The results of Hone's trials (William Hone, 1779-1842) are among the
important constitutional victories of our century. He published parodies on
the Creeds, the Lord's Prayer, the Catechism, etc., with intent to bring
the Ministry into contempt: everybody knew that was his _purpose_. The
Government indicted him for impious, profane, blasphemous intent, but not
for seditious intent. They hoped to wear him out by proceeding day by day.
December 18, 1817, they hid themselves under the Lord's Prayer, the Creed,
and the Commandments; December 19, under the Litany; December 20, under the
Athanasian Creed, an odd place for shelter when they could not find it in
the previous places. Hone defended himself for six, seven, and eight hours
on the several days: and the jury acquitted him in 15, 105, and 20 minutes.
In the second trial the offense was laid both as profanity and as sedition,
which seems to have made the jury hesitate. And they probably came to think
that the second count was false pretence: but the length of their
deliberation is a satisfactory addition to the value of the whole. In the
first trial the Attorney-General (Shepherd) had the impudence to say that
the libel had nothing of a political tendency about it, but was _avowedly_
set off against the religion and worship of the Church of England. The
whole {181} is political in every sentence; neither more nor less political
than the following, which is part of the parody on the Catechism: "What is
thy duty towards the Minister? My duty towards the Minister is, to trust
him as much as I can; to honor him with all my words, with all my bows,
with all my scrapes, and with all my cringes; to flatter him; to give him
thanks; to give up my whole soul to him; to idolize his name, and obey his
word, and serve him blindly all the days of his political life." And the
parody on the Creed begins, "I believe in George, the Regent almighty,
maker of new streets and Knights of the Bath." This is what the
Attorney-General said had nothing of a political tendency about it. But
this was _on the first trial_: Hone was not known. The first day's trial
was under Justice Abbott (afterwards C. J. Tenterden).[405] It was
perfectly understood, when Chief Justice Ellenborough[406] appeared in
Court on the second day, that he was very angry at the first result, and
put his junior aside to try his own rougher dealing. But Hone tamed the
lion. An eye-witness told me that when he implored of Hone not to detail
his own father Bishop Law's[407] views on the Athanasian Creed, which
humble petition Hone kindly granted, he held by the desk for support. And
the same when--which is not reported--the Attorney-General appealed to the
Court for protection against a {182} 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 L105. 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:
{183} 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,
L1 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, L1 16s.--A
conscientious attorney, L1 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 {184} 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 {185} 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 {186} 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.
In 1819 Mr. Murray[418] published Lord Byron's _Don Juan_,[419] and Hone
followed it with _Don John, or Don Juan Unmasked_, a little account of what
the publisher to the Admiralty was allowed to issue without prosecution.
The parody on the Commandments was a case very much in point: and Hone
makes a stinging allusion to the use of the "_unutterable Name_, with a
profane levity unsurpassed by {187} any other two lines in the English
language." The lines are
"'Tis strange--the Hebrew noun which means 'I am,'
The English always use to govern d----n."
Hone ends with: "Lord Byron's dedication of 'Don Juan' to Lord Castlereagh
was suppressed by Mr. Murray from delicacy to Ministers. Q. Why did not Mr.
Murray suppress Lord Byron's _parody_ on the Ten Commandments? _A._ Because
it contains nothing in ridicule of Ministers, and therefore nothing that
_they_ could suppose would lead to the displeasure of Almighty God."
The little matters on which I have dwelt will never appear in history from
their political importance, except in a few words of result. As a mode of
thought, silly evasions of all kinds belong to such a work as the present.
Ignorance, which seats itself in the chair of knowledge, is a mother of
revolutions in politics, and of unread pamphlets in circle-squaring. From
1815 to 1830 the question of revolution or no revolution lurked in all our
English discussions. The high classes must govern; the high classes shall
not govern; and thereupon issue was to be joined. In 1828-33 the question
came to issue; and it was, Revolution with or without civil war; choose.
The choice was wisely made; and the Reform Bill started a new system so
well dovetailed into the old that the joinings are hardly visible. And now,
in 1867, the thing is repeated with a marked subsidence of symptoms; and
the party which has taken the place of the extinct Tories is carrying
through Parliament a wider extension of the franchise than their opponents
would have ventured. Napoleon used to say that a decided nose was a sign of
power: on which it has been remarked that he had good reason to say so
before the play was done. And so had our country; it was saved from a
religious war, and from a civil war, by the power of that nose over its
colleagues. {188}