he is a true Christian." That afternoon he asked me some questions in English literature. " I shall never again attempt to teach you," said I, rather pointedly, " Then you know me now-the arch blasphemer," returned he, with an expression of the greatest self-abasement, " and will you now converse with me ?" "A brand plucked from the burning," was the reply, and he was, I believe, deeply, though silently grateful, and now his coinmuni­ catiou.s became more and more confidential, and mor~ 8 than ever on concerns of eternity. Much of his past life he described to me, from time to time, in the desultory sort of way in which alone I can relate it. One evening he told me, "I have spent a delightful day alone in Nor­ wood," (then retaining much of its wild wood walks and lonely beauty); "I have stood humbled before a child. I saw a little girl sitting on a low stool at a cottage door reading a book which lay in her lap. I said to her, ' My little girl, what are you reading?' 'My Bible, sir,' 'What, are you getting your lesson for your Sunday School ?' ' No, sir.' Why are you reading it then ?' 'Be1:ause I love it.' I stood humbled before that child.'' Most ex­ pressive was the gesture and the voice that accompanied these words-few and simple and striking, as was his wont. He never said a word too much, and his plain Saxon English told. Often has this story been amplified, but thus he related it to me. • The accouni he at dift'erent times gave me of his con­ version, began with that of his early unbelief, and the cause of it. His father was an independent Dissenter, and brought him up very strictly, unfortunately too strictly -the ordinary penance for a slight fault being to get by heart a chapter in the Bible. On one occasion, being sent to get his task, sitting on the garret stairs, he threw the book from him down the whole Hight, saying, " when I am my own master I will never open you." " And, alas !" said he, " I kept my word but too well, for thirty years I never looked into it.'' " My father and his friends,'' said he " were in the habit of speaking much and bitterly of John Wesley. They frequently called him a child of the devil ; I had a most terrific idea of this child of the devil. Being under six years old I went to a dame school to learn my book, and be out of harm's way ; my dame was a very staid and pious old woman, she was very fond of me, and I was always good with her, though naughty enough at home. She lived in one room,

• It has been doubted whether this circumstance took place in :S orwood-but at that time aud in these words he related it. 9 a large underground kitchen-we went down a flight of steps to it. Her bed was always neatly turned up in one comer. There was a large kitchen grate, and in cold weather always a good fire in it, by which she sat, in an old 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 ; I think I see her now, that placid old face, with her white hair turned up over a high cushion, and a clean neat cap on the top of it-all so clean, so tidy, so peaceful. I was happy there. One morning I was told I was not to go to school ; ·I was miserable, naughty, disagreeable, cried to go to my dame; it was a dark day to me. The next day I got up hoping to go to school, but no, I might not, and then they told me she was ill, and then I cried the more from grief: it was my first sorrow. That day, too, passed in tears, and I cried myself to sleep._ Next morning every body was so tired of me that the servant was told to take me to her. As we approached the house, all was so still. it gave me an awful feeling that all was not right ; the kitchen door was shut, the servant tapped, and a girl opened it, no scholars, no benches, the bed let down and curtained; the little round table covered with a clean white cloth, and on it something unintelligible, covered up with another. 'Here is master William, he would come,' said my bearer, and a low hollow voice from the bed said, 'Let him stay, he will be good.' There lay my dame, how altered ! death on her face, but I loved her all the same. My little stool was placed near her bolster, and I sat down in silence. Presently she said to the maid, 'Is he coming?' The maid went to the window and said ' No.' Again the same question and the same answer. Who could it be ? I wondered in silence, and felt overawed. At last there was a double knock at the house door above, and the maid said joyfully, '0. 10 madam, Mr. Wesley is come!' Then I was to see the child of the devil! I crept to the window, I could only see a pair of black lega with great silver buckles ; th~ door was opened, steps came down the kitchen stairs, each step increasing my terror ; I saw the black legs-then came in a venerable old man, with, as it seemed to me, the countenance of an angel, shining silver hair waving on his shoulders, with a beautiful, fair, and fresh com­ plexion, and the sweetest smile ! This then was the child of the devil ! He went up to the bed-I trembled for my poor dame, but he took her hand, and spoke so kindly to her, and my dame seemed so glad ! He looked at me and said something ; she said, ' He is a good boy­ he will be quite quiet.' liter much talk, he uncovered the table, and I saw the bread and wine, as I had often seen it at my father's chapel, and then he knelt down and prayed. I do not say I prayed, but I was awfully im­ pressed, and quite still. After it was over he turned to to me, laid his hand on my head, and said, ' God bless you, my child, and make you a good man.' Was this a child of the devil? I never .aaw Mr. Wesley again. My dame died, but from that hour I never believed any­ thing my father said, or anything I heard at chapel. I felt, though I could not have expressed it, how wicked such enmity was between Christians, and so I lost all confidence in my good father, and in all his religious friends, and so in all religion. "I had been fond of that good woman at next door," continued he, looking towards his own cottage, " from childhood up, and we married at eighteen. I saw much of the clever sceptics of those days, but I could not rest in Deism ; I became an atheist, as I believe every con­ sistent reasoner must, who rejects Christianity. I was an atheist thirty years. One day, walking down Holborn, I stopped, as usual, at an old book stall ; · there I found a book, open, with some stories in it that I saw at once would throw light upon some of my old prints that I could learn nothing about. The book was Jeremiah Jones

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on the Canon of Scripture ;• the stories were the Apocry­ phal Gospels. When I had studied my prints with them, and found what light they threw on their subjects, I thought they would do for the public, particularly for antiquarians and print collectors ; so I took a pair of scissors (for that is the way I make books) and cut out what I wanted, and gave them to the printer, and out came my Apocryphal Gospels that made such a noise in the world. When I found what an outcry there was against me, I said to my­ self, • What have I done?' and I set to work to read the Canonical Gospels, • and ' (said he, solemnly raising both his hands, • Oh, what a fl.ood of light burst in upon me ! ' " He afterwards added, that thus be became a convert to Christianity on conviction, to the very doctrines he had heard in early life, when their effect was so sadly neutral­ ized by the uncharitable enmities entertained by those who held them. A very celebrated contemporary, who highly appreciated Mr. Hone's talents and honesty, being applied to for assistance in what was then doing for his service, said, ".The man has been dead for years." It was thought best to have the report contradicted under his own hand, and it was thus be did it-" Yes, I have been dead for some years-dead to the world, and I am willing so to remain. I am thankful to God that by his help, while faculty and health remain, they must be devoted to Him, through honest endeavours in promoting the extension of His cause on earth." Speaking of his then employment he goes on to say-" A sense of duty to my family confines me to the dreary sound of this treadmill six days a week. Only one thing reconciles me to it, the seventh day ; the first

• This mutilated copy of Jones on the Canon passed from the possession of W. Hone into the hands of a clergyman near London, where it now remains. When told, after his conver­ sion, that hia re-publication of the Apocryphal Gospels, forgeries of the early heretics, had done service to the cause of pure religion, by shewing on what good grounds they had been rejected, he replied with the humility of true repentance, "But I did not ao intend it.

Digitized byGoogle day of the week is the Sabbath, and is to me .thrice blessed." In another letter he writes further of his new hope:- Peckham Rye Common, 9th Nov., 1833. I thank God I am well, and I hope I may be enabled to trust in Him for health and strength at all times when I may seem called to do His work. Poor J--! may the Lord, in His mercy, smite him to the earth, and put a cry into his mouth for help to Him who is alone able to save to the uttermost ; and may he be heard and answered, and so be prepared for his great change. It seems to me that he cannot live into the summer. He then dies into endless happiness or misery. May God help you, my dear friend, and me, until our life's end, and take us to our rest. He is very gracious unto me, and I acknowledge, with humble gratitude, what He has been pleased to do for my soul through my blessed SaYiour. For Him I can do nothing, and for myself I can do nothing. I have been led to prove this, and to have full assurance that this is the highest knowledge to which a sinful creature can attain. I send Eusebius. You will see by my date upon it that I worked in this sort of lore years ago. I am now almost " a man of one book."

Further details of his life, both before and after his eon•er• aion, with extracts from his letters, which seem wanted to complete this account of him, will be found in tbe Second Part.

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Tn& reality of a conversion is best tested by the .aubsequeat ronduct ; that of. the subject of the foregoing pages, was consistent ·with his .christian profession. He -was .desiroiiS to glorify God by giving to the public an aeeount of the mercies &e had received, both in the Lord's goodness to him in opening his mind to the truth by means of readiag the New Testament, and in afterwards supporting him Wlder very severe temporal trials. Those kind friends, with ·whom· be found a peaceful refuge when increasing infirmities incapacitated him from exertion, knew well the stability of his change of mind and heart, but to those who did not so witness it, no better proofs can be presented than specimens of his truly christian correspondence. The following letter appears to have been written soon after the attack of illness of which he speaks, and, from the hand-writing and other circumstance!!, apparently before... .he. was. entirely recovered • " Your kindness to me and the desire you express of becoming serviceable to me, require that I should be explicit as respects the circumstances under which we met a little time ago, and have since conversed. I think my statement should be in writing, and hence tltis letter. It has pleased the Almighty to have dealings with me for several years, until, by his Holy Spirit, I have been brought from darkness to light, to know Him tlrro' faith in Christ, and, by the power of his Spirit, to rest in His love, as in the cleft o£ a rock, safe from the storms and afflictions of this world. To acquaint all who have ever heard my B

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name with this mighty change of heart, has long beea my desire, and it seems to me that I ought not to exer­ cise my restored faculties without sending their first fruits as an humble offering to the promotion of His cause, by testifying of His great mercy. It has been my frequent and earnest prayer to God to enable me to do this ; as His doing, to seek nothing by the performance but honour to His holy name, and in fear of Him and Him only without regard to the praise or dispraise of man, come from what quarter it may; to have my soul possessed in patience, and wait and be still, as a mere instrument in His hands, made willing in the day of His power, to do His work ; if it be His work He will bless it. I pray that so it may be : in this matter and in this view, self seeking or personal gratification is out of the question. The desire to engage in it, is the most earnest wish o{ my heart; but my heart has submitted to God, and; in submission to Him, it seeks to do His will, to do the will of my Saviour as my Lord and my God, who has done all things for me, and will do all things well. I believe He has put the desire into my heart, to do this public homage to His Sovereignty as a subject of His kingdom. That has been the ruling purpose of my mind. Let me mention that I have been frequently asked by Autograph Collectors, to write something in their Albums. For the last two years I have done nothing in this way, until the 3rd of last month, when a lady brougl1t me her Album. The night before I remembered it was my birth­ day, and I wrote the following lines. The proudest heart that ever beat Hath been !:ubdued in me ; The wildest will that ever rose, To scorn Thy cause, or 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,' '~y Saviour, Christ, my God, my Lord,' Thy Cross shall be my sign.

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These lines I thought would be ill placed among con­ tributions of very different import, I therefore wrote them at the end of my Bible, and put some others of a religious and kindly monitory tendency in the lady's Album. Not even in Albums can I write without manifesting that to please is less my object than to acknowledge the goodness of God. Well then, my dear sir, in this respect you may gather in some degree how it is with me, and how God has wrought upon my mind and operates upon it still, to the end ; I speak of the time when his hand struck me as for death ; it was in a house of prayer, and wh!le being carried out from the place in men's arms, as for dead, He lifted my heart to a throne of Grace. During the loneliness of what seemed to me my dying bed, the discomfort of my awful infirmity, and the ruin of my name and family, and property, He was with me; and I bless His holy name, my faith in Him is unshaken, He keeps me constantly to Himself, and, in despite of worldly afllictions and nature's fears, I depend upon Him, and the workings of His gracious providence, that He will never leave me nor forsake me. It bas never entered my mind, even as a shadow, that I can do any thing for Him ; but whatever He enables me to do I would do to His glory. In the dark season of the hiding of His face, I would wait for Him as He waited for me, while I resisted the drawings of His love, and when I sit in the light of His countenance, I would rejoice, and mag­ nify His name before the people ; and now that He has wonderfully raised me up, after a long season of calamity, to the power of using my pen, I pray that He may direct it to tell of His mercy to me, and by what means He has brought me to acknowledge Him, the Lord our righteousness, God blessed for ever. At all times and in all places where there be need for it, I trust I may never be ashamed to declare His name, but readily ex­ emplify, by His help, the courage and obedience of a christian, and, as a good soldier of Christ, - fight the good fight of faith, with the sword of the Spirit. May B !l

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God grant me strength to do His will is my humble aupplication. I am, dear sir, most sincerely, "WK. HoNE."

The son of the gentleman to whom this letter was addressed, has kindly-furnished the following

INCIDENTAL 8.EJI.lNISCENCES 01' WILLIAJI. HONE.

" It affords me pleasure to give such particulars as my memory may supply, of the intercourse which my honoured father had with that remarkable man Wm. Hone. I well remember the lively interest he felt in the progress of Hone's memorable prosecution for libel before Lord Ellen­ borough : while totally disapproving the publication of parodies of sacred subjects, my father regarded with indignation what he considered the character of the pro­ eeedings against him. He saw, as every unprejudiced man saw, that the prosecution was not because Hone had parodied scripture subjects, but because those parodies were directed against the government and ministers ; and that, while men of all grades and professions, including Canning (a member of the then administration) had freely indulged in parodies offensive to christian feeling, they were approved, while he was singled out for prosecu­ tion. It was evident that had he emploY,ed the same talent in the same way to support instead of to subvert the administration. he would probably have found his way to a seat in parliament instead of a committal to prison. With these feelings my father called on Hone the first · time he went to town after the trial. He expressed to Hone his strong feeling of regret that such parodies had ever been published by others as well as by himself-but that he felt, at the same time, his acquittal was most just, and could therefore congratulate him upon it. This paved the way for more confidential intercourse, which my dear father thankfully availed himself of, to press upon his mind the infinite importance of those truths.

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which, though embodied with forms and ceremonies, were still part and parcel of the Word of God, and that, therefore, tl:ough perhaps unwittingly, he had committed a grave offence against God in thus bringing His word into contempt. My father':! kindness evidently won upon him, and he invited him to call again. When next in London he did so ; further and more interesting conversation ensued, and my father asked Hone, if he had ever attentively read the New Testament? Hone said he had, but con­ fessed he might have done so with a mind prejudiced against its doctrine by the manifest hypocrisy of many who made great parade of reverence for its authority. My father affectionately pressed him to read it through once again, remembering that the hypocrisy of those who bore the name of Christians, or even their wickedness, could not be held by any sensible man as an argument against that truth-and if it were true,-then eternity, heaven or hell, hung upon the issue of our accepting or rejecting that revelation of Christ as the Saviour of sinners and salvation by Him. To all this Hone assented, and promised to do so; and when on again seeing him my father found he really had read the New Testament with attention, he begged him to accept a volume on the one condition of reading that also ; (the volume was Cecil's remains, of which my father was very fond) : Hone objected, that having to struggle for a bare subsistence by his pen, time was his capital, and that he could hardly promise to read a book of per.haps :WO pages ; but again my father's kind entreaty prevailed, and Hone passed his word, and my father gave him the book. A long time elapsed before my father again saw him, but it was then.evidcnt a great change was taking place in his views and feelings ; the truth of Christianity had con­ vinced his judgment, even if it had not influenced his heart : and he attributed to tl10se interviews and to the consequent perusal of the New Testament, and that other volume, the beginning of that blessed change in his views and feelings which ultimately issued in his B 3

Digitized byGoogle 18 remarkable conversion, of which he himself wrote dies-eo well-known lines, ' The proudest heart that ever beat,' &e., &c., &e. It is said that a dream produced a powerful effect on Hone's mind. He dreamt that he was introduced into a room where he was an entire stranger, and saw himself seated at a table, and on going towards the window his attention was somehow or other attracted to the window shutter and particularly to a knot in the wood which was of singular appearance ; and on waking the whole scene, and especially the knot in the shutter, left a most vivid impression on his mind. Sometime afterwards, on going I think into the country, he was at some house shewn into a cllamber where he had never been before, and which instantly struck him as being the identical chamber of his dream, he turned directly to the window where the same knot in the shutter caught his eye : this incident to his investigating spirit induced a train of reflection which overthrew his cherished theories of materialism, and re­ sulted in conviction that there were spiritual agencies, as susceptible of proof as any facts of physical science ; and this appears to have been one of the links in that mys­ terious chain of events by which, according to the inscru­ table purposes of the Divine Will, man is sometimes compelled to bow to an unseen and Divine power, and ultimately to believe and live.'' • • • • • Another of the christian friends from whom, in his latter years, William Hone received so much kindness, has also furnished recollections of him. " It is pleasing to recall the memory of one whom I think of as a monument of special mercy, a brand snatched from the burning; for such was Mr. Hone during the period of my acquaintance with him, including the few years before his death. None so sensible as he was him­ self of the awful abyss of infidelity from which be had been delivered. I well remember the mental8hudder with which he spoke of the state of his soul when wandering in the 'darkness of ·materialism. My course of inquiry in this conversation was directed rather to the investiiation

