CROFT, SIR HERBERT

This article appears in Volume V07, Page 480 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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CROFT, SIR HERBERT , Bart. (17511816), English author, was born at Dunster Park, Berkshire, on the 1st of November 1751, son of Herbert Croft (see below) of Stifford, Essex. He matriculated at University College, Oxford, in March 1771, and was subsequently entered at Lincoln's Inn. He was called to the bar, but in 1782 returned to Oxford with a view to preparing for holy orders. In 1786 he received the vicarage of Prittlewell, Essex, but he remained at Oxford for some years accumulating materials for a proposed English dictionary. He was twice married, and on the day after his second wedding day he was imprisoned at Exeter for debt. He then retired to Hamburg, and two years later his library was sold. He had succeeded in 1797 to the title, but not to the estates, of a distant cousin, Sir John Croft, the fourth baronet. He returned to England in 1800, but went abroad once more in 1802. He lived near Amiens at a

house

owned by Lady Mary Hamilton, said to have been a daughter of the

earl

EARL

of Leven and

Melville

. Later he removed to Paris, where he died on the 26th of April 1816. In some of his numerous literary enterprises he had the help of Charles Nodier. Croft wrote the Life of Edward Young inserted in Johnson's Lives of the Poets. In 178o he published Love and Madness, a Story too true, in a

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

of letters between Parties whose names could perhaps be mentioned were they less known or less lamented. , This book, which passed through seven editions, narrates the passion of a clergyman named James Hackman for Martha Ray, mistress of the

earl

EARL

of Sandwich, who was shot by her lover as she was leaving Covent Garden in 1779 (see the Case and Memoirs of the

late

LATE

Rev. Mr James Hackman, 1779). Love and Madness has permanent

interest

INTEREST

because Croft inserted, among other miscellaneous matter, information about Thomas Chatterton gained from letters which he obtained from the poet's sister, Mrs Newton, under false pretences, and used without payment. Robert Southey, when about to publish an edition of Chatterton's works for the benefit of his family, published (November 1799) details of Croft's proceedings in the Monthly
' This is probably a Greek legend (cf. the Attic vase of about 500 B.C. in Journ. of Hell. Stud., 1898, p. 268).
Review. To this attack Croft wrote a reply addressed to John

Nichols

NICHOLS, JOHN (1745–1826)

in the

Gentleman

GENTLEMAN (from Lat. gentilis, " belonging to a race or gens," and " man "; Fr. gentilhomme, Span. gentil hombre, Ital. gentil huomo, in its
original
- ORIGINAL
and strict signification, a term denoting a man of good family, the Lat. generosus (its invariable transl

's Magazine, and afterwards printed separately as Chatterton and Love and Madness . . . (1800). This tract evades the main accusation, and contains much abuse of Southey. Croft, however, supplied the material for the exhaustive account of Chatterton in A. Kippis's Biographia Britannica (vol. iv., 1789). In 1788 he addressed a

letter

LETTER (through Fr. lettre from Lat. littera or litera, letter of the alphabet; the origin of the Latin word is obscure; it has probably no connexion with the root of linere, to smear, i.e. with wax, for an inscription with a stilus)

to William Pitt on the subject of a new dictionary. He criticized Samuel Johnson's efforts, and in 1790 he claimed to have collected 11,000 words used by excellent authorities but omitted by Johnson. Two years later he issued proposals for a revised edition of Johnson's Dictionary, but subscribers were lacking and his 200 vols. of MS. remained unused. Croft was a good scholar and linguist, and the author of some curious books in French.
The Love Letters of Mr H. and Miss R. 17751779 were edited from Croft's book by Mr Gilbert Burgess (1895). See also John

Nichols

NICHOLS, JOHN (1745–1826)

's Illustrations . . . (1828), v. 202-218.

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