The Love Letters
of
Mr. H. & Miss R.
The Love-Letters of
Mr. H. & Miss R.
1775-1779
EDITED BY
GILBERT BURGESS
[Illustration]
CHICAGO
STONE & KIMBALL
MDCCCXCV
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
PART I
_AT HINCHINBROOK_
James Hackman, who figures as Mr. H. in this collection of letters,
was born at Gosport, in the year 1752. His father was a retired Naval
Lieutenant, with a modest income, which, however, was large enough to
enable him to give his son a good general education, and to send him
subsequently to St. John’s College, Cambridge.
On leaving the University, James Hackman was apprenticed to a mercer
in his native town but soon tiring of trade, he persuaded his father
to buy him an ensigncy in the 68th Regiment of Foot. He was then
quartered upon a recruiting party at Huntingdon, where he first made
the acquaintance of the famous (or infamous) Earl of Sandwich, who
was the First Lord of the Admiralty at that time. Cradock, in his
“Memoirs,” writes that a friend of Lord Sandwich’s was a candidate for
the Chemistry Professorship at Cambridge, and that, as Cradock had been
solicited for his vote and interest, the Earl invited him to travel
in his coach, and to stay with him at his seat, Hinchinbrook, on his
return journey to London. Cradock continues:
“We went together and passed a very pleasant evening with a numerous
party at the Rose Tavern, and having voted next morning, we returned to
Hinchinbrook. Lord Sandwich, on meeting his neighbour, Major Reynolds,
in the gateway with another officer, insisted on their alighting, and
taking a family dinner at his house. The Major apologised for his
intrusion, hoped his Lordship would excuse the liberty he had taken in
bringing a brother officer with him, and then introduced his friend,
Captain Hackman. The party merely consisted of Lord Sandwich, Miss Ray,
and a lady with her, the two gentlemen, and myself. Dinner was soon
served, and coffee called for. We played two rubbers at whist. Lord
Sandwich held with Miss Ray, against Major Reynolds and myself; Captain
Hackman requesting that he might only look over the cards.”
The Miss Ray (or Reay, as the name should be written) mentioned by
Cradock, was living at Hinchinbrook, under the protection of Lord
Sandwich, to the easily imaginable distress of Lady Sandwich.
At the age of fourteen, Miss Reay had been apprenticed to a
mantua-maker in Clerkenwell, and was subsequently introduced by her
father, a stay-maker, to a customer of his, a woman of infamous
profession, who, thinking that the girl was exceedingly pretty and
intelligent, mentioned her to the dissolute Lord Sandwich. The Earl
fell in love with Miss Reay the moment he saw her, and immediately took
her under his protection. He gave her a good education, and had her
thoroughly trained in music, of which art he was passionately fond; he
himself, Cradock tells us, was no mean performer upon the kettle-drums!
Oratorios and concerts were frequently given at Hinchinbrook, in which
Miss Reay, owing to her beautiful voice, took part; her personal charm
and manner must have been exceptionally attractive, for it is related
that she even captivated a Bishop’s lady, who was terribly exercised
at finding herself seated directly opposite to her at a dinner-party.
Hackman was so fascinated by Miss Reay that he could not keep away
from the neighbourhood of Hinchinbrook, and, being a handsome,
high-spirited young fellow, he soon became a welcome and frequent guest
at the house. The result was that he fell desperately in love with his
host’s mistress, and it was not long before his love was reciprocated,
and a clandestine correspondence ensued. The first two letters he sent
to Miss Reay are written from Huntingdon.
* * * * *
_Dec. 4, 1775._
+Dear Martha+,
Ten thousand thanks for your billet by my corporal Trim yesterday. The
fellow seemed happy to have been the bearer of it, because he saw it
made _me_ happy. He will be as good a soldier to Cupid as to Mars, I
dare say. And Mars and Cupid are not now to begin their acquaintance,
you know. Whichever he serve, you may command him of course, without a
compliment; for Venus, I need not tell _you_, is the mother of Cupid,
and mistress of Mars.
At present the drum is beating up under my window for volunteers to
Bacchus. In plain English, the drum tells me dinner is ready; for a
drum gives us bloody-minded heroes an appetite for eating, as well as
for fighting; nay, we get up by the beat of it, and it every night
sends, or ought to send, us to bed and to sleep. To-night it will be
late before I get to one or the other, I fancy—indeed, the thoughts
of you would prevent the latter. But the next disgrace to refusing a
challenge, is refusing a toast. The merit of a jolly fellow and of a
sponge is much about the same. For my part, no glass of any liquor
tastes as it should to me, but when I kiss my Martha on the rim.
Adieu—whatever hard service I may have after dinner, no quantity
of wine shall make me let drop or forget my appointment with you
to-morrow. We certainly were not seen yesterday, for reasons I will
give you.
Though you should persist in never being mine,
Ever, ever
Yours.
+Huntingdon+, _Dec._ 6th, 1775.
+My Dearest Martha+,
No, I will not take advantage of the sweet, reluctant, amorous
confession which your candour gave me yesterday. If to make me happy be
to make my Martha otherwise; then, happiness, I’ll none of thee.
And yet I _could_ argue. Suppose he _has_ bred you up—suppose you
_do_ owe your numerous accomplishments, under genius, to him—are you
therefore his property? Is it as if a horse that he has bred up should
refuse to carry him? Suppose you therefore _are_ his property—will the
fidelity of so many years weigh nothing in the scale of gratitude?
Years—why, can obligations (suppose they had _not_ been repaid an
hundred fold) do away the unnatural disparity of years? Can they bid
five-and-fifty stand still (the least that you could ask), and wait for
five-and-twenty? Many women have the same obligations (if indeed there
be many of the _same_ accomplishments) to their fathers. They have the
additional obligation to them (if, indeed, it be an obligation) of
existence. The disparity of years is sometimes even less. But, must
they therefore take their fathers to their bosoms? Must the jessamine
fling its tender arms around the dying elm?
To my little fortunes you are no stranger. Will you share them with me?
And you shall tell his Lordship that gratitude taught you to pay every
duty to him, till love taught you there were other duties which you
owed to H.
Gracious heaven, that you _would_ pay them!
But, did I not say I would not take advantage? I will not. I will
even remind you of your children; to whom I, alas! could only show at
present the _affection_ of a father.
Martha weighs us in the scales. If gratitude out-balance love—so.
If you command it, I swear by love, I’ll join my regiment to-morrow.
