The Valet's Tragedy, and Other StudiesLang, Andrew
History
The Valet's Tragedy, and Other Studies
Lang, Andrew
History; World history
The ‘dream’ of Mr. Andrews (according to ‘The Scots Magazine’ of
December 1779)* occurred at Dartford in Kent, on the night of November
27. It represented Lord Lyttelton drawing his bed-curtains, and saying,
‘It is all over,’ or some such words.
*The magazine appeared at the end of December.
This Mr. Andrews had been a drysalter. He made a large fortune, owned
the powder-mills at Dartford, sat in Parliament, wrote plays which had
some success, and was thought a good fellow in raffish society. Indeed,
the society was not always raffish. In ‘Notes and Queries’ (December 26,
1874) H. S. says that his mother, daughter of Sir George Prescott, often
met Mr. Andrews at their house, Theobalds Park, Herts. He was extremely
agreeable, and, if pressed, would tell his little anecdote of November
27, 1779.
This proof that the Andrews tale is contemporary has led us away from
the description of the final scene, given in ‘Past Feelings Renovated,’
by the person who brought the news to Mr. Andrews. His version includes
a trick played with the watches and clocks. All were set on half
an hour; the valet secretly made the change in Lord Lyttelton’s own
timepiece. His lordship thus went to bed, as he thought, at 11.30,
really at eleven o’clock, as in the Pitt Place document. At about
twelve o’clock, midnight, the valet rushed in among the guests, who were
discussing the odd circumstances, and said that his master was at the
point of death. Lord Lyttelton had kept looking at his watch, and at a
quarter past twelve (by his chronometer and his valet’s) he remarked,
‘This mysterious lady is not a true prophetess, I find.’ The real hour
was then a quarter to twelve. At about half-past twelve, by HIS watch,
twelve by the real time, he asked for his physic. The valet went into
the dressing-room to prepare it (to fetch a spoon by other versions),
when he heard his master ‘breathing very hard.’ ‘I ran to him, and found
him in the agonies of death.’
There is something rather plausible in this narrative, corresponding, as
it does, with the Pitt Place document, in which the valet, finding his
master in a fit, leaves him and seeks assistance, instead of lowering
his head that he might breathe more easily. Like the other, this tale
makes suicide a most improbable explanation of Lord Lyttelton’s death.
The affair of the watches is dramatic, but not improbable in itself.
A correspondent of ‘The Gentleman’s Magazine’ (in 1815) only cites ‘a
London paper’ as his authority. The writer of ‘Past Feelings Renovated’
(1828) adds that Mr. Andrews could never again be induced to sleep at
Pitt Place, but, when visiting there, always lay at the Spread Eagle, in
Epsom.
Let us now tabulate our results.
At Pitt Place, Epsom, or Hill Street, Berkeley Square, On November 24,
Lord Lyttelton Dreamed of, or saw, A young woman and a robin. A bird
which became a woman. A dove and a woman. Mrs. Amphlett (without a dove
or robin). Some one else unknown.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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