Digitized byGoogle 19 of his then opinions-1 asked him if he had believed ill' catuation without a first cause. His replies shewed that the present thing to his soul was the deep conviction of his rebel state by nature, which led him at that time to a state of feeling and thought on which it is unnecessary to dwell. I never shall forget how his fine intellectual countenance brightened when speaking of his hopes for eternity, a radiant beam of joy kindling in his piercing eye, the new creation becoming more beautiful as decay s~ole over the outward man ; for he was so much shattered by para­ lysis, that towards the close1 I believe, mental power was very much withdrawn from this once dauntless brow. He gave me the copy of lines written on a blank lea£ in his pocket bible, and with this note ' written before breakfast 3rd June, 1834, the anniversary of my birth day in 1780.' I much wished him to write his autobiography, but am inclined to think be had not health or nerce to undertake the task. I have no means at all at my command for sketching even the outline of his religious history. Two or three anecdotes which he related are all that I can contribute towards a piece of mental history which, if preserved, would have been highly interesting. The first in point of time as to his state of mind, was a circum­ stance which shook his confidence in materialism, though it did not lead to his conversion. It was one of those mental phenomena which he saw to be inexplicable by the doctrines he then held. I hesitate a little as to recording the circumstance, which, to some pers

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He had been spending a holiday in the woods near J!.ochester-rambling and thinking till he was weary, when he came upon a farm house, which he entered and asked the good woman of the bouse to get him some milk. She rose to comply with his request, and left the book she was reading on the table. In her absence he took it up, found it was the New Testament, and read some verses in the 5th chapter of Matthew. The impression made upon his mind was chiefly the richness of thought and conden­ sation of matter in the style. He said to himself, 'there . ,r is more in one verse here than in a whole page of the V Greek philosophers,' which be had been reading. He de­ termined at once to buy the book and to study it with attention. On his return to Rochester he attempted that very night to procure a copy, but it was too late. The next morning however he succeeded, purchased a Testa­ ment, which he read carefully with pencil in hand, crossing out all the passages he could not believe. He then, with a pair of scissors, cut out the portions which lie coul.d believe, and pasted them into a book for his own use. He said to himself ' What a beautiful simple thing is christi­ anity, but this Paul has wrought it up into a philosophical sgstem.' He did not speak of this as directly instrumental to his conversion, but mentioned, as more immediately connected with this, the gift of Cecil's life ami remains by a gentleman a member of the Society of Friends-the late Mr. B--, of Bristol. The gift was accompanied with a promise on his part that he would read the work. This he only partially accomplished at the time, but at a subsequent and critical period of his mental history, the perusal wali accompanied by a blessing to his soul. The above are the chief particulars which I can recall relative to the latter years of this gifted man, by nature a lion, but changed by grace into a lamb, and I doubt not received as washed in a Saviour's blood into l1eavenly rest. I remain, yours very truly, * * * *" When first under the influence of religious impressions Mr. Hone seemed to have been glad of anything that ap­ peared beyond the power of materialism to account for-

Digitized byGoogle 21 but aa he advanced in the knowledge and love or the scriptures, and experienced the power or prayer t as not only bringing spiritual but also temporal blessings, he no longer needed these dubious supports. While still clinging to them, he mentioned to many other friends, as well as to the writers of the foregoing letters, the circumstance which lte thought first shook his atheistic materialism ; one friend to whom he related it, thought the mark of recognition was a broken pane of glass in a closet window ; to me he also told it saying, " I was sent for on business to a house in a street in London, the name of which I did not know. I was shewn into a room to wait, on looking round, to my astonishment every thing 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 ; there is something here which, on my principles, I cannot account for ; there must be some power beyond matter." The thought then suggested, he said, never left him, till he was brought from " the horror or great darkness," from that atheism of which he ever spoke with shuddering memories, into the glorious light of revelation. Such slight variations in unimportant particulars as we find in these relations of what, no doubt, the relater always told alike, is in courts of law considered to give weight to evidence. From the manner in which he told it to me, I believe the window shutter was the decisive point of re­ semblance, and that there had not been any preparatory dream on the subject. ,- To this mental impression he always attributed his first " startling suspicion that something existed beyond what could be accounted for by materialism. However remark­ able, it was not unprecedented, and when he spoke of it, I referred him to a well known and well authenticated story. A gentleman of some celebrity, travelling in the days of bad roads and worse post chaises, was benighted, and found shelter in an old mansion, on entering his bed room, of ancient build and furnished in quaint and antique fashion, he said " I have seen all this before." On in­ vestiilltion he ascertained that in this room he had bee11

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born, but after the first weeks of existence had never again been in the neighbourhood. An explanation has been offered that the optic nerve retained impressions obliterated from the memory. Thus the phantasmagoria disease of the eyes has been accounted for; and as Mr. Hone after­ wards twice had symptoms of that disorder, this impression miglit arise from a predisposition to it. I therefore sug­ gested as probable that mother or nurse had carried him into that very room. No such tradition however existed, but to this solution he made no objection ; he no longer needed ·such feeble auxiliaries to the rock of our salvation on which he now was so firmly supported. Still however he always referred to this first glimpse of the existence of something beyond matter, with deep thankfulness, as the first link in the chain of providence by which he was drawn from the shoreless ocean of materialism and its inseparable gloom of atheism ; he ahl'ays spoke of atheism and materialism as inevitably connectE.d with each other and with the rejection of Christianity. God is a spirit, if there be nothing beyond matter, there is no spirit, and "the fool ," self-styled philosopher, as of old, "saith in his heart there is no God." Should the researches of modern physical science bring its students to the ller:ma­ sion that there is but one substance, let them be reminded that the greatest of modern metaphysicians has also maintained that there is but one substance, and that one substance, Spirit. A great writer of the present day, with Shakespearian intuition, has made one of his most interesting characters, the "little Paul Dombey" when dying, recalled "another kind face," that of his nurse whom he had not seen since he was seven months old. Materialism will hardly account for such occurrences ; the spiritualist may say the spirit of man reads the records of memory in the brain like a book, the earliest pages being thus unexpectedly turned back again by passing events. Under the influence of his eagerness for some glimpse· of the invisible world, he seems frequently to have spoken of those visions so well known as " Hone's Ghosts."

Digitized byGoogle 23 r A gentleman told me that being with Coleridge one I evening William Hone came in, apparently under great i excitement of mind or body, and gave a history of his ! whole life, dwelling on some ghost stories as having hap­ ! pened to himself ; Coleridge replied, as he has said in ' print, "my dear friend, I have seen too many myself to \ to believe them ; they were in your eyes." Of these sup­ I posed ghosts he gave me also an account. We were in our gardens one fine summer day, and speaking of ghosts, I sa:id, " I have never been able to meet with any person who had himself seen a ghost;" very earnestly he an­ swered, ".you find that person in me." "0 tell me," cried I. "What," he replied, "with this blue summer sky over our heads? no-I will come in some evening in the twilight, and tell it you then." For several bright June days he resisted all my entreaties for the story; I resolved to bafH.e his scheme for frightening me; I thought I knew how. At last came a dim grey twilight, and he with it. I did not give him time to enter on the meditated tale ; I began, " did you ever hear of tl1e phantasmagoria disease of the eyes ? I have had four friends who were subject to it;" and I told him story upon story about them ; he l10ng down his head, and with a look half hu­ mourous, half mortified, said, " then I suppose you will tell me that my ghosts were only the phantasmagoria dis­ ease." "Nevertheless," rejoined I, "let us have them." He commenced ; "I was manufacturing fun for the public, it was about three o'clock in the morr.ing; I looked up for the first time for a good while, weary enough. The room I sat in was a back room on the first floor, there was a closet between it and the front room, with a pane of glass looking into my study, the door opened on the land­ ing place ; at that little window I saw a face, it was pale, with reddish hair, rather young, but whether map or woman I could not say ; it was looking earnestly, not on me, but on my paper, as if wanting to see what I was about ; I thought it well to be prepared, in case it was a thief, and I took hold of the metal cattdlestick on the table, by way of being ready to knock him down. The face

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looked at me, as if it said ' is that what you are after ! and it went away. I jumped up, candlestick in hand, rushed out on the stair-head ; no one there ; nobody in the closet-I looked into every room in the house, no one to be found-at last I went to examine the cellar, as I fttered it, dark and cold, a chill came over me, and I am ashamed to tell you I made haste up stairs, and lay down in my clothes by the side of my poor wife, and there I lay shivering and trembling till the morning ; now I JJUppolle yot~ will tellq1e that if I had been bled the next day, I should not have had my apoplectic fit,-I was found a few days afterwards insensible on the floor, with book .shelves full of books that I had caught at in falling, and pulled down upon me. My other story is this: I had taken leave of my brother who went out as a judge to Australia ; he had sailed aome days. I waked early on a bright morning just about sun­ rise. I saw a table at the foot of my bed, .where no table should be, and on it a corpse, shrouded all but the face, and the face was my brother's. I sat up in bed, I was broad awake-it was there. My snuffbox was on a chair by the bed-side, I took a pinch of snuff-still it was there. I took heart, and got out of bed, went towards it ; but when near enough to have touched it, it was gone. I took my pocket book and wrote down what I had seen, and the day and hour, and sealed it up, and gave it to a friend to take care of ; soon after an acquaintance came, and told me he had seen my brother on board the ship at Ports­ mouth, and that he was well, and in good spirits. Ah ! thought I, yot~ don't know what I know-he is dead-in this frame of mind I remained for a twelvemonth ; then came a letter from my brother ; he was alive and well, and he is so now." This brother has long survived him. As there may yet be some who have never read the very entertaining books of Dr. Ferrier and Dr. Alderson on the aubject, it may be well here to relate the phantasmagoria stories which carried conviction to the mind of Wm. Hone that his visions proceeded merely from disease. Remind­ ing him of a friend whom be had often met, I said " in

Digitized byGoogle 25 early youth she was oppressed by a lowness of spirits most distressing to her family ; she confided to me the cause, that wheBever she knelt down to say her prayers, the Devil knelt by her side. I asked " in what form ?" I found, in t~ vulgar figure of the persecutor of Southey's Old Woman of Berkeley, and other gothic and grotesque repre­ sentations. I urged that if seen, it would be aa " an Angel of light,'' the Miltonic image of " not Iesa ~ Archangel fallen." This evil apparition returned no more, but various others followed. I wrote to Dr. Alderson~ · filther of the present eminent medical man of that name. and he sent m~ his own publication on.tne subject; and well for her sake it was that lle did so ; for after many passing alarms of rebbers and other unaccountable figures, a more painful illusion took hold of her. A most beloved sister died-­ the first day my friend attempted to rejoin the family dinner table, where a place had been left for herself as usual, stopping short, pale and motionless, she said "the table's full ;"-her elder sister replied, ~·no, here is your seat by me." " Who is that?" said she, pointing to the empty chair. She saw the image of the departed there : and this awful visitation was of frequent occurrence. Though after a time she learnt to regard it as a mere illusion, it was fearful to behold her sufferings under it. On one occasion, I told Mr. Hone, "we were standing at the window of the cottage you now inhabit, when that look came over her sweet face, which I only too well understood. ' You see something,' said I.-' I see a maiden funeral, and now it turns the corner.' Aware as I was of the cause, I almost felt as if I saw it too ; so real wall it to the beholder. I reminded her that she had gazed on her sister's 'maiden funeral' from her own window, till it was out of sight; only too long and too earnestly for her future peace. So had I thought when watching with her the corpse of her sister the night of her death ; and frequently afterwards, on entering that or any other bedroom, she would see that form extended on the bed." The ghost ofBanquo will occur to most people, as it did to Mr. Hone, with new admiration of Shakespear's wonderful knowledge of human nature, c

Digitized by Coogle 26 of his prevision of what might be felt even if it never had been ; but my young friend was no Shakespearian. It may be useful to mothers and teachers to repeat, that at a subsequent time a pious and clever lady came to me in great alarm about her youngest child ; she feared he was insane, he so frequently screamed out ""Oh the bird,. the bird," and hid himself under the bed or window curtains. I told her ·nr. Alderson had removed such symptoms by a dose of physic or leeches on the temples ; she tried . the remedies, whenever "the bird" came flying in at the windows, with beak and claws threatening the face of the poor child, as he described it, and soon put an end to the disease. After listening to these and the other stories I had to tell him, Wm. Hone never again, I believe, spoke of his spectral illusions as " ghosts." Whatever may be the effect of medical research on most of the traditionary stories of apparitions, Mr. Hone had told the world in a pamphlet, popular at the time but now apparently lost or forgotten, a tale far more worthy of the faith with which such stories are usually heard ; and thus he related the substance of it to me. I think it was called the murder of EEzabeth W oodbum by her sweet-heart Thomas • • • whose other name I cannot recall. Elizabeth had kept company with Thomas some time, but eventually married another man. Thomas called to see her about a week after her marriage. "I am come to see thee." She replied cheerfully "come in and have tea;" he took her round the neck as if to kiss her, and cut her throat from ear to ear with a razor. He left her there, and went up and down London streets all night long ; then wandered off into the country. All day he walked he knew not whither. As evening fell he went into a hay-field, and lay down on a hay-cock ; Elizabeth lay by his side. He rose up; she rose too. "0 Betty, how canst thou be so cruel!" She took his hand and drew it across her throat ; the blood waa running cold, and made him shiver. This he told before the Justice to whom he gave himself up on the following day, as the murderer, that he might be hanged and "put out of his misery;"-" she has followed me everywhere

Digitized byGoogle 27 night and day," and added he with a shudder, "there I abe's by me now." Every one present shuddered too. He was committed, and from that time be saw her no more'; be became apparently penitent, and died confessing and lamenting his sin. The stress Wm. Hone laid on his mental impression as to " the room" previously mentioned, appears to have proceeded fi;om his feeling at the moment, rather than from any reasoning on its possible causes. He felt some­ thing existing "beyond matter;" the dawn as it were, of spiritual faculties, not wholly developed, arose within him. To such flashes of struggling light, presentiments of coming events, and sympathies with distant ones have often been referred. For him, who had, like so many other superior minds, a brilliant imagination, these sub­ jects were most interesting, especially after he begun to trace the working of that something "beyond matter," which he perceived in himself at the time. To this inci­ dent he ever referred, with thankfulness to the Giver of all good-the Great Spirit, testifying to His own existence by the perception of the spirit in man created by Him and for Him. It is evident that this impression had been received previous to his celebrated "defence," for in that he not ouly seems to recognise the existence, but the providential government of God. In reference to the time of hia trial, he seems to have said to some of his friends " I was not an Atheist,"-then, at the period of which be was speak­ ing ; but not referring to his previous life, of which he repeatedly said in my hearing "I was an Atheist thirty years." An Atheist in theory he might be, a practical Atheist he never was ; for his conduct as a private indi­ vidual, in the relations of domestic life, is well known to have been irreproachable; the kindness of his disposition, even before he was influenced by higher motives than those of benevolence and humanity, was often shown. In no instance perhaps was it more remarkably called forth than v in the celebrated case of Eliza Fenning. This "case" has frequently been referred to in parliamentary debates on c ~

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28 the subject of capital punishment, and has been considered as aiding in influencing public opinion on that subject. This melancholy story was thus spoken of by Sir Samuel Romilly: "The case of Eliza Fenning, is that of a ser­ nnt girl, who, in the month of April, 1815, was tried at the Old Bailey, before . the Recorder of London, for ad­ ministering poison to her master and mistress, and her master's' father; the only evidence to alfect the prisoner was circumstantial. The poison was contained in dump­ lings made by her ; 'but then she had eaten of them herself, had been as ill as any of the persons whom she was sup­ posed to have intended to poison, and her eating of them could not be asCl'ibed to art, or to an attempt to conceal her crime ; for she had 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 i~ was furnished by its being found in the kitchen, on the following day, exactly in the state in which it had been brought from table. No motive, besides, could be discovered for an act so atrocious. Her mistress had indeed reproved her about three weeks before, for some indiscretion of conduct, and had given her warning, but bad afterwards consented to continue her in her service. This was the only provocation, for murdering, not her mistresa only, but her master also, and the father of her IUaster. 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 suiUming up the evidence he made some very unjust remarks and unfounded -observations to her disadvantage, and she was convicted. The singularity of the trial at­ tracted the notice of many persons to her case, they interested themselves in her favour. 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 to sign it. An offer was made to prove there was in the house, when the transaction took place, a person who had laboured a short time before under

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29 mental derangement, and had declared his fears that he should at some time destroy himself and family ; but all this was unavailing, the sentence was executed, and the girl died apparently under a strong sense of the truths of religion, but solemnly protesting to her last moment that she was innocent." That protestation was overheard by Wm. Hone. During the time he lived in my neighbourhood, hearing that this person was supposed to be dying, in a workhouse in Suffolk, he went thither to try to bring him to confession, but was unable to accomplish it ; " he died and made no sign," On Mr. Hone's return he told me the story of his exertions in the cause of Eliza Fenning. He related it thus: "I was going down Newgate street on some business of my own. I got into an immense crowd, that carried me along with them against my will ; at length I found myself under the gallows where Eliza Fenning was to be hanged. I had the greatest horror of witnessing an execution, and of this in particular, a young girl, and for the murder of a whole family ; but I could not help myself; I was closely wedged in ; she was brought out ; I saw nothing but I heard all; I beard her protesting her innocence-! heard the prayer-1 could hear no more. I stopped my ears, and knew nothing else till I found myself in the middle of the dispersing crowd, and far from the dreadful spot. I made my way to the house of a bookseller, with whom I was very intimate. I asked for a glass of water ; I sat down, and told him where I bad been; saying, 'that un­ happy girl Eliza Fennilig has died with a lie in her mouth.' ' Friend Hone,' replied he, ' she is with her Almighty Father ; I have. visited her in prison, so have many of my friends, and we are satisfied of her innocence.' I was up immediately ; ' why then has she been 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. 'You are the man to do it,' returned he;" and, I think Mr. Hont> said, he offered to print for him what he would write. He went on, " I took lodgings away from my family, for I could do nothing among them; c 3 .