If love prevail, and insist upon his dues, you shall declare the
victory and the prize. I _will_ take no advantage.
Think over this. Neither will I take you by surprise. Sleep upon
it, before you return your answer. Trim shall make the old excuse
to-morrow. And, thank heaven! to-night you sleep alone.
Why did you sing that sweet song yesterday, though I so pressed you?
Those words and your voice were too much.
No words can say how much I am yours.
* * * * *
Omiah, who is mentioned by Miss Reay in the following letter was a
native of Otaheite, who was brought to England in 1775 by Captain
Ferneaux in the _Adventure_, the consort of Captain Cook’s ship the
_Resolution_. Lord Sandwich took him up, and showed him all the sights.
He went to Court and was introduced to George III., with whom he shook
hands and said “How do you do?”
* * * * *
_To MR. HACKMAN._
+Hinchinbrook+, _Dec. 7, 1775_.
+My Dear H.+
Here has been a sad piece of work ever since I received yours
yesterday. But don’t be alarmed. We are not discovered to the prophane.
Our tender tale is only known to—(whom does your fear suggest?)—to love
and gratitude, my H. And they ought both, for twenty reasons, to be
_your_ friends, I am sure.
They have been trying your cause, ever since the departure of honest
Trim yesterday. Love, though in my opinion not so blind, is as good
a justice as Sir John Fielding. I argued the matter stoutly, my head
on his lordship’s side of the question, my heart on yours. At last
they seemed to say, as if the oath of allegiance, which I had taken to
gratitude, at a time when, Heaven knows, I had never heard of love,
should be void, and I should be at full liberty to devote myself, body
and soul, to—but call on me to-morrow before dinner, and I’ll tell
you their final judgment. This I will tell you now—love sent you the
tenderest wishes, and gratitude said I could never pay you all I owe
you for your noble letter of yesterday.
Yet—oh, my H. think not meanly of me ever for this. Do not _you_ turn
advocate against me. I will not pain you—’tis impossible you ever
should.
Come then to-morrow: and surely Omiah will not murder love! Yet I
thought the other day he caught our eyes conversing. Eyes speak a
language all can understand. But is a child of Nature to nip in the
bud that favourite passion which his mother Nature planted, and still
tends? What will Oberea and her coterie say to this, Omiah, when you
return from making the tour of the globe? They’ll blackball you, depend
on it.
What would Rousseau say to it, my H.?
You shall tell me to-morrow. I will not write another word, lest
conscience, who is just now looking over my left shoulder, should
snatch my pen, and scratch out _to-morrow_.
_To MISS REAY._
+Huntingdon+, _Dec. 7, 1775_.
+My Dearest Soul+,
I hope to heaven Trim will be able to get this to you to-night. Not I
only, but my whole future life, shall thank you for the dear sheet of
paper I have just received. Blessings, blessings! But I could write and
explain and offer up vows and prayers till the happy hour arrives.
Yet, hear me, Martha. If I have thus far deserved your love, I will
deserve it still. As a proof I have not hitherto pressed you for
anything conscience disapproves: you shall not do to-morrow what
conscience disapproves. You shall not make me happy (oh, how supremely
blest!) under the roof of your benefactor and my host. It were not
honourable. Our love, the inexorable tyrant of our hearts, claims his
sacrifices, but does not bid us insult his Lordship’s walls with it.
How civilly did he invite me to Hinchinbrook in October last, though an
unknown recruiting officer! How politely himself first introduced me to
himself! Often has the recollection made me struggle with my passion.
Still it shall restrain it on this side honour.
So far from triumphing or insulting, heaven knows—if Lord Sandwich
indeed love you, if indeed it be aught beside the natural preference
which age gives to youth—heaven knows how much I pity him. Yet, as I
have either said or written before, it is only the pity I should feel
for a father whose affections were unfortunately and unnaturally fixed
upon his own daughter.
Were I your seducer, Martha, and not your lover, I should not write
thus, nor should I have talked or acted, or written as I have. Tell
it not in Gath, nor publish it in the streets of Askalon, lest the
Philistines should be upon me. I should be drummed out of my regiment
for a traitor to intrigue. And can you really imagine I think so
meanly of your sex? Surely you cannot imagine I think so meanly of you.
Why, then, the conclusion of your last letter but one? A word thereon.
Take men and women in the lump, the villany of those and the weakness
of these—I maintain it to be less wonderful that an hundred or so
should fall in the world, than that even one should stand. Is it
strange the serpent conquered Eve? The devil against a woman is fearful
odds. He has conquered men, women’s conquerors; he has made even angels
fall.
Oh, then, ye parents, be merciful in your wrath. Join not the base
betrayers of your children, drive not your children to the bottom of
the precipice, because the villains have driven them half way down,
where (see, see!) many have stopped themselves from falling further
by catching hold of some straggling virtue or another which decks the
steep-down rock. Oh, do not force their weak hands from their hold,
their last, last hold! The descent from crime to crime is natural,
perpendicular, headlong enough of itself; do not increase it.
“Can women, then, no way but backward fall?”
Shall I ask your pardon for all this, Martha? No, there is no occasion,
you say.
But to-morrow, for _to-morrow_ led me out of my strait path over this
fearful precipice, where I, for my part, trembled every step I took
lest I should topple down headlong. Glad am I to be once more on
_plain_ ground again with my Martha.
To-morrow, about eleven, I’ll be with you; but let me find you in
your riding-dress and your mare ready. I have laid a plan, to which
neither honour nor delicacy (and I always consult both before I propose
anything to _you_) can make the least objection. This once, trust to
me: I’ll explain all to-morrow. Pray be ready in your _riding-dress_.
Need I add, in that you know I think becomes you most? No, love would
have whispered that.
Love shall be of our party. He shall not suffer the cold to approach
you; he shall spread his wings over your bosom; he shall nestle in your
dear arms, he shall.
When will to-morrow come? What torturing dreams must I not bear
to-night?
I send you some lines which I picked up somewhere, I forget where. But
I don’t think them much amiss.
CELIA’S PICTURE.
To paint my Celia, I’d devise
Two summer suns in place of eyes;
Two lunar orbs should then be laid
Upon the bosom of the maid;
Bright Berenice’s auburn hair
Should, where it ought, adorn my fair;
Nay, all the signs in heaven should prove
But tokens of my wond’rous love.
All, did I say? Yes, all, save one;
Her yielding waist should want a zone.
_To MISS REAY._
+Huntingdon+, _Dec. 8, 1775_.
