The fate of this unhappy young woman who committed suicide at Bath, on
the 9th of September, 1731, is still remembered in that city. She
resided with Mr. John Wood, the architect, and on the night of the 8th
went well to bed, nowise disordered in behaviour. Her custom was to burn
a candle all night, and for her maid to lock the door, and push the key
under it, so that she always got up in the morning to let her maid into
the room. After she had retired, on the evening mentioned, she got out
of bed again, and, it is supposed, employed some time in reading. She
put on a white night-gown, and pinned it over her breast; tied a gold
and a silver girdle together, and at one end having made three knots
about an inch asunder, that if one slipped another might hold, she
opened the door, put the knotty end of the girdle over it, and locking
the door again, made a noose at the other end, through which she put her
neck, by getting on a chair and then dropped from it. She hung with her
back against the door, and had hold of the key with one of her hands;
she had bit her tongue through, and had a bruise on her forehead; this
was occasioned, probably, by the breaking of a red girdle she had tried
first, which was found in her pocket with a noose on it; there were two
marks on the door. The coroner’s inquest sat on her that day, and
brought in their verdict _non compos mentis_. She was daughter to the
late general Braddock, who at his death left her and her sister 6000_l._
By her sister’s death about four years before, she became mistress of
the whole fortune, but being infatuated by the love of gaming, met “an
unlucky chance” which deprived her of her fortune. She had been heard to
say, that no one should ever be sensible of her necessities, were they
at the last extremity. She was generally lamented, and in life had been
greatly esteemed for courteous and genteel behaviour, and good sense.
She was buried in a decent manner in the abbey church, in the grave of
her honest brave old father, a gentleman who had experienced some
undeserved hardships in life; but who might be said to have been thus
far happy, that he lived not to see or hear of so tragical a catastrophe
of his beloved daughter. The following verses were written by her on her
window:--
“O, death! thou pleasing end to human woe!
Thou cure for life! thou greatest good below!
Still may’st thou fly the coward and the slave,
And thy soft slumbers only bless the brave.”[314]
Mr. Wood who wrote “an Essay towards a Description of Bath,” speaks of
many circumstances which unite to prove that Fanny Braddock had long
meditated self-destruction. In a book entitled _New Court Tales_, she is
called “the beautiful and celebrated Sylvia,” which Wood says “she was
not very improperly styled, having been a tenant under my roof during
the last thirteen months of her life; and at the time of her unhappy
death, her debt of two and fifty pounds three shillings and fourpence
for rent, &c. entitled me to the sole possession of all her papers and
other effects, which I seized on Monday, the 13th of September, 1731.”
Though Wood probably knew better how to draw up an inventory, and make
an appraisement, than a syllogism, yet at the end of five months the
creditors drew “a new inventory” of what was in his possession, and made
a new appraisement. “The goods were then sold,” says Wood, “and people
striving for something to preserve the memory of the poor deceased lady,
the price of every thing was so advanced that the creditors were all
paid, and an overplus remained for the nearest relation; though it
ought to have come to _me_, as a consideration towards the damages I
sustained on the score of Sylvia’s untimely death”!
Whatever was Wood’s estimation of his unhappy tenant when alive, he
could afford to praise her dead. “Nothing can be more deplorable than
the fate of this unfortunate young woman; a fate that I have heard
hundreds in high life lament their not suspecting, that they might have
endeavoured to prevent it, though it should have been at half the
expense of their estates; and yet many of those people, when common fame
every where sounded Sylvia’s running out of her fortune, would endeavour
to draw her into play to win her money, and accept of whatever was
offered them from her generous hand!” She was ensnared by a woman named
Lindsey, who kept a house for high play. “When I came down to Bath,”
says Wood, “in the year 1727, Sylvia was entirely at the dame’s command,
whenever a person was wanting to make up a party for play at her house.
Dame Lindsey’s wit and humour, with the appearance of sanctity in a
sister that lived with her, strongly captivated the youth of both sexes,
and engaged them in her interest.” The reputation of this “dame Lindsey”
was at a low ebb, but Wood observes, “in the course of three years I
could never, by the strictest observations, perceive Sylvia to be
tainted with any other vice than that of suffering herself to be decoyed
to the gaming-table; and, at her own hazard, playing for the amusement
and advantage of others. I was therefore not long in complying with a
proposal she made to me in the summer of the year 1738, for renting part
of a house I then lived in, in Queen-square; her behaviour was such as
manifested nothing but virtue, regularity, and good nature. She was
ready to accept of trifling marks of friendship, to give her a pretence
of making great returns; and she was no sooner seated in my house than
ladies of the highest distinction, and of the most unblemished
characters were her constant visiters: her levee looked more like that
of a minister of state than of a private young lady. Her endowments
seemed to have had a power of attraction among her own sex, even
stronger than that of all the riches of a court among the gentlemen that
are allured by them.”
The last night of her life she had spent in Mr. Wood’s study, where she
took her supper, and dandled two of his children on her knees till the
hour of retiring. She then went to the nursery and taking leave of a
sleeping infant in its cradle, praised the innocence of its looks.
Passing to her own room she undressed and went to bed, and, as her
servant left the room, bade her good night; she had never done so
before. It is probable that at that moment she thought on her fatal
purpose, and some passages in Harrington’s translation of “Orlando
Furioso,” are supposed to have strengthened it. It was found that after
she had arisen she had been reading in it; the book lay open at pp. 74
and 75, the story of Olympia, who, by the perfidy and ingratitude of her
bosom friend, was ruined.
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