Recollections
of Coleridge" in the first volume of the Boston edition of his _Works_.

The story has some romance in it, and excited great interest fifty years
ago. Hatfield had lived by swindling; and, though he underwent an
imprisonment for debt, had, upon the whole, a long career of success. The
last scene of his depredations was the Lakes, where he married a barmaid,
who was called "The Beauty of Buttermere." Shortly after the marriage he
was arrested, tried, and executed. Mr. De Quincey afterwards lived in the
neighbourhood, dined at the public-house kept by Mary's father, and was
waited upon by her. He had the fullest opportunities of getting correct
information: and his version of the story is so truthlike, that I should
have accepted it without hesitation but for the hanging for forging a
frank. As that offence never was capital, and was made a felony punishable
with transportation for seven years by 42 Geo. III. c. 63., I was impelled
to compare the statement founded on gossip with more formal accounts; and I
send the result in illustration of the small reliance which is to be placed
on tradition in such matters. The arrival of Hatfield in a carriage is
graphically described. He called himself the Hon. Augustus Hope, brother of
the Earl of Hopetoun. Some doubts were felt at first, but--

"To remove suspicion, he not only received letters addressed to him
under this assumed name, but he continually franked letters by that
name. Now, _that being a capital offence_, being not only a forgery,
but (as a forgery on the Post-office) sure to be prosecuted, nobody
presumed to question his pretensions any longer; and henceforward he
went to all places with the consideration due to an earl's
brother."--P. 196.

The marriage with Mary Robinson, and the way in which they passed the
honeymoon, are described:

"They continued to move backwards and forwards, until at length, _with
the startling of a thunderclap to the_ {27} _affrighted mountaineers_,
the bubble burst; officers of justice appeared, _the stranger was
easily intercepted from flight_, and, _upon a capital charge_, he was
_borne away to Carlisle_. At the ensuing assizes he was _tried for
forgery on the prosecution of the Post-office_, found guilty, left for
execution, and executed accordingly."--P. 199.

"One common scaffold confounds the most flinty hearts and the
tenderest. However, it was in so