Official Account of the Noble Lord's Bite!
In 1817, Hone published this parodic satire on Lord Castlereagh, the "Noble Lord" of the title and the protagonist of the piece. The occasion for the parody was apparently a minor incident of early August 1817 when it was rumored that Castlereagh had been bitten by a favorite puppy. The radical press--especially Thomas Wooler (in The Black Dwarf) and Hone--picked up the incident as an opportunity for comic-political barbs. The parody offers a fine example of Hone's ability to imitate formal modes of public discourse--in this case, the journalistic conventions for reporting on parliamentary debates. A careful reading shows that Hone touches on many of the key issues of contemporary political debate--the question of Castlereagh's Irish background, the use of libel laws to suppress political opposition, the dread of being caught in self-contradictory political positions (note the emphasis on "inconsistency"), the collusion of the political leadership and the conservative press, and so on. In addition, Hone makes several glancing references to his own publications on the Prince Regent, most notably The Regent's Bomb (1816) and The Regent's Yacht (1816), both of which are advertised in the end-papers to the Official Account.
The basic terms of the parody should be clear to most readers--the "Noble Lord" (Castlereagh) has been bitten in his own house (Parliament) by a Bull dog (c.f. "John Bull," the English common man) by the name of "Honesty." This dog apparently entered the house along with Sir Francis Burdett, the celebrated champion of parliamentary reform. The Noble Lord becomes delirious as various public figures--politicians, cabinet ministers, and journalists--gather to discuss his condition. The result is, of course, a satire on the politicians themselves as well as a parody of the elaborate forms of political rhetoric.
The present electronic text consists of several different files:
- Facsimile title page
- Full text of the Official Account
- Full transcriptions of Hone's end-paper advertisements (with references to Hone's publications of Wat Tyler and of Byron's poems)
- A Key to the Characters; a brief description of the characters to whom the parody refers
Note on the format: Like many works from the radical press, Hone's Official Account uses a number of typographic means (italics, small caps, peculiar quotation techniques, etc.) to emphasize the rhetoric. I have tried to duplicate these elements using the available HTML tags, though early browsers may not support all the font choices and some browsers may render these tags in rather idiosyncratic ways.