• Digitized byGoogle 30 and for three weeks I was wholly engrossed with the ~ of Eliza Fenning. At that time we had a little bookseller's shop ; the early coaches used to call for the Sunday papel's; (I did not then know the valae of the sabbath.) and they took any little squibs of the day that I got for them. On the fourth Saturday, in the dusk of the evening, my wife came in. I said, • sit down and be quiet, I am writing, I cannot speak to yOif at present;' there she sat in silence, and I wrote on. At last she said, 'Father, the children have no bread,-there is no money for the papers to-morrow morning.' '&,home,' said I, and I will bring you .the money.' _She went, but I had no idea where to get it; I had not a sixpence. I went to the cl(lset where I kept what I had to eat; I had been living chiefly ~n tea ; there was nothing there but a stale crust of bread I eat my bread and drank water, and went oft" to my friend the bookseller. I went up to biro, 'you must lend me four pounds.' ' I shall do no such thing.' ' You mtut.' ' What should I do that for?' 'My children are starving--you have made me neglect my family.' So he gave me the money; I put it up safely, and set oft' home. As I went through the turnstile into Lincoln's inn fields, there was a pastry-cook's shop lighted up. I stood looking at the things, and thinking of my bread and water, and of the old philosopher, and saying with him, how many things are there here, that I have no occasion for! The play bills stuck up in large red letters caught my eye ; ' tlte Maid and the Magpie, repeated with unbounded applause to over­ flowing 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 sai4 to my wife, give me a pair of candles and snuffers, up stairs, 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 did not write, I walked to my printer's, and by six o'clock in the morning, the Maid and the Magpie was completed ; a thousand struck off'. Cruikshank was ready w.ith the !Natispiece, and my

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wife sewed them. When the 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 effectually roused the public to the case of Eliza Fenning; and my family lived four months on the )[aid and the Magpie." The remarkable ·providence by which he was brought under the gallows, to hear the dying words of this inno"" cent victim, was apparently more fitted to awaken the unbeliever to a sense of the existence of a Supreme Governor of the world, than his recognition of the 8eem. ingly unknown room. He saw, and delighted to see, the effect his writings on the subject had on public opinion.­ Was this the work of blind chance? He does not seem to have asked himself the question. The Ruler of the universe uses what means He will, and frequently acts by those that appear the least promising. This self-sacrificing sympathy with the sufferings of others, was, as might be expected, even strengthened after his conversion to the most self-sacrificing of all faiths. A kind patron of his after years relates, " one day, in the course of business, Mr. Hone was writing from my dictating : a man came in with a petition for relief; however reluctantly, I was obliged to refuse-he went away. Hone said 'excuse me a moment, sir'-he returned immediately : I said 'what have you been doing?' ' Sir,' replied he, 'gou were perfe~ly right : as a public man you could do no otherwise ; but I 81ZW hunger in his eye.'-He had given him, I believe, his last half-crown." Finding I had never seen his Every-day book, Year, or Table book, he lent me what he called his family copy, the condition of which shewed it was a family favourite. These furnished much to talk of. He said, " I saw what was coming on-that there was an attempt making to re- 1.ive Popery among us ; and I meant to bring forward its ancient follies and abuses, and its absurd legends, as I have done, particularly in the Every-day book.'' The same motive, he afterwards told me, had made him change the last line of the popular verses given to Dr. S. This

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32 was·a Sacrifice in a literary wint of view, as he needed not to be told that the line as it originally stood. was more poetical than his conscientious alteration. That line how· ever· he felt it right to alter, lamenting that, like the brazen serpent in the daya of Hezekiah, the touching symbol of our redemption should have been made an idol. He said be thought it might seem to partake of the leaning towards Popeey, which he desired to oppose. Evidently· long be­ fore his heart felt the beauty of true christianity, his penetrating intellect .bad detected the deformity of the distorted copy given by the Romanist superstition. One morning he came in, troubled about something he was writing, saying " you have very bad pens and ink here, I have never been able to write a single line of poetry since I came." " Perhaps that is not the fault of the pen and ink,' was the reply. or course this was said before his literary eminence was known, and accordingly he was highly 'diverted, laughing and saying," aye, may be not." I believe he was then employed on these very verses. · About the same time, he banded over the trellis, Arch· bishop Lawrence's translation of the book of Enoch, ·to know what I thought of it. I returned it, with the com­ ment that it was believed to be a forgery of some early Gentile convert who, either from tradition or an earlier book now lost, had received the passage transmitted to us by St. Jude, unless indeed he had taken it from that epistle and placed it·in his own book, where.it shines like a beacon on a cloudy night, or, as the poet says, " fair as a star when only one is shining in the sky." I was not then aware I was talking to the reprinter of the Apocryphal Gospels. I found afterwards that he thought this publica­ tion ought t

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Soon after I had been reading his boob, he came in, one afternoon, looking ill and somewhat agitated : . putting his hand to his forehead, .he said "I have poisoned my­ self ; I have been chewing the Howers of that tall purple plant, like a lark-spur, that grows in my garden. I came in to you, thinking you would know what to do for me." I immediately gave him repeated small doses of sal volatile, which proved an effectual antidote. After a wbile, when he was almost entirely recovered, I said " do you know what you have been doing ? you have written to guard others against the very thing you have done, and warned them against the poisonous property of the plant."-" No! have I~ why what is it?"-" Monkshood."-" What, is that Monkshood ! ~this comes of making books with scissors ; I must have cut that article out of some old magazine." The amusement he felt at his own blunder did him almost as much good as the medicine ; and the next day his recovery was completed by setting actively to work to extirpate the noble-looking plants which had been the delight of his eyes all the season. My friend's adventure with this domestic traitor seemed well to typify what was then, as he said, " coming upon us." The tall and stately plant, concealing a deadly narcotic under its purple panoply, seems the cardinal of the Hower garden ; its very name a warning to protestant ears ; the hood, like that of the Indian serpent, hides a bitter poison, bringing to mind the "wormwood" of Moses• and St. John, the Scripture type of idolatry. Not only the " silly women" predicted by St. Paul to be led captive by the false teachers of the latter day, but men wise in this world's wisdom, yet like their converts, ... ever. learning, and never coming to the knowledge of the truth," have been deluded by the hooded enemy ; and have them­ selves swallowed the delete.rious juices, against which, in fonner times, they themselves had cautioned others. Every part of this plant is equally poisonous, and it would be well for the unwary, if it were expelled from our Hower

• Deut. xx1x, 18. Rn. vm. 11. 2 Tim. 111. 6. .

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34 beds. Literally, as well as figuratively, the gardens or England·would be safer without the Monkshood. After Mr. Hone had lived more than a twelvemonth in the ·cottage where I first saw him, he began to be much pressed for the rent, which illness and other circumstances had rendered him unable to meet ; he went from friend to friend, but the sum was beyond their ability ; he knew the landlord was determined to pot in an execution, and where could he go with his wife and his helpless young children I The day before this was to be, he went to a friend on business in London, and was telling his anxieties ; there sat at the clerk's desk, an elderly man with his hat on, writing; he saw, but did not m~ch notice him. As soon as he went out, this gentleman said, •• The poor man shall not b"e so distressed about £30, I will write him a draft for it." He did so, and a clerk ran after Mr. Hone and put it in his hand ; he hurried home, and set his wife's mind at ease, and then rushed into the room where I was sitting, saying "thank God with me, praise the Lord with me! I have not slept for three nights;" so saying, he threw himself on a sofa and was asleep in a few moments. After some hours I saw him drinking tea with his wife and children, and theirs were happy faces. I wished "the elderly man with his hat on" was once more sitting unob­ served in the corner, to see the happiness he had imparted. -He was one of the Merchant Princes of England, the fame of whose magnificent liberality is as widely extended as her commerce and her language. He had done what was perhaps to him little more than a very common occur­ rence in his daily works of benevolence ; but" he had saved a family from ruin ; and Mr. Hone always delighted to talk of the elderly gentleman with his hat on, writing in the corner. I hope he may yet see this acknowledgment of his great kindness, and perhaps he would not see it with less pleasure, that the name is not inserted under the portrait.-Quarter day was always a coming evil which cast an awful shadow before, upon Mr. Hone's beloved flowers and trees, and required no second sight to behold. " 0 ! for a year without quarter days!" he would some-

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35 times exclaim ; and, more seriously, "il I had only a roo( found me for my wife and family, I could support them by my pen." On one subsequent occasion, the same distress was aver­ ted in a very remarkable manner. He had then removed to a cottage on his favourite Peckham Rye. No one ever enjoyed a Villa on the Lake of Geneva more than he did his " Ro~e Cottage" with its fine clear pond before it, and looking on Nun-head, a spot endeared by so many recollections of his good father's conversations, now at last appreciated, by his first listening to the skylarks above his head, and gathering the spring daisies under his feet ; and, though last perhaps not least, adorned by the classical association of the Canterbury pilgrims, and the days when the veiled nuns walked on the bill, whose name still recalled them to his mind's eye. Again there was an execution for rent threatened for the morrow ; he was sitting in a desponding mood, not knowing where to tum for huraan aid ; for higher aid his daily prayer went up, and it was frequently given by means of the benevolence of the English public, but his faith was often long and severely tried. In this instance the relief came through the exertion of those great faculties which were then restored to their full exercise : he shall tell his own tale as he told it to me the next day. In the morning of October 6, 1834, the Times news­ paper was laid, as usual, on many a breakfast table. I saw with amazement not only that since dusk on the pre­ ceding evening had the Houses of Parliament been burnt down, but that some columus of the Times were occopied by a masterly article, historical, architectural, and anti­ quarian, concerning them. Sharing in the general excite­ ment, and going out to hear and see, I met Hr. Hone. Immediately entering on the subject of universal interest, I told him of my astonishment at the "masterly article" extemporised as by magic. He coloured and smiled. "You wrote it," said I.-" I did; you did not know that this morning we were all to have been turned out into the street; I could not raise my rent-I had tried every means I coulli

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think of, in vaiD. I came home weary and sad ; I could not bear the sight of my family. One of my children ran in, crying out, '0 father, the House of CoiJlmons is ott fire, the coachman says lie saw it: I went down imme­ diately to the end of the lane, to catch the coach on its return, for I saw my way clear, if it were so. There the report was fully confirmed. I saw the smoke ; every body was running ,ei'--to-ihe fire; b-at I was not going to do that. I 'Uilt home, called for tea and candles and plenty of coals-, toek down Stowe's survey of London, and my own l10oks, the Every-day book and the Table-book, the only ones I had, and by six in the morning I had written the article you have seen. I went to the E,ttitor of the Timel' with it, (be knows me very well) and I asked him,. ' what will yilu give me for this ?' ' Ten guineas,' said he, ' and the same to morrow and the next day for more of the same sort.' " And so his rent was paid and a little left in hand to go on with. It was said that the fire was caused by burning pieces of wood called Tallies. Of these he gave a history on one of the following days, and ended the article, to my great amazement, with the words "and now-Tally-ho !" Meeting him again that morning I asked what it meant ; looking up at him, I saw the most eomical mixture of archness and confusion in his counte­ nance, as he replied "to tell you the truth, I don't know, but I was tired of the subject." So were not the public; for letter after letter appeared in the Times, inquiring what Tally-ho meant, and what the writer meant by using it. Many were the questions and many were the anawers, but they had it all their own way, for not a word more would he say about it. It was thought at the time that L

Digitized byGoogle 37 privileges of which the use they have made shews the value. If these articles in the Time• have never been reprinted, they well deserve so to be ; they are remarkable for the curious information they contain, and the style in which it is conveyed ; they are also most valual;lle as shewing that however Mr. Hone's nerves might have been shaken by over exertion on his trial, yet that his faculties were, at this time, perfectly uninjured and at his command ; or rather, at the disposal of Him, who uses man's faculties as the instruments of His will, on this occasion averting temporal ruin by their exercise. .Mr. Hone frequently spoke to me of his intended auto­ biography, saying " the first thing I now write every body will read." I often asked him if it was begun ; but never could hear it was advanced beyond sketches for the title page, about which he could not satisfy himself; numbers of these, I was told, were found among his papers, but no other trace of the intended work. On some occasion, saying to him, "if you do not write your auto-biography, I think I must do it for you," he replied, "Do, my dear lady, no one . knows it so well;" thus sanctioned, I might say thus commisljioned, I have felt it a duty to record what I can recall of his communications. He had, from time to time, given me some account of the events of his former life, and of his then state of mind ; but he gave them in that unconnected manner in which I repeat them. From the impressiveness of his manner, and the force and con­ ciseness of his expressions, I have, however, generally been able to give tl1ese relations in his own words. On the subject of his intended auto-biography, he after­ wards wrote thus : " He who knows the heart, knows how ~arnestly I have desired, and do desire, to get out this little sheet or two, of the account of His dealings with my soul, as a testimony to His truth ; I have made, and do make it, my prayer to Him to enable ine to do it. I know that He is a Gild hearing and answering prayer ; and I firmly believe He will not suffer me to quit life with this prayer unanswered. But my dear friend, assisted as I am D

Digitized byGoogle 38 by His support, without the shadow of fear of man, my conflicts in attempting this apparent triile, are indescribable. If you ask me, what is to hinder me ; I answer, I know not. Well, what does hinder me ? I know not. But it must be something ; it is something, and I verily believe it is that one thing that harasses and distresses the Chris­ tian above every other. I firmly believe that Satan, the great enemy of souls, is in this affair my adversary ; that it is his influence which has baffied and retards me ; and that, not suspecting the real cause, I have not been so prayerful, until of late, as I ought to have been, with re­ spect to this particular perversion. My ruling wish and intent has been, since midsummer last, to do it ; and I have tried and laboured and been astonished at my inability. I think, indeed I am sure, I have discovered the cause, and know the remedy, and with · the help of God, the pamphlet shall come out. I have prayed, and pray, to be kept from all self-seeking in it, to be kept from expressing anything not consistent with the honour and promotion of the Christian cause ; in this matter, I pray that self may be nothing, and that divine grace be exemplified, in this its conquest of me--a wretched sinner. My heart's desire to God is, that it may tend, by His blessing, to assure the feeble of His help, in time of· need, and be the means of awakening many from the sleep of death. I fear to imagine anything about it, for I know nothing of what it will be ; but iC it be the good pleasure of the Almighty to make me a humble instrument to work His will, I humbly pray that the glory may be ascribed to Him." At a later time, he wrote thus :-" I cannot write to you as I would ; this little exertion (corporeally) must cease--it is too much for me. You cannot understand why, and may you never! My wife and children are heavily on my heart-and then the pamphlet. I submit all to God, all are at His disposal ; and I am enabled to rely on Him for al.l things. He doeth all things well. Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him. Although, as it seems to me, I am passing away very fast, and though my hand may not pen the pamphlet, yet the work being His, He will, iC it is to be, provide a way for its appear-

