Page:Eight Friends of the Great - WP Courtney.djvu/87

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THE REVD. JOHN WARNER, D.D.
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thus particular in order to shorten an Odious correspondence of which we ought all to be ashamed." A drawing of the Doctor hung on the wall of one of the parlours in Home Tooke's house at Wimbledon. In his life- time Warner had given a very handsome sum as a subscrip- tion for the publication of the " Diversions of Purley," and he did not forget, when dying, the patriot and philologer with whom he had spent many happy hours. He left "to my very old friend, John Home Tooke, the use of my Tankard at his cheerful board during his life " as well as a mourning ring. If the youth whom Warner had designated as his heir died before the age of 25, Tooke was to receive the substantial bequest of £500 but " if my old friend should go over to the majority before me, his £500 is to be divided between Miss Hart and her sister Charlotte." This was the wording of Warner's will dated four days before his death. Major Cartwright, the prominent reformer, was the recipient of another ring, and one of the Doctor's last literary productions was the memoir of him which appeared in the volume of " Public Characters " for 1799- 1800. Warner's death was due to his fellow-feeling with a politician who had suffered for his opinions. Benjamin Flower, the editor of the "Cambridge intelligencer," a paper which was conspicuous in denouncing the folly of the governing class in 1799, had been imprisoned by the House of Lords in Newgate for an alleged libel upon bishop Watson. The proceedings, says Dr. Garnett ninety years later, had been " of a very arbitrary nature." He married soon after his release a lady who had been herself a martyr for her politics, and Warner caught cold in carrying out his promise of officiating at the ceremony. After a few days' illness " and preserving his recollection and calmness to the last," he died at his house, 14 S c John's Square, Clerkenwell, on the 22nd of January 1800 and was buried F 2