HOPE, THOMAS (1770-1831).—­Novelist and writer on art, was a wealthy merchant of Amsterdam, of Scotch descent, his family having emigrated to Holland in the 17th century.  In early life he spent much time in travel, studying architecture, and collecting objects of art.  Returning, he settled in London, and occupied himself in arranging his vast collections.  In 1807 he pub. a work on Household Furniture and Decoration, which had a great effect in improving the public taste in such matters.  This was followed by two magnificent works, On the Costume of the Ancients (1809), and Designs of Modern Costumes (1812).  Up to this time his reputation had been somewhat that of a transcendent upholsterer, but in 1819 he astonished the literary world by his novel, Anastasius; or, Memoirs of a Modern Greek, a work full of imagination, descriptive power, and knowledge of the world.  This book, which was pub. anonymously, was attributed to Byron, and only credited to the author on his avowing it in Blackwood’s Magazine.  H. also wrote a treatise on the Origin and Prospects of Man, and Essays on Architecture.  He was a munificent and discerning patron of rising artists.

HORNE, RICHARD HENRY or HENGIST (1803-1884).—­Eccentric poet, was b. in London, and ed. at Sandhurst for the East India Company Service, but failed to get a nomination.  After a youth of adventure, partly in the Mexican Navy, he returned to England, and began in 1828 a highly combative literary career with a poem, Hecatompylos, in the Athenaeum.  His next appearance, The False Medium (1833), an exposition of the obstacles thrown in the way of “men of genius” by literary middlemen, raised a nest of hornets; and Orion, an “epic poem,” pub. 1843 at the price of one farthing, followed.  His plays, which include Cosmo de Medici (1837), The Death of Marlowe (1837), and Judas Iscariot, did not add greatly to his reputation.  In The New Spirit of the Age (1844), he had the assistance of Mrs. Browning.  Though a writer of talent, he was not a poet.

HORNE, THOMAS HARTWELL (1780-1862).—­Theologian, ed. at Christ’s Hospital, was for a time in the law, but became a great biblical scholar, and in 1818 pub. Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures (1818), in consideration of which he was admitted to orders without the usual preliminaries, and in 1833 obtained a benefice in London and a prebend in St. Paul’s, and was senior assistant in the printed books department of the British Museum (1824-60).  He wrote an Introduction to the Study of Bibliography (1814), and various other works, but he is chiefly remembered in connection with that first mentioned, which was frequently reprinted, and was very widely used as a text-book both at home and in America.