Chapter XXXIII: Act III: 199, et seq

Pope gives a long note upon him.

‘_A monkey preacher._’ Hazlitt probably refers to the passage from
the _Dunciad_ referred to in the last note—

‘Oh worthy thou of Aegypt’s wise abodes,
A decent priest, where monkeys were the gods!’
III. 207–8.

‘_By the coinage_,’ _etc._ A composite quotation. Cf. ‘This is the
very coinage of your brain’ (_Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 4), and ‘A
false creation, proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain’
(_Macbeth_, Act II. Scene 1).

230. ‘_There’s magic in the web._’ _Othello_, Act III. Scene 4.

‘_By his so potent art_,’ _etc._ _The Tempest_, Act V. Scene 1.

‘_Now of the planetary_,’ _etc._ Cf.

‘And tell us whence the stars; why some are fix’d,
And planetary some.’
Cowper, _The Task_, Book III. 158.

‘_In the very storm_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act III. Scene 2.

230. ‘_To be admired_,’ _etc._ Cf.

‘Religion, if in heavenly truths attired,
Needs only to be seen to be admired.’
Cowper, _Expostulation_, 492–3.

231. _The late Mr. Horne Tooke._ Published originally in the _New
Monthly Magazine_ (1824, Vol. X. p. 246). Cf. _ante_, pp. 378
note and 389–390, and an essay ‘On the Diversions of Purley’
(_Literary Remains_).

‘_So is the London Tavern!_’ According to the usual version Horne
Tooke said: ‘So is the London Tavern—to those who can pay!’

_Sir Allan Gardiner._ Alan Gardner (1742–1809) the admiral,
created a baronet in 1794, represented Westminster from 1796
till 1806, when he was raised to the peerage as Lord Gardner of
Uttoxeter. Hazlitt refers to the general election of 1796 when
Horne Tooke unsuccessfully stood for Westminster against Fox and
Gardner.

232. ‘_The King’s Old Courtier_’ _etc._

‘Like an old courtier of the queen’s,
And the queen’s old courtier,’

is the burden of ‘The Old and Young Courtier.’ (See Percy’s
_Reliques_, ed. Wheatley, II. 315.)

‘_Lord of himself_,’ _etc._ ‘Lord of yourself, uncumbered with a
wife.’ Dryden, _Epistle to John Driden_, 18.

233. _He used to plague Fuseli_, _etc._ ‘He made strange havoc of
Fuseli’s fantastic hieroglyphics, violent humours, and oddity of
dialect.’ Hazlitt, ‘On the Conversation of Authors.’

_At G——‘s._ Godwin’s presumably.

_Young Betty’s acting._ William Henry West Betty (1791–1874), the
young Roscius, made his first appearance in 1803 at the age of
eleven, and finally retired from the stage in 1824. Many critics
declared that his acting was finer than Kemble’s, and Home said
that he had not seen his own creation of Douglas adequately
realised until he had seen Betty in the part. Cf. Hazlitt’s
essay on ‘On Patronage and Puffing’ in _Table-Talk_.

_A professed orator._ This was Coleridge. See Hazlitt’s Essay ‘On
the Conversation of Authors’ in _The Plain Speaker_, where Horne
Tooke’s conversational powers are described again.

235. ‘_Sacred vehemence._’ _Comus_, 795.

_Lord Camelford._ Thomas Pitt (1775–1804), second Lord Camelford,
duellist and naval commander.

_The only palpable hit_, _etc._ Hazlitt included in his _Eloquence
of the British Senate_ Horne Tooke’s speech (on the eligibility
of clergymen to sit in Parliament), in which this hit was made.
The reference in the note is to Letter LXVIII., to Lord
Chief-Justice Mansfield.

236. ‘_Native and endued_,’ _etc._ _Hamlet_, Act IV. Scene 7.

_His trial before Lord Kenyon._ In 1790 Horne Tooke unsuccessfully
contested Westminster against Fox and presented a petition to
the House of Commons complaining of the riotous conduct of the
electors. The House voted the petition ‘frivolous and
vexatious,’ and Fox brought an action against Horne Tooke to
recover the costs. An account of this action, which was tried by
Lord Kenyon, was published in 1792.

_His examination before the Commissioners of the Income-Tax._ See
Stephens’s _Life of John Horne Tooke_ (II. 157).

_The State Trials in 1794._ See _ante_, p. 211 note, and Hazlitt’s
_Memoirs of Thomas Holcroft_ (Vol. II. pp. 139 _et seq._). Home
Tooke was acquitted on Nov. 22, 1794.

236. _An intercepted letter._ See Stephens’s _Life of John Horne Tooke_
(II. 119). The letter related, not to a social invitation, but
to the preparation of a list of sinecures held by the
Grenvilles. The letter closed with these words: ‘Query, is it
possible to get ready by Thursday?’

237. _The celebrated philosopher of Malmesbury._ Thomas Hobbes
(1588–1679), born at Malmesbury.

_Fabellas aniles._ Horace, _Satires_, II. 6, 77–8.

_A hasty charge._ Junius accused Horne Tooke of having deserted
Wilkes in connection with the election of Sheriffs for the city
in 1771. See the Letters of Junius (1805, Vol. II. pp. 104 _et
seq._).

‘_Under him_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act. _III._ Scene 1.

_He comes off more shabbily_, _etc._ Sir Leslie Stephen takes a
different view and speaks of Horne Tooke as ‘the most successful
antagonist of his formidable enemy.’

238. Sir William Draper (1721–1787), who had commanded the expedition
against Manilla, involved himself in a controversy with Junius
by his defence of Lord Granby who was one of the persons
attacked in Junius’s first letter (21st Jan. 1769).

_His work on Grammar._ Part I. of Horne Tooke’s ‘Diversions of
Purley,’ appeared in 1786, another edition containing Part II.
in 1798–1805.

_The essence of it_, _etc._ The _Letter to Dunning_ was written
and published in 1778 when Horne Tooke was undergoing a term
of imprisonment in consequence of a resolution of the
Constitutional Society in favour of ‘our beloved American
fellow-subjects.’ The letter contained his reasoning on the
word _That_. Coleridge (_Table-Talk_, May 7, 1830) said: ‘All
that is worth anything (and that is but little) in the
Diversions of Purley is contained in a short pamphlet-letter
which he addressed to Mr. Dunning.’

_Mr. Harris’s Hermes._ The _Hermes, or a Philosophical Inquiry
concerning Universal Grammar_ of James Harris (1709–1780),
father of the first Earl of Malmesbury, was published in 1751.
Johnson said, ‘Harris, however, is a prig, and a bad prig. I
looked into his book, and thought he did not understand his own
system.’ (Boswell, _Life of Johnson_, ed. G. B. Hill, III. 245.)

239. ‘_Bear a charmed life_,’ _etc._ _Macbeth_, Act V. Scene 8.

‘_Palpable to feeling as to sight._’ Cf. ‘If ’tis not gross in
sense ... ’tis probable and palpable to thinking.’ _Othello_,