University of Virginia Library

I
The Earliest (?) Key to The Spiritual Quixote.

Richard Graves's The Spiritual Quixote (1773), it is well known, is to some extent a roman à clef, with no little admixture of autobiography. Hitherto, the first key to some of the characters' real identity was held to be that published in John Wilson Croker's 1831 edition of Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson (IV, 524-525). The key was given him by his "venerable and amiable

friend, Lord St. Helens," the son of William Fitzherbert, and contains the following identifications, the characters' names appearing first: Sir William Forrester/Mr. Fitzherbert; Lady Forrester/Mrs. Fitzherbert; Lord----/L.P. Meynell, Esq. of Bradley Park, Mrs. F's father; Kitty Forrester/Catherine Fitzherbert, afterwards Mrs. Bateman; Miss Sainthill/Miss Hill Boothby; Colonel Rappee/Colonel Deane; Bob Tench/Mr. Nicholas Thornhill; and the Young Templar/Mr. C. Pratt, afterwards Lord Camden. "Even the inferior characters," Croker continues, "were drawn from the life," so that the "jacobite barber was one Daniel Shipley; George, the butler, was John Latham; and Molly, the lady's maid, was Mary Etches, afterwards married to Latham; Wildgoose, the hero, was supposed to be a portrait of Mr. Graves's own brother."[1] My present purpose is to examine what is probably the first key, one published in the Gentleman's Magazine (hereafter GM) in September, 1808, pp. 774-5. Prior to this it may be well to point out that the identification of the Foresters with the Fitzherberts had been made in 1804 in the GM's obituary notice of Grave's death (p. 1166). There, too, Mr. Rivers was identified as the author himself, and most scholars have been content to accept these identifications.

Perhaps it will be well to quote Hill (see note 1) on the whole matter of these identifications. Noting that those given by Croker were mostly of minor characters and "no longer possible to verify" he went on to write, "It is also perfectly fair to say that in most of these cases verification would not add much to one's appreciation of the narrative. Some comment, however, may profitably be made" (p. 59). Hill accepted the identifications of the Fitzherberts, Miss Hill Boothby, and Charles Pratt and went on to "things of greater importance," i.e., the narratives of Mr. Graham and of Mr. Rivers. Here, too, it should be mentioned that Clarence Tracy, editor of the Oxford 1967 edition of The Spiritual Quixote, is inclined to be sceptical of the identifications and concerns himself in his Introduction largely with the autobiographical element in the novel (p. xx). Tracy points out, however, that in the 1808 edition of the novel "Sir W. K." (Book X, Chapter xxii) becomes "Sir W. Keyte" p. (495).

The identification of Sir W. K. in the 1808 edition may serve as a bridge to the list in the September 1808 GM, for there Sir W. K. is identified as "Sir William Kyte of Horton, near Campden, co. Gloucester; after whose death the estate was purchased by Mr. Dudley Ryder, father of Lord Harrowby." The GM index of names for 1787-1818 records the death of a George Kyte in 1791, and there is an editorial note that reads, "The name is properly Keyt, near relations of a family, till lately, of great note and respectability in Gloucestershire" (p. 1167). This is corroborated by the Victoria County History of Gloucestershire, volume VI. Sir William Musgraves's Obituary Prior to 1800 . . . (1900), III, 368, sub Keyt, records the death of "William (Sir), Hertfordshire, 6 March 1757, age 72 (See an accot. of his death in the 'Hist. of

Jeffery Wildgoose,' iii. 164)." The GM obituary has him as "Rev. Sir Wm. Keate, Bart. aged 72, at Digby, near Walling, Hertfordshire" (1757, p. 142). Hence, one has Keyte, Kyte, Keyt, and Keate. The likeliest candidate is he of the 1808 GM, for he was of Horton, near Campden, which is three miles south of Mickleton, Graves's birthplace. Indeed, the GM obituary notice of Graves's death identifies Mickleton as "near Campdon, co. Gloucester." However, the only William Kyte I have found was of Shireborn, Gloucestershire; his son Joshua attended Oxford University and died in 1788 (Alumni Oxonienses). "Shireborn" is modern "Sherborne." Of negligible weight is the fact that Sir Dudley Ryder (see DNB), who was said to have purchased Sir William's estate, was the father of Nathaniel, first Baron Harrowby. This first identification must be judged, in part, by what evidence can be gleaned from the others in the 1808 GM list.

"W. F.," who sent the key to the GM in 1808, wrote, "I send you a key to the Spiritual Quixotte. I had it from a respectable quarter, and have reason to suppose it genuine. If you have not already noticed it [had it appeared elsewhere?], perhaps you may deem it worthy a place in your Magazine." According to the list, Geoffrey Wildgoose and Miss Townshend were "Feigned characters," a view shared by Hill, although some of Wildgoose's traits are taken from Graves's brother Charles. W. F. was right on Rivers and the Fitzherberts, but he could have got those identifications from the 1804 GM obituary notice of Graves's death. Aside from those already mentioned and that of Sir William Kyte there are thirteen other identifications. I have been unable to discover anything about the following, the characters' names appearing first: Lavinia/Mrs. E. Lowe of Worcester; Mrs. Booby/Formerly Miss Brace; Mr. Hammond/Mr. Bernard Kirkman; Mr. Gregory Griskin/The Rev. Mr. Boyce, Rector of Berkeswell in Staffordshire; Molly J----n/Molly Johnson, lately dead; and Jerry Tugwell/William Taylor, a shoemaker at Mickleton. Jerry Tugwell was, of course, a shoemaker, so that W. F.'s last identification, if true, lends something to our information about Graves's "sources," if that be the right word.[2]

