William Hone, Poem: Verses on our Excellent Constitution, 1792 An Electronic Edition William Hone Kyle Grimes

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.

Transcribed from the original in British Library, Add. MS 40120, f. 2.

 Produced letter version of the etext for inclusion in the Correspondence.
William Hone, "Verses on our Excellent Constitution," 1792.British Library, Add. MS 40120, f. 2. The following poem is among the first documents known to have been written by William Hone. It appears in a privately printed broadside titled "The Contrast" which consists of some lines "On Liberty" by Addison printed next to lines "On Slavery" by James Theodore Middleton. (Both excerpts are copied from Middleton's New and Complete System of Geography [Cooke, 1788] which the Hone family had borrowed from a neighbor.) Centered beneath these contrasting excerpts, Hone prints his own poem which he calls "Verses on our Excellent Constitution." Hone sent a copy of "The Contrast" to the headquarters of conservative Reeves' Association in the Strand. (See letter to Reeves, 25 April, 1793.) This publicity brought the young writer a letter of commendation from the Secretary of the Association who was delighted to see "a spirit of loyalty in a person so young." [return] — -TEI-
Verses on our Excellent Constitution (1792) I. Come Britons unite, and in one common cause, Stand up in defence of King, Liberty, Laws; And rejoice that we've got such a good Constitution, And down with the barbarous French Revolution. II. There's Marat, Egalite, and the famous Tom Paine, Had best stay where they are, and not come here to reign: Be staunch for your King and your good Constitution, And down with their barbarous French Revolution. III. The French call us now a province of France, But we'll soon let 'em know we can learn 'em to dance. Come, rejoice that we've got such a good Constitution, And down with the barbarous French Revolution. IV. Tom Paine he would fain set us wrangling together, That his friends o'er the water may seize us at pleasure; Don't let him teaze us, nor our good Constitution, But down with the barbarous French Revolution. V. We're taxed, he says, by our merciful King, But that's to ourselves, and nothing to him. May he gloriously reign, and our good Constitution, And down with the barbarous French Revolution. VI. Our soldiers are honest, brave, loyal, and true, For the blood of their King their own they would rue: They'd stand firm in the cause of our good Constitution, And down with the barbarous French Revolution.