HORNE, George (1730–1792), bishop of Norwich, was born on November 1, 1730, at Otham near Maidstone, where his father was a clergyman, and received his early education at the Maidstone school, whence he proceeded to University College, Oxford. In 1749 he became a fellow of Magdalen College, of which in 1768 he was appointed president. As a preacher he early attained great popu larity ; and his reputation was further helped by several clever if somewhat wrong headed publications, including a satirical pamphlet entitled The Theology and Philosophy of Cicero s Soinnium Scipionis (1751), a defence of the Hutchinsonians in A Fair, Candid, and Imparti d State of the Case between Sir Isaac Newton and Mr Hutchinson (1753), and critiques upon Dr Shuckford (1754) and Dr Kennicott (1760). In 1776 he published his well-known Commentary on the Book of Psalms, and in the same year he was chosen vice-chancellor of his university; in 1781 he was made dean of Canterbury, and in 1790 he was raised to the see of Norwich, which, however, he held for less than two years. He died at Bath January 17, 1792.
His collected Works were first published, with a Memoir by one of his chaplains (Jones), in 1795. There have been several subsequent editions, the latest being that of 1830. The most popular and also the best of his writings, the Commentary on the Psalms, has been still more frequently reprinted, occasionally along with an essay by James Montgomery, or with a mueli more remarkable discourse by Edward Irving.
HORNE, Thomas Hartwell (1780–1862), a well- known writer on Biblical introduction, was born in London on October 20, 1780, and from 1789-95 was educated at Christ s Hospital, where Coleridge was an elder contem porary. On leaving school, his circumstances not permitting him to proceed to the university, he became clerk to barrister, but early manifested an unconquerable passion for literary pursuits. When barely twenty years of age he published (1800) A Brief View of the. Necessity and Truth of the Christian Revelation, which reached a second edition in 1802. In the years immediately following he became the author of several minor works, and in 1814, having been appointed librarian of the Surrey Institution, he issued his Introduction to the Study of Bibliography. This was followed in 1818 by the work to which he had devoted the best part of many years, the Introduction to the Critical Study of the Holy Scriptures, which rapidly attained a rare popularity, and secured for its author a high and secure place among contemporary scholars. In 1819 he received ordination from the bishop of London, although unpossessed of the customary university degree, and some time afterwards he was appointed to the cure of the united parishes of St Edmund the King and St Nicolas Aeons i-i Lo-ichm. On the breaking up of the Surrey Institution in Ic 23, he wa:; appointed (1824) to superintend the classi fication and publication of the British Museum Catalogue. After the project of making a classed catalogue had been abandoned, he continued to take part in the preparation of the alphabetical catalogue, and his connexion with the museum continued to subsist until 1861, when his infirmi ties caused him to resign. He died in London on January 26, 1862.
Besides the works already mentioned Home wrote numerous others of secondary importance, winch, as catalogued in Allibone s Dictionary by himself, exceed forty in number. The Introduction, edited by Ayre and Tregelles, reached a 12th edition in 1869 (4 vols. 8vo) ; but, owing to the recent rapid advances of critical science, it is now somewhat out of date.
HORNELLSVILLE, a township and post village of Steuben county, New York, is situated on the Canisteo river and on the Erie Railway, 90 miles south-east of Buffalo. It is well supplied with schools and churches, and possesses planing-mills, tanneries, and factories for sashes and blinds, furniture, cars, mowing-machines, and b.iots and shoes. The population was 5639 in 1870, and 9852 in 1880.
HORNER, Francis (1778–1817), political economist, was born at Edinburgh, August 12th, 1778. After passing through the usual courses at the high school and university of his native city, he devoted five years, the first two in England, to comprehensive but desultory study, and in 1800 was called to the Scotch bar. Desirous, however, of a wider sphere, Homer removed to London in 1802, and occupied the interval that elapsed before 1m admission to the English bar in 1807 with researches in law, philosophy, and political economy, and latterly with parliamentary duties. In February 1806 he became one of the commis sioners for adjusting the claims against the nawab of Arcot, and in November entered parliament as member for St Ives. Next year he sat for Wendover, and in 1812 for St Mawes, in the patronage of the marquis of Buckingham. In 1811, when Lord Grenville was organizing a prospective ministry, Homer had the offer, which he refused, of a treasury secretaryship. He had resolved not to accept office till he could afford to live out of office ; and his pro fessional income, on which he depended, was at no time proportionate to his abilities. His labours at last began to tell upon a constitution never robust, and in October 1816 his physicians ordered him to Italy, where, however, he sank under his malady. He died at Pisa, February 8, 1817. He was buried at Leghorn, and a marble statue by Chantrey was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey.
Without the advantages of rank, or wealth, or even of genius, Francis Homer rose to a high position of public influence and private esteem. The speeches in the House of Commons on the occasion of moving for a new writ for St Mawes combine with the letters of private friends in testifying to the respect and honour commanded by his integrity and wide and cultured intellect, and to the affection won by his sweet and noble disposition, as well as to the general regret for the untimely death of one who gave promise of such abilities as a statesman. The early friend of Brougham and Jeffrey in Edinburgh, and wel comed in London by Romilly, Mackintosh, Abercromby, and Lord Holland, Homer was by sincere conviction a Whig. His special field was political economy. Master of that subject, and exercising a sort of moral as well as intellectual influence over the House of Commons, he, by his nervous and earnest rather than eloquent style of speaking, could fix its attention for hours on such dry topics as finance, and coinage, and currency. As chair man of the parliamentary committee for investigating the depreciation of bank notes, for which he moved in 1810, he extended and confirmed his fame as a political economist by his share in the famous Bullion Report. It was chiefly through his efforts that the paper-issue of the English banks was checked, and gold and silver reinstated in their true position as circulating media; and his views on free trade and commerce have been generally accepted at tlieir really high value. Homer was one of the promoters of the Edinburgh Review in 1802. His articles in the early numbers of that publication, chiefly on political economy, form his only literary legacy.
Memoirs and Correspondence of Francis Horncr, M.T., was pub lished by his brother in 1843. See also the Edinburgh and Quar terly lievicivs for the same year ; and Blackwood a Magazine, vol. i.
HORNET. See Wasp.