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ance. I think He will not let me die, until I have publicly testified, in print, that my heart is in submission to Him. If I had a scribe, I could dictate ; He will provide this, if it be Hill work. He has kept me from it hitherto, by a series of providential interferences." Mr. Hone attributed the state of nerves and health which unfitted him for the task he had so much at heart, to the extreme excitement he underwent in his trial. If any one asked him about it, he seemed to shrink from the recollection ; he would say-" it is printed, you may read it-it is matter of history." He never related to me, in a connected manner, this or any other of the events of his previous life. When I became acquainted with him, the affairs of this world, except as to his do­ mestic ties, had small interest for him. He spoke little of his former troubles, but much of the mercy of having been led from the utter darkness of atheism to the noon­ day light of Gospel truth. Whenever he spoke of his trial, it was with the deepest self-abasement-lamenting the injurious effect which the publications which led to it, were calculated to have on religious people, particularly on the young. Severely did he afterwards suffer for his irreverent treatment of religious subjects ; like one of old, rashly intruding into the sanctuary of the Jewish temple, he brought on himself a life-long chastisement ; feeling that the brain, over wrought by these three days of intense exertion, never entirely recovered. Finding that I knew nothing more than that such a thing had been, he gave me some account of that event. "I received," said he, by the Post, anonymously, one of the parodies. I waS . fool enough to make it my own, by correcting and altering it, and then printing it. Its reception by the public made me get up others in the same style. I was an un­ believer. But now I see how it was calculated to bring contempt on religion ;-the two first days of my trial I was firm ; I thought myself persecuted and ill used. Canning and many others, I thought, had made parodies as well as I. I thought myself an Englishman standing up for the rights of the trial by jury ; but the third day I D 2

--_;:. Digitized byGoogle 40 broke down. I spoke like a man in a dream. I spoke and felt carried out of myself by the subject ; but I knew ~ot what I said-my head was gone. However, I was acquitted; but"-aid he, putting both his hands to his forehead-" my brain has never recovered ; it was over wrought ; I have never been since what I was before that day. Mter my trial, 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 Dack built,'-an idea flashed across my mind ; I saw at once the use that might be made of it; I took it away 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 saying, he at once put himself into a character there introduced, the original of which Cruikshank bad never seen ; but the caricature had a most whimsical resemblance ; he went on. to say-" I was told that, at a 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.'' This story led to another as to the origin of the com~ panion to "The bouse that Jack built,"-" The Queen's matrimonial ladder;" he said-" I was very sore about my trial ; 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 at the time of the.Queen's business, some of her chief partizans came to me. They urged me to write something for ltet. {

Digitized byGoogle 41 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 inter­ ference with them. Observe, though God bas changed my opinions about religion, I have not changed my poli­ tics. I did not like my task ; I could not see bow to do it, nor yet bow 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 that, 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. I was offered up to £500. I said, ' could you not make it £5000 ? If you did I should refuse it.' " That interference in politics which had formerly brought him fame and money, was now beginning to appear to him inconsistent with Christianity. During the agitation of the Reform Bill, be gave proof of the sincerity with which be acted on his convictions. A second part of " The bouse that Jack built" would have cost him but a pair of candles and a sleepless night : judging from the sale of the first, it would have brought a temporary afHuence where it was then so greatly needed. I frequently beard him say, "I could have put the public mind in a ferment, by a few wood cuts and caricatures ; but I would not do it. I thought it not a Christian's business-it would have brought money enough, and I greatly wanted it ; but I durst not do it ; as a Christian I did not think it right.'' From that time, I believe, be never took a part in any public affairs that bad not a decidedly benevolent object-such as anti-slavery and missionary exertions ; in tl1ese be continued to take the liveliest interest. Further particulars be afterwards gave me. Previous to his trial, he had a small bookseller's shop, occasionally publishing small pamphlets : be received, by post, a D 3

Digitized byGoogle 42 parody, written by the late Mr. Wilkes. He had, as he­ said, the folly to publish it ; and, as read on his trial, a most disgusting thing it is ; for this he was brought to trial. He said that he defended himself, partly because he could not afford to employ counsel, and partly because he doubted the courage of any one else against Lord El­ lenborough, and was confident of his own : and not without reason, as may be seen in the record of his three trials. On three following days, he spoke for six, seven, and eight hours, alone and unsupported. He was beard, it is supposed, by 20,000 people, the best feelings of whose hearts these profane parodies were calculated to outrage, but to whose sense of justice he successfully ap­ pealed. On his final acquittal, the cry from the multitude was-" long live the honest jury,"-" an honest jury for ever!" This sympathy was not with his disrespect to religion, but for the unequal measure dealt to him ; his successful defence having been, that he was brought to trial for doing what Canning, one of the ministry who at­ tacked him, had done, what many others also had done, almost in the same words, with impunity. A gentleman, who was present at the trial, has told me that the failure · perceptible to himself on the third day was not so to his hearers ; that in his third defence, his full clear voice re­ sounded through the hall, and that even beyond it, every word was distinctly audible. It was, he said, the finest eloquence he ever heard. Alas! it cost the orator dear. From that over-exertion he dated the nervous attacks from which he so long suffered, and under which be finally sunk. Those who were present have also related that when the Attorney-general, in angry tones, read the "libels" to the jury, every separate clause produced an irresistible burst of laughter among the crowd. No won­ der that the author recollected with such remorse, ao wonder that he shrunk from every allusion to a triumph before his fellow-creatures, gained at the cost of reverence for the Divine Creator. He lived to fear lest the minds of many among the multitude, whose laughter resounded through that ball of justice, might be injured, perhaps for

Digitized byGoogle ---- 43 life, by ridiculous associations with the language of faith and prayer. The mad man of Solomon casting arrowsF ire-brands, and death, endangered not only his neighbours but himself. In thia case the mischief fell severely on the originator ; his arrows wounded himself, his fire­ brands set his own roof in a blaze, though, by the great mercy of God, he himself was saved, " as from fire." A subscription was some time afterwards made for him, as having ably defended the liberty of the press, and the rights of Englishmen, in the trial by jury. If that liberty were in this case license, and those rights were here to do wrong with impunity, yet such was the law and such accordingly the verdict. He was acquitted of the intention against religion for which he was prosecuted, his aim being evidently to throw ridicule on the ministers of that day. He was considered the victim of political persecution ; subsequently it pleased God to bring good out of evil, by causing him to see the sin of doing what, nevertheless, the law did not punish. The subscriptions, though liberal, did him little good. His friends expended the chief part of it in a stock of books ; " but," said he, " I never was a man of business. I was not fit for it. My friends had set me up as a bookseller; but . I soon found I was to be a book-keeper, and not a bookseller: people came in and looked at a set of Johnson or Shake­ spear, and went out with a shilling pamphlet." Never having had so much money in his life, he drew on it with­ out keeping any account ;-his domestic expenditure, under the control of his excellent wife, continued to be merely what was necessary ; still the fund was soon ex­ hausted, and he was arrested for debt. How or when he was released, I did not hear ; bllt it appears to have been speedily. The circumstances of his arrest he thus told me :-"As long as the monty lasted, I used to go to my cashier for £5 or £10 at a time, generally to buy old prints and curious books; at last, asking for money, he said there was no funds. I insisted ; ' I must have the books I have been looking at'-he gave me the last. Then I was arrested for £20. I said to the person by whom I

Digitized byGoogle was taken, ' You know me very well, you will take my word;' he replied, 'I am sorry to say, sir, there are detainers lodged against you.' I was struck dumb ; I had no idea of it; that was a dreadftll day, my poor wife came to me but I could not cotnfort her, I wanted com­ fort myself. Then I went to prison. I could see from my windows the Peckham hills, where I used to walk of a summer's evening with my father, there was hay-making there ; my soul seemed to spring out to them, and I felt it hard to be shut up ; what good did it do any body ?" In his defence, on his third trial, he gives a sketch of his history, including much which I never heard from him :-he there says, " I have never bad any property ; within the last twelve months1 my children had not beds ; at this moment there is not furniture sufficient for the necessary enjoyment of life ; for the last two years and a half I have not had a complete hour of happiness, because my family have been in such misery that it was impossible for a man of my temperament to know anything of happi· ness. I have been asked, why I did not employ counsel ? I could not fee counsel. Some 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 accumulated by endeavouring to help those who could not help themselves. I attempted, in conjunction with the friend who originated the plan, to establish something of an institution similar to the savings' banks that are now so general ; there was a number associated together for this purpose, and I was their secretary . Our object was to get the patronage of ministers for our scheme. Mr. Fox was then in power ; it was the Whig administration. We hoped to throw a grain into the earth that might be­ come a great tree ; in other hands it has succeeded. It was very Quixotic ; we were mad-mad, because we sup­ posed it possible, if an intention was good, that it would therefore be carried into effect. We were not immediately discouraged, but we met with that trifling and delaying of hope that 'makes the heart sick." I lost everything­ even the furniture of my house. With that friend I again

Digitized byGoogle got 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 cer­ tificate 1 All signed it, .save one who was unintentionally the cause of my failure two years and a half ago, when I went into prison for debt, and was discharged by the in­ solvent act; having then some books to sell, (being always fond of old books,) I took a shop in Fleet-street, it was three feet wide in front ; I had no place there for my wife and seven children ; the shop was, in consequence, broken open three times, and all that was worth anything in it taken away. I was now in desperation; thrown on a wide ocean without a shore, and without a plank of safety. I then accidentally wrote something that happened to sell ; by this success I got a place for my wife and family which was scarcely a dwelling for human beings. From my anxiety for my family, and the harassed state of my mind, I was attacked with apoplexy, and my family were thrown into the utmost alarm. I was obliged to remove to save my life. I then took a place in the Old Bailey. I could furnish but one room ; I would not let lodgings because I would not expose my state of destitution. Just as I was getting my head above water, this storm assailed me, and plunged me deeper than ever." On the subscription raised after his acquittal, he lived while it lasted, "keeping," as he said, not selling the books ou which part of it was expended; then came the Maid and the Magpie ; then the House that Jack built ; then the Matrimonial Ladder; and ou these he lived for some years. He a! ways said he was incapable of business, fit only for literature. His literary talents he fully proved by the three books now a part of every extensive library, The Table-book, The Day-book, and The Year-book, most valuable records of Antiquarian lore. Apparently, from the tone of these books, he was then being led towards belief of Christianity. On his trial he said, " If Provi­ dence ever interfered to protect the weak and defenceless, interference was most surely manifested in this case ; it had interposed to protect a helpless and defenceless man.

Digitized byGoogle • against the rage and malice of his enemies : he could attribute his defence to no other agent ; for he was weak and incapable of it, and at that moment a wonder to him­ self." In his third defence, he speaks of Christ thus :­ "The character, the precepts, and the example of One whose name he could not mention without reverence and humility. He would not be so irreverent as to read any passage to illustrate the character of that Divine Being ; but he well recollected that when on earth He continually exhorted his followers to the exercise of mercy, charity, love, and goodwill." The strong point of his defence having been, that a ministry, of which Canning formed one, should not have prosecuted parodies, he also urged that Canning had parodied Scripture, while he had only parodied the Common Prayer ; thus perhaps indicating an incipient respect for the Word of God. He referred to many other such things, particularly to a sermon by Dr. Boyse, Archbishop of Canterbury, in which the Lord's Prayer was parodied against the Pope. He also brought forward a sermon of Dr. Paley's, preached before Mr. Pitt, in the early years of his ministry, in which the preacher quoted, in a manner the audience well understood, " there is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes ; but what are these among so many ?" He always maintained that his politics were the cause of the prosecution, while irreverence to religion was only the pretext ; and so the juries seem to have viewed it. or the offence to religion, he deeply repented, was utterly ashamed ; but not of his political principles, which were what were then called those of radical reform. The report of the third day's trial states, that Mr. Hone appeared exceedingly ill and exhausted, till, on Lord E.'s refusal to allow him five minutes to collect his thoughts, his powers seemed renovated, and he spoke with vehe­ mence. In this, his third speech, there was, it is said, apparently less command of temper, but not less eloquence. Before coming into Court, he was so ill that he thought be should not have been able to proceed. He had taken no refreshment since the preceding day, except one glass

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of wine : he had been too feeble, without sleep, even to lie down to seek the rest he so much needed. Notwithstand­ ing medical aid, he had feared he should not be able to stand up in Court ; but had be not been able to walk, be said he should have ordered himself to be brought in his bed, and laid upon the table ; for he was on his trial for life or death ; knowing he should be sentenced to such a term of imprisonment as to deprive him of health, and eventually of life. The third Jury, consulting for twenty minutes, brought him in not guilty. As it was understood, not guilty of the intention to throw ridicule on religion, for which he was prosecuted; the Attorney-General had said that the Jury were impannelled to find the intention-on the intention they acquitted him. I knew nothing of the trial beyond what common report afforded. I had never read either that or the parodies that occasioned it, till after his death. When I first saw him sick and suffering, passing his time in the study of the Bible, meditation, and prayer, of all his writings, I had only met with "The House that Jack built," and "The Queen's Matrimonial Ladder." "The Apocryphal Gos­ pels," however, I had read, with the impression shared by many others who knew and loved the real ones, that they would be of use in shewing the difference between the absurd forgeries rejected, and the pure and perfect word of God-received and venerated by all Christians. He was sometimes asked, why be did not seek his former associates ? literary men of unitarian or deistical principles, to try to bring them to those he now held ; he would reply-" I am not worthy ; I am not capable of it ; I am afraid of doing harm to the cause by defending weakly ; I fear doing harm; my conduct will speak for me:" then he would talk of his auto-biography ; alas ! it was not to be ; and in every line of this attempt to supply the defi­ ciency, the inadequacy of the substitute is most evident, most painful ; the writer feels this more sensibly than can any one less impressed by the interest and importance of those details which he alone could give. The proce&& by

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• .48 which such a mind was led from atheism to bumble and perfect Christian faith, can now only be guessed at. The friend to whom he told what. is here presented, deeply regrets not having foreseen that there would be no one else to record them ; little did tl1e listener then think that the performance of the otfer, scarce seriously made, though by him seriously accepted, would eventually be demanded : the anecdotes preserved by other friends, would even less supply a substitute for this desired auto-biography ; they saw the exterior; but, in sickness and sorrow, his next­ door neighbour was often called upon to sympathize with the interior of his mental being. The friends, to whom William Hone imparted different circumstances connected with the progress of his conver­ sion, appear to have received various impressions as to its commencement ; those circumstances he, from time to time, related ; but always referred the origin of it to the moment when, on reading_ the true gospels, after having been employed about the false ones-" a flood of light burst in upon him." He seems to have read the New Testament before ; but to have received no great benefit from the perusal ; once he had read it by the suggestion of the venerable Mr. B--. Again, like so many of the modern Neologian school, he selected, for his own use, what he could believe, from what he could not. " Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief," was not then the language of his heart. When I knew him, he could truly say, " Lord, I believe ; " against all unbelief, he had then, it seems, been effectually helped. The perusal of the GospE>ls to which he attributed his decisive change, seems to have been in consequence of a conversation with the celebrated Robert Hall. A literary and religious friend, who highly esteemed his moral character and appreciated his talents, induced him to hear Robert Hall preach. When asked what he thought of the sermon, he said­ " I was stunned. I saw there more in Christianity than I knew of." He sought an introduction to the preacher ; he addressed him, "sir, you have done me a cruel injury !" " If I have injured any one, I am sorry for it," returned

