The Lumley Autograph | Page 6

= Raphael Holinshed (d. 1580), famous writer of British historical chronicles, used by Shakespeare as source for some of his plays}
"Hang it Lumley, what a rumpus you keep up among the books! You well nigh drove that old volume into my head by a process more summary than usual."
The learned tutor made a thousand apologies, as he descended the ladder, but on touching the floor his delight burst forth.
"It was this paper, my lord, which made me so awkward--I have lighted on a document of the greatest interest!"
"What is it?" asked the pupil looking askance at letter, and tutor.
"An original letter which comes to hand, just in time for my lives of the tragedians--the volume to be dedicated to your lordship--it is a letter of poor Otway."
{Otway = Thomas Otway (1652-1685), English playwright who wrote a number of important tragedies in verse, but who died destitute at the age of 33. The Coopers were familiar with his work; James Fenimore Cooper used quotations from Otway's "The Orphan" for three chapter heading epigraphs in his 1850 novel, "The Ways of the Hour"}
"Otway?--What, the fellow you were boring me about last night?"
"The same my lord--the poet Otway--you may remember we saw his Venice Preserved last week. It is a highly interesting letter, written in great distress, and confirms the story of his starvation. You see the signature."
{Venice Preserved = a well-known play by Otway, written in 1682}
"That name, Otway?--Well, to my mind it is as much like Genghis Khan."
"Oh, my lord!--Thomas Otway clearly--signatures are always more or less confused.
"Well, have it your own way.--It may be Tom, Dick, or Harry for all I care," said the youth, stretching himself preparatory to a visit to his kennels; and such was his indifference to this literary treasure that he readily gave it to his tutor. In those days, few lords were literary.
Mr. Lumley's delight at this discovery, was very much increased by the fact that he was at that moment anxious to bring out an edition of the English Tragedians of the seventeenth century. The lives of several of these authors had been already written by him, and he was at that moment engaged on that of Otway. A noted publisher had taken the matter into consideration, and if the undertaking gave promise of being both palatable to the public, and profitable to himself, a prospectus was to be issued. Now here was a little tit-bit which the public would doubtless relish; for it was beginning to feel some interest in Otway's starvation, the poet having been dead half a century. It is true that the signature of the poor starving author, whoever he may have been, was so illegible that it required some imagination to see in it, the name of Otway, but Mr. Lumley had enough of the true antiquarian spirit, to settle the point to his own entire satisfaction. The note was accordingly introduced into the life of Otway, with which the learned tutor was then engaged. The work itself, however, was not destined to see the light; its publication was delayed, while Mr. Lumley accompanied his pupil on the usual continental tour, and from this journey the learned gentleman never returned, dying at Rome, of a cold caught in the library of the Vatican. By his will, the MS. life of Otway with all his papers, passed into the hands of his brother, an officer in the army. Unfortunately, however, Captain Lumley, who was by no means a literary character, proved extremely indifferent to this portion of his brother's inheritance, which he treated with contemptuous neglect.
After this first stage on the road to fame, twenty more years passed away and the letter of the starving poet was again forgotten. At length the papers of the Rev. Mr. Lumley, fell into the hands of a nephew, who inherited his uncle's antiquarian tastes, and clerical profession. In looking over the MSS., he came to the life of Otway, and was struck with the letter given there, never having met with it in print; there was also a note appended to it with an account of the manner in which it had been discovered by the editor, in the library of Lord G-----, and affirming that it was still in his own possession. The younger Lumley immediately set to work to discover the original letter, but his search was fruitless; it was not to be found either among the papers of his uncle, or those of his father. It was gone. He was himself a tutor at Cambridge at the time, and returning to the university, he carried with him his uncle's life of Otway, in MS. Some little curiosity was at first excited among his immediate companions by these facts, but it soon settled down into an opinion unfavorable to the veracity