UAB

English

Withdrawn from the Press,
A Letter to the Solicitor-General

[1780-1818] - [1818-1824] - [1825-1832] - [1832-1842] - Hone Correspondence

Withdrawn from the Press,
A Letter to the Solicitor-General
25 December, 1819.1-TEI-

Since the announcement of this Publication, the attack of the Solicitor-General2 upon the Juries of my Country has drawn down upon that Gentleman, within the walls of Parliament, such deserved animadversions as to render superfluous any interference on my part. Two years have elapsed since I broke away from the toils; and it seems the escape of the destined victim is never to be forgiven! The cause of which the Solicitor-General is unexpectedly the gratuitous advocate, has taken appropriate refuge in the snug precincts of Gatton. There let it wither! The verdicts of my Juries require no other vindication than a faithful recital of the grounds on which they were founded. From the period at which those verdicts were pronounced, and with a view to that vindication, I have been unremittingly employed in the collection and arrangement of rare and curious materials which the Solicitor-General's attack will induce me to extend to a COMPLETE HISTORY of PARODY. This work I purpose to bring out, in the course of February next, with extensive graphic illustrations, and I flatter myself it will answer the various purposes of satisfying the expectations of my numerous and respectable subscribers—of justifying my own motives in publishing the Parodies—of throwing a strong light upon the presumable motives of my prosecutors in singling me out from my Noble and Right Honourable Fellow Parodists—of holding up Trial by Jury to the increased love and veneration of the British People—and, above all, of making every calumny upon the verdicts of the three successive, honourable and intelligent Juries recoil upon the slanderer, be he whom he may, that dares to asperse them.

W. HONE.

Ludgate-hill
Dec. 25, 1819.

Notes
1
Hone Papers, WSU Archives, printed clipping. The letter was originally published in The Morning Chronicle.[return]
2
The Solicitor General was John Singleton Copley (later Baron Lyndhurst) who had taken over the position from Samuel Shepherd on 24 July, 1819. As Hone's open letter suggests, Copley had expressed regret about the jury verdicts in the Hone trials of 1817 but was roundly chastised for his position. [return]
William Hone. Date: 2014-03-18