Tooke

took, John Horne (1736-1812), an English politician and wit. His father was a prosperous London dealer in poultry. When young Tooke was entered in an aristocratic school he thought proper to disguise this fact by speaking of his father as a "Turkey merchant." Against his inclination he was educated for the ministry. He held a small vicarage. His taste lay, however, in the direction of travel and in political writing for the newspapers. He was a violent opponent of the Tories. He represented a pocket borough in Parliament. He had many tilts with royal authority. He established the right of a newspaper to publish the proceedings of Parliament. He was noted for bright sayings which brought him not only fines but imprisonment. Among other incidents may be mentioned the circulation of a subscription paper to collect funds for the needy relatives of "the men murdered by the king's troops at Concord and Lexington." For this he was tried for treason, and was impoverished by a fine of $6,000. Many of his witty sayings have been preserved in the Table Talk of S. T. Coleridge.