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Robert Hall, " What is it?" " Sir, you have spoken of me, together with that miserable Richard Carlile." " Mr. Hone," replied Robert Hall, " it is uot for your parodies I have so spoken of you ; I care not for them ; with regard to your trial, I thought you a persecuted man ; it is for your re-publication of the Apocryphal Gospels." The disapprobation of this distinguished man, probably, led him to ask himself, "what have I done?" and sent him to that re-perusal of the inspired Gospels, as to which he might truly say with the Psalmist, " the entrance of thy word giveth light." When I knew him, no doubt ever clouded his faith ; no speculation ever led him from the enjoyment of that sense of salvation by Christ alone in which he rested : he did not, then, occupy himself with " evidences," as he told me, he had long known all that had been brought forward by the principal writers on that subject; he would say, " I do not need them." He would speak of a bright and steadfast inward conviction ; " t~e light" that broke in upon him from the Gospels, " shining more and more unto the perfect day." Under all his trials, as to worldly affairs, and they were many, that faith never wavered ; " though he slay me yet will I trust in him," was his frame of mind in life, and with him on the bed of death. It will be observed that be spoke of himself as having been an atheist for thirty years ; apparently reckoning from the time of his losing all confidence in his father and his father's friends in his childhood, to that of his convic­ tion "that there was something beyond matter;" this conviction bad evidently reached him before the time of his trial. If be described himself, not as an atheist but as an unbeliever, even when publishing the parodies, in the in­ terval between that publication and his trial he had evidently become a believer in the superintending Providence of God ; he was never known to disguise his real opinions, and as he also spoke of the " Divine " character of Christ, he must then have been at least a unitarian. After his trial many religious people took an interest in him; he read and selected from the New Testament; he E

---.:.;~ Digitized byGoogle 50 saw and acknowledged the beauty of the character of Christ as there delineated, but not till the comparison of the in­ spired with the forged Gospels did that " flood of light " burst in upon him, which was like the rising of the sun on th!! fourth day of creation, upon the dim twilight of his gradually increasing convictions. His acquaintance with· these forgeries was an important step in this his mental illumination ; it may be so to othera. Another step seems to have been, when, as he told a friend, from a sermon of the missionary John Campbell, of Kingsland, he received: the conviction of the divinity of Christ, that in Him " dw.elt the fulness of the Godhead bodily." After he was thus enlightened from above, he entered on a course of purifying affiictions ; these trials overcast the whole even­ ing of his stormy day of life,, and only terminated when he quietly "fell asleep in Jesus." Continually increasing bodily infirmity prevented him from putting in writing the progress of his conversion, but even these affiictions distressed him less than the daily felt impossibility of doing that work which his heart was set on, and which he believed would be to the glory of God. God was glorified in the result. The ptogress was only known by his increasing faith, patience, and cheerful re­ signation even to this his last earthly disappointment. Frequently recurring pressure of circumstances was part of his allotted trial. On one of these occasions, the kindness and generosity of his disposition shewed itself; a friend having: £5 to dispose of in charity,. said.to William Hone, "perhaps no one. wants this more than you do;" but he immediately named another person;. however it was given to him; he gave £1 to the person he had namec4 confessing that the remainder would exactly meet a press­ ing demand on himself; probably a recurrence of that dreaded " quarter-day " he · could seldom meet without some such providential supply. From mo!lt· unbelievers who have been converted and have given an account of their conversion, we learn that they took refuge in total unbelief from the terrors of the law of God which they were determined to disregard; this

Digitized byGoogle 51 ltas been often lamented as to students of the fine arts, who, loving their employment, could not resolve to discon­ tinue it on the Lord's day. The great moralist Samuel Johnson in his last illness was himself taught higher and diviner truth ; he shewed the eft'ect of tliat increased light to his own soul by an increased concern for the souls cif others. He made it his dying request to Sir Joshua Rey· nolds that he would not paint on a Sunday. Such was not, as we have seen, the cause of the unbelie'f of William Hone ; he had not, as so often happens, been led into the rejection of christianity by the love of sin, ~l' by a conscience uneasy under the breach of the moral law. His unfortunate early impressions of the inconsistency of highly professing christians led him to infer tha't because christians could hate one another, christianity was not as it was said to be, a revelation from the God of love. Then came on him the conviction that if christianity were not true, nothing was true, man had no soul, the universe no God. He believed this conclusion inevitable to a close and consistent reasoner rejecting christianity. This remarkable result of his observation of the process in his own powerful intellect I have often heard him state ; the progress of his perversion is hardly less instructive than that of his conversion. May christians lay it to heart, and for the sake of the unconverted seek to ~bey more constantly the precepts, " Love as brethren, be pitiflll, be courteous." The bitter personalities with which Mr. Hone assailed his political adversaries might throw a suspicion on the natural kindness of his disposition, but as he afterwards said, he attacked them as the embodiment of a principle; they were to him ideal beings, or ,at most like characters in ancient history. On tlus subject he received a lesson from the celebrated Jeremy Bentham. Standing together one morning at Bentham's drawing room window, Bentham suddenly called his attention to the neighbouring garden ; a gentleman was there playing with a group of children, "what an affectionate father," exclaimed .Mr. Hone, " what a beautiful sight! he must be a good man I am E 2

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·52 sure " " That man," returned Bentham, " is Lord Cas-­ tlereagh whom you have so bitterly satirized." " I felt guilty," said Mr. Hone in relating it, "my conscience flew ·in my face." The children were not Lord Castle­ reagh's own ; the amiability with which he entered into their sports was the more touching ; " the laugh of a child" l1ad not lost its power over the heart of the political leader ; the lesson was not lost upon the satirist. I do not think he ever again assailed the man in attacking the principle. He seems thus to have learnt to regard his opponents as kindred human beings, whose characters were made up of mingled good and bad qualities, and not, as heretofore, abstract personifications of evil. Records of the life and ways of thinking of London literary men, after London had become a labyrinth of buildings, and before the invention of railroads, will be curious and amusing to posterity. Nortl1ern critics, privi­ leged to cultivate literature amid the scenery of their " own romantic town," invented for such the title of "the cockney school." The gifted writer whom they early invested with the dignity of King of the Cockneys, after­ wards saw Italy ; but William Hone was, and remained, a complete specimen of a genuine Londoner. Aaron Hill, who once saw the sea at Brighton with mingled fear and detestation of the wilderness world that lay beyond London, and Dr. Johnson, in spite of his Scottish tour, were ex­ amples of the character in the former generation. Unlike them, however, William Hone had a poet's feeling for every glimpse of natural beauty. Speaking of his imprisonment, he told me, " I felt like a caged bird beating myself against the wires. I said why am I debarred from God's blessings to all· his creatures! with what bitter feelings I looked where they were making hay on the Peckham mountains"-my friend stood before me in liberty and sunshine ; in spite of all my sympathy with his past suffer­ ing, I could not repress the shadow of a smile-he answered it-" my dear lady, they were mountains to me; in my childhood my father used to take me to walk on those hills, and I heard the skylark there for the first time." It

Digitized by G.QOS[e 53 eeetned they were the nearest approach to mountains he had ever seen, unless it were Hampstead and Highgate ; of these, the Alps of his Peckham Pyrenees, he has gi-ven, in his Year-book and Table-book, quite a pilgrim's itiner­ ary ; calling into action his inborn sensibility to natural beauty, they also afforded historical and antiquarian reminiscences most interesting to an Englishman. A genuine Englishman he was, knowing no country but Eng­ land, no lan~age 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. If his love of nature was most gratified on Peckham Rye, his antiquarianism was in full exercise at Camberwell. Strolling near his cottage there, he said to me " you know we are on classic ground, we are on the spot of George Barnwell's murder. Early one morning I saw the old watchman hereabouts. I asked him if he could shew me the stone that had been placed to mark the spot. The old man said he believed he remembered such a thing. By pattering with our sticks in the dirt we found it." It was just where a road then recently made from Grove Lane entered the Grove. It was, however, again covered over. Here, not very long before, had been a long lonely avenue of dark old trees, not reckoned very safe to walk along by day, and by night shunned as a haunted place. Scarce a year elapsed without reports of some one having seen there a tall white ftgure gliding among the trees. What is it now ? In the summer of 1833 Mr. Hone left the cottage where he had been my neighbour, for his favourite Peckham Rye. The person mentioned in the letter of November, 1833, took it. This led to some not very amicable intercourse during which Mr. J. spoke disrespectfully of religion. Mr. H. kindly remonstrated with him, but his hearer re­ turned angry sco«:s, calling his adviser an old methodist; little did he think how ill that epithet applied. However Mr. H. persevered, and when the poor man was laid on a bed of sickness, he called to see him ; at fust received sulkily, he gradually gained the confidence and goodwill of E a

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hls former enemy. There was reason to hope that the sick man was thus brought to a better mind. He died profess· ing his faith in a crucified Redeemer and deep repentance for a life spent in ungodliness and enmity to that religion, the consolations of which had been given him through so remarkable a channel. When Mr. Hone was himself on his dying bed, he sent to the well-known benefactor of his country, Samuel Wilderspin, requesting to see him. Of what passed I only know that Wilderspin told me he hoped to benefited to all eternity by what William Hone then said to him. Going to see him soon after his removal to the scene of his early happiness, I found him there, happier than ever, boiling the tea-kettle over his cqttage hearth for the re­ joicing 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. I believe he there assisted at many such, for he had become an enthusiast in christian education, and particularly in Infant and Sunday Schools. Early in our acquaintance I had spoken of the great reform in education carried on by Pestalozzi on the Continent and tlte adaptation of parts of it to the wants of England by Wilderspin ; I urged him to adopt their system with his two younger children. He brought them in to me for a lesson; he observed earnestly, frequently putting in a word or two. At length he said, "I see I spoil all- the old system-hammer, hammer, hammer,-it won't do at alL" He soon comprehended ana admired the new system ; he saw the efficacy of its methods, cultivating the faculties, moral and intellectual, by means of love and kindness, following out the meekness and gentleness of Christ. He soon obtained the advantages of infant school teaching for these two little girls. Some years after, I had the pleasure of seeing one of them com­ fortably situated at the head-of a school of her own. Mr. Hone read, with much delight, the memoirs of Oberlin and Louise Schepler ; from which he considered them the first founders of Infant Schools. About this time a letter from Lord Brougham appeared in the Times recommending the

Digitized by Goog le eystem but attributing the invention of it to Robert Owen. Mr. Hone replied to it, claiming the honor for Oberlin and his devoted hand-maid. I have since been told by con­ verted Jews that similar infant assemblies, under the care of some kind and pious grandmother, had existed among the Jewish nation from time immemorial. Next to Peckham Rye, or rather before it, he loved Hampstead Heath ; there he used to see much of Charles Lamb, of whom he always spoke with true affection. He told me "One summer's evening I was walking on Hamp­ stead Heath with Charles Lamb, and we had talked ourselves into a philosophic contempt of our slavery to the habit of snuff-taking ; with the firm resolution of never 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 in triumph; I began to be very miserable, was wretched 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 !' ' 0 no,' said I taking a pinch out of a paper in my waistcoat pocket, ' I went for a halfpenny worth to the first shop that was open.'" However, when Mr. Hone was my neighbour, he bad left off his snuff, probably from the conscientious feeling that even that self indulgence was wrong when his children wanted bread, but be was glad to substitute any strong scent for it, and so evidently was he suffering, that I always kept a botile of salts ready for him ; never was a more striking example of the mischief of a habit of taking stimulus than what I saw him endure from the want of this species of it. There was some talk at one time o£ enclosing Hamp­ stead Heath. "Not while William Hone lives," said he. Being asked how he would prevent it, he said " I should go to the little public houses that I know of on the Heath, I should call for bread and cheese and beer, and sit there while the working men came in and out, and talk to them about the Heath." I think he meant to put them on petitioning against it. Some years afterwards when he

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Digitized byGoogle 56 was lrt lodgings at Hampstead for his health, a· gentleman went to him with a letter ; he afterwards told me he found him on the Heath, the very picture of happiness, with a daughter, the finest girl of twelve years old he ever saw f riding a donkey by his side. It is pleasant to think that his severe trials were interspersed by moments of such pure and lively enjoyment. The recollection of his long god· lessness, and the blasphemous satires which brought on him such hitter chutisement, never seemed to be allowed to }>ress on his mind ; when speaking of any thing connected with them he would say "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief." There was no text of Scripture I heard so frequently from him as this. Those few words spoke volumes. Though, after the removal to •• Rose Cottage," visits were still frequent, notes began to pass, some of which were preserved ; they shew the happy earnestness with which he }>ursued studies connected with the religion now the life of his life. " Thank you for the books Dennis brings you, Protes. taut Journal, Chr. Observer, Delusions, Baily on Inspiration, Stuart on the Trinity. There are as many books as I could get into the pocket of a boy. A year ago I promised Baily to Mr. • • The Montanists are especially favoured by the Newman Street­ ites, and the chapters on Montanism in the Deltuions are greatly relied on by them. You will see on the title of this copy that the book is ascribed, in an old hand-writing to Lacy. I return Mr. Goode's book that you may com­ pare it with the Delusions. I should like your opinion on Moses Steuart. In a friend's library I looked at a volume of the American Encyclopredia, translated chiefly from the Ger­ man-it seemed decidedly neological. The article "Jesuits" is six times the length of the article "Jesus" which is as Unitarian as a Deist could desire." In another letter he says, " I have been f!erg ill-con­ fined to my bed-my head again-confusion confounded­ leeching and lowering, and getting better after two days of

• Digitized byGoogle 57 stupor. Reading is forbidden to me-to me! Imagine me, if you can, a patient." In the autumn of 1835 when I had left the neighbour­ hood of London, I received a letter from Mr. H. in which he writes thus : "Large Paper, vice, Small departed. • • Retsch's Chess Players. This Penny :Magazine I bought last, year, while the coach changed horses at a town in my way from Norfolk, and finding it now, you have it, for I rested not until I got Retsch's own etching; this, however, is a faithful copy of it. How masterly the design ! How beautiful the moral! Really of those verses (mine) I have no copy and my memory is faithless as the sea shore sand ; traces upon it are laved away by returning waters. I cannot fossilize a thought as bird's footsteps have been (see Buckland). But to the 'Dream' again; it pleased me much, but your account of reading it to the poor village child much more. I imagined your tones then, and those I had heard before, I recollected. Oh how I miss you, and I question whether we shall meet again. No, not in heaven ; for if departed spirits recognise each other, they must recollect those whom they were attached to on earth, and miss, and suffer pain. But I know nothing about it, and speculate not on the nature of beatified being, further than as I imagine of a state so glorified and happy, that it is the perfection of holiness, a state of glory and happiness in­ conceivable by mortals." I prged in reply that the scripture tells us how David expected to go to his child ; how the rich man recognises Lazarus afar bf; and other of the eight texts which are said to imply the personal recognition of departed spirits, He did not pursue the subject. Soon after Mr. Hone became Sub-Editor of the Patriot, I had letters from him which, if not throwing any peculiar light on his religious progress, shew that at the time he wrote them his mind was in full vigour. " I write to you, because I am forced, upon the instant, and thus it is-Mr. L-- kindly sent me a frank which

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would be useless t11-morrow. Now I look at it I find it is useless until to-morrow ! However it occasions me to write now, against Talleyrand's advice, which every idler now uses as an axiom of authority, 'not to do to-day what you can do to-morrow.' I never can believe that knowing old man said it, since be was a foolish young one. How­ ever I am in my dark days now, and must work by glimmers of light as I can discern them. To-morrow I may forget, and indeed I have come almost to do little else. That I might not forget your letter (your own letter) I carried it in my pocket according to my old wont, and expected to find it safe. Alas, it has departed, and I am making inquisition over the remains. You marked it ' private,' and it has disappeared, 'bit by bit ' by the aid of plaster of Paris, which enters into its composition-! perceive now, though, it was only the outer envelope that shredded away. My head, and eyes too, are confused. I am in a condition to sympathize deeply with Thomas Clarkson, who, at eighty, is se defendendo-ing against the sons of that good man • • • I have read Mr. Clarkson's book, it is conclusive against them. You will see a little from it in the Patriot. There shall be more, if I am spared. And you are doing. I did not intend to-day's bit, in the 'Corner,' for you, but you may fairly discourse on its theme to many whom you know. I can do nothing hut this paper. There is a fine character of Jeremy Bentham in the last Westminster Review. I will, if I can, transfer•a portion of it to the Patriot. Look at Talleyrand in the Edinburgh-it accords with my view of him-1 always fought for him. For some of our politicians, as they are called, I have no charity, except as the most humane mode of extinguishing them. Look at those who yelp against • • • • If I could not whip them into the pack, I'd whip 'em out. It is possible that he did an illegal act. What then? If it was beyond law, it was not mere vigour, it was mere mercy. In the Baptist Magazine, August 1838, is a discourse by M. Grandpierre, Secretary of the Societies for Evangelical

Digitized by Coogle 59 Missions, &c., Paris, on the ' Obstacles to the propa9ation of True Christianity -in France.' Pray read it. I heard Carlyle, in one of his late lectures, loom away prophetically on the leaven working there, and imagining great things for Religion from the French character.. Pray do read the Bapt. Mag. Pardon my contracting, my hand gets tired." In another letter he says, "Here is Mr. Basil Monta­ gue's Life of Bacon. It seems to me there is enough ia the book to prove that Bacon was sacrifieed to save Buck­ ingham ; Bacon innocent of everything but acquiescence in the prevailing usage. of receiving presents,.Buckingham loaded with spoils he had rapaciously extorted. There is much curious matter in the notes. I borrowed the book of Mr. M: for you; and for you 1 have had it a good month, quite safe ; meantime our fl'iend Basil has lost me, and doubtless imagines he has lost the book ; you and I know better. With Bacon you have Professer Lee's Letter to Donkey Bellamy. I have an odd liking to this sort of cutting up. These are accompanied by ' Advice to a young Christian,' which you will or ought to read. I thank you for pointing out to me John Newton's A.B. C., the good old man was surely a father. The ' Advice to a young Christian' y.ou know is for your young friend. My daughters found it very useful. How do you like the purport of the ' Educational Magazine?' Doctor Hone says that a lady having an affection of the larynx should remember that fine and cheerful ·as this open weather is, yet the prevailing humidity must be re­ collected when temptations to gardening occasion: loitering in damp walks-hem ! · May the best of blessings be upon you, yours (some- times) faithfully, W. HoNE." His concern for the health of his· friends, even when suffering in his own, appears in the foregoing letter ; his energy in trying to serve them, in the midst of his own troubles, may be seen in the following extract of a letter of December, 1834.

