In 1790 Mr. Home Tooke opposed Mr. Fox and Lord Hood as a candidate for Westminster, and he polled 1700 independent votes. In 1794 he was tried for high treason and acquitted, as we have al ready seen in our history of BRITAIN, Vol. IV. p. 640.
In 1796 Mr. Horne again became a candidate for Westminster, and polled 2819 votes; and in 1801 he took his seat in the House of Commons as member for Old Sarum, in the gift of Lord Camelford. A question arose whether a clergyman could sit in the house; but Mr. Addington brought in a bill to de termine the future ineligibility of clergymen, and Mr. Tooke retained his seat till the dissolution of the parliament.
In 1802 he published the second part of his Diver sions of Purley, which relates principally to etymol ogy, and to the formation of adjectives and par ticiples.
His last political act was his support of Mr. Paul as candidate for Westminster, but he afterwards saw reason to abandon him.
The last years of Mr. Tooke's life were spent in easy circumstances, and in a select circle of friends, whom he entertained with great hospitality at Wimbledon, where lie died in March 1812, in the 77th year of his age. He was buried in Ealing church, and not in his garden, as he directed, and his property was left to his natural daughters.
Mr. Tooke was remarkable for the wit and viva city of his conversation, and for the grace, frankness, and dignity of his manners.t His fund of anecdote was inexhaustible, his sense of the ridiculous was keen, and his powers of raillery formidable. In the bodily suffering which preceded his death, he dis played great composure, and even cheerfulness, and he exhibited as has been well observed, in his last hours, a " manly spirit and a practical philosophy, which if they had been brought to bear upon his moral as well as upon his physical condition, if they had been employed with as much effect in reconcil ing him to his political exclusion as to his bodily sufferings, might have produced, not the very im perfect character we have been attempting to de lineate, in which the unfavourable traits bear a lar ger proportion to those of a nobler and more benign cast, but the venerable portrait of a truly wise and virtuous man." Sec Reid's Memoirs, Svo. Lond. 1812, Shepherd's .Menzoirs of John. Horne Tooke, 2 vols. Svo. Lond. 181S. This work contains many of his letters. Quarterly Review, Vol. vii. No. xi v. and Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary, vol. xxix.