Chapter I: Introduction

The strange and pathetic story that is told in the love letters that passed between Mr. Hackman and Miss Reay, excited widespread attention and sympathy during the spring of the year 1779, and interest in the affair was revived in the following year by the publication of an anonymous book in which some of these letters, in a garbled form, were inserted.

The originals, or copies of the originals—for Hackman was sufficiently romantic to have kept copies of his own letters—were given to Kearsly, the publisher, by Mr. Frederick Booth, Hackman’s brother-in-law, in consequence of Kearsly having issued a pamphlet, on the 24th of April, 1779, called “The Case and Memoirs of the late Revd. Mr. James Hackman,” which was full of errors. In the _Public Advertiser_ of the 24th of April, 1779, Booth, in view of the advertised publication of the “Case and Memoirs” by Kearsly, announced positively that no materials for a life of Hackman could possibly be obtained except through him, as all the necessary letters and documents were in his possession. Croft’s edition of the letters was issued by the same publisher in the spring of the following year. It is not quite clear whether Booth was approached by Kearsly or by Croft; but that he (Booth) was satisfied with the latter’s work is evident from the fact that it elicited no further protest from him.

Sir Herbert Croft, Bart., was born at Dunster Park, Berkshire, on November 1, 1751. In March, 1771, he matriculated at University College, Oxford,[1] where Scott—afterwards Lord Stowell—was his tutor.[2] He then entered Lincoln’s Inn, but want of means did not allow him to continue in the profession of the law, so in 1782 he returned to Oxford, and decided for the Church. In April, 1785, he took the degree of B.C.L., and in 1786 he received the vicarage of Prittlewell,[3] in Essex. During his sojourn at Lincoln’s Inn, he wrote many tracts and pamphlets; he also tried to compile an English dictionary, but he found that £100 a year—the amount he had available for that purpose—was hardly sufficient.

[1] Nichols’ “Literary Illustrations,” v. 202.

[2] “Dict. Nat. Biog.” (Stephen.)

[3] _Gentleman’s Magazine_, 1816, pt. i. 470.

He also wrote the life of Young for Johnson’s series of the Lives of the Poets.[4] Croft was somewhat eccentric in the management of his finances, and was always begging money or preferment from his friends; there is a letter in the British Museum[5] from him to Bishop Douglas,[6] in which he complains of having been cold-shouldered by Pitt, whose favour he had tried to gain by offering to insert verses in favour of that politician in a book he was writing. There is also a letter,[7] dated 13th of October, 1796, to Bishop Douglas’ son, the Rev. W. Douglas, written from Exeter Gaol, “the common prison—_pudet hoc approbria_!” as Croft says, where he was imprisoned for a debt of £40, which he hopes Mr. Douglas will send at once. Croft subsequently lived in France with the eccentric Lady Mary Hamilton.

[4] Among Croft’s other works were: “A Brother’s Advice to his Sisters,” 1775. “Fanaticism and Treason,” “The Literary Fly,” 1780. “The Abbey of Kilhampton,” 1780—a series of anticipatory epitaphs upon prominent living personages. “Sunday Evenings,” 1784, religious discourses, which Dr. Johnson disapproved of on account of their levity of style (Boswell’s Johnson, Morley’s edition, iv. 231), and a curious French work, “Horace éclairci par la ponctuation,” Paris, 1810.

[5] Egerton MSS. 2185, fol. 172.

[6] John Douglas, Bishop of Salisbury. (_Gent. Mag._ 1807, pt. i. 475.)

[7] Egerton MSS. 2186, fol. 88-93.

On the death of Chatterton, Croft obtained from the poet’s sister, Mrs. Newton, his letters and manuscripts, and, foreseeing that the Hackman-Reay correspondence would have a large sale, he decided to include the Chatterton matter in the volume, which he entitled “Love and Madness.” He clumsily put his papers into the form of a letter from Hackman, which was marked No. 49 in the original book, and is included in the Appendix to the present volume. The difference in the style of this letter from that of all the others was so apparent that suspicion fell upon the authenticity of other parts of the volume.

John Nichols[8] mentions “Love and Madness” as having passed through seven editions. “These letters,” he continues, “are given as the correspondence of Mr. Hackman and Miss Reay.... They are enlivened with a variety of anecdotes, chiefly of a literary kind. Among other miscellaneous matters, the story of that extraordinary genius, Thomas Chatterton, is introduced at great length, with critical observations on his writings; an account of his publication of ‘Poems,’ said to have been written by one Rowley, a monk, about 300 years ago; of his other schemes of authorship, and, finally, of his unhappy exit, in the eighteenth year of his age.... If this be all ‘borrowed personage,’ as Mr. Walpole expressed it, it is so ingenious a fiction, that the author will be praised, perhaps, for his abilities even by those who may find themselves inclined to impeach his honesty.”

[8] “Literary Illustrations,” v. 203.

In the _Monthly Magazine_ for November, 1799, Robert Southey brought a charge against Croft of having obtained the papers and letters relating to Chatterton from the unfortunate poet’s sister, Mrs. Newton, under false pretences. Croft, who was at that time in Denmark, sent a very foolish and evasive reply to the same Magazine,[9] in which he said that he must first arrange Southey’s abuse, for that gentleman wrote prose somewhat like bad poetry, and poetry somewhat like bad prose. He entirely ignored the main charge brought against him, and his vulgar attack upon Southey brought him justly into contempt among the literary men of the day.

[9] _Gentleman’s Magazine_, February, March and April, 1800.

The Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, who edited his father’s “Life and Correspondence,” writes to Grosvenor C. Bedford, upon this subject.