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60 • " I goi to the Rye late on Tuesday evening, and returned to town early yesterday morning, with both parts of the M.S.-The first I had safely put away past all finding by you or Mrs. H. The second my poor 'auld wife ' bad secured so carefully that I never saw it until you returned it-notwithstanding, she insists to the contrary, and is so sure of her memory being better than mine that I dare not aver my ignorance without risking repetition that ' she knows better than I '-she maintains the feudal system, and I govern by letting her have her own way, and then she thinks she governs. Don't you think mine a subtle policy ? Am I not a Talleyrand husband ? Well, here I am at Peel's Coffee-house with the M.S., which I shall see W-- with this evening at tea. My object will be to.get him into print, and manage as well as I can, imagining I have a sort of carle blanche as to terms, and saying nothing to him of more, save only as to notes. I am not sure that he ought to see all I have, but that will be determined by the turn our talk may deviate into. Be assured of my desire to do the best, but be not disap­ pointed if I cannot effect an immediate resolve in the mind of the bookseller-for a bookseller is a bookseller-and I believe every animal of the species has, in relation to authors, ' veneration small,' with ' caution large,' and ' self esteem very large'-it requires the skill of a Schedoni to manage the creature, and I hate Schedoni-izing. So how the MS. may realize in my hands I forbear to anticipate. The verses in my bible were on the last leaf-I tore out 'the leaf and gave it to • • • one evening in the summer. Some years ago I bad written something in his Album, for he is an autograph-collector, and I thought this leaf might juxtaposite with the album leaf. And here I am, running about in search of some em­ ployment of a regular kind-hoping against hope-it is a will o' the wisp chase, but the bunt is up, and I am not to be whipped oft' until I can follow no longer, and then I may limp home to whimper on the Common 'whip poor Will!' What a life is life! What a life is mine! Well, it is all well. I am humbly thankful that I think

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• 61 so. I know it to be so. It seems to me that, however discouraging my ·prospects are, I ought to persevere. Were I to withdraw at this moment, I should leave means unused which remain to me~ Many have become inter­ ested for me. Lord • • expresses regret to Mr. • • that there is no vacancy in his gift to which he can appoint me, but he recommends a subscription which he will con­ tribute to-this I have declined. Mr. • • enforces it upon me, but this day I shall firmly but most respectfully decline it altogether, stating my reasons at large. I want to earn what I get. I want employment, and payment for what I do. I long for a morsel in quiet, and I believe I shall have it in some way or other. I mean, that I believe it may please God that the faculties he has mercifully re­ stored may be, at least, employed in getting bread honestly for my family ; and, perhaps, used in some degree, to the promotion of His truth among my fellow beings. By the way-what a singular effeet Town has upon one. I am more solitary in a throng of the City than among the sheep and donkeys of the Common. There with the green earth and hills, and sky, and clouds, I am solitary and inert. Here I am solitary, more retired within myself, and ment­ ally active.-Is there such a being as a social solitary? I hope it may not be long ere we meet-another visit to the Rye, and then to you." His desire to maintain his family by his own exertions is further shown in a letter of about the same date, in which he says, " On Tuesday next I shall take money of the king's for copying a charter of Philip and Mary to the borough of Abingdon. This will be the first money I have earned since my blow, and you cannot imagine how sweet the trifle will relish, it will be earned money." For some time after I left the neighbourhood of London our correspondence seems to ha'"e slackened, but on occa­ sion of the anecdote of the Sunday school child being brought forward at a local meeting, it was resumed. Mter • a while a letter of mine remaining long unanswered, I wrote again and elicited this answer, after which letters were frequently interchanged. F

Digitized byGoogle 62 • "You surprise me that.you"can be to me &till the same; after, alas !my long seeming neglect of a most kind letter, which I desired to say much upon, and not finding time to say all I wished, delayed to notice at all, at least to you, until! became discomfited and feared to write briefly, as I ought to have done at first ! Now, however, you relieve me from all this weight ; I find you still the same. Often have I thought of you as of one to whom I could unbur­ then my heart, as I often did, knowing I should find sympathy-with whom I could take 'sweet counsel '-who could resolve doubts and answer 'lawful questions'­ whom I could consult as a 'wise woman '-and who was to me, in my utmost need, a most firm friend. Ever and anon, as names have arisen to my eye in the public papers, of persons whom you have spoken of with esteem, I have felt regard for them, and wished to know them because they were your friends. With such feelings, I have been looking, within these few days, into a new book by Sir A-- C--, ' on Health and Old Age,' imagining as I read, the pleasure you would derive from some occasional expressions in it of a religious tendency, written by him, under a sense that, as to him, the world would soon be at an end ; for I recollect much of what you said of that gentleman, and, I almost fancy, you admired in him, as I do, his imaginative faculties as much as his scientific ability. I shrink from mere science; to me it must be sanctified by a little poetry, which one of our good writers terms rightly the ' Logic of the heart.' I desire to write much in quantity, for I want to talk to you on paper, but printers will be calling for copy shortly, and I must not do by you, as I once did by my poor friend Charles Lamb, give them my letter to set up. So to the point. The nobleman's library-if it be to be kept-to be put in order and kept in order,-you know me, am I not the man for it ? If you did not think so you would not have thought of me. Is he a statesman? I can look up points • -I can do anything-sit still or write better than I do now, for I am suffering from the great illness of my wife,

Digitized by Coogle 63 the most severe one, though sudden, she ever bad. I bad given her up a few days ago. We are all worn out with · fatigue and watching. I got to her a christian physician, Dr.--- and from the moment he left her room, (he paid her only one visit) she took heart and began to recover. By the blessing of God she is spared to us, and, I doubt not, will survive me many years." Our hopes as to the Nobleman's Library were disap­ pointed. " 5, Bolt Court, Fleet-st., 23rd May, 1888. "Your letter dated the 17th was brought here yesterday. It came in upon me while I was slaving at anti-slavery, and, from my engagements in real business, I thought not to write to you for a week, but the division last night on Sir E-- W--'s motion (carried by a majority of three), or rather Lord • • • • 's declaration after­ wards-a declaration as uncalled for as the Duke of W el­ lington's on a former memorable occasion-moves me to talk to you at once. The man's mad-without consulting with his colleagues or one night's sleep upon his surprise, he starts up and defies all England-aye and all Scotland and some of Ireland. You will see what I mean by the papers. By seven this morning I had all of them in my hands and read the debate, they contain no list of the division, and I sent for one of the printed votes of the House. Even Sir Robert Peel and Lord S--- voted with the ministers, so that we ('say may my little bark, &c.') cannot look for help from that quarter, I shall publish the list in our paper, with a list of the multitude of petitions presented last night (also extracted from the votes) which you will find nowhere else I suppose. The Government is clearly goaded into a state of insanity, or rather, I ought to say, the men show themselves. I have had the best reasons for mistrusting them, from their con­ duct on the Hippodrome Bill, which, if it is carried, will be succeeded by bills for other race-courses about the Me- • tropolis, and London be demoralized to the heart's core. At this moment one of the sheets of the Emancipator is brought up to me (from the machine now rolling withiB F 2

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64 sight of my ·window) and I find it rejoicing in a leading article, headed 'Triumphant result of last night's debate.' All very well, but, Messieurs of the Emancipator, if the end of this last night's debate be ' the most disastrous confusion,' it will be a 1arl end, not the right end. Be steady, go to work, persevere, bring in the bill which is to be honoured with ' the most decided and strenuous opposi­ tion from the Government.' They may throw it out-well, bring in another, and another, &c., &c., &c. It would be the misfortune of I{Ueen Victoria were she not crowned on the 28th June, but it would be the fault of her minis­ ters, for, until an immediate Emancipation Bill went through both Houses, there should be no vacation for a coronation. No. This would be ·my course. Since I commenced writing, di1ferent anti-slavery delegates have come in upon me, and in that way I have been indoctrinat­ ing them for the last hour. I wish I could get hold of • • • to night, but I think I have done enough for him to hear of it before morning. This afternoon the Delegates' Committee have passed a resolution expressive of gratitude to God for directing the House last night, and one of thanks to Sir E. W-- for his exertions. I am forced by interruptions to conclude hastily, or I shall lose the post. Some of the delegates are drinking tea while I write. All I mean to say respecting myself, and I had much, must remain. No Temperance Song came with your letter--only the Sheffield ladies' petition. Alfred, the sculptor, lately modelled a fine chaste bust of Dr. Pye Smith. Mr. Barnes, at Leeds, has a cast. The inscrip­ tion (mine?) for the bible I don't recollect. Postman coming." We have here a little of the ancient sarcasm and natu­ ral vehemence, but in a good cause. It is well known that, in consequence of this "resolution" of the House of Commons, the Colonial assemblies took the initiative in Emancipation ; no place was left for the threatened op­ position of the Government of the day. The young and popular Sovereign was understood, at least '!ly the ladies' anti-slavery societies, to be as earnest as any lady in her

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dominions in this cause so peculiarly woman's. The ne­ groes were afterwards often heard to say " it was the ladies set we free." Much has been said of the dignified composure with which the celebrated Samuel Johnson met the attack of paralysis under which he tested his mental faculties by repeating the Lord's prayer in Greek. Under a similar attack William Hone wrote the following letter. I was hundreds of miles oft' when it reached me--l could not go to him, but solemn was the impression it made upon me-­ it seemed the voice of Christian faith from within the valley of the shadow of death. " 5, Bolt Court, 4th June, 1838. " 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 expression 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 seemin9 idiotic-or idiot-like. With great difficulty I scrawl this. My sur­ geo-n says I must leave the scene awhile--and one of my daugbters is gone to Hampstead for quiet lodgings for Mrs. H. and me. I can neither speak nor write clearly. Whether I live or die, it is to Him who lived and died for the world. But I think he will not let me die without writing the pamphlet-still, if I should, there are fragment& of testimony to my full, unflinching faith in the Saviour. May God bless you, my dear lady. Farewell. W. HoNE." "You see what is the matter," his beautiful clear hand-writing was distorted and enlarged; still, however, perfectly legible. In his next account of himself it was little better, but by degrees was perfect! y restored. The mind, as he at once perceived, was uot weakened. " Hampstead, 20th J one, 1838. " On Tuesday week I was brought up here for seclusion, by my wife with A--. This is a lorl~ing house. Tlte weather has been and is against me-humid and cold. At F 3

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66 present I get no better and write with great pain. Lee this account for all, viz.:-our removal, our joint illness, &c. Mrs. B- is trying for the Matronship of • • • and I have made eft'orts to assist her. Would that you were here ! you could. We want Lord • • , one of the Churchwardens and his friends. Lord • • the other Churchwarden we think we have--but alas ! who can tell, for he is a whig ? You know my opinion of Whigs. A Whig is a man spoiled-you never can depend on him­ such were they • in my time' and I fear they are no better now. A Tory will tell you at once what he will not do-­ a Whig will lead you to depend on him for doing, and at last will lurch you. Well, well, they are better in York­ shire--1 am glad of it, for they are very bad in London. If my hand and appliances remain as they are I fear for the future as respects the • Patriot.' My dear lady, I never wrote in it, I only compiled it. Perhaps I was a re!JUlaling power on it. I was and am still nominally the Sub-Editor. Yesterday my surgical friend came up to see me. He says I am better, I think he would not say so, to-day. But, perhaps, it's the weather. The clouds are electric and I feel as a poor animal under the receiver of an Air Pump-I can scarcely breathe. Do not expect to hear from me again. Eft'orts this way must be reserved for the Pamphlet, yet pray let me hear from you. Address as usual to 5, Bolt Court, but write • private • outside. And yet still I may scrawl a line or so, in answer. This is a morning Exercise. In God is all our strength. W. HoNE." In this letter it may be seen that, as he formerly said, his political opinions were not altered. I was then in Yorkshire, and he refers to what I had told him of the principles and practice of the survivors of the once influ­ ential "Rockingham" party. The next letter shews that he had returned to his em­ ployment in renewed health and spirits. "5, Bolt Court, 5th Nov. 1838. " I begin this, no matter when, and shall add the date

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at the conclusion. The ' ballad ' I sent slips of. Pardon me if I decline to compare the printed original with yours, and refuse criticism ; reading it would be vexatious, for I cannot tolerate false rhyme. I am sadly pestered with poetry, so called, for the 'Patriot '-iginal poetry. Poor things trouble themselves and me, on glazed paper, exactly folded, genteelly directed, and put themselves to charges for postage. I, ' a brute,' instinctively surmise • 'Poetry!' break the seal with knitting brow and gritting teeth, find lines of unequal length, never read them until I ascertain whether the rhyme is perfect ; if it is not, down goes the spoiled paper into the litter basket for fire lighting ; if it is, then pure verse without mind or feeling, goes too-with more indignation towards the latter, because it has given me double trouble. Often have I wished such writers had been compelled to work for their living ! Then they might have been useful members of society, instead of lack-a-day-sick-all do-nothings, spoilers of paper, with pale faces, going about uttering ah ! and oh ! for nothing. I'd set the boys to cricket and mathematics, and take the girls brisk walks, up hill and down dale, until they were in health, and could be in love with better books than annuals and their own albums. You rejoice me by telling of your excursions, for that speaks of health to enjoy the scenery you tell of. It is better than seeing show houses. I have seen them, but could never wholly divest myself of the impression that there was something better outside-­ the country. After looking at pictures and armour, and nicknackeries 'long drawn out' in large rooms and galle­ riea and desert halls ; I chat with the housekeeper-she is on board wages :-' my lord and lady seldom come here -the family live in Town-my young lord is of a very di.Jferent disposition from my lord and when my lord dies we expect a great alteration-the eldest of my young ladies we expect will be married soon and then I suppose they will all come down for a little. My lord wanted to cut them trees down, and you see some have been cut, but I don't know how it was, they say my lord had no right to cut them, and some gentlemen came here and stopped the

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68 ateward, and then my lord came and saw the gentlemen and there were very high words between them, but it all ended very well, for the gentlemen and my lord agreed very well at last, and they stayed a day or two, and my lord was quite polite when they left ; and so were the gentlemen ; however when they were gone my lord gave orders that no more trees should be felled.' Oh the rest­ lessness and misery of the great. They only imagine they live. Pictures seem to me out of place in the country. They are of man's making and should be in cities and towns. Have you seen the late Mr. William Strutt's at Derby, they were part of a collection, which he sent to buy at Paris. A Mr. ---, I think he told me was sent by him to secure the whole, but Mr.--- as agent for another gentleman had a carte blanche for the same purpose-the agents compromised and Mr. Strutt had half. There are some very fine ones. In number they are few, but good. However you can see nothing so fine as sky and clouds and landscapes of God's making, except his wondrous sea. Antiquities I have done with, but I like the grant of 39 loaves weekly for the Wolf-dogs. Aye, our ancestors had hearts. I am not sure that some of this generation have not, although we chiefly go for the head, because the determination there is towards apoplexy in the pocket. I believe however that these poor creatures are moved by God for purposes of which they are wholly ignorant, and that their accumulation and investments for themselves will, as to themselves, flee away and be to Hil use. 'God works in a mysterious way.' The 'Book of Enoch,' as I recollect of it, is of importance, theologically, as establishing the opinion denied by modem Unitarians, (what will they not deny) among the Jews, of the pre-ex­ istence of the Messiah. The author was unquestionably a fine genius though his work is a depraved substitution for the original book which had ceased to exist. I suspect it was written much later than the time of Herod. Did we talk of the 'Ascension of Isaiah ?'-a book quite as CUNOU$ as the Enoch. It was supposed to have been extinct until Dr. Lawrence discovered an ancient MS. of