Then I release my dearest soul from her promise about to-day. If you
do not see that all which _he_ can claim by gratitude, I doubly claim
by love, I have done, and will for ever have done. I would purchase my
happiness at any price, but at the expense of yours.
Look over my letters, think over my conduct, consult your own heart,
and read these two long letters of your writing, which I return you.
Then, tell me whether we love or not. And, if we love (as witness
both our hearts), shall gratitude, _cold_ gratitude, bear away the
heavenly prize that’s only due to love like ours? Shall my right be
acknowledged, and must he possess the casket? Shall I have your soul,
and shall he have your hand, your eyes, your bosom, your lips, your——
Gracious God of Love! I can neither write nor think. Send one line,
half a line to
Your own, own
H.
* * * * *
_To MR. HACKMAN._
+Hinchinbrook+, _Dec. 10, 1775_.
Your two letters of the day before yesterday, and what you said to me
yesterday in my dressing-room, have drove me mad. To offer to sell
out, and take the other step to get money for us both, was not kind.
You know how such tenderness distracts me. As to marrying me, that you
should not do upon any account. Shall the man I value be pointed at
and hooted for selling himself to a Lord, for a commission, or some
such thing, to marry his cast mistress? My soul is above my situation.
Besides, I will not take advantage, Mr. Hackman, of what may be
only perhaps (excuse me) a youthful passion. After a more intimate
acquaintance with me of a week or ten days, your opinion of me might
very much change. And yet, you _may_ love as sincerely as I——
But I will transcribe you a song which I do not believe you ever heard
me sing, though it is my favourite. It is said to be an old Scots
ballad, nor is it generally known that Lady A. L. wrote it. Since we
have understood each other, I have never sung it before you, because it
is so descriptive of our situation, how much more so since your cruelly
kind proposal of yesterday! I wept, like an infant over it this morning.
AULD ROBIN GRAY.
When the sheep are in fold, and the cows are at home,
And all the weary world to rest is gone,
The woes of my heart fall in showers from mine e’e
While my good man lays sound by me.
Young Jamie lov’d me well, and he sought me for his bride,
He had but a crown, he had no more beside;
To make the crown a pound, young Jamie went to sea,
And the crown and the pound were both for me,
He had na been gone but a year and a day,
When my father broke his arm, and our cow was stole away;
When my mother she fell sick, and my Jamie at the sea,
And auld Robin Gray came wooing to me.
My father could na work, and my mother could na spin,
I toiled night and day, but their bread I could na win;
Auld Rob maintain’d them both, and, with tears in his e’e,
Said, “Jenny, for their sakes, oh! marry me.”
My heart it said no, and I wish’d for Jamie back,
But the wind it blew sore, and his ship prov’d a wreck;
His ship prov’d a wreck: Ah! why did not Jenny dee!
Why was she left to cry “Woe is me!”
My father argu’d sore, though my mother did na speak;
She look’d in my face till my heart was fit to break;
So auld Robin got my hand, but my heart was in the sea,
And now Robin Gray is good man to me.
I had na been a wife but of weeks only four,
When sitting right mournfully at my own door,
I saw my Jamie’s ghost, for I could not think ’twas he,
Till he said, “Jenny, I’m come home to marry thee.”
Sore did we weep, and little did we say,
We took but one kiss, then tore ourselves away;
I wish I was dead, but I am not like to dee,
But long shall be left to cry “Woe is me!”
I gang like a ghost, and I do not care to spin,
I fain would think on Jamie, but that would be a sin;
must e’en do my best a good wife to be,
For auld Robin Gray has been kind to me.
My poor eyes will only suffer me to add, for God’s sake, let me see my
_Jamie_ to-morrow. Your name also is Jamie.
_To MISS REAY._
+Huntingdon+, _Dec. 13, 1775_.
+My Life and Soul!+
But I will never more use any preface of this sort, and I beg you will
not. A correspondence begins with dear, then my dear, dearest, my
dearest, and so on, till at last panting language toils after us in
vain.
No language can explain my feelings. Oh, M. yesterday, yesterday!
Language, thou liest; there is no such word as _satiety_, positively
no such word. Oh thou, beyond my warmest dreams bewitching! What
charms! What——
But words would poorly paint our joys. When, when?—yet _you_ shall
order, govern everything. Only remember, I am _sure_ of those we trust.
Are you now convinced that Heaven made us for each other? By that
Heaven, by the paradise of your dear arms, I will be only yours!
Have I written sense? I know not what I write. This scrap of paper (it
is all I can find) will hold a line or two more. I must fill it up to
say that, whatever evils envious fate designed me, after those few
hours of yesterday, I never will complain nor murmur.
Misfortune, I defy thee now. M. loves me, and H.’s soul has its content
most absolute. No other joy like this succeeds in unknown fate.
_To MISS REAY._
+Huntingdon+, _Dec. 24, 1775_.
Talk not to me of the new year. I am a new man. I will be sworn to it I
am not the same identical James Hackman that I was three months ago.
You have created me—yes, I know what I say—created me anew.
As to thanking you for the bliss I taste with you, to attempt it would
be idle. What thanks can express the Heaven of Heavens!——
But I will obey you in not giving such a loose to my pen as I gave the
day before yesterday. That letter, and the verses it contained, which
were certainly too highly coloured, pray commit to the flames. Yet,
pray too, as I begged you yesterday, do not imagine I thought less
chastely of you because I wrote them. By Heaven! I believe your mind as
chaste as the snow which, while I write, is driving against my window.
You know not _what_ I think of you. One time, perhaps, you may.
The lines I repeated to you this morning are not mine. I think of them
quite as you do. Surely an additional merit in them is, that to the
uninitiated, in whom they might, perhaps, raise improper ideas, they
are _totally unintelligible_.
_To MR. HACKMAN._
+Hinchinbrook+, _Christmas Day, 1775_.
My old friend the Corporal looked as if he had been tarred and
feathered yesterday, when he arrived with your _dear_ billet. Omiah
took up the sugar-caster, when he saw him through the parlour window,
and powdered a fresh slice of pudding, by way of _painting_ the snowy
Corporal. Omiah’s simplicity is certainly very diverting, but I should
like him better, and take more pains with him, if I did not think
he suspected something. The other day I am sure he came to spy the
nakedness of the land. Thank heaven! our caution prevented him.
Respecting the poetry which you repeated to me the other day, I know
not whether, as you say, those to whom it could do any harm could
possibly understand it. For _uninitiated_ means, I believe, not yet
admitted into the mysteries, those who have not yet taken the veil;
or, _I_ should rather say, those who have not yet thrown off the veil.
