his biographers, Stephens and W. H. Reed, Horne both suggested the publication of the debates which led to the famous struggle between the House of Commons and the city authorities [see under Crosby, Brass] and prompted the course of action adopted by Wilkes, Crosby, and Oliver. Whether Horne was really at the bottom of this affair may be doubtful. In any case, the credit went to the more conspicuous actors. By this time he had sufficiently destroyed any chances of church preferment, and had lost his popularity as a politician. He had, however, shown his abilities in legal warfare, and resolved to be called to the bar. Some of his city friends guaranteed him an annuity of 400l. until he should be called; but, though he accepted their promise, he never took the money. In 1773 he resigned his living, but continued to live in the neighbourhood of Brentford, and, besides continuing his legal studies, began to take up philology.
One of his political supporters, William Tooke, had bought an estate at Purley, near Croydon. In 1774 an enclosure bill had been brought into the House of Commons which affected Tooke's interests at this place. Finding that it would probably be passed, he applied to Horne for help. Horne thought that a direct opposition was too late to succeed, but suggested another scheme. He wrote a violent attack in the ‘Public Advertiser’ upon the speaker (Sir Fletcher Norton), attributing to him the grossest partiality in regard to the treatment of petitions in this case, and charging him with ‘wilful falsehood and premeditated trick.’ The house summoned the printer, Woodfall, to the bar, and, upon his giving up Horne's name, summoned Horne himself. Horne declined to inculpate himself, and the evidence of his authorship was held to be insufficient. After some sharp debates both printer and author escaped. Horne was discharged from custody, and Woodfall set free after a few days' imprisonment. Meanwhile sufficient notice had been attracted to the ‘obnoxious clauses’ of the enclosure bill, and they were withdrawn (Parl. Hist. xvii. 1006–50, where Horne's letter against the speaker is printed). Fox in these debates took a strong part against Horne, and is said to have incurred his lasting dislike.
The Wilkes agitation was dying out, but the Constitutional Society had continued its meetings and found a new opportunity. On 7 June 1775 some of the members passed a resolution which was published in the newspapers. It directed that a subscription should be raised on behalf of ‘our beloved American fellow subjects’ who had ‘preferred death to slavery,’ and ‘were for that reason only inhumanly murdered by the king's troops’ at the Lexington skirmish (19 April 1775). Horne was to pay the money to Franklin. No notice was immediately taken, but in 1776 some of the printers of the newspapers were fined, and in the next year Horne was himself tried before Lord Mansfield (4 July 1777). Horne defended himself, as usual, with immense vigour and pertinacity, disputing points of law, referring to his former victory over Mansfield, and justifying the assertions in the advertisement. He was, however, convicted, and afterwards sentenced to a fine of 200l. and imprisonment for a year. In 1778 he brought a writ of error in parliament, but the judgment was finally affirmed.
Horne was now confined in the king's bench prison. He was allowed to occupy a house ‘within the rules,’ was visited by his political friends, and had a weekly dinner with them at the ‘Dog and Duck.’ While imprisoned he published a ‘Letter to Dunning’ (dated 21 April 1778), which had a curious relation to his studies. The question had arisen during his trial whether the words ‘She, knowing that Crooke had been indicted, did so and so,’ must be taken as an averment that Crooke had been indicted. Horne argued that the phrase was equivalent to the two propositions, ‘Crooke had been indicted,’ ‘She knowing that, did so and so.’ The argument led to theories about the grammar of conjunctions and prepositions, afterwards expounded at greater length in his chief work. ‘All that is worth anything in the “Diversions of Purley,”’ said Coleridge (Table Talk, 7 May 1830), ‘is contained in’ this pamphlet. It certainly gives Tooke's characteristic doctrine.
Tooke attributed the gout, from which he suffered ever afterwards, to the claret which he drank in the prison, and which had, on the other hand, cured him of the ‘jail-distemper.’ He hoped after his discharge to be called to the bar, and had many promises of briefs. He applied in Trinity term 1779, but was rejected on the ground of his being still in orders by a vote of eight against three benchers of the Inner Temple. The benchers of the other inns expressed their approval of his exclusion. He renewed the attempt in 1782, when the influence of Lord Shelburne, then prime minister, was supposed to be favourable. Shelburne appears to have taken the other side, and, in any case, the application was rejected by a majority of one. In 1794 his name was again among the candidates, but no bencher moved for his call
