- for his wife. Of this letter Walpole wrote: ‘It beats everything for madness, horrid indecency, and folly, and yet has some charming and striking passages.’
- ‘A Complaint on the part of the Hon. Thomas Hervey concerning an undue Proceeding at Court. Set forth in two Letters to the Princess of Brunswick,’ 1766; 3rd edit., much expanded, 1767. To this last edition was prefixed a ferocious declaration of enmity against his nephews, the then Earl of Bristol and Augustus Hervey, and to it were added two letters to Miss Anne Coghlan, apparently love-letters before marriage. The ‘Complaint’ was that some part of the pension payable to him by the government had been appropriated for the support of his wife and son. He had previously published in the daily papers the following advertisement: ‘Whereas Mrs. Hervey has been three times from home last year and at least as often the year before without either my leave or privity, and has encouraged her son to persist in the like rebellious practices, I hereby declare that I neither am nor will be accountable for any future debts of hers whatever. She is now keeping forcible possession of my house, to which I never did invite or thought of inviting her in all my life. Tho. Hervey.’ A letter from his wife to George Selwyn respecting one of these insults is in Jesse's ‘Selwyn,’ i. 220–3.
- ‘An Elegy upon the Death of the late Earl Granville’ [by Hon. T. H.], 1767.
- ‘Mr. Hervey's Answer to a Letter he received from Dr. Samuel Johnson to dissuade him from parting with his Supposed Wife,’ 1772, ‘but first printed and written in 1763,’ according to note on the copy of the work at the British Museum. In this he makes frequent references to his wife's violence of temper. Hervey had been attacked in a pamphlet, written, as it was thought, by Sir Charles Hanbury Williams. Johnson, who was introduced to Hervey by his brother, Henry Hervey, afterwards Aston, an officer in the army quartered at Lichfield, wrote a defence. This was not printed, as the assailant proved to be a garreteer, but in consideration of Johnson's services Hervey sent him 50l. in a letter, to which he added: ‘P.S. I am going to part with my wife.’ Johnson sent a reply of expostulation, and when Hervey died, gave as his epitaph, ‘Tom Hervey, though a vicious man, was one of the genteelest men that ever lived.’ A whimsical letter of remonstrance, dated 5 Dec. 1762, from Hervey to Pitt on the latter's political action is in the ‘Chatham Correspondence,’ ii. 197–9.
Eight lines by him ‘on a pencil sent to his wife,’ are printed in Nichols's ‘Collection of Poems,’ vi. 56.
[Boswell's Johnson (Hill), ii. 32–3; Walpole's Letters, i. 101, ii. 342, 447, iv. 78, vi. 182; Hervey's Suffolk Visitation (Howard), ii. 198; Gent. Mag. 1775, p. 47; Jesse's Selwyn, i. 220–227, 408; Hanmer's Life, p. 79.]
HERVEY, THOMAS KIBBLE (1799–1859), poet and editor, son of James Hervey, was born at Paisley on 4 Feb. 1799. He was brought to Manchester in 1803, where his father settled as a drysalter, and he was educated at the Manchester grammar school. After being articled to a solicitor at Manchester, he was transferred to a London office, and subsequently was set to qualify for the bar. He was entered about 1818 at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained two years. While there he published some poems which, unfortunately for his success as a barrister, brought him much into notice. He went to London, and never returned to take his degree, nor was he ever called to the bar. The poem which had so much success was entitled ‘Australia,’ of which a second edition, with some additional pieces, came out in 1824. He contributed novelettes and poems to several of the annuals. His popular poem, ‘The Convict Ship,’ first appeared in the ‘Literary Souvenir’ for 1825. He edited the ‘Friendship's Offering’ for 1826 and 1827, and the ‘Amaranth’ for 1839. In 1827 he migrated to Paris, but soon returned to London in straitened circumstances. He wrote in its early days for the ‘Dublin Review.’ After contributing for many years to the ‘Athenæum,’ he was appointed sole editor of that journal on 23 May 1846, which charge he relinquished at the end of 1853, in consequence of ill-health. He was a sound critic of art as well as of literature, and afterwards wrote frequently in the ‘Art Journal.’
On 17 Oct. 1843 he married Eleanor Louisa (b. 1811), daughter of George Conway Montagu of Lackham, Wiltshire. She was herself a poetess of merit, and by her Hervey left an only son. Hervey was a charmingly genial and witty companion, and, according to his brother, was as a young man extremely eloquent. He died on 27 Feb. 1859 at Kentish Town, London, and was buried at Highgate cemetery.
In addition to ‘Australia,’ he published the following separate works:
- ‘The Poetical Sketch-Book,’ 1829, 12mo; this contained the third edition of ‘Australia.’
- ‘Illustrations of Modern Sculpture, with descriptive Prose and illustrative Poetry,’ 1834, 4to.
- ‘The Book of Christmas, with Illustrations by R. Seymour,’ 1836, 8vo.
- ‘The English Helicon of the Nineteenth Century,’ 1841, 8vo.
- ‘A Selection of Essays from the Livre Cent et Un,’ 3 vols.
In 1866 his
