Note 40 — CHARACTER OF MR. CANNING
Reading edition
We have said nothing here of the impiety of Mr. Canning’s parodies, though a great deal has been said of the impiety of Mr. Hone’s, which unfortunately happen to be on the other side of the question. It is true that one man may steal a horse sooner than another can look over a hedge. Mr. Hone is not a Cabinet Minister, and therefore is not allowed to take liberties with the Liturgy. It is to no purpose to urge that Mr. Hone is a very good-natured man, that he is mild and inoffensive in his manners, that he is utterly void of guile, with a great deal of sincere piety, and that his greatest vice is that he is fond of a joke, and given to black-letter reading. The answer is—‘But he has written parodies’—and it is to no purpose to reply—So has Mr. Canning! He is a Cabinet Minister, and therefore incapable of any thing vulgar or profane. One would think that the triumphant question put by Mr. Hone to his Jury, ‘Whether Mr. Jekyll’s Parody on Black-eyed Susan was meant to ridicule Sir William Curtis or the Ballad of Black-eyed Susan?’ would have put an end for ever to the cant on this subject, if reason could put an end to cant on any subject. The fate of different men is curious. Mr. Canning, who has all his life been defending the most odious and mischievous men and measures, passes, on that very account, for a most amiable character and an accomplished statesman. Mr. Hone, who defended himself against a charge of blasphemy for a parody on the Church Service of which Mr. Canning had furnished him with a precedent, rose from the attack by the force of good-nature, and by that noble spirit of freedom and honesty in which to be unjustly accused is to be superior to all fear, and to speak truth is to be eloquent—but that he did not suffer himself to be crushed to atoms, and made a willing sacrifice to the prejudice, talent, and authority arrayed against him, is a resistance to the opinions of the world and the insolence of power, that can never be overlooked or forgiven.
‘A wit’s a feather, and a chief’s a rod:
An honest man’s the noblest work of God!’