WHEN Horne Tooke was at school, the boys asked him "what his father
was?" Tooke answered, "A Turkey merchant." (He was a poulterer.)
He once said to his brother, a pompous man, "You and I have reversed the
natural course of things; you have risen by your gravity; I have sunk by
my levity."
To Judge Ashhurst's remark, that the law was open to all, both to the
rich and to the poor, Tooke replied, "So is the London tavern."
He said that Hume wrote his history, as witches say their
prayers--backwards.