MEMOIRS

OF THE LATE

THOMAS HOLCROFT,

Written by Himself,

AND CONTINUED

TO THE TIME OF HIS DEATH,

FROM HIS DIARY,

NOTES, AND OTHER PAPERS.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

London:

PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, PEES, ORME, AND

BROWN, PATERNOSTER ROW.

ADVERTISEMENT.

MR. HOLCROFT had intended, for several years before his death, to write an account of his own life. It is now only to be regretted that he did not begin to execute this design sooner. Few lives have been marked with more striking changes; and no one possessed the qualities necessary for describing them with characteristic liveliness in a greater degree than he did. It often happens, that what we most wish done, we fail to do, either through fear lest the execution should not answer our

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expectations, or because the pleasure with which we contemplate a favourite object at a distance, makes us neglect the ordinary means of attaining it. This seems to have been the case with Mr. Holcroft, who did not begin the work he had so long projected, till within a short time of his death. How much he had it at heart, may however be inferred from the extraordinary pains he then took to make some progress in it. He told his physicians that he did not care what severity of treatment he was subjected to, provided he could live six months longer to complete what he had begun. By dictating a word at a time, he succeeded in bringing it down to his fifteenth year. When the clearness, minuteness, and vivid