Here, at times, were to be seen men of rank and mechanics, sitting in social converse; persons of ample fortune, and those completely ruined by the prosecutions of the Attorney-General. On one side was to be seen, perhaps, the learned Professor of an University, replete with Greek and Latin, and panting to display his learned lore, indignant at being obliged to chatter with his neighbour, a member of the Common Council, about city politics. Next to these would sit a man of letters and a banker, between whom it was difficult to settle the agio of conversation, the one being full of the present state of the money-market, the other bursting to display his knowledge of all books, except those of account alone!
Tooke took delight in praising his daughters, which he sometimes did by those equivocatory falsehoods which were one of his principal pleasures. Of the eldest he said, "All the beer brewed in this house is that young lady's brewing." It would have been equally true to say, all the hogs killed in this house were of that young lady's killing; for they brewed no beer. When a member of the Constitutional Society, he would frequently utter sentences, the first part of which would have subjected him to death by the law, but for the salvo that followed; and the more violent they were, thus contrasted and equivocatory, the greater was his triumph.
When Tooke was justifying to the Commissioners his return of income under 60l. a-year, one of those gentlemen, dissatisfied with the explanation, hastily said, "Mr. Tooke, I do not understand you." "Very possibly," replied the sarcastic citizen; "but as you have not half the understanding of other men, you should have double the patience."
Horne Tooke told Mr. Rogers that in his early days a friend gave him a letter of introduction to D'Alembert, at Paris. Dressed à-la-mode, he presented the letter, and was very courteously received by D'Alembert, who talked to him about operas, comedies, suppers, &c. Tooke had expected conversation on very different topics, and was greatly disappointed. When he took leave, he was followed by a gentleman in a plain suit, who had been in the room during his interview with D'Alembert, and who had perceived his chagrin. "D'Alembert," said the gentleman, "supposed from your gay apparel that you were merely a petit maître." The gentleman was David Hume. On his next visit to D'Alembert, Tooke's dress was altogether different, and so was the conversation.
Tooke's literal kind of wit—set off, as tradition recounts, by a courteous manner and by imperturbable coolness—is not ill shown in the following:—"'Power,' said Lord —— to Tooke, 'should follow property.' 'Very well,' he replied, 'then we will take the property from you, and the power shall follow it....'" "'Now, young man, as you are settled in town,' said my uncle, 'I would advise you to take a wife.' 'With all my heart, sir; whose wife shall I take?'" It is a trait of manners that the "Rev. Mr. Horne" must have been a young clergyman at the time of this conversation; he did not, as is well known, take the name of Tooke till a later period. We have a trace, too, of his philological acuteness in Mr. Rogers's Memorandum Book:—"An illiterate people are most tenacious of their language. In traffic, the seller learns that of the buyer before the buyer learns his. A bull in the field, when brought to town and cut up in the market, becomes bœuf, beef; a calf, veal; a sheep, mouton; a pig, pork;—because there the Norman purchased, and the seller soon learnt his terms; while the peasantry retained their own." It is not surprising that a sharp logical wit should be an acute interpreter of language.
In the year 1811, a most flagrant depredation was committed in Mr. Tooke's house at Wimbledon, by a collector of taxes, who daringly carried away a silver tea and sugar-caddy, the value of which amounted in weight in silver to at least twenty times more than the sum demanded, for a tax which Tooke declared he would never pay. Instructions were given to an attorney for replevying the goods; but the tax-collector, by the advice of a friend, returned the tea-caddy, and the man declaring he had a large family, Tooke treated him very kindly, and the matter was allowed to drop.
Mr. Tooke's health had been a long time before his decease in a declining state; but his humour and eccentricity remained in full force to the last; and even in the gripe of death his serenity never forsook him. While he was speechless and considered insensible, Sir Francis Burdett, who was present with a few more friends, prepared a cordial for him, which the medical attendants declared to be of no avail, but which the baronet persisted in offering, and raising up the patient for that purpose, when Mr. Tooke perceiving who offered the draught, drank it off with a smile, and in a few minutes expired, on March 18th, 1812, at his house at Wimbledon. He was put into a strong elm shell. The coffin was made from the heart of a solid oak, cut down for the purpose. It measured six feet one inch in length; in breadth at the shoulders, two feet two inches; depth at the head, two feet six inches; and the depth at the feet, two feet four inches. This great depth of coffin was necessary in consequence of the contraction of the body of the deceased.
A tomb had long been prepared for Mr. Tooke in his garden at Wimbledon, in which it was his desire to have been buried; but this, after his decease, being opposed by his daughters and an aunt of theirs, his remains were conveyed in a hearse and six to Ealing, in Middlesex; attended by three mourning-coaches, containing Sir Francis Burdett and several other political and literary friends. His remains were interred according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England, otherwise, it was his desire that no funeral service should be read over his body, but that six poor men should have a guinea each to bear him to the vault in his garden. He rests in a vault, inclosed with iron railings, and bearing this inscription:—"John Horne Tooke, late of Wimbledon, author of the Diversions of Purley, was born June, 1736, and died March 18th, 1812, contented and grateful."
[Mr. Canning's Humour.]
It has been sagaciously remarked in a paper in the National Review, No. 18, that "if Mr. Canning had not been a busy politician, he would probably have attained eminence as a writer. There must be extraordinary vitality in jokes and parodies, which after sixty or seventy years are almost as amusing as if their objects had not long since become obsolete." We propose to string together a few of these pleasantries, collected from the above and other authentic sources.