The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1851-12-16 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

ROMANCE IN REAL LIFE.  The late Mr. Basil Montagu. Q.C., whose death, at the advanced age of 82, is recorded to have occurred at Boulogne-, sur-Mer on the 27th ult., was formerly a Commissioner ig Bankruptcy, and was so eminent a practitioner in such matters that for many years he was regarded as an oracle of the bankrupt laws. So little had been heard of him of late years that many of his quondam friends laboured under the impreP sion that he had long ago discharged the debt of nature.  It is not genet ally-ktiown that lids distinguished L;Wier wait the fourth son of John, fourth Earl of Sandwich, by Miss Margaret Reay, d celebrated beauty of her day. The melancholy fate of this lady inspired the deepest public interest at the tune? and the whole affair has been justly styled one of the most romantic and extraordinary love tales ever recorded, ad much so that it has often struck us with astonishment that, in these novel-manufacturing and ready-reading days,' one of the novelists who cater so strangely at times for the public taste' have seized upon the ample materials this case affords as thegroundwork for a book of lasting and intense interest. Miss Margaret Reay, the mother of the late Mr. Basil Montagu, was th daughter of a stay-maker in Covent-garden, and' served an apprenticeship to a mantua maker, in George's" Court, St. John's-lane, Clerkenwell. Having, during her apprenticeship, attracted the attention of Lord Sandwich, hetook her under his protection, and treated her from that period' until her melancholy assassination with the greatest-tendernesil and affection, which was sincerely returned by Miss Real, until her introduction by his lordship to a young ensign of the' 68th Regiment, then in command of a recruiting party at Huntingdon, in the neighbourhood of which stands Hinchell-• . brook, the splendid mansion of the noble house of Montagu. Mr. James Hackman, the wretched but highly gifted hero of this sad narrative, from the first moment of his introduction, fell desperately in love with the mistress o' his noble host, and Dispassion increased with the daily opportunities afforded him by the invitations he received to his Lordship's table. With the object of cot tinning his assiduous attentions to this lad! and the hope of ultimately engaging her affections, he quitted the army, and taking holy orders obtained the living of Wiverton, in Norfolk, only a few months prior to the commission of that crime which brought him to the scaffold. That Miss "Reay had given some encouragement to his fiery passion cannot be denied ; the tenor of their correspondence clearly proves it, but gratitude towards the earl and prudential motives respecting the welfare of her children induced her afterwards to refuse the offer of the rev. gentleman's hand, and to intimate the necessity which existed for discontinuing his visits for theirmutual interests and their peace of mind. Stung to the quick by this sudden and unexpected termination of his longcherished and most ardent passion, no doubt can exist in the minds of those who have carefully perused the highly interesting correspondence between the parties, published many years ago by Mr. Hubert Croft, in a volume entitled Love and Madnessi that Mr. Hackman's mind became un- ettled, and without meditating a crime which properly speaking could scarcely be fairly classed in the category of murder, there is no doubt that he became weary of his own life; and finally, though without distinct premeditation, determined that she whom he loved so passionately should share his fate. At this time the Rev. Mr. Hackman was lodging in Duke'scodrt, St. Martin's-lane, and on the fatal day, the 7th of April, 1779, was occupied all the morning in reading Blair's Sermons; but in the evening, as he was walking towards the Admiralty, he saw Miss Reay pass in her coach, accompanied by Signora Galli. He followed, and discovered that she alighted at Coventgarden Theatre, whither she went to witness the performance of Love in a Village. Mr. Hackman returned to his lodgings, and arminghimself with a brace of pistols, went back to the theatre, and when the performance was over, as Miss Reay was stepping into her coach, he took a pistol in each hand, one of which he discharged at her and killed her on the spot, and the other at himself, which did not, however, take eff-'ct. He then beat himself about the head with the butt-end of the pistol in order to destroy himself, but was eventurlly, after a dreadful struggle, secured and carried • efore Sir John Fielding, who committed him to Tothill fields Bridewell, and afterwards to Newgate, where he was narrowly watched to prevent his committing suicide.  He was shortly after tried at the Old Bailey, before the celebrated Justice Blackstone, author of the Commentaries, found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged at Tyburn on the 19th of the month, where he suffered the last penalty of the law with all the firmness becoming a gentleman and a Christian who felt that he had commitied :in irreparable injury, and that his life was, justly forfeited to the outraged laws of his country, although he persisted to the last that the idea of murdering the woman he so fondly loved originated in the frenzy of the moment, and never was or could have been premeditated.  One circumstance in this slfght narrative which redounds so highly to the honour of the party most aggrieved in this sad affair must not be omitted. Lord Sandwich, with a noblemindedness rarely exemplified in such extreme cases of injury to the pride and sensibility of man, wrote to Mr. Hackman after sentence of death was passed upon him  _ . " 7th April, 1779. " If the murderer of Miss wishes to live, the man he has most injured will use all his interest to procure his life." The prisoner replied the same day:—  " Condemned Cell in Newgate,  " The murderer of her whom he preferred, far preferred, to life, suspects the hand from which he has just received such an offer as he neither desires nor deserves. His wishes are for death, not for life. One wish he has—could he be pardoned in this world by the man he has most injured—oh, my lord, when I meet her in another world, enable me to tell her—if departed spirits are not ignorant of earthly things—that you forgive us both, and that you will be a father to her dear children." It is almost needless to observe that the noble earl did faithfully comply with the dying wishes of the wretched man, and was a good and generous father to all the children of this connexion, of whom the learned gentleman just deceased was one• —Morning Post.