HONEST TOM HARDY.
The funeral of this worthy man took place on Thursday. The funeral of a man in Hardy's humble rank of life, and who for many years had been in a great measure hidden from the public eye, offered little to flatter the vanity of the idle. The attendance was in consequence thin. Sir Francis Burdett sent his carriage ; he himself remained at home. He had contributed to Hardy's support, and perhaps he thought that enough. Sir John Hobliouse neither came nor sent. Official etiquette, we suppose, forbade. Mr. Hume had an engagement with the Hammersmith electors, and could not come. Of the National Union there was a respectable number present. Old Mr. Thelwall was also there, and the Rev. Mr. Fox. The procession, however, as all processions got up in honour of the poor, in money. adoring England, was a failure. The deceased, who was as humble-minded as he was honest, wished his remains to be interred according to the forms of the Church of which he was a member—to be committed to the earth without ceremony or show. It would have been as well had his wish been complied with. Part of the procession, consisting of the hearse and mourning coaches, with Mr. Hardy's private friends, assembled at Pimlico ; the remainder joined at Charing Cross. The whole then proceeded down the Strand and Fleet Street, and through the Old Bailey, St. Martin's-le-Grand, and Old Street, to Bunhill burying-ground. In a few instances in the line of the procession, the shopkeepers .paid a tribute of passing re- spect, by putting up their shutters ; in St. Luke's, where the people are Poorer, and have more leisure and opportunity for the feelings of humanity, this tribute was very generally paid. The burial service was read by the Rev. Dr. Rice, himself a zealous Reformer ; and after the service, Mr. Thelwall addressed the crowd that surrounded the grave, on the history and merits of his old companion and friend. Mr. Thel- wall was in his early days esteemed no mean orator, and his, speech on the present occasion was not unworthy of his former fame. We give the exordium-...
"The ordinary condition of humanity," said Mr. Thelwall, "calls, my countrymen, for no other particular notice of those who have departed this world than that sacred and serious ceremony which hath already passed ,• but there appear now and then, on the face • of the-globe, particular individuals Placed under particular circumstances, who demand a more especial and parti- cular notice. Among such, those who have been illustrious for their virtues, j their patriotic devotion to the welfare of their fellow-beings, ought to stand ! forward the most conspicuous. There is a nobility of birth and station ; there j is a higher nobility of Intellect ; there is a nobility yet higher, of strong moral I principle, which, attaching itself to the welfare and happiness of mankind, la- bours for the general benefit and the promotion of the great interests of the hue man species. In this point of view, may worthy colleague who has now de- parted this world, and whose remains we have now seen deposited, deserves our especial attention. Though not standing foremost in splendour of talent and genius, he stood foremost in what is much better than high endowments of intellect—in honest principle, and a firm determination to do the utmost. in his pawer to promote the interest of his fellow-men. He was the firstsower of that seed of which I hope we are now about to reap the fruit and public advan- tage." The life of Hardy, with the exception of its crowning incident, was of an even and humble tenor. That exception was the formation of the Corresponding Society, of which Hardy was the founder and Secretary, and wrlich, in Tact, originated in his little shop ; and the - trial for high treason to which it led. Poor Hardy, as the chief offender against the orthodoxy of Toryism, whirls was then in its glory, AVIS 1110,1: brutally treated. He was dragged from his home without a moment's warning ; his house was ransacked ; his books were seized by the lower, and a deadly and determined set made against his life by the higher ruffians of authority. The attempt at legalized murder was • defeated by the plain sense of the Jury, which enabled them to burst throw-is the meshes of sophistry by which the Crown lawyers would fain have mystified it ; but in their other plans the Government of the Heaven-born Minister had all the satisfaction that success could pro- cure for them. Hardy's business was ruined ; his wife died of a broken heart ; his prospects were blasted for life ; he came forth from the hands of his enemies with no possession but his sterling honesty, and that humble piety of which he offered through life a remarkable and edi- fying example. The first journey of the oppressed patriot, on his re- lease from bondage, was to the Churchyard of St. Martin's, where the remains of his wife were deposited, to embrace in the agony of his spirit the cold turf that covered them. His grief at the loss of an affectionate partner, in which all his other losses were swallowed up, for some time threatened his life. When he at length recovered, he again began business, with moderate success. His savings, when he retired, a good many years ago, were, he supposed, sufficient for his support, and that of a sister who attended to his household matters : but he had ads-. calculated—the trifle of fortune that he carried to Pimlico was soon. exhausted, and for several years he was indebted for the necessaries of life to time subscriptions of a few friends. The sum thus subscribed was 1201. per annum ; a large portion of it was subscribed by Sir F. Burdett. Hardy's celebrated trial lasted no less than nine days ! His crime was Reform ; and for that crime, Pitt, the early disciple of Reform, would have devoted his head to the axe of the hangman, and gloated over it. Among those who figured as Hardy's prosecutors, one is still alive. Of that personage, who will have an array to follow his re- mains, when the grave claims its own, of a very different character from that which on Thursday followed the remains of Thomas Hardy, Mr. Thelwall gave, in his funeral oration, an anecdote of a very character- istic kind— The proper returning officer at that time—the Deputy-Sheriff or Second- ary—was named Burchell. He was about to tell them a story which was told. by Burchell's own mouth, to his brother-in-law, the late John Holt, of the Chancery bar. Burchell told Mr. Holt, that not being found sufficiently pliant in the selection of the Jury, " Old Conscience," as he was now called, took the Jury-book out of the hands of the proper officer, whose duty it was to make the selection, according to the law at that time, and carried it to his own chamber, and there, in dark and secret divan, picked out such men as he thought might be depended on for hanging the prisoners guilty or not guilty. Fortunately his ignorance equalled his zeal. He certainty placed on the panel many men on whom he might have depended—some of them were now dead— others had left that part of the country; but he could not prevent many honest men from getting on also. 'The country became alarmed ; and the result was that three successive Juries returned verdicts of acquittal. Could the Govern- ment have hanged the twelve men then tried, the fate of hundreds and thou- sands would have been sealed ; for thousands of persons in every station in life —persons of high respectability, even in the world's eye—men amongst the most opulent ot the manufacturing, commercial, and professional interests— had done every thing which they had done, and stood precisely in a similar situation. It was an ascertained fact, that warrants were signed to arrest six hundred persons in various parts of the country, if Government could have suc- ceeded in destroying the twelve whom they placed in the foremost rank.
Hardy has left behind him a memoir of his life. The greater part was written ninny years ago, and the last proof-sheet (for it is in course of publication) received his revising touches a few days before his
death. As an expose of the character of a party, which some people would fain see restored to present power, at a period when their prin-
ciples were receiving their full development unobstructed by the opposition of others or their own remorse, it will be a valuable docu- ment. The real Tory is not changed, though he has been chained, and muzzled, and starved : we have only to give him liberty and food, and we shall soon see him rioting as ruthlessly as he did forty years ago. Mr. Hardy was, a Scotchman by birth, a strict Presbyterian in creed, and for many years a member of Crown Court Chapel.
When the late clergyman of that congregation some months ago paid him a visit, Hardy pointed his attention to a portrait of Paine thathung in his little sitting-room—" I admire him," said he, not for his Age of Reason, as you may well believe, but for his Rights of Man." Hardy was in his eighty-second year when he died. On the last French Revolution, the old man who had signed a congratulatory address to the first Convention, could not refrain from addressing Lafayette on the consummation of reform in France, and its near approach in Eng- land. His letter and Lafayette's answer have been published in the Daily Papers.
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