Digitized byGoogle • 69 it at a little book-shop in a Court in Drury-lane. How­ ever you know all this if you have seen the printed works. They are valueless except as they recreate a mind oppressed by Biblical studies, and supply ground for argument, as Enoch does, in controversy with persons whom no argument can persuade. I have done with controversy. Elizabeth is reported to have posed her sister's Churchmen, who required her judgment on the elements in the Lord's sup­ per, I think on the bread, by saying something like this : ' What the Lord did make it, That I believe, and take it.' There was, in this answer, the subtlety of the schools and the humility of the Christian. On the personality of the Holy Spirit, a1 a question, I accord to your view en-:­ tirely. I believe--what 1 all that scripture says on the point--and would express my belief, were it requisite, in the language of scripture. The French translator of Au­ gustine (I beg your excuse if I ought, in compliment to you, have called him after you 'St.' Augustine,) I quite agree with and almost forgive him for having interpolated upon the worthy father a saying which would not have derogated from the father himself. I remember that at Peckham a good young man, a Wesleyan, who afterwards devoted himself to the work of a missionary on the coast of Guinea, and who died there in his labor, and who, I hope and believe, is in Heaven, to my great surprise ex­ pressed his hope that I believed in ' the eternal Sonship of Christ.' I had never heard of the doctrine and he argued me sorely, and for a while long afterwards the doctrine sorely perplexed me. To what do these Aquinas-like doctrines tend 1 I mean strife about them. God's way in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, faith in Christ, as the great atoning sacrifice for all who come unto Him in submission of heart, is my anchor. May God keep you and me from doubtful disputations, and bless us, and save us, for our Re­ deemer's sake. You speak of our former early garden colloquies with • Wall' as a third party per pale-was not wailing S--

Digitized byGoogle • .. 70 a fourth, did she not enact 'Bottom' 1 Do you remember her and T. D-- painting the Verandah. The humour, aentiment, and scenery (that fine old tree in your garden) at the Woodlands, would have supplied scenes for Shake­ spear. One of the most startling literary discoveries of our age is the good vicar of Stratford-on-Avon's Diary, in the London Medical Society's Library next door to me. I have had some finessing work with a view to disclosing the Shakesperian entries-facts previously wholly un­ known relating to the bard of Avon--especially as to his death. I had been previously intimate with Dr. Severn, the registrar, and have been enabled to assist in forcing authority for him to print. The literary men are like oysters in sunshine without water, since the affair became whispered, and will be till Dr. S. publishes. My hand will tell you how I am, but I am certain of renewed de­ pression from over labour. My bodily debility increases. I can scarcely lift an octavo book. My wife happily is better than ever. I have much, very much, cause for thankfulness, but am not without heavy trials. My poor boy is sinking for want of a friend to aid him in his pro­ fession. Were be not a sculptor he ought to sink-but he is a sculptor, a beautiful band at a likeness. His busts of Dr. J. Pye Smith, Mr. Binney, Sir W. Molesworth, &c., show his eye for form." I bad written from Scarborough, mentioning the tradi­ tion relative to Bell Hill, in that neighbourhood. In a gloomy November twilight, returning from Raven Hill, where the magic standard so fearful to the early Britons was so long erected, the spot was pointed out where the native wolves had been scarcely less formidable than the Danish invaders. From that eminence among the wild moors, even now small trace of human habitation is per­ ceptible. There, every evening, in those ancient times, a monk tolled a bell at sunset. Resounding in the solitary silence, far more welcome, far more benevolent in purpose than the long subsequent curfew, it called the benighted travellers to the shelter of the convent in the dale below. To that convent a bequest had been made of 39 loaves a week for the wolf-dogs. Ere long he wrote again :

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" 5, Bolt Court, 17th December, 1838. " Letters from you are gratifying, and will continue to be so. I 'a skilful pilot lashed to the helm'? No, no, rather a useless hand lashed to the mast and cut by rolling lumber, on board a gallant vessel pitching through the billows for a port she is sure to land her paid for passen­ gers at, in safety. We'll leave figures, if you please, and if you please, compliments too, and all thinking of how we shall appear instead of what we shall be to each other. In my worst days I felt horror of that poor lady who, after a life of folly, exclaimed to her maid when dying 'And, Betty, on this cheek a little red.' But my head and hand are wandering. Thanks for Mr. B-- on the Apocryphal Books. I bad not misconceived his views. It could not be otherwise than as you represent. I never thOUf}ht it otherwise. If I wrote of it otherwise it was from inattention to words. I got a frank from Mr. • • on Saturday, to tell you I am much as I was, and that I wished for you near Lon­ don to lend me your aid for my son the sculptor, to execute the bust of Thomas Clarkson for the Council Chamber. He needs friends to act for him and to get artists' opinions on busts he has already done. I love my son but I love truth better, and I love him ~he more for his love of truth. His first effort, after a posthumous bust of my father, was on my bead at Peckham. He bas improved in each bust since. He tries for bread and fame. At present be gets neither. He deserves both, for he is a noble hearted youth, above the jealouses and tricks of artists ; be can neither depreciate talent in others nor fawn nor flatter for employment. My dear E- leaves Mrs. G-'s house, after four years faithful training bestowed on her children, for the care of a little boy in Northamptonshire, her h(lme will be in the family of the Revd. --. She is not to be a dis­ senter there, not a meeting-going but a church-going Christian. Here is-what ? I thank God, for his good­ ness to this dear daughter, and then you. I hear of this gentleman as a truly spiritual Minister of God's holy

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Word. E- will be an ornament, and help in his family as exemplifying the fruits of faith, the loveliness and utility of the Christian character. · S--, you remember, the Blue Coat boy, left Suffolk finally on Saturday morning, and we bad him home in the evening to remain. His mother will have his arm to Chapel on Sundays, instead of mine. This, too, I hope, is for good both to her and him. Providence is in various ways the disposer of this arrangement in a very remark­ able manner. Your questions respecting Sbakespear I cannot answer. My neighbour is severely secret, offensively so to me. I have seen him but twice within the last fortnight, and all he tells me is he is 'getting on.' I had introduced Mr. • • • our first Shakespear man to him with offer of services and invitation, which • • • bas not accepted. and I feel that we have each been uncivilly treated and therefore forbear the slightest enquiry." All Sbakespeariims were at this time on " tip-toe ex­ pectation" as to what the journal of the clergyman of Stratford-on-A von would produce. The mountain did not even bring forth a mouse. When urged on the subject, the Editor might have replied with Canning's needy knife­ grinder, "Story? lieaven bless you, I have none to tell, sir !" but be seems to have anticipated a modem doc­ trine-the sublime wisdom of " the supreme Silences." What little the journal contained was also related by Aubrey, the earliest biographer of Shakespear, who wrote about 45 years after his death. Both say that " Shake­ spear, Drayton, and Ben Johnson bad a merry meeting, and it seems drank too hardf for Shakespear died of a fever there contracted." May not this be added to the daily increasing list of the ravages of the alcoholic poison? Had Sbakespear been a water drinker, some will say, how many more Lears and Otbellos might we not have had ! . Sophocles produced a master-piece when nearly double the age at which Sbakespear died. The following letter was written after repeated illnesses Jiad again made it difficult to find time for private cones-

Digitized byGoogle 73 . pondence. It shews that Mr. Hone's politics were not in favour of Socialism, Chartism, or that "Drama of blood" the Red Republic. "5, Bolt Court, 12th April, 1839. " I have been laid by, ill. This is the first day I have ventured down stairs, That alone is all the news I can communicate except that London is smoky and spirit­ wearing and the people ever running after some new thing. Tell me anything you please but don't give me anything to do. I sit to receive all and dispense nothing. I am a mere absorbing ray; I reflect no light. My head is very confused, after attempting for a few hours to appear capa­ ble of doing something. It must be news to you however, that my wife is sitting very busy in making a cap, and I · am watching her, and that is my business. I cannot read­ do you? Have you seen the last British and Foreign Review. If not, get it for the article on • • • • "prepare for woe," and acquaint yourself with • • 's character-it is a terrible (appalling) view of Human Nature. Everything is stagnant until Monday's motion. If, after that, parties should be as they were, they cannot remain so. Parliament is engaged with little but their struggles to maintain or acquire power. Patriotism is departed, unless it is re-hatching in a patent Ballot-box­ when it breaks the shell, whether it be in the shape of • • or some great Unknown, it must be chemist enough to fuse our parties, and run them into one. Miss • • called the other day but I forgot to ask her precise ad­ dress-she told me K •-that is too wide a direction for an unlegged precisian. Why do you send to London the Chartists ? The National Convention sat in Bolt Court in the rooms formerly occupied by Dr. Johnson-perhap~ the very chair in which he sat was filled by Dr. Wade, the pipe he smoked emitted vapours from Bryan Bronterre. Have you read Thomas Carlyle's petition and Savage Landor's? If not, where do you live? what sort of a place is • • ? Is it civilized or do you dwell among savages? Have you any Nightingales, or is it a land of liberty, and therefore are they all shot? Are the native~ G

Digitized byGoogle 74 employed in making pikes for the Patriots, or are tbey so . ignorant as not to know they are in demand? Have you raised a troop of Amazons, or taken the chair at a meeting of female citizens 'who know their rights, and knowing dare maintain them.' Madam, I expect these questions to be answered without reserve--satisfactorily I hope. I have infiuence with the Convention-our Housekeeper's girl knows a young man who is a waiter at the Convention House. Is this our England to enact a drama of blood f I do not believe it ; but every heart and hand must stir to en­ lighten the people, to teach them. · I hear the Tea things and conclude." ' To these queries his correspondent's replies were, first that of Carlyle and Landor's petitions no more was known tban what might be gathered from the newspapers, never­ theless that the place of abode tho' to him a Terra incognita, an unimaginable distance from the centre of civilization and chartism, was not the abode of savages ; neither of Nightingales, tho' they had not been shot-for it is well known "no Nightingale ever crossed the Humber." "Too far rwrth" to manufacture pikes, they peaceably employed themselves with the fleeces of their sheep. And his cor­ respondent confining herself to "woman's mission," was employed about an Infant School, and in it a Juvenile Temperance society. The elders there, as in many other places, objected that such a " reform" was premature­ but in this very school after a few days consideration a determined little fellow of about five years old returned his ticket, saying "I like ale,"-others were found who had been made drunk for amusement at wakes and Christ­ mas merry-makings, and these from the consequent sickness generally were willing to become, (what it is to be hoped some " unhatched " genius will arise to find a better name for than) Tee-totallers. · "5, Bolt Court, Fleet Street, 29 Jany., 1840. "I think of you, often and much. Writing becomes more than ever painful to me. Bear witnes this, that I have not forgotten you. The enclosure mentions one of

Digitized by Goog le 75 I your old and dear friends-a departed one-Mr. E • • s • • May I ask where do you live? Where do you stay ? Anywhere? Well, where is, or is to be, your ' whereabout' ? Do you know a greater moral act than the Penny Postage Act. If you are a ' True penny' you will answer. Oh! Have you read 'Sartor ResarlU&.' My dear lady yours, (what shall I write?) W. HoNE. I never thought to use an envelope-cut and snipped­ and artificial wax-but anything for a penny.'' Increasing and repeated indisposition ere long obliged him to give up his employment. A subscription was opened by friends whose names were as honourable to him, as the opinion they expressed. "London, 25th Sept., 1840. "lllR. WILLIAM HONE, the Author of 'The Every Day Book,' and l}ther publications, is now, at the age of sixty years, disabled by bodily infirmity, and the effects of two paralytic seizures, from providing the means of supvorting himself and his dependent family. Some of his friends, who admire his talents and esteem his Christian character, have formed themselves into a Committee, for the purpose of raising contributions for securing to him an income sufficient to save him from penury in his declining years." Those Yorkshire "whigs," for whom he had made an exception to his sweeping censure of both parties, re­ sponded liberally to this appeal, as acknowledged in a subsequent letter. "Tottenham, 18th Nov., 1840. "My dear * • I desire thankfully to acknowledge, through your kindness, this time last year.'' • • (he here enumerates Subscriptions and Donations of Yorkshire friends and adds) " I thank God my health seems strengthening with the approach of winter-my wife's too abides. We have · G 2

Digitized byGoogle ·-·--·-----. 76 bad severe frost here. It has broken to day into a cold thaw-so bey ! for a bottle of warm water and hopes of another spring. This is the first note I have written since . July-my band is thawing. Dare I ask if you have read Barnaby Rudge ? My dear madam, most respectfully I remain yours till you leave Scarborough, W. HoNE." In the spring of the next year, on my revisiting London he wrote, with that buoyancy of spirit which still remained under much bodily suffering, as well as with that Christian feeling which went on continually increasing. "Tottenbam, April 30, 1841. "May Day to-morrow, and 'Corinna going a maying'­ to Exeter Hall ! Perhaps yes, may be, no !-many thoughts and feelings at this season render me twentyish­ the certainty that you are so near me and that 'I can't get out' to see you makes me wildish, which is, as I write it, a word signifying less, a little less, than wild. I cannot bear . the journey-cannot walk a quarter of a mile and back again without being worn down for the day-cannot abide the hurry of omnibus or stage-am in fact, ' an old, old, very old man,' wearing out fast, incapable of anything but wearing away ,-living by the grace of God, and I humbly trnst, upon His mercy, enabled by His strength, I am what I am, and would be nothing more than a poor creature, strong only in dependence upon Him. May I liken you to an unseemly bird, a raven ?-one of Elijah's Ravens, sent by God to feed an old man in ' the wilderness of this world.' The £5 from a Fair unknown came just in time. God sent it by your hand, and put it into your friend's heart to give it to you for us. My poor dear wife and I had talked the day before on our wants, and I had said, we must leave the matter, 'God will provide'-and He did. The draft was an answer to prayer. On the.day it arrived our landlord came from town for his rent, and be bad £4 of it, and my dear wife got the remainder­ and the old lady goes about singing like a young bird. May the blessing of God be on your (our) Lady-Frieud, and on you, for gladding our hearts. Come hither, let me

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77 see your face once more, let us talk of the goodness of God. I desire to hear from you more about all than I can write. You must come--will you not, to, my dear lady, your God-befriended Friend, WILLIAM HoNE." I went, and it was indeed the last time we saw each other's face. He wept like a child at our meeting, still saying "do not mind this-it is only the body"-and truly I found it was only the body, the shaken nerves­ the spirit was bright as ever. He expressed himself piously and fervently on religious subjects, and with flashes of wit and humour on others, and he was himself in mind. I was much impressed with the change in his personal appearance, wavy silver hair, long on his shoulders, gone from the top of his head, making more remarkable his high and intellectual forehead, the elevated expression of his features, living as he then was wholly unto God, weaned from the world, as I had never seen him, altogether gave something patriarchially venerable to his aspect. This was the time when his likeness should have been taken, and such it is delightful to retain it in memory. A religious friend whose ministry Mr. Hone highly valued in these his latter years writes thus, " I recollect his relating to me the anecdote which you record about llr. Wesley's visit to his sick nurse. His father attended the ministry of William Huntington, and from this source came young Hone's false impressions of Wesley. He told me of a French work, the name of which I forget, which he read while a young man and which made a most powerful impression on his mind. It reduced him to a state of universal doubt and uncertainty. But while sceptical of all that is spiritual and 'divine, I could not find that he became the slave of any vice. I traced his infidelity rather to a noble and generous nature, ignorant of what Christianity really is, and identifying it with the systematic hypocrisies he saw manifested under its name. He told me once a little incident which struck me as very beautiful, and indicative of a large amount of filial piety. When one of his works, I think a Parody on the Prayer Book or Liturgy, was published, it got at once into G 3

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very extensive circulation ; large orders were daily re­ ceived for it, from all parts of the country ; and it promised to prove a good speculation in a pecuniary point of view. This state of things bad not continued long when Mr. Hone's father called at his shop, and taking up some of the pamphlets from the counter, said, 'William, what are these?' 'Oh! merely a political skit, father.' ' A political skit, William, why the devil is in it,' and instantly left the shop in great anger. Poor William's heart was touched ; he could not endure to see his father thus grieved and seriously offended ; he instantly ran out after him with uncovered head, overtook him and entreated his forgiveness, and assured him that be would not sell another copy of the work. Returning to his house, he ordered all the copies in his possession to be collected and locked up in a closet ; and never sold another copy. This was a great loss to him in a pecuniary point of view, and gave great offence to many of his friends. But this sacri­ fice he cheerfully made to a father's feelings. Many months after he had thus suppressed the publication, he was prosecuted on account of blasphemy.'' The same friend also writes, " I am sorry that it is not in my power to give you any information respecting the last words, &c., of good Mr. Hone. I saw him, I believe, but once or twice during his last illness, as I happened to be from home during the greater part of the time. When I saw him he was very feeble, suffering much from disease, and I think also from the influence of medicine. The thinking faculties were much enfeebled, and his power of speech was no. less so. I do not recollect anything that he said. I recollect only that he exhibited a spirit of great humility and self-abasement, together with a child-like reliance on the mercy of God in Christ Jesus. During the period of my acquaintance with him, his religious character was marked by deep and unaffected humility, and the whole of his conduct distinguished by lamb-like gentleness. In his last sufferings be discovered great pa­ tience, and frequently expressed his gratitude to those whoo atterided him-his affectionate wife and daughters.