Why was I not permitted by my destiny to keep on mine, till my H., my
_Mars_, _seized me in his ardent arms_? How gladly _to his_ arms would
I have given up my very soul!
Cruel fortune, that it cannot be so to-day! But we forgot, when we
fixed on to-day, that it would be Christmas Day. I must do penance at
a most _unpleasant_ dinner, as indeed is every meal and every scene
when you are absent, and that, without the consolation of having first
enjoyed your company. To-morrow, however, at the usual time and place.
Your discontinuing your visits here, since the first day of our
happiness, gratifies the delicacy of us both. Yet, may it not, my
H., raise suspicions elsewhere? Your agreeable qualities were too
conspicuous not to make you missed. Yet, you are the best judge.
My poor, innocent, helpless babes! Were it not on your account,
your mother would not _act_ the part she does. What is Mrs. Yates’s
sustaining a character well for _one_ evening? Is it so trying as to
play a part, and a base one too, morning, noon, and night? _Night!_ But
I will not make my H. uneasy.
At least, allow that I have written you a long scrawl. Behold, I have
sent you a tolerable good substitute for myself. It is reckoned very
like. I need not beg you not to show it. Only remember, the painter’s
Martha is not to rob your own Martha of a certain quantity of things
called and known by the name of kisses, which I humbly conceive to be
her due, though she has been disappointed of them to-day.
So, having nothing further to add at present, and the post being just
going out, I remain with all truth,
Dear Sir,
Your most humble servant,
+Martha+.
There is a pretty conclusion for you. Am I not a good girl? I shall
become a most elegant correspondent in time, I see. This paragraph is
the postscript, you know, and should therefore have been introduced by
a well-flourished P.S., the Sir Clement Cottrel upon these occasions.
_To MISS REAY._
+Huntingdon+, _Dec. 28, 1775_.
Your condescension in removing my most _groundless_ cause of jealousy
yesterday was more than I deserved. How I exposed myself by my violence
with you! But, I tell you, my passions are all gunpowder. Though,
thank God! no Othello yet am I.
One not easily jealous; but, being wrought,
Perplex’d in the extreme.
and that God knows how I love you, worship you, idolise you.
How _could_ I think you particular to such a thing as B.? You said you
forgave me to-day, and I hope you did. Let me have it again from your
own dear lips to-morrow, instead of the next day. Everything shall be
ready, and the guitar, which I wrote for, is come down, and I will
bring the song and you shall sing it, and play it, and I will beg you
to forgive me, and you shall forgive me, and five hundred ands besides.
Why, I would be jealous of this sheet of paper, if you kissed it with
too much rapture.
What a fool! No, my Martha, rather say what a lover!
Many thanks for your picture. It _is_ like. Accept this proof that I
have examined it.
’Tis true, creative man, thine art can teach
The living picture every thing but speech!
True, thou hast drawn her, as she is, all fair,
Divinely fair! her lips, her eyes, her hair!
Full well I know the smile upon that face,
Full well I know those features’ every grace!
But, what is this, my Martha’s mortal part,
There _is_ a subject beggars all thine art;
Paint but her _mind_, by Heav’n! and thou shalt be,
Shalt be my more than pagan deity.
Nature may possibly have cast, of _old_,
Some other beauty in as fair a mould;
But all in vain you’ll search the world to find
Another beauty with so fair a mind.
_To MISS REAY._
+Huntingdon+, _Jan. 1, 1776_.
Lest I should not see you this morning, I will scribble this before I
mount honest Crop, that I may leave it for you.
This is a new year. May every day of it be happy to my Martha. May—but
do not you know there is not a wish of bliss I do not wish you?
A _new_ year, I like not this word. There may be new lovers. I lie,
there may not. Martha will never change her H., I am sure she will
never change him for a truer lover.
A new year—’76. Where shall we be in ’77? Where in ’78? Where in ’79?
Where in ’80?
In misery or bliss, in life or death, in heaven or hell, wherever
_you_ are, there may H. be also!
The soldier whom you desired me to beg off, returns thanks to his
unknown benefactress. Discipline must be kept up in our way; but I am
sure you will do me the justice to believe I am no otherwise a friend
to it.
* * * * *
The closing paragraph of this letter contains an instance of Miss
Reay’s kindness of heart. She was never liked in London, owing to her
connection with the unpopular Lord Sandwich, and she was accused of
selling appointments in the Navy. In 1773, Lord Sandwich brought an
action against the _Evening Post_, for having made a similar accusation
against him, and obtained £2000 damages. In a contemporary pamphlet
there is a story bearing on this point, told about Miss Reay’s kindly
intercession with the Earl on behalf of a much neglected naval officer.
This unfortunate gentleman had been a lieutenant for over thirty years,
and was complaining one day to a friend about the little prospect he
had of promotion. His friend advised him to write to Miss Reay, which
he accordingly did, with the result that she placed his letter before
the Earl, with the emphatic remark that thirty years’ service, in her
apprehension, gave an officer a better title to promotion than his
being the son of a Duke.
* * * * *
_To MISS REAY._
+Huntingdon+, _Feb. 8, 1776_.
Since the thaw sent me from Hinchinbrook the day before yesterday,
I have written four times to you, and believe verily I shall write
four-and-forty times to you in the next four days. The bliss I have
enjoyed with you these three weeks has increased not diminished my
affection. Three weeks and more in the same house with my Martha!—it
was more than I deserved. And yet to be obliged to resign you every
night to another! By these eyes, by your still dearer eyes, I do not
think I slept three hours during the whole three weeks. Yet, yet, ’twas
bliss. How lucky that I was pressed to stay at Hinchinbrook the night
the snow set in! Would it had snowed till doomsday! But then you must
have been _his_ every night till doomsday. Now my happy time may come.
Though I had not strength to resist when under the same roof with you,
ever since we parted the recollection that it was _his_ roof has made
me miserable. Whimsical that he should bid _you_ press me, when I at
first refused his solicitation. Is H. guilty of a breach of hospitality?
I must not question. I must not think. I must not write. But we will
meet, as we fixed.
Does Robin Gray suspect? Suspect! And is H. a subject for suspicion?
_To MISS REAY._
+Huntingdon+, _Feb. 16, 1776_.
Every time I see you I discover some new charm, some new
accomplishment. Before heaven, there was not a tittle of flattery in
what I told you yesterday. Nothing _can_ be flattery which I say of
you, for no invention, no poetry, no anything can come up to what I
_think_ of you.
