FOOTNOTES:
[65] Celebrated Trials and Remarkable Cases of Criminal Jurisprudence from the Earliest Records to the Year 1825. In six volumes. London: Printed for Geo. Knight & Lacey, Paternoster Row, 1825. Price £3, 12s. in boards.
[66] The New and Complete Newgate Calendar or Malefactors Recording Register. By William Jackson. Six vols. 1802.
[67] Cobbett and Howell's State Trials. In thirty-three volumes and index, 1809 to 1828. The last volume, apart from the index, was actually published the year after Borrow's Celebrated Trials, that is, in 1826; but the last trial recorded was that of Thistlewood in 1820. The editors were William Cobbett, Thomas Bayly Howell, and his son, Thomas Jones Howell.
[68] The following note appeared in The Monthly Magazine for 1st July 1824 (vol. lvii. p. 557):
'A Selection of the most remarkable Trials and Criminal Causes is printing in five volumes. It will include all famous cases, from that of Lord Cobham, in the reign of Henry the Fifth, to that of John Thurtell; and those connected with foreign as well as English jurisprudence. Mr. Borrow, the editor, has availed himself of all the resources of the English, German, French, and Italian languages; and his work, including from 150 to 200 of the most interesting cases on record, will appear in October next. The editor of the preceding has ready for the press a Life of Faustus, his Death, and Descent into Hell, which will also appear early in the next winter.'
[69] Did the poet, who had an interest in criminology, know of his father's quite innocent association with the Fauntleroy trial?
[70] Another witness attained fame by her answer to the inquiry, 'Was supper postponed?' with the reply, 'No, it was pork.'
[71] I have already stated (ch. x. p. 111) that three members of the Thurtell family subscribed for Romantic Ballads. I should have hesitated to include John Thurtell among the subscribers, as he was hanged two years before the book was published, had I not the high authority of Mr. Walter Rye, but recently Mayor of Norwich, and the honoured author of a History of Norfolk Families and other works. Mr. Rye, to whom I owe much of the information concerning the Thurtells published here, tells me that there was only this one, 'J. Thurtell.' Borrow had doubtless been appealing for subscribers for a very long time. I cannot, however, accept Mr. Rye's suggestion to me that Borrow left Norwich because he was mixed up with Thurtell in ultra-Whig or Radical scrapes, the intimidation and 'cooping' of Tory voters being a characteristic of the elections of that day with the wilder spirits, of whom Thurtell was doubtless one. Borrow's sympathies were with the Tory party from his childhood up—following his father.
[72] The Fatal Effects of Gambling Exemplified in the Murder of Wm. Weare and the Trial and Fate of John Thurtell, the Murderer, and his Accomplices. London: Thomas Kelly, Paternoster Row. 1824. I have a very considerable number of Weare pamphlets in my possession, one of them being a record of the trial by Pierce Egan, the author of Life in London and Boxiana. Walter Scott writes in his diary of being absorbed in an account of the trial, while he deprecates John Bull's maudlin sentiment over 'the pitiless assassin.' That was in 1826, but in 1828 Scott went out of his way when travelling from London to Edinburgh, to visit Gill's Hill, and describes the scene of the tragedy very vividly. Lockhart's Life, ch. lxxvi.
[73] Elstree had already had its association with a murder case, for Martha Reay, the mistress of John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich, was buried in the church in 1779. She was the mother of several of the Earl's children, one of whom was Basil Montagu. She was a beautiful woman and a delightful singer, and was appearing on the stage at Covent Garden, which theatre she was leaving on the night of 7th April 1779, when the Reverend James Hackman, Vicar of Wiveton in Norfolk, shot her through the head with a pistol in a fit of jealous rage. Hackman was hanged at Tyburn, Boswell attending the funeral. Croft's supposed letters between Hackman and Martha Reay, which made a great sensation when issued under the title of Love and Madness, are now known to be spurious (see ch. x. p. 115). Martha Reay was buried in the chancel of Elstree Church, but Lord Sandwich, who, although he sent word to Hackman, who asked his forgiveness, that 'he had robbed him of all comfort in this world,' took no pains to erect a monument over her remains. On 28th February 1913 the present writer visited Elstree in the interest of this book. He found that the church of Martha Reay and William Weare had long disappeared. A new structure dating from 1853 had taken its place. The present vicar, he was told, has located the spot where Weare was buried, and it coincides with the old engravings. Martha Reay's remains, at the time of the rebuilding, were removed to the churchyard, and lie near the door of the vestry, lacking all memorial. The Artichoke Inn has also been rebuilt, and 'Weare's Pond,' which alone recalls the tragedy to-day, where the body was found, has contracted into a small pool. It is, however, clearly authentic, the brook, as pictured in the old trial-books, now running under the road.
[74] One of them was Mr. Justice Best, of whom it is recorded that a certain index had the reference line, 'Mr. Justice Best: his Great Mind,' which seemed to have no justification in the mental qualities of that worthy, but was explained when one referred to the context and saw that 'Mr. Justice Best said that he had a great mind to commit the witness for contempt.'
[75] See an introduction by Thomas Seccombe to Lavengro in 'Everyman's Library.'