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I am sorry that I cannot add to your infonnation re­ specting this interesting Character-few things would afford me more pleasure than to do so iC I had the materials." The same kind friend also writes thus, " I have received your note and read your little Tract respecting Mr. Hone, for which I am much obliged, with great interest. It re­ called the venerable man vividly to my recollection, together with many a happy hour which I spent in his society. I wish it were in my power to add to the interest of your forthcoming memorial-but I fear it is not-I re­ collect a few anecdotes which he related to me of himself and others, and a few fragments of conversations which I had with him at di1ferent times, but not with sufficient accuracy to justify me in recording them. I recollect his relating to me the anecdote of Mr. Wesley's visit to his sick nurse, and of the mingled feeling of horror and surprise with which he regarded the Arch-heretic." In this interesting co-incidence with my own feelings as to Wm. Hone in his latter years, I was much struck by the expression " the venerable man." Such then was the impression on a minister of the Gospel, made by him who had called himself to me •• the Arch-blasphemer." The re-publication of those profane political satires which caused him so much suffering, may still cause him to be so considered, by such as know not of his deep repentance and entire change of heart. Here, however, they have the testimony of an unprejudiced and well qualified witness to that great change. "What hath God wrought!" were the words that came to my mind, on reading this remarkable corroboration of my own recollections of him, as he appear­ ed to me at our last interview. The relation here given of Mr. Hone's sure though peaceful decline will account for the cessation of our correspondence at least on his side. When I again heard, it was from his pious daughter then in attendance on him, with his devoted and always beloved wife. In answer to some letter of mine, she wrote thus : "Oct. 20th, 1842. " My dear Father through the kindness of friends and the considerate attention of his Committee wants fot

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80 nothing. My Father is gradually sinking-his sun is setting, and it reminds me of such a sunset as we often see just at this season, when after a bright and calm day the glorious luminary sinks serenely to his reat without a cloud to obscure the last rays of his departing light. And surely, dear madam, the Lord is doing a work in this. I have sometimes hoped it might be the will of God to raise him up again to eminent usefulness, to be a burning and a shining light, but it is otherwise ordained, and I now firmly believe that a greater, a more blessed lesson will be taught the Church and the World in the long affiiction and the dying bed of my beloved Father-and that father, William Hone-than might have been communicated had he sur­ vived yet many years-and this I believe only because it is God's own work and He is doing that which seemeth good in his sight. Even so, Father!" "Tottenham, Saturday, 1 o'clock p.m., Nov. 5th. "My dear Madam, My late letters must have prepared you to hear of the state in which my dear Father now lies. Yesterday, after a week of much suffering, a violent coldness seized him, but after applying warm blankets and flannels for more than two hours we succeeded in restoring warmth, and we left him in my mother's and the nurse's charge for the night. He remained perfectly quiet all night, and up to the p!esent time has only once opened his eyes for a few minutes, he then on being asked if he was in pain answered, 'No, '-and has been quietly sleeping ever since. The medical friend who is attending him has been, and re­ quests that he may be kept perfectly quiet, suggesting as a source of comfort that it is far better to see him lying in a state of unconsciousness than delirious and suffering pain, which I am thankful to say he has ceased to do since yesterday evening. A Physician to whom we had written yesterday kindly offered to meet our medical friend to-mor­ row at four o'clock, but Mr. W • thinks that 'ere that time the Spirit will have taken flight to Him who gave it. I can only add, ' Pray for us.' "

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"Tottenham, Nov. 7th,. 1842. " My dear Madam, My note of Saturday will have prepared you to hear that my dear Father has breathed his last, that he is now at rest. He died at five minutes to four o'clock yesterday afternoon, after a long and severe strugglE'. It is post time, and it being my dear Father's last request that you should know, I write merely this line. Ever yours, E. H." " As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive." " The sting of death is sin, but thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." He whose great intellectual powers had not preserved him from denying the Lord who bought, and even the God who created him, was, through the abundant mercy of his Redeemer, made a partaker in this peace-giving victory. Fer him, we see the fear of death taken away by the hope set before us in the Gospel, by faith in the great atonement, the blood of Christ which cleanseth from all sin. It has been remarkf:d that " & true delineation of the smallest man, of his scene of pilgrimage through life, is. capable of interesting the greatest man ; that all men are to an unspeakable degree brothers, and that human por­ traits, faithfully drawn, are of all pictures the welcomest on human walls." However true this may be as to life, it is yet more strikingly true as to death. In that respect men great and small are indeed " unspeakably brothers.' " Praise no day till its sun has gone down," is an old and wise saying; no life is complete till crowned by its death. Much as we must regret that William Hone, no "small man," has not left his self-drawn portrait, yet he could not have completed it ; the calm winter sunset of his stormy day could only have been recorded by those who watched it. He, whose falling asleep in Jesus is here re­ lated, went "the way of all flesh," with eyes fixed on the light that shineth in a dark place, making the valley of the shadow of death bright with morning glories, for the day-star l1ad arisen in his heart; may our last end be like his!

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N 0 T E S. P.I. Relative to the sale of the " Every-day Book," &e., Mr. Hone · said " The Penny Magazine ruined us sixpenny people." P. 11. Having sent the Jetter, here extracted from, to "the great Shef­ fielder," he sent the following reply. "I thank you for the loan of Mr. Hone's Jetter. His mind, it appears, has worn out its ease, and he is about to join Ellenborough. Two days ago I witnessed a rehearsal of his trial-the most dramatic scene I ever witnessed. The actor was the Rev. Dr. • •, a man strong alike in mind and body, the latter weighing 19 stones lib. avoirdupois, for I weighed him. I am, with great respect, your obliged, EBENEZER ELLIOTT." P. 32. His fine feeling for the arts may be seen in a Jetter to his son Alfred, the sculptor, printed in his • Table book,' p. 129, with a very spirited sketch of the young student drawing from the bust among the Townley marbles called the young Titan, one of the most striking of those remains of ancient art. "A .LOVER OF ART TO HIS SON. "MY DEAR ALFRED, " Could you see my heart you would know my anxious feelings for your progress in study. If I could express myself in words of fire I would bum in lessons upon your mind, that would in11ame it to ardent desire, and thorough conviction, of attaining success. Our talented friend, who permits you the use of his collection of models and casts, and does you the honour to instruct you by his judgment, assures me that your outlines evince an excellent conception of form. To be able to make a true outline of a tuJtural form, is to achieve the first great step in drawing. You remember my dissatisfaction towards some engravings of hands and feet that were given you by the person who would have continued to instruct you, if I had not been dissatisfied. The hands in those prints were beautifully finished, but their form was incorrect ; the feet were not representations of anything in nature ; and yet these deformities were placed before you to begin with. If I had not taught you from your infancy the value and use of sincerity, and the folly and mischief of falsehood, you might have been at this time a liar, and become a depraved and vicious character; instead of being. as you are, an upright and honest youth, and becoming, as I hope you will, a virtuous and honour­ able man. Had you continued the copying of engraved lies of

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tne limbs, your dr&wings would ban been misrepresentations o( the human figure. You will discover my meaning if you conaider an 11ld precept, • Never begin anything without considering the -end thereo£' Your aft'ectionate father. • • • • "

P. 33. Dr. Newman's opinions of Popery in the year 1837. "Roman­ ism may be said to resemble a demoniac possessed with thoughts and tendencies not her own.-Ruled within by an inexorable spirit who is softl'eign in his management over her, and most subtle and IUCCeS8ful in the use of her gifts. Till God vouchsafes to restore her, we must treat her as if she were that evil one that governs her." • • "Our Lord said, • by their fruita ye shall know them.'­ Certain marks in Rome seem intended to convey to the simple and honest inquirer a solemn warning-such are her denying the cup to the laity, her iddatrmu fDOTihip of the blessed Virgin, her image worship.'' P. 40. Extract from Popular Traditions by R. RoBY, Esq. "Who that bas been a child does not recollect the untiring de­ light with which he has listened to those ingenious progressions in rhyme called 'This is the Honse that J aek built,' and ' The Old Woman and her Pig.' Few even in riper years would suspect their origin to be Eastern. In the Sepher Hazzidab there is an ancient parabolieal hymn in the Chaldee language sung by the Jews at the feast of the Passover commemorative of the painful events of the history of that people ; for the following literal translation we are indebted to Dr. Henderson, the celebrated Orientalist.'' ]. A Kid, a kid my Father bought for ten pieces of money. A Kid, a kid. 2. Then came the Cat and eat the kid my Father bought for ten pieces of money. A Kid, a kid. 3. Then came the Dog and bit the eat, &e. +. Then came the Staff and beat the dog, &e. S. Then came the Fire and burnt the staff that beat the dog, &c. 6. Then came the Water and quenched the fire that burnt the staff, &e. 7. Then came the Ox and drank the water that quenched the fire, &e. 8. Then came the Butcher and slew the ox tl1at drank the water, &e. 9. Then came the Angel of Death and killed the butcher that slew the ox, &e. 10. Then came the Hol;t: One, blessed be He, and killed the angel of death that killed the butcher, &c. .

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Interpretation by P: N. L&aucs, Leipsic. l. The Kid, which was one of the pure animsls, denotes the Hebrews. The Father, by whom it was purchased, is Jehovah the Lord. who represents Himself as sustaining this relation to the Hebrews. The Pieces of Money signify Moses and Aaron, through whose ministration the Hebrews were brought out of Egypt. 2. The Cat denotes the Assyrians, by whom the Ten Tribes were carried into captivity. 8. The Dog is symbolical of the Babylonians. f. The Staft' signifies the Persians. 6. The Fire denotes the Grecian Empire under Alexander the Great. 6. The Water betokens the Romans, or the fth great Monarchy, to whose dominion the Jews were subjected. 1. The Ox is a symbol of the Saracens, who subdued Palestine and brought it under the Caliphate. 8. The Butcher that killed the Ox denotes the Crusaders, by whom the Holy Land was wrested out of the hands of the Saracens. st. The Angel of Death signifies the Turkish power by whom the land of Palestine was taken from the Franks and to which it is still subject. 10. The commencement of the lOth stage is designed to show that God will take signal vengeance on the Turks imme­ diately after whose overthrow the Jews are to be restored to their own land and live under the government of their long expected Messiah. It is a Mahomedan tradition that the Angel of Death himself shall be the last that shall die. P.li2. Many persons of distinguished intellect, like Bentham, valued the conversation and esteemed the moral character of William Hone. The well known Dr. Parr offered to stand godFather for a aon of Mr. Hone's who is called after him. Whcth•r the coatract was fulfilled I did not hear, but Mr. H. told me that, standing one day in the garden of a cottage where he then live:!, Dr. Parr trotted up to the gate on his pont:y, and, pointing to the little Samuel, said " Is that child christened yet ? ' ' He replied " No," and begun to give him his reason&-the Dr. turned short round and trotted off in silence. P.li3. On being told of the beauty of his " Saxon English" he seemed quite unconscious of it, and asked what was meant. It was evi­ H

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dently taste, and the instinct of what would reach the mind of the people, that had led him to avoid "hard words," as they call the Latinized English of the Johnsonian school

P.:l9. The person here referred to, published a prospectus of a new translation of the Bi~le ; he gave fourteen specimens of his 80 called emendations. The reviewers and critics of the day proved that twelve of them were totally wrong. The remaining two were, in fact, but one, where he took the meaning of "persuade" in­ stead of "deceive" in two places in Jeremiah, +. L and 20. vii. We may be persuaded without being deceived, but not deceived without being persuaded, therefore the word is best rendered " persuade," as in the marginal reading in Genesis 9. xxvii. In this, therefore, be was right.

P. 69. The words of Elizabeth were : " Christ was the word that spake it, He took the bread and brake it, And what that word did make it, That I believe and take it." Some book I had been reading had made me allude to the " personality" of the Holy Spirit, not doubting that he as well as myself held it. I bad also been comparing the French translation of the Con­ fessions of St. Augustine with the original, and found that an expression I had formerly mentioned to him was the translator's addition. It was to the effect that it would be difficult long to discuss that mysterious subject without falling into heresy,

P. 72. "Shakespear, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting and it seems drank too hard, for Shakespear died of a fever there contracted."-From tlu NSS. of Mr. Ward,foumlin tlu Library of t1u Medical Society of IArultm. P. 76. John Newton, the friend of Cowper, says, "if I see my friend's carriage with the blinds down, and call to him and ask a favour of him, and be answers me granting it, am I not as mre that he is there as if I 1aw him?" Such answers to prayer Wm. Hone fre­ quently received. Daily bread was given, though at times he was left almost to despair of relief. The promises of Scripture for the necessaries of life when asked for in faith, are positive-but there are many things for which we may be led to pray at times, not 80 promised and not according to the will of God. Such aeems to

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have been the eht:rished purpose of his heart, of writing his Auto­ biography, why we know not, and perhaps it were presumptnoQf &o inquire. When I last saw him he did not advert &o it, it &eeiJled • . taken off his mind. P. 78. Jt was some time after Mr. H.'s retirement from his employ­ ment that he printed his father's au&obiography; he &old me he had it, but I did not see it at the time it c3Jile out, and on recently inquiring for it, it is not &o be met with. By some penons it has been supposed &o be his own. As he became more deeply religious his affection for his father seemed &o revive and strengthen. When living at Camberwell he attended public worship at an Independent chapel, the denomination &o which I und:rstood his father belonged, frequently three times on the Lord's day, his wife and some of his family accompanying him. A clergyman, who admired his talents and did justice &o his christian character, was urging that from his entire agreement with what he himself preached, there was no reason that he should not belong &o the Established Church. " My dear sir," replied Mr. Hone, "you do not understand the principle of Dissent ; if we held in every point of doctrine exactly alike, the union of Church and State would make me a Dissenter." In his latter years he attended the preaching of a Baptist minis­ ter, to whom he said that his antiquarian researches had convinced him that immersion was the original form of baptism.

P. 79. During the long illness of his latter years I never heard of his having any return of the Phantasmagoria disesse of the eyes, if he had, he had learnt to regard it as only bodily disea..

P. 81. Mr. Hone's death was thus announced in the newspapers: "Mr. William Hone, the well-known author of the Every-Dog Book and other popular worb, died on Sunday last, at his house in

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Grove-place, Tottenham, after a long illness and much suffering, which he bore with the most exemplary patience. In early life he was celebrated as one of the first satirical writers of the day ; his • Political House that Jack built' went through upwards of iiO · editions, and it is said that, by illustrating this and similar works, the fame of George Cruikshank was first established. By putting one of his satires into the form of the Liturgy of the Chtrt~h of England, he was prosecuted for blasphemy; and his trial before Lord Elleuborough, which lasted three days, and in which he suc­ cessfully defended himself in person, with the greatest ability, may be considered one of the causes celebres of this country. Having abandoned his career as a satirist, he appeared in later years as the editor of the Every Day /look, the Year Book, and the Table Book, three works, all on the same principle of giving antiquarian infor­ ·mation in a popular form, and all exhibiting the indefatigable perseveranc'e and research of Mr. Hone. The Every-Day Book, in which the information given is connected with the days in the year, may be considered as a stan.J.ard library book. Towards the close of his life, he bec;Lme one of the conductors of the Patriot news­ paper, and in this situation he continued till increasing infirmity, occasioned not so much by years as by the unremitting labours of ll.is life, caused him to retire from every active pursuit."

J. lvison, Printer, Keswick.

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