One of our kings said of the citizens of his good city of London,
that when he considered their riches, he was in admiration at their
understandings; when he considered their understandings, he was in
admiration at their riches. Just so do I with regard to your person
and your mind, but for a different reason. Nature was in one of her
extravagant moods when she put you together. She might have made two
captivating women out of you—by my soul, half-a-dozen! Your turn for
music and excellence in it would be a sufficient stock of charms for
the most disagreeable woman to set up with in life. Music has charms to
do things most incredible; music——
Now shall I, with the good-humoured, digressive pen of our favourite
Montaigne in his entertaining Essays, begin with love, and end with a
treatise upon the gamut?
Yet to talk of music is to talk of you. Martha and music are the same.
What is music _without_ you? And harmony has tuned your mind, your
person, your every look and word and action.
Observe, when I write to you I never pretend to write sense. I have no
head; you have made me all heart from top to bottom. Sense—why, I am
out of my senses, and have been these six weeks. Were it possible my
scrawls to you could ever be read by any one but you I should be called
a madman. I certainly am either curst or blest (I know not which) with
passions wild as the torrent’s roar. Notwithstanding I take this simile
from water, the element out of which I am formed is fire. Swift had
water in his brain. I have a burning coal of fire; your hand can light
it up to rapture, rage, or madness. Men, real men, have never been
wild enough for my admiration; it has wandered into the ideal world
of fancy. Othello (but he should have put _himself_ to death in his
wife’s sight, _not_ his wife), Zanga, are _my_ heroes. Milk-and-water
passions are like sentimental comedy. Give me (you see how, like your
friend Montaigne, I strip myself of my skin, and show you all my veins
and arteries, even the playing of my heart), give _me_, I say, tragedy,
affecting tragedy, in the world, as well as in the theatre. I would
massacre all mankind sooner than lose you.
This is mere madness;
And thus awhile the fit will work on him;
Anon, as patient as the female dove
When that her golden couplets are disclosed,
His silence will sit drooping.
Inconsistent being! While I am ranting thus about tragedy and blood
and murder, behold, I am as weak as a woman. My tears flow at but the
idea of losing you; yes, they do not drop only, they pour. I sob like
a child. Is this Othello? Is this Zanga? We know not what we are, nor
what we may become.
This I know, that I am and ever will be yours and only yours.
I send you Ossian. You will see what a favourite he is with me by some
drawings and pieces of (what your partiality will call) poetry, which
accompany the bard of other times. Should you quit this world before
me, which fate forbid, often shall I hear your spirit (if I can be weak
enough to survive you) calling me from the low-sailing cloud of night.
They abuse Macpherson for calling them translations. If he alone be the
author of them, why does he not say so, and claim the prize of fame;
I protest _I_ would. They who do not refuse their admiration to the
compositions, still think themselves justified to abuse Macpherson, for
pretending _not_ to be the author of what they still admire. Is not
this strange?
As we could not meet this morning (how long must our meetings depend on
others, and not on ourselves?) I was determined, you see, to have a
long conversation with you.
Pray seal, in future, with better wax, and more care. Something colder
than one of my kisses might have thawed the seal of yesterday. But I
will not talk of _thawing_. Had the frost and snow continued, I had
still been with you at Hinchinbrook.
The remainder of this (my second sheet of paper, observe) shall be
filled with what I think a valuable curiosity. The officer whom you
saw with me on Sunday, is lately come from America. He gave it me, and
assures me it is original. It will explain itself. Would I might be in
your dear, little, enchanted dressing-room, while you read it!—
_A Speech of a Shawanese Chief to Lord Dunmore._
“I appeal to any white man to-day, if ever he entered Logan’s cabin
hungry, and he gave him not meat; if he ever came cold or naked, and
I gave him not clothing. During the last long and bloody war, Logan
remained idle, ignominious, in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such
was my love of the whites, that those of mine own country pointed at
me as they passed by, and said ‘Logan is the friend of white men.’ I
had even thought to live with you. But the injuries of one among you
did away that thought, and dragged me from my cabin of peace. Colonel
Cressop, the last spring, in cold blood, cut off all the relations of
Logan, sparing neither women nor children. There runs not a drop of
the blood of Logan in the veins of any human creature. This called on
me for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many. Revenge has been
fully glutted.
“For my country—I rejoice at the beams of peace. But, harbour not the
thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will
not turn his heel to save his life.
“Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.”
* * * * *
In the following letter there was an obvious addition by Croft, which I
have already noticed in the Introduction.
* * * * *
_To MISS REAY._
+Huntingdon+, _Feb. 22, 1776_.
How silly we were, both of us, not to recollect your favourite Jenny?
and did not Jamie think of her either?
... Though my mother did na speak,
She look’d in my face, till my heart was fit to break.
Was not this exactly the instance we wanted?
Something more has occurred to me on the same subject. Rather than not
write to you, or than write to you as _descriptively_ as recollection
sometimes tempts me, I know you would have me write nonsense.
In Hervey’s “Meditations” are two passages as fine as they are simple
and natural.
“A beam or two finds its way through the grates, and reflects a feeble
glimmer from the nails of the coffins.” “Should the haggard skeleton
lift a clattering hand.” In the latter I know not whether the epithet
_haggard_ might not be spared.
Governor Holwell, in the account of the sufferings at the black hole at
Calcutta, when he speaks of the length of time he supported Nature by
catching the drops, occasioned by the heat, which fell from his head
and face, adds these words—“You cannot imagine how unhappy I was when
any one of them escaped my tongue!” What a scene! The happiness, the
existence of a fellow-creature, dependent upon being able to catch
a drop of his own sweat! Shakspeare’s fancy could not have invented,
nor ever did invent, any thing more sublime; for this is Nature, and
Nature itself is sublimity. People write _upon_ a particular situation;
they do not put themselves _in_ the situation. We only see the writer,
sitting in his study, and working up a story to amuse or to frighten;
not the identical Tom Jones, not Macbeth himself.
Can you become the very being you describe? Can you look round, and
mark only that which strikes in your new character, and forget all
which struck in your own? Can you bid your comfortable study be the
prison of innocence, or the house of mourning? Can you transform your
garret of indigence into the palace of pleasure? If you cannot, you
had better clean shoes than endeavour by writings to interest the
imagination. We cannot even bear to see an author only peeping over the
top of every page to observe how we like him. The player I would call a
corporal actor, the writer a mental actor. Garrick would in vain have
put his face and his body in all the situations of Lear, if Shakspeare
had not before put his mind in them all. In a thousand instances we
have nothing to do but to copy Nature, if we can only get her to sit
to our pencil. And yet how few of the most eminent masters are happy
enough to hit off her difficult face exactly!
