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The Lumley Autograph
by
“Now you recall the matter to me, Mr. Lumley, I do recollect something of the kind. I remember one day, giving my tutor some musty old letter he found in the library at G—-; and by the bye he came near cracking my skull on the same occasion!”
Mr. Lumley was not a little pleased by this confirmation of the story, though he found that Lord G—- had not even read the letter, nor did he know any thing of its subsequent fate; he only remembered looking at the signature. Not long after the meeting at which this explanation had taken place, Mr. Lumley received a visit from a stranger, requesting to see the MS. Life of Otway in his possession. It was handed to him; he examined it, and was very particular in his inquiries on the subject, giving the chaplain to understand that he was the agent of a third person who wished to purchase either the original letter if possible, or if that could not be found, the MS. containing the copy. Mr. Lumley always believed that the employer of this applicant was no other than that arch-gatherer, Horace Walpole, who gave such an impulse to the collecting mania; he declined selling the work, however, for he had thoughts of printing it himself. The application was mentioned by him, and, of course, the manuscript gained notoriety, while the original letter became a greater desideratum than ever. The library at G—- was searched most carefully by a couple of brother book-worms, who crept over it from cornice to carpeting; but to no purpose.
{Horace Walpole = Horace Walpole (1717-1797), a prolific writer, connoisseur, and collector, best known for his extensive correspondence; he established a taste for literary collecting by would-be cultured gentlemen in England}
Some ten years later still–about the time, by the bye, when Chatterton’s career came to such a miserable close in London, and when Gilbert was dying in a hospital at Paris–it happened that a worthy physician, well known in the town of Southampton for his benevolence and eccentricity, was on a professional visit to the child of a poor journeyman trunk-maker, in the same place. A supply of old paper had just been brought in for the purpose of lining trunks, according to the practice of the day. A workman was busy sorting these, rejecting some as refuse, and preserving others, when the doctor stopped to answer an inquiry about the sick child.
{Chatterton = Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770), British poet, who created an imaginary Thomas Rowley, a supposed medieval monk, to whom he ascribed some of his poems. Chatterton committed suicide at the age of 18 when a poem of his, allegedly by Rowley, was rejected; he was buried in a pauper’s grave. Susan Fenimore Cooper no doubt has this in mind in naming a character in this story Theodosia Rowley.
{Gilbert = Nicolas Gilbert (1751-1780), French poet, who died in Paris at the age of 29. The French writer Count Alfred de Vigny (1797-1863), in his book of essays “Stello” (1832), popularized a legend that Gilbert had died insane and in abject poverty at the charity hospital of the Hotel Dieu in Paris, and compared his miserable end with that of Chatteron; it seems likely that Vigny, whose book appeared while Susan Fenimore Cooper was studying in Paris, was her source for this reference to Gilbert. In fact, Gilbert was not impoverished, and died of injuries after falling from his horse}
“Better, Hopkins–doing well. But what have you here? I never see old papers but I have an inclination to look them over. If a man has leisure, he may often pick up something amusing among such rubbish. Don’t you ever read the papers that pass through your hands?”
“No, sir–I ‘as no time for that, sir. And then I was never taught to read writing, and these ‘ere papers is all written ones. We puts them that’s written for one trunk, and them that’s printed for another, as you see, sir; one must have a heye to the looks of the work.”