William Hone to John Childs, 5 October, 1824 An Electronic Edition William Hone Kyle Grimes University of Alabama at Birmingham. I am grateful for several grants and travel stipends provided by the Department of English and the College of Arts and Sciences at UAB. These resources have made it possible to study the various archival materials which are the foundation of the present electronic edition of Hone's letters.

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.

Adelphi, William Hone Collection, Series 1A, Box 1, fol. 2. The present file was prepared from a high-quality digital image of the letter supplied by Elayne Gardstein, the archivist of the Hone Collection at Adelphi.

This file aspires toward a diplomatic transcription of the original manuscript. The MS, however, often require some interpretation. For example, the punctuation in the MS is sometimes erratic, with dashes of various lengths serving sometimes as commas or periods. Where there appears to be no amibiguity, I have silently regularized such marks to conform with contemporary punctuation.

Names, Places, a Publications have all been tagged as <ref>s with "type" attributes identifying them as "person," "place," or "publication." If possible, these tags also include "target" links either to the "whoswho" document or to the appropriate title in the annotated bibliography.

 Created TEILite file from Adelphi images. Proofread and integrated with WhosWho file and with Letter List. Proofread and transformed into html using the public XSLT from tei-c.org. Edited transformed document to conform to BioText stylesheets in CSS. re-edited, proofread and transformed into html using the public XSLT from tei-c.org. Edited transformed document to conform to BioText stylesheets in CSS. This chiefly for Sterne talk on 2/19. transform using custom xslt for web
William Hone to John Childs, 5 October, 1825.Adelphi, William Hone Collection, Series 1A, Box 1, fol. 2. [return] — -TEI-
45 Ludgate hill
5 Oct: 1824 Dear Childs

Cholera morbus is ailing and killing without mercy all people who have it, and don't know how to manage themselves. Six weeks ago the fiend 'sat heavy on my soul,' and made my pen merry — that I 'wrote him off'. Last Sunday fortnight, while in bed, he possessed me once more — I set to work again, and got him and 'Another Article for the Quarterly' out together — though I have not got out myself. In short I have not [one word] stirred from my [one word] bedroom since—but I stir said article to you, just to let you see at your [Seaport?], the report I give of the reviewer's importance, and to acquaint you of with my corporeal and mental convulsions, and that I am they are now 'over the Ills and far away'.

You tell me (I think) that you read what I write—read this John Childs for yoursoul's health—read it to your children and your children's children—or, if they have none, to their parents that ought to be, and doubtless in time will be— It's the story of a man who told lies, and was found out, and punished accordingly— and may you and yours be saved from the sin—and—if you commit the sin and repent not by confession and reparation— see John what may come of it. Not however to be, what you mean I suppose by your fine outlandish word, "jannock," you will gather from "32 pages in 8vo, price 6.d" that my old adversary is bound hand and foot, and incapable of "lying about" to my annoyance.

Do yourself the pleasure of handing the few that are directed to the respective persons—the undirected ones direct from yourself where you list.

The tract will not bear advertizing. In a money view I lose by it — "Ah the fool!" says John Childs. "Ah! I thought you'd think that, if you didn't say it," answers Mr. Hone. — But if I were to get a farthing by this controversy I should deem it, as the 'wedge of Achan' was to the Israelites, 'an accursed thing'.from Joshua 7:24. [return] — Of course it must be made known, and if you can help to extend the information of its existence, do. — Two or three of your country papers would serve it mightily by extraction—and if they extract shun I shall think that you have forgotten to use your influence or don't choose to do it — for you are "a man of business" John, and can effect it if you set about it. Up and be doing!

My wife has been ill all the summer, my children have been, not successively but transversely, and all together ill—in short, I may say, that at this present writing, we are 'a bad family.' I beg you will present 'our' most kind regards to Mrs. Childs and with wishes that she and her family and her 'ain gude man' may be preserved in health 'an', if it please you' John, in wealth — Remember us too to Mr. Filby most kindly — his foster-son William is working hard at his business and I am Dear Childs

Yours sincerely, & hence yearly as long as my lease lasts, W Hone. The sheet is folded and addressed to "Esqr. John Childs, Bungay" with the term "Private" underlined. [return]

Ainsworth! Ainsworth!! Ainsworth!!!This postscript appears as an afterthought in tiny handwriting at the bottom of the page. Exactly who "Ainsworth" might be is untraced, though there is a chance that Hone refers to the novelist William Harrison Ainsworth who, though quite young, was already active in London print and legal circles.[return] I told him he was a money-lover: He said it was very odd— for you had told him so too: he said, also, he had built a chapel — and I said 'ahem.'