Every person of taste would have been certain that Mr. Holwell was one
of the sufferers in the black hole, only from the short passage I have
noticed.
* * * * *
Faldoni and Teresa might have been prevented from making proselytes, if
they ever have made any, by working up their most affecting story so
as to take off the edge of the dangerous example. But not in the way
Mr. Jerningham has done it, who tells us, not less intelligibly than
pathetically.
All-ruling love, the god of youth, possess’d
Entire dominion of Faldoni’s breast;
An equal flame did sympathy impart
(A flame destructive) to Teresa’s heart:
As on one stem two opening flowers respire,
So grew their life (entwin’d) on one desire.
Are you not charmed? Perhaps you never saw the poem. I have it here,
and will bring it you as a curiosity. The melancholy tale will
not take up three words, though Mr. J. has bestowed upon it 335
melancholy lines. The catastrophe happened near Lyons, in the month of
June, 1770. Two lovers (Faldoni and Teresa Meunier) meeting with an
invincible obstacle to their union, determined to put an end to their
existence with pistols. The place they chose for the execution of their
terrible project was a chapel that stood at a little distance from the
house. They even decorated the altar for the occasion. They paid a
particular attention to their own dress. Teresa was dressed in white,
with rose-coloured ribbands. The same coloured ribbands were tied to
the pistols. Each held the ribband that was fastened to the other’s
trigger, which they drew at a certain signal.
Arria and Pætus (says Voltaire) set the example; but then it must be
considered they were condemned to death by a tyrant. Whereas love was
the only inventor and perpetrator of this deed.
Yet, while I talk of taking off the dangerous edge of their example,
they have almost listed me under their bloody banners.
On looking over the sermon I have written, I recollect a curious
anecdote of Selkirk.
(By-the-bye, Wilkes, I suppose, would say that none but a Scotchman
could have lived so many years upon a desert island.)
He tamed a great number of kids for society, and with them and the
numerous offspring of two or three cats that had been left with him, he
used often to dance. From all which my inference is this—Martha will
not surely deprive herself of H.’s society, but will let him find her
_there_ to-morrow, especially since, in Mr. J.’s _expressive_ language:
As on one stem two opening flowers respire,
So grow our lives (entwin’d) on one desire.
_To MR. HACKMAN._
+Hinchinbrook+, _Feb. 23, 1776_.
Where were you this morning, my life? I should have been froze to death
I believe with the cold, if I had not been waiting for _you_. I am
uneasy, very uneasy. What could prevent you? You own appointment, too.
Why not write, if you could not come? Then, I had a dream last night, a
sad dream, my H.
... For thee I fear, my love;
Such ghastly dreams last night surprised my soul.
You may reply, perhaps, with my favourite Iphis—
Heed not these black illusions of the night,
The mockings of unquiet slumbers.
Alas! I cannot help it. I am a weak woman, not a soldier.
I thought you had a duel with a person whom we have agreed never to
mention. I thought you killed each other. I not only saw his sword, I
_heard_ it pass through my H.’s body. I saw you both die; and with you
love and gratitude. Who is there, thought I, to mourn for Martha! Not
one!
You may call me foolish; but I am uneasy, miserable, wretched! Indeed,
indeed I am. For God’s sake, let me hear from you!
_To MR. HACKMAN_.
+Hinchinbrook+, _Feb. 24, 1776_.
That business, as I told you it would last night, obliges him (Lord
Sandwich) to go to town. I am to follow for the winter. Now, my H. for
the royal black bob and the bit of chalk; or for any better scheme you
will plan. Let me know, to-morrow, where you think Lady Grosvenor’s
scheme will be most practicable on the road, and there I will take
care to stop. I take my Bible oath I would not deceive you, and more
welcome shall you be to my longing arms than all the Dukes or Princes
in Christendom. If I am not happy for one whole night in my life, it
will now be your fault.
Is not this kind and thoughtful? Why did it never occur to you, so
often as we have talked of my being obliged to leave this dear place—to
me _most_ dear, since it has been the scene of my acquaintance, my
happiness, with H.
But, am I to leave behind me that dearest H.? Surely your recruiting
business must be nearly over now. You _must_ go to town. Though things
cannot often be contrived at the Admiralty, they may, they _may_—they
_shall_ happen elsewhere.
Fail not to-morrow, and do not laugh at me any more about my dream. If
it was a proof of my weakness, it was a proof also of my love.
I wish the day on which I am to set out from hence could be conjured
about a month further back or so. Now, you ask _why_? Look in your last
year’s almanack. Was not the _shortest day_ somewhere about that time?
Come give me a kiss for that, I am sure I deserve it. Oh! fye, Mr. H.,
not twenty. You are too generous in your payments. I must insist upon
returning you the overplus the next time we meet—that is to-morrow, you
know.
_To MISS REAY._
+Huntingdon+, _Feb. 26, 1776_.
Why will not the wished-for day, or rather night, arrive? And here, I
have not seen you since I know not when, not for two whole days.
But I wrote you a long letter yesterday why it would be dangerous to
meet; and all in rhyme. The beginning, I assure you, was not poetry,
but truth. If the conclusion was coloured too highly, you must excuse
it. The pencil of love executed it, and the sly rogue will indulge
himself sometimes. Let the time come, I will convince you his pencil
did not much exaggerate.
Just now I was thinking of your birthday, about which I asked you the
other day. It is droll that yours and mine should be so near together.
And thus I observe thereon:
Your poets, cunning rogues, pretend
That men are made of clay;
And that the heavenly potters make
Some five or six a day.
No wonder, Martha, I and you
Don’t quite detest each other;
Or that my soul is link’d to yours,
As if it were its brother:
For in one year we both were made,
Nay almost in one day
So, ten to one, we both came from
One common heap of clay.
What? If I were not cast in near
So fine a mould as you,
My heart (or rather, Martha, yours)
Is tender, fond and true.
Corporal Trim sets off to-day for our head-quarters. My plan is laid
so that no discovery _can_ take place. Gods, that two such souls as
yours and mine should be obliged to descend to arts and plans! Were it
not for your dear sake, I’d scorn to do anything I would not wished
discovered.
_To MR. HACKMAN_,
+Hinchinbrook+, _Feb. 27, 1776_.
