For publication in the Hone Correspondence section of the William Hone BioText, http://honearchive.org. The letter is published under a Creative Commons license, details of which are accessible from the BioText homepage.
Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. Shelfmark: UP 263.
I can pretty well imagine the vexation you will feel on reading Mr. Bray's letter in this day's Times,well said after calm and
patient thinking. Unfortunately too
It appears to me that Mr. Bray has been precipitate, to say the least, and I know not whether because he was Lady Evelyn's Solicitor, that he is the conservator, therefore, of a fame, that I never heard she possessed, for knowledge or discretion in matters of that sort—besides, I think that the feelings and the honor of the living Mr. Upcott are not to be sported with, for the sake of writing up, as on a church monument, the pseudo-truth of dead Lady Evelyn's exceeding regard for everything belonging to her great ancestor.
For the fool who threw the paragraph into the well, and I doubt whether anything can be done
effectually through a Journal—or any how.
I hope you will look at my intrusion as that of a friend, at a moment when advice, and advice only, can be offered — and on a subject wherein that only can be serviceable.