ABSTRACT
The majority of Hunt’s poetic contributions to The Examiner during 1820 are satires on the royal marriage controversy. Hunt did not republish any of these satires during his lifetime, nor did they appear in 1860. ‘Memory and Want of Memory’ and ‘Non mi Ricordo’, which are attributed to Hunt’s satirical alter-ego ‘Harry Brown’, deal with the most notable episode during the trial of Queen Caroline for her alleged adultery with Bartolomeo Bergami. On 24 September 1820, Hunt had reviewed a Covent Garden revival of The Beggar’s Opera. In the following month he published two satirical imitations of Gay’s drama. Hunt shifts the scene to Cotton Garden, where the Italian witnesses in the trial of Queen Caroline were housed and were coached as to their evidence, portraying the premises as a den of thieves and degenerates to rival that of Gay’s imagination.