All your plans are useless. The corporal has made his forced march to
no purpose. The fates are unkind. It is determined that I am to go up
_post_. So, we cannot possibly be happy together, as we hoped to have
been had our own horses drawn me up, in which case I must have _slept_
upon the road. I am not clear old Robin Grey will not stay and attend
me. Why cannot my Jamie? Cruel fortune! But in town we _will_ be happy.
When, again, shall I enjoy your dear society, as I did during that, to
me at least, blessed snow? Nothing but my dear children could prevent
our going with Cook to seek for happiness in worlds unknown. There must
be some corner of the globe where mutual affection is respected.
Do not forget to meet me. Scratch out _forget_. I know how much you
think of me: too much for your peace, nay, for your health. Indeed, my
H., you do not look well. Pray be careful.
Whatever wound thy tender health,
Will kill thy Martha’s, too.
Omiah is in good humour with me again. What kind of animal should a
naturalist expect from a native of Otaheite and a Huntingdonshire
dairymaid? If my eyes do not deceive me, Mr. Omiah will give us a
specimen. Will you bring me some book to-morrow to divert me, as I post
it to town, that I may forget, if it be possible, I am posting from you?
* * * * *
But the lovers contrived to meet after all, for Hackman’s next letter
is written from the inn at Hockerill, where they had spent the night
together.
* * * * *
_To MISS REAY._
+Hockerill+, _March 1, 1776_.
It is your strict injunction that I do not offend you by suffering
my pen to speak of last night. I will not, my M., nor should I, had
you not enjoined it. You once said a nearer acquaintance would make
me change my opinion of you. It has. I _have_ changed my opinion. The
more I know you, the more chastely I think of you. Notwithstanding last
night (what a night!) and our first, too, I protest to God, I think of
you with as much purity as if we were going to be married. You take my
meaning, I am sure, because they are the thoughts which I know you wish
me to entertain of you.
You got to town safe, I hope. _One_ letter may find me before I shall
be able to leave Huntingdon, whither I return to-day, or, at least, to
Cambridge. I am a fool about Crop, you know; and I am now more tender
of him because he has carried _you_. How little did we think that
morning we should ever make each other so happy!
Do not forget to write, and don’t forget the key against I come to
town. As far as seeing you, I will use it sometimes, but never for
an opportunity to indulge our passion. That positively shall never
again happen under _his_ roof. How did we applaud each other for not
suffering his walls at Hinchinbrook to be insulted with the first scene
of it! And how happy were we both, after we waked from our dream of
bliss, to think how often we had acted otherwise during the time the
snow shut me up at Hinchinbrook!—a snow as dear to me as to yourself.
My mind is torn, rent, with ten thousand thoughts and resolutions about
you and about myself.
When we meet, which shall be as we fixed, I may perhaps mention _one_
idea to you.
Pray let us contrive to be together some evening that your favourite
“Jephtha” is performed.
Enclosed is a song which came into my hands by an accident since we
parted. Neither the words nor the music, I take it, will displease you.
Adieu.
SONG.
When your beauty appears
In its graces and airs,
All bright as an angel new dropp’d from the sky;
At distance I gaze, and am awed by my fears,
So strangely you dazzle my eye!
But when, without art,
Your kind thoughts you impart,
When your love runs in blushes thro’ every vein;
When it darts from your eyes, when it pants in your heart,
Then I know you’re a woman again.
“There’s a passion and pride
In our sex,” she replied,
“And thus, might I gratify both, I would do;
As an angel appear to each lover beside,
But still be a woman to you.”
* * * * *
However, Hackman found the temptation to follow Miss Reay to London
too great to resist; and the two impassioned notes that follow were
written in the course of the same day from a coffee house near Charing
Cross:
* * * * *
+Cannon Coffee House, Charing cross+, _March 17, 1776_.
No further than this can I get from you, before I assure you that every
word I said just now came from the bottom of my heart. I never shall be
happy, never shall be in my senses, till you consent to marry me. And
notwithstanding the dear night at Hockerill, and the other which your
ingenuity procured me last week in D. Street, I swear, by the bliss of
blisses, I never will taste it again till you are my wife.
_To MISS REAY_,
+Cannon Coffee House+, _March 17, 1776_.
Though you can hardly have read my last scrawl, I must pester you with
another. I had ordered some dinner; but I can neither eat, nor do
anything else. “Mad!” I may be mad, for what I know. I am sure I am
wretched.
For God’s sake, for my life and soul’s sake, if you love me, write
directly hither, or at least to-night to my lodgings, and say what is
that _insuperable_ reason on which you dwelt so much. “Torture shall
not force you to marry me.” Did you not say so! Then you hate me; and
what is life worth?
Suppose you had not the dear inducement of loving me (_if_ you love me!
Damnation blot out that _if!_) and being adored by me, still, do you
not wish to relieve yourself and me from the wretched parts we act? My
soul was not formed for such meanness. To steal in at a back door, to
deceive, to plot, to lie—Perdition! the thought of it makes me despise
myself.
Your children—Lord Sandwich—(if we have not been ashamed of our
conduct, why have we cheated conscience all along by “he” and “his,”
and “Old Robin Gray?” Oh! how we have descended, Martha!)—Lord
Sandwich, I say, cannot but provide for your dear boys. As to your
sweet little girl, I will be a father to her, as well as a husband
to you. Every farthing I have I will settle on you both. I will, God
knows, and you shall find what I will do for you both, when I am able.
Good God, what would I _not_ do!
Write, write; I say, write. By the living God, I will have this
_insuperable reason_ from you, or I will not believe you love me.
* * * * *
Miss Reay answered his notes immediately; but it is evident from the
tone of her reply that she was afraid lest Hackman’s presence in
London should awaken the suspicions of Lord Sandwich, even if they
had not already been aroused by the hints of the faithful Omiah, who
seems to have suspected the existence of the intrigue from its very
commencement. Croker, in his “Memoirs,” says that Miss Reay was, at
this period, in a very nervous and unsettled frame of mind.
