William Hone to The Editor of the Quarterly Review, 25 October, 1821

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1. William Hone to The Editor of the Quarterly Review, 25 October, 1821.1-TEI-

1.1.

Ludgate Hill
25 October 1821
Sir

I never did an act in my life that I am afraid to acknowledge, and, as I am the sole and unassisted Editor of the "Apocryphal New Testament," I feel no more hesitation in avowing it, than difficulty in justifying it. Had the "Quarterly Review" confined its strictures to an examination of the book I should have had no reason to address you thus — but a week's reflection has confirmed the first impression with which I read the attack upon me personally in your last number, and I think on a reperusal must feel that the Article is of such a character as to authorize me in requesting the name of my unknown calumniator.

The Reviewer himself professes so warm an indignation at a "dastard behind" that he will, of course, be eager to come forward, and thus avoid the imputation of being one himself — or perhaps in your case, as in mine, there may be no "dastard behind," and if so you will not refuse the opportunity I now offer you, of raising yourself from the degradation of a concealed, to the respectability of an open assailant.

I urge this request that I may meet my adversary on equal terms in the pamphlet I have announced — and I trust that the manner in which I should treat him if I knew his name would convince even the Reviewer himself with what injustice he has applied epithets to me, which if I had employed towards him he would be entitled to call upon me to substantiate or retract.

I await your answer, and

I am
Sir
Your most obedient
humble Servant
W Hone
The Editor of The Quarterly Review.
Notes
1
National Library of Scotland, Nineteenth Century Literary Society: The John Murray Archive, MS.42254. In October of 1821, The Quarterly Review (25 [1821]: 347-65) published an anonymous but scathing review of Hone's Apocryphal New Testament. The review has subsequently been attributed to Robert Hugh Rose (Quarterly Review Archive, https://romantic-circles.org/reference/qr/index/50.html.)[return]