Apropos to Mary Blandy’s death, “Elia” has a quaint anecdote of Samuel Salt, one of the “Old Benchers of the Inner Temple.”  This gentleman, notable for his maladroit remarks, was bidden to dine with a relative of hers (doubtless Mr. Serjeant Stevens) on the day of the execution—­not, one would think, a suitable occasion for festivity.  Salt was warned beforehand by his valet to avoid all allusion to the subject, and promised to be specially careful.  During the pause preliminary to the announcing of dinner, however, “he got up, looked out of window, and pulling down his ruffles—­an ordinary motion with him—­observed, ‘it was a gloomy day,’ and added, ‘I suppose Miss Blandy must be hanged by this time.’”

The reader may care to know what became of Cranstoun.  That “unspeakable Scot,” it has regretfully to be recorded, was never made amenable to earthly justice.  He was, indeed, the subject of at least four biographies, but human retribution followed him no further.  Extracts from one of these “Lives” are, for what they are worth, printed in the Appendix, together with his posthumous Account of the Poisoning of the late Mr. Francis Blandy, a counterblast to Mary’s masterpiece.  This tract includes the text of three letters, alleged to have been written by her to her lover, and dated respectively 30th June, 16th July, and 1st August, 1751; but as, after his death, all his papers were, by order of Lord Cranstoun, sealed up and sent to his lordship in Scotland, who, in the circumstances, was little likely to part with them, it does not appear how these particular manuscripts came into the “editor’s” possession.  But, in that age of literary marvels, nothing need surprise us:  a publisher actually issued as genuine the Original Letters to and from Miss Blandy and C——­ C——­, though the fact that Cranstoun’s half of the correspondence had been destroyed by Mary Blandy was then a matter of common knowledge.  In all these pamphlets, Cranstoun, while admitting his complicity in her crime, with, characteristic gallantry casts most of the blame upon his dead mistress.  For the rest, he seems to have passed the brief remainder of his days in cheating as many of his fellow-sinners as, in the short time at his disposal, could reasonably be expected.

A hitherto unpublished letter from Henry Fox at the War Office, to Mr. Pitt, then Paymaster General, dated 14th March, 1752, is, by kind permission of Mr. A.M.  Broadley, printed in the Appendix.  After referring to Mary’s conviction, the writer intimates that Cranstoun, “a reduc’d first Lieut. of Sir Andrew Agnew’s late Regt. of Marines, now on the British Establishment of Half-Pay, was charged with contriving the manner of sd.  Miss Blandy’s Poisoning her Father and being an Abettor therein; and he having absconded from the time of her being comitted for the above Fact, I am commanded to signify to you it is His Majesty’s Pleasure that the sd.  Lieutenant Wm. Henry Cranstoune be struck off the sd.  Establishment of Half-Pay, and that you do not issue any Moneys remaining in your Hands due to the sd.  Lieut.  Cranstoune.”  This shows the view taken by the Government of the part played by Cranstoun in the tragedy of Henley.