“Sir Herbert Croft had obtained possession from Mrs. Newton (Chatterton’s sister) of all her brother’s letters and MSS. under promise of speedily returning them; instead of which, some months afterwards, he incorporated and published them in a pamphlet, entitled ‘Love and Madness.’

“At the use thus surreptitiously made of her brother’s writings, Mrs. Newton more than once remonstrated; but, beyond the sum of £10, she could obtain no redress. Mr. Cottle[10] and my father now took the matter up, and the former wrote to Sir H. Croft, pointing out to him Mrs. Newton’s reasonable claim, and urging him by a timely concession to prevent that publicity which otherwise would follow.

[10] A well-known Bristol bookseller.

“He received no answer; and my father then determined to print by subscription all Chatterton’s works, including those ascribed to Rowley, for the benefit of Mrs. Newton and her daughter. He accordingly sent proposals to the _Monthly Magazine_, in which he detailed the whole case between Mrs. Newton and Sir Herbert Croft, and published their respective letters. The public sympathised rightly on the occasion, for a handsome subscription followed. Sir Herbert Croft was residing in Denmark at the time these proposals were published, and he replied to my father’s statement by a pamphlet full of much personal abuse.”

However, Mr. Cottle and Southey published the edition in three volumes 8vo, and the editors had the satisfaction of paying over to Mrs. Newton and her daughter upwards of £300.

Southey again brought charges against Croft in the _Gentlemen’s Magazine_ for March 1800. He says “Sir Herbert does not deny his promises to the family of after assistance, nor that when Mrs. Newton applied for it, he required a certificate of her character from the Clergyman of the Parish.”

In a note to the ninth edition of “Love and Madness,” Croft excuses himself for having pretended that Mr. Hackman had visited Bristol to find out facts about Chatterton, by referring to an extract from the fourteenth letter in “Love and Madness.”

The passage he mentions is as follows:

“Robinson Crusoe now—what nature! It affects us throughout, exactly in the way you mentioned. But, shall I finish my dissertation? come—as writing to you gives me so much pleasure, and as I cannot do anything to you but write this morning, I know you will excuse me. Did you ever hear to what Crusoe owed his existence? You remember Alexander Selkirk’s strange sequestration at Juan Fernandez. It is mentioned, I believe, in Walter’s account of Anson’s voyage, when Captain Woodes Rogers met with him and brought him to England, he employed the famous Daniel de Foe to revise his papers. That fertile genius improved upon the materials, and composed the celebrated story of Robinson Crusoe. The consequence was that Selkirk, who soon after made his appearance in print, was considered as a bastard of Crusoe, with which spurious offspring the press too often teems. In De Foe, undoubtedly, this was not honest. Had Selkirk given him his papers, there could have been no harm in working them up his own way. I can easily conceive a writer making his own use of a known fact, and filling up the outlines which have been sketched by the bold and hasty hand of fate. A moral may be added, by such means, to a particular incident; characters may be placed in their just and proper lights; mankind may be amused (and amusements, sometimes, prevent crimes), or, if the story be criminal, mankind may be bettered, through the channel of their curiosity. But I would not be dishonest, like De Foe; nor would I pain the breast of a single individual connected with this story.”

Yet Croft, who thus denounces Defoe, announced subsequently that he himself had acted with precisely the same dishonesty in the matter of Mr. Hackman’s correspondence. A further light is thrown upon the matter by an advertisement to the eighth edition of “The Case and Memoirs;” the author, who, on the evidence of a rhymed lampoon in one of the papers of the day, was one Manasseh Dawes,[11] a barrister and literary hack, says that, being a gentleman, he wishes to keep that character inviolate; consequently, he thinks it necessary to declare that all the facts are genuine, as he will testify and explain, if necessary, on an application to him at Mr. Kearsly’s (the publisher), and he hopes that, therefore, his numerous readers will not now suppose that he has “intruded anything on the public with intent to catch the penny of curiosity, at the expense of truth and candour.”

[11] _Public Advertiser_, June 3, 1779.

When this was written Kearsly had possession of the real facts of the case, and was able to invite investigation.

The enormous success of “Love and Madness” tempted Croft to declare himself the author of the Chatterton excerpt, and also to hint that of the entire work only the outline was true. The word outline is easily expansible, and, considering that the letter about Chatterton, and two or three other obvious additions, formed half the volume, he was, perhaps, justified in claiming his portion. Croft says that he dedicates the ninth edition to Johnson, because the Doctor had expressed his appreciation of the work. But Boswell records[12] that Johnson censured and much disapproved of “Love and Madness,” on account of the mingling of the fact with the fiction—that is to say, the inclusion of the Chatterton papers among the Hackman-Reay correspondence.

[12] Boswell’s Johnson (Henry Morley), iv. 134.

As several of the connecting links in the narrative are missing, I have endeavoured to weave the letters into a coherent narrative; in one or two instances I have been obliged to suppress certain passages, by reason of their having been written at a time when there was a greater license of expression than is permissible nowadays. I have also omitted, in two of the letters, references to Chatterton which Croft introduced to give verisimilitude to his assertion that the long letter containing the life of the poet was written by Hackman.

No record of Croft’s own work tallies at all with the idea that he created such a romance. But, apart from the controversy, the story and the letters seem to me to be a veritable “human document” of strong interest. And, after exhaustive investigation, I am convinced that such a document is only explainable on the grounds of a real living correspondence and that these letters are, without doubt, those that passed between Hackman and Miss Reay.

_April_, 1895.

CONTENTS

PART I

PAGE

+At Hinchinbrook+ 19

PART II

+In Ireland+ 75

PART III

+In London+ 117

+Appendix+ 183