What is most remarkable about W. F.'s key is its identifications of Miss Eutricia Smith, daughter of the Rev. Mr. Smith of Mickleton, in the county of Gloucester" as Ophelia of the novel and of "Mr. Bartholomew, of Alder, near Reading," as Mr. Woodville. Graves "received his earliest instruction from a Mr. Smith, curate of Mickleton and Vicar of Toddington. That gentleman had a daughter named Eutricia" (Hill, p. 62). Further, about 1744 Graves "took up his clerical duties in the parish of Aldworth in Berkshire, where he became a boarder in the household of Edward Bartholomew" (Hill, p. 65), whose daughter Lucy he married. Lucy was fifteen when Graves moved to Aldworth; Charlotte Woodville of the novel was "hardly fifteen" when Mr. Rivers went to reside with the family. Alder, by the way, is an alternate or variant spelling of Aldworth or Alworth. It is against the background of these

facts, and some complementary ones to be discussed, that the key in the GM must be judged. For example, Mr. Clayton is alleged to be "The late Morgan Graves, ESQ. of Mickleton, who married the daughter of James Walwyn, ESQ." Morgan Graves was Richard's brother; James Walwyn, ESQ. a banker, died in 1800 (GM, p. 1209) shortly after the death of his daughter. What is more, the GM key identifies "the late James Walwyn of Longworth, co. Hereford" as the original of Mr. Aldworth in the novel. (Note that Mr. Bartholomew, the original of Mr. Woodville, was of Aldworth, almost surely suggesting the name Mr. Aldworth for one of Graves's characters.) One more identification strengthens the impression that W. F.'s "respectable quarter," the source of his key, knew quite a bit about the Graves family, i.e. that the Countess of Huntingdon was Lady Sherwood of the novel, for Hill (p. 41) is authority for an association between Lady Huntingdon and Charles Graves, Richard's brother who is, in part, the original of Geoffrey Wildgoose. The next identification raises a curious problem, inasmuch as Mr. Wylmot is supposed to be "the late Rev. Mr. Walker, Rector of Whitchurch, Oxfordshire," and the only recorded Mr. Walker, Samuel in this instance, who was rector of Whitchurch, held this living from 1723-28 (Alumni Cantabrigienses), and would hardly be described as "the late" Mr. Walker. In any event, there was a Mr. Walker who was rector of Whitchurch in Oxfordshire, six miles northwest of Reading, "near" which was the residence of Mr. Bartholomew, the original of Mr. Woodville. In Book VI, Chapter XIV, Mr. Rivers took his wife, the former Miss Woodville, to dine with Mrs. and Mrs. Wymot, "whose seat in the country was not many miles distant from Miss Woodville's father's."

W. F. states that the original of Mr. Graham, now held to be Graves himself, was "the late Dr. Cholmondeley, fellow of Magdalen college, Oxon. His sister married Sir William Kyte." This is particularly interesting, since he also identified Sir Willam Kyte as the Sir. W. K. of the novel. However, the only Cholmondeley I have found who remotely resembles the above is John Cholmeley (a variant spelling of Cholmonedley), a fellow of Magdalen.[3] But he had no doctoral degree and he died in 1814, six years after the key in the GM. Nor is there any record in the indexes to the names in the GM for the years 1731-1818 of the marriage of a Miss Cholmondeley (or Cholmeley) to a Sir William Kyte. Two explanations offer themselves: W. F.'s information was inaccurate here, as in a few other places, or available records simply have omitted such events as the Cholmondeley-Kyte marriage and the death of the "Dr." Cholmondeley (Cholmeley) whose sister Sir William Kyte married. What is more, the same is true of the identification of the "Rev. Mr. Boyce, Rector of Berkeswell in Staffordshire" as the original of one of the most memorable minor characters in the novel, "Mr. Geoffrey Griskin, the little fat Staffordshire clergyman" who figures in Mr. Rivers's narrative (see Book VI, Chapter XIX). (Modern Berkswell is in Warwickshire on the border with Staffordshire.) Richard Boyse is the only possible candidate, but he became

Rector of Berkswell on 25 April 1713 (Alumnis Oxonienses), a date early enough as to suggest the existence of another Rector of Berkswell named Boyce, or a remarkable, but by no means improbable, tenure on the part of Richard Boyse. Graves began writing his novel in 1757, but he was already forty-two years old; hence Richard Boyse's candidacy for the original of Gregory Griskin is chronologically possible.

Ultimately the question of the value of the GM key must be raised. First of all, one of the most important identifications, that of Mr. Bartholomew of Aldworth as the original of Mr. Woodville and the whole matter of Graves's marriage to Lucy Bartholomew has hitherto rested on the unsupported statement of a work published in 1866. In his Remains in Verse and Prose (p. 96), the Rev. Francis Kilvert made the Bartholomew/Woodville identification, but gave no authority for it, although it is clear from the rest of his essay on Graves that he knew the key that had been given Croker. Indeed, he writes that "there is extant a key, assigning each of [the principal characters] to its original" (p. 108), but does not elaborate on the statement. The GM key not only makes the first Bartholomew/Woodville identification but also the first Utricia Smith/Ophelia identification, as well as a number of lesser ones. To be sure, there are discrepancies or seeming discrepancies in a few of the identifications, and some would seem to defy verification, but there are more clues than there are false trails. If the GM key inspires credence, and it should certainly inspire some, the autobiographical element in the novel is shown to be greater than has been realized and the purely fictive element reduced. In short, if The Spiritual Quixote is accepted as a minor classic, as its champions claim, any light upon the mode of its composition should be welcomed.[3a]