This remarkable book was written upon covers of letters and scraps of
paper of such description as was nearest at hand; the greater part at a
house in Princes-street, Soho. Colton’s lodging was a
penuriously-furnished second-floor, and upon a rough deal table, with a
stumpy pen, our author wrote.
Though a beneficed clergyman, holding the vicarage of Kew, with
Petersham, in Surrey, Colton was a well-known frequenter of the
gaming-table; and, suddenly disappearing from his usual haunts in London
about the time of the murder of Weare, in 1823, it was strongly
suspected he had been assassinated. It was, however, afterwards
ascertained that he had absconded to avoid his creditors; and in 1828 a
successor was appointed to his living. He then went to reside in
America, but subsequently lived in Paris, a professed gamester; and it
is said that he thus gained, in two years only, the sum of 25,000_l._ He
blew out his brains while on a visit to a friend at Fontainebleau, in
1832; bankrupt in health, spirits, and fortune.