“Miss Reay, towards the latter part of the time that I frequented
the Admiralty, did not continue to speak of her situation as before,
complained of greatly being alarmed by ballads that had been sung, or
cries that had been made directly under the windows that look into the
Park, and that such was the fury of the mob, that she did not think
either Lord Sandwich or herself were safe whenever they went out; and
I must own that I heard some strange insults offered, and that I, with
some of the servants suddenly rushed out, but the offenders instantly
ran away and escaped. One evening afterwards when sitting with Miss
Reay in the great room above stairs, she appeared to be much agitated,
and at last said, ‘she had a particular favour to ask of me; that as
her situation was very precarious, and no settlement had been made upon
her, she wished I would hint something of the kind to Lord Sandwich.’ I
need not express my surprise, but I instantly assured her, ‘that no one
but herself could make such a proposal, as I knew Lord Sandwich never
gave any one an opportunity of interfering with him on so delicate a
subject.’ She urged that her wish was merely to relieve Lord Sandwich
as to great expense about her, for as her voice was then at the
best, and Italian musick was particularly her _forte_ she was given
to understand that she might succeed at the Opera House, and as Mr.
Giardini then led, and I was intimate with Mrs. Brooke, and Mrs. Yates,
she was certain of a most advantageous engagement. I then instantly
conjectured who one of the advisers must have been; and afterwards
found that three thousand pounds and a free benefit had been absolutely
held out to her; though not by the two ladies, who managed the stage
department.”
* * * * *
_To MR. HACKMAN._
+Admiralty+, _March 17, 1776_.
And does my H. think I wanted such a letter as this to finish my
affliction? Oh, my dear Jamie, you know not how you distress me.
And do you imagine that I have _willingly_ submitted to the artifices
to which I have been obliged, for your sake, to descend? What has been
_your_ part, from the beginning of the piece, to _mine?_ I was obliged
to act even to _you_. It was my business not to let you see how unhappy
the artifices to which I have submitted made me; and that they did
embitter even our happiest moments.
But fate stands between us. We are doomed to be wretched. And I, every
now and then, think some terrible catastrophe will be the consequence
of our connection. “Some dire event,” as Storgé prophetically says in
Jephtha, “hangs over our heads;”—
Some woeful song we have to sing
In misery extreme—O never, never
Was my forboding mind distress’d before
With such incessant pangs!
Oh, that it were no crime to quit this world like Faldoni and Teresa,
and that we might be happy together in some other world, where gold and
silver are unknown! By your hand I could even die with pleasure. I know
I could.
“Insuperable reason.” Yes, my H., there is, and you force it from me.
Yet, better to tell you than to have you doubt my love, that love which
is now my religion. I have hardly any God but you. I almost offer up my
prayers _to_ you, as well as _for_ you.
Know, then, if you were to marry me, you would marry some hundred
pounds’ worth of debts; and _that_ you never shall do.
Do you remember a solemn oath which you took in one of your letters,
when I was down at Hinchinbrook? and how you told me afterwards it
_must_ be so, because you had so solemnly sworn it?
In the same solemn and dreadful words I swear that I never will marry
you, happy as it would make me, while I owe a shilling in the world.
Jephtha’s vow is past.
What your letter says about my poor children made me weep; but it shall
not make me change my resolution.
It is a further reason why I should not. “If I do not marry you, I do
not love you!” Gracious powers of love! Does my H. say so? My _not_
marrying you is the strongest proof I can give you of my love. And
Heaven, you know, has heard my vow. Do _you_ respect it, and never
tempt me to break it—for not even _you_ will _ever_ succeed. Till I
have some better portion than debts, I _never_ will be yours.
Then what is to be done? you ask. Why, I will tell you, H. Your
determination to drop all particular intercourse till marriage has made
us one, flatters me more than I can tell you, because it shows the
opinion you entertain of me in the strongest light; it almost restores
me to _my own_ good opinion. The copy of verses you brought me on that
subject is superior to anything I ever read. They shall be thy Martha’s
morning prayer, and her evening song. While you are in Ireland——
Yes, my love, in Ireland. Be ruled by me. You shall immediately join
your regiment there. You know it is your duty. In the meantime,
something may happen: Heaven will not desert two faithful hearts that
love like yours and mine. There are joys; there is happiness in store
for us yet. I feel there is. And (as I said just now) _while you are
in Ireland_, I will write to you _every_ post, _twice_ by _one_ post,
and I will think of you, and I will dream of you, and I will kiss your
picture, and I will wipe my eyes, and I will kiss it again, and then I
will weep again. And——
Can I give a stronger instance of my regard for you, or a stronger
proof that you ought to take my advice, than by thus begging my only
joy to leave me? I will not swear I shall survive it; but, I beseech
you, go!
Fool that I am! I undo with one hand all that I do with the other. My
tears, which drop between every word I write, prevent the effect of my
reasoning; which, I am sure, is just.
Be a man, I say—you _are_ an angel. Join your regiment; and, as sure as
I love you (nothing can be _more_ sure), I will recall you from what
will be banishment as much to me as to you, the first moment that I can
marry you with honour to myself, and happiness to my H.
But, I must not write thus. Adieu!
Ill suits the voice of love when glory calls,
And bids thee follow Jephtha to the field.
_To MISS REAY._
+Cannon Coffee House+,
_March 17, 1776_.
And I will respect the vow of Jephtha, and I will follow to the field.
At least, I will think of it all to-night, for I am sure I shall not
sleep, and will let you know the success of my struggle, for a struggle
it will be to-morrow. I will wait for you at the same place in the
Park, where I shall see you open the Admiralty door. Should it rain, I
will write. It was my intention to have endeavoured to see you now, but
I changed my mind, and wrote this, and I am glad I did. We are not in a
condition to see each other. Cruel debts! Rather, cruel vow! for, would
you but have let me, I would have contrived some scheme about your
debts. I _could_ form a plan. My Gosport matters—my commission.
Alas! you frown, and I must stop. Why would not fortune smile upon my
two lottery tickets? Heaven knows I bought them on your account. Upon
the back of one of them I wrote, in case of my sudden death, “This
is the property of Miss _Reay_.” On the back of the other, that it
belonged to your daughter. For what am I still reserved?
_To MR. HACKMAN._
+Admiralty+, _March 17, 1776_.
Why, why do you write to me so often? Why do you see me so often? when
you acknowledge the necessity of complying with my advice.
You tell me, if I bid you, you will go. I have bid you, begged you to
go.—I _do_ bid you go. Go, I conjure you, go! But let us not have any
more partings. The last was too, too much. I did not recover myself all
day. And your goodness to my little white-headed boy! He made me burst
into tears this morning by talking of the good-natured gentleman, and
producing your present.
Either stay, and let our affection discover and ruin us—or go.
On the bended knees of love I entreat you, H., my dearest H., to go.
* * * * *
This earnest appeal induced Hackman to obey her wishes, and he departed
for Ireland immediately.