Hone, William

Hone, William An Independent minister, whose father is said to have been an occasional preacher among the Dissenters, was born in 1779 at Bath. He was brought up in rigid religious notions, and in his early years not suffered to read out of any other book than the Bible. At the age of ten he was apprenticed to an attorney, but he finally quitted the law, and became a bookseller in London in 1800. He devoted himself at the same time to the study of literature, and wrote several works on that subject. In 1823 he published a work entitled Ancient Mysteries described, especially the English Miracle Plays, founded on the apocryphal N.T. Storyn extant among the unpublished MSS. in the British Museum, etc. (8vo). "This is a curious work, not at all addressed to the multitude, or chargeable with any irreverence of design or manner, but treating an interesting antiquarian subject in the dispassionate style of a studious inquirer." His acquaintance with members of the "Independents" led him to join the Independent Church, and finally he became a minister of that society. He died Nov. 6, 1842. Hone also published The Apocryphal N.T. (London 1820, 8vo; 4th ed. 1821), for an account of which see Horne, Introduction to the Study of the Script., and London Quart. Rev. vol. 25 and 30. See his Early Life and Conversion (1841, 8vo); English Cyclopaedia; Darling, Cyclop. Bibliog. 1, 1525; Allibone, Dict. of Authors, 1, 874. (J.H.W.)