stinging attack which Hone made on the Bar: he held on, and said, "Mr. Attorney, what can I do!" I was a boy of twelve years old, but so strong was the feeling of exultation at the verdicts that boys at school were not prohibited from seeing the parodies, which would have been held at any other time quite unfit to meet their eyes. I was not able to comprehend all about the Lord Chief Justice until I read and heard again in after years. In the meantime, Joe Miller had given me the story of the leopard which was sent home on board a ship of war, and was in two days made as docile as a cat by the sailors.[[408]] "You have got that fellow well under," said an officer. "Lord bless your Honor!" said Jack, "if the Emperor of Marocky would send us a cock rhinoceros, we'd bring him to his bearings in no time!" When I came to the subject again, it pleased me to entertain the question whether, if the Emperor had sent a cock rhinoceros to preside on the third day in the King's Bench, Hone would have mastered him: I forget how I settled it. There grew up a story that Hone caused Lord Ellenborough's death, but this could not have been true. Lord Ellenborough resigned his seat in a few months, and died just a year after the trials; but sixty-eight years may have had more to do with it than his defeat.
A large subscription was raised for Hone, headed by the Duke of Bedford[[409]] for £105. Many of the leading anti-ministerialists joined: but there were many of the other side who avowed their disapprobation of the false pretense. Many could not venture their names. In the list I find:
A member of the House of Lords, an enemy to persecution, and especially to religious persecution employed for political purposes—No parodist, but an enemy to persecution—A juryman on the third day's trial—Ellen Borough—My name would ruin me—Oh! minions of Pitt—Oil for the Hone—The Ghosts of Jeffries[[410]] and Sir William Roy [Ghosts of Jeffries in abundance]—A conscientious Jury and a conscientious Attorney, £1 6s. 8d.—To Mr. Hone, for defending in his own person the freedom of the press, attacked for a political object, under the old pretense of supporting Religion—A cut at corruption—An Earldom for myself and a translation for my brother—One who disapproves of parodies, but abhors persecution—From a schoolboy who wishes Mr. Hone to have a very grand subscription—"For delicacy's sake forbear," and "Felix trembled"—"I will go myself to-morrow"—Judge Jeffries' works rebound in calf by Law—Keep us from Law, and from the Shepherd's paw—I must not give you my name, but God bless you!—As much like Judge Jeffries as the present times will permit—May Jeffries' fame and Jeffries' fate on every modern Jeffries wait—No parodist, but an admirer of the man who has proved the fallacy of the Lawyer's Law, that when a man is his own advocate he has a fool for his client—A Mussulman who thinks it would not be an impious libel to parody the Koran—May the suspenders of the Habeas Corpus Act be speedily suspended—Three times twelve for thrice-tried Hone, who cleared the cases himself alone, and won three heats by twelve to one, £1 16s.—A conscientious attorney, £1 6s. 8d.—Rev. T. B. Morris, rector of Shelfanger, who disapproves of the parodies, but abhors the making an affected zeal for religion the pretext for political persecution—A Lawyer opposed in principle to
Law—For the Hone that set the razor that shaved the rats—Rev. Dr. Samuel Parr, who most seriously disapproves of all parodies upon the hallowed language of Scripture and the contents of the Prayer-book, but acquits Mr. Hone of intentional impiety, admires his talents and fortitude, and applauds the good sense and integrity of his juries—Religion without hypocrisy, and Law without impartiality—O Law! O Law! O Law!
These are specimens of a great many allusive mottoes. The subscription was very large, and would have bought a handsome annuity, but Hone employed it in the bookselling trade, and did not thrive. His Everyday Book[[411]] and his Apocryphal New Testament,[[412]] are useful books. On an annuity he would have thriven as an antiquarian writer and collector. It is well that the attack upon the right to ridicule Ministers roused a dormant power which was equal to the occasion. Hone declared, on his honor, that he had never addressed a meeting in his life, nor spoken a word before more than twelve persons. Had he—which however could not then be done—employed counsel and had a guilty defense made for him, he would very likely have been convicted, and the work would have been left to be done by another. No question that the parodies disgusted all who reverenced Christianity, and who could not separate the serious and the ludicrous, and prevent their existence in combination.
My extracts, etc., are from the nineteenth, seventeenth, and sixteenth editions of the three trials, which seem to have been contemporaneous (all in 1818) as they are made up into one book, with additional title over all, and the motto "Thrice the brindled cat hath mew'd." They are published by Hone himself, who I should have said was a publisher
as well as was to be. And though the trials only ended Dec. 20, 1817, the preface attached to this common title is dated Jan. 23, 1818.[[413]]
The spirit which was roused against the false dealing of the Government, i.e., the pretense of prosecuting for impiety when all the world knew the real offense was, if anything, sedition—was not got up at the moment: there had been previous exhibitions of it. For example, in the spring of 1818 Mr. Russell, a little printer in Birmingham, was indicted for publishing the Political Litany[[414]] on which Hone was afterwards tried. He took his witnesses to the summer Warwick assizes, and was told that the indictment had been removed by certiorari into the King's Bench. He had notice of trial for the spring assizes at Warwick: he took his witnesses there, and the trial was postponed by the Crown. He then had notice for the summer assizes at Warwick; and so on. The policy seems to have been to wear out the obnoxious parties, either by delays or by heaping on trials. The Government was odious, and knew it could not get verdicts against ridicule, and could get verdicts against impiety. No difficulty was found in convicting the sellers of Paine's works, and the like. When Hone was held to bail it was seen that a crisis was at hand. All parties in politics furnished him with parodies in proof of religious persons having made instruments of them. The parodies by Addison and Luther were contributed by a Tory lawyer, who was afterwards a judge.
Hone had published, in 1817, tracts of purely political ridicule: Official Account of the Noble Lord's Bite,[[415]] Trial of the Dog for Biting the Noble Lord, etc. These were not touched. After the trials, it is manifest that Hone was
to be unassailed, do what he might. The Political House that Jack built, in 1819; The Man in the Moon, 1820; The Queen's Matrimonial Ladder, Non mi ricordo, The R—l Fowls, 1820; The Political Showman at Home, with plates by G. Cruickshank,[[416]] 1821 [he did all the plates]; The Spirit of Despotism, 1821—would have been legitimate marks for prosecution in previous years. The biting caricature of several of these works are remembered to this day. The Spirit of Despotism was a tract of 1795, of which a few copies had been privately circulated with great secrecy. Hone reprinted it, and prefixed the following address to "Robert Stewart, alias Lord Castlereagh"[[417]]: "It appears to me that if, unhappily, your counsels are allowed much longer to prevail in the Brunswick Cabinet, they will bring on a crisis, in which the king may be dethroned or the people enslaved. Experience has shown that the people will not be enslaved—the alternative is the affair of your employers." Hone might say this without notice.