Epea Pteroenta, or The Diversions of Purley
by John Horne Tooke
| The Diversions of Purley | ||
 at the College of William & Mary. |
||
| Author | John Horne Tooke | |
| Published | London: Printed for J. Johnson | |
| Date | 1786 | |
John Horne Tooke (1736-1812) was born John Horne, later taking the additional surname of his benefactor, William Tooke.[1] He was a radical, English politician, supporter of parliamentary reform,[2] and ardent supporter of Americans in the Revolutionary war against Britain.[3] He assisted radical, John Wilkes in establishing the Society for the Supporter of the Bill of Rights, but formed his own Constitutional society in 1771 in furtherance of his political goals.[4] He was imprisoned for seditious libel due to his outspoken support of the American colonists in 1778.[5] He was charged with high treason in 1794, but was acquitted by a London jury.[6] In 1801, after the end of the radical movement, John Horne Took secured a seat in Parliament.[7]
Horne Tooke frequently spent time with his benefactor, William Tooke, at William Tooke’s estate at Purley.[8] Horne Tooke commemorated their friendship in the title of his book, Epea Ptepoenta, or The Diversions of Purley.[9] Part I, published in 1782, was stylized as fictional conversations between Horne Tooke, William Tooke, and Richard Beadon.[10] Those conversations consisted of Horne Tooke providing philosophical answers to the questions posed by the other gentlemen.[11] The Diversions of Purley also included "satire, humor, mind puzzles, and personal jabs at others."[12] The book was received favorably and established Horne Tooke’s literary reputation.[13] Ultimately, Horne Tooke lost the inheritance of his benefactor over disagreements between the two.[14] He was able to support himself with a settlement of a portion of his benefactor’s estate, as well as through the publication of The Diversion of Purley , Part II.[15]
Evidence for Inclusion in Wythe's Library
Listed in the Jefferson Inventory of Wythe's Library as "Tooke's Diversions of Purley 8vo." and given by Thomas Jefferson to his grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph. Both George Wythe's Library[16] on LibraryThing and the Brown Bibliography[17] list the first edition, a 1786 octavo published in London. It may be that no other octavo editions were published in Wythe's lifetime.
The Wolf Law Library has been unable to find and purchase a copy of the 1786 edition of Epea Pteroenta.
Citations from Wythe's Reports
Devisme v. Martin
Wythe does not specifically quote Epea Pteroenta, but in Devisme v. Martin, Wythe 298 (1794),[18] he alludes to a passage from the dialogue "Of the Noun": "Reason is an arrant despot; who, in his own dominions, admits of no authority but his own."[19] Wythe makes the allusion as a defense for his presumption in disagreeing with a decision from the English Court of Common Pleas:
The writer of these notes, differing in this point with three capital english judges, is aware, that he will be regarded with a fastidious eye by men, whose veneration for the westmonasterian oracles is equal to the veneration of the antients for the dodonaean and delphic oracles; but, when he has reason, the only despot,* to which he professeth unconditional submission, on his side, he will venture to differ with any man. *John Horne Tooke[20]
See also
References
- ↑ http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/599409/John-Horne-Tooke, accessed April 23, 2015.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ http://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php/Tooke,_John_Horne, accessed April 23, 2015.
- ↑ http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/599409/John-Horne-Tooke.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ http://www.historyhome.co.uk/people/horne-t.htm, accessed April 23, 2015.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ http://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php/Tooke,_John_Horne
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ http://www.historyhome.co.uk/people/horne-t.htm
- ↑ http://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php/Tooke,_John_Horne
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ LibraryThing, s.v. "Member: George Wythe," accessed on August 22, 2023.
- ↑ Bennie Brown, "The Library of George Wythe of Williamsburg and Richmond," (unpublished manuscript, May, 2012) Microsoft Word file. Earlier edition available at: https://digitalarchive.wm.edu/handle/10288/13433.
- ↑ George Wythe, Decisions of Cases in Virginia by the High Court of Chancery with Remarks upon Decrees by the Court of Appeals, Reversing Some of Those Decisions, 2nd ed., ed. B.B. Minor (Richmond: J.W. Randolph, 1852): 298.
- ↑ John Horne Tooke, Epea Pteroenta, or, The Diversions of Purley (London: Printed for J. Johnson, 1786), 75.
- ↑ Wythe 300.
