William Hone to Rev. Samuel Butler, 5 October, 1824 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 original in the British Library, Add. MS 34585 ff. 376-77.
William Hone to Rev. Samuel Butler, 5 October, 1824.British Library, Add. MS 34585, ff. 376-77. [return] — -TEI-
45 Ludgate hill, London
5 October 1824. Sir

Perhaps I ought to have thanked you for the politeness and urbanity of the note I had the honour to receive from you in February, in answer to mine accompanying a copy of the pamphlet I published in that month.The February pamphlet was Hone's Aspersions Answered; see Hone's letter to Butler, 12 February, 1824. [return] But from your expressions I was led to think you had not then read the tract, and I deemed it more respectful to abstain from troubling you with a notice which, after its perusal, might not altogether have been acceptable at that moment. I knew however, Sir, that you appreciated the civility of my intentions, and that your liberality would not assume unworthy motives for a questionable silence. If there were a sentiment in that pamphlet regarding yourself, as I fear there may have been, to occasion you an unpleasant feeling, I desire to assure you that I shall feel sorrow at the mishap, and a sorrow the deeper because the compliment you were pleased to pay me on my volume respecting the Mysteries, was most generously gratuitous, and wholly unexpected. From such a hand, on such an occasion, it affected me far otherwise than those who have chosen to 'wound by hearsay' would be pleased to imagine, or, at least, to represent if they knew it. Good treatment I have been so little accustomed to that your kindness overcame me. In fact I am ruled by the law of kindness, as I believe most men would be, if they were acquainted with the nature of the obligation, and it were proffered them for their acknowledgment.

I presume, Sir, to entreat that you will do me the further favour of accepting another tract,Another Article for the Quarterly which Hone had just published. [return] wherein I confine myself to a reply upon the reviewer of the former, in the last Quarterly Review.Hone refers to an anonymous review of his Aspersions Answered that had recently appeared in the Quarterly (1824, vol. 30, pp. 473-81). [return] It occurred to me as probable that you might not otherwise be informed of its existence, and I must in truth add, that the opportunity it opens to me of thanking you for your gentlemanly consideration and condescension towards me, was another inducement to its transmission. The carriage of it is paid to Shrewsbury—but posterage in the country not being payable in town, I indulge a hope that the sheets may partly defray the expence of their conveyance to your door.

With unqualified respect I am Sir, Your very greatly obliged and most obedient faithful Servant, W Hone The Venerable The Archdeacon Butler.