Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 50.djvu/132

 there for the last twenty years of St. André's long life. His marriage placed St. André in easy circumstances, for the Lady Elizabeth Capel had a portion of 10,000l. when she married Molyneux in 1717, and she inherited a further sum of 18,000l., with Kew House, on the death in 1721 of Lady Capel of Tewkesbury, her great-uncle's widow. This money, however, went from St. André on his wife's death, and he died a comparatively poor man, at Southampton, in March 1776.

St. André's mind appears to have been strongly inclined towards mysticism, and he was beyond measure credulous. He complained of having been decoyed and poisoned by an unknown person on 23 Feb. 1724–5. His complaint was investigated by the privy council, who offered a reward for the discovery of the alleged offender; but the whole business seems to have arisen in the imagination of St. André, unless, indeed, it was done for the purpose of bringing his name before the public. It is difficult to determine whether St. André was more knave than fool in the affair of Mary Tofts, but it is tolerably certain that he was both. It is equally certain that he was extremely ignorant; that he was lecherous and foul-mouthed is allowed by his partisans as well as by his enemies. He had some professional reputation as a surgeon, though it was rather among the public than among his brethren. Lord Peterborough was his patient, and he was once called upon to treat Pope when by accident he had hurt his hand.

There is a portrait of St. André in the engraving by Hogarth published in 1726. It is entitled ‘Cunicularii, or the Wise Men of Godliman in consultation,’ and it was paid for by a few of the principal surgeons of the time, who subscribed their guinea apiece to Hogarth for engraving the plate as a memorial of Mary Tofts. St. André is labelled ‘A’ in the print, and is represented with a fiddle under his arm, in allusion to his original occupation of a dancing-master. He is described as ‘The Dancing-Master, or Præter-natural Anatomist.’ A detailed account of the persons caricatured in this print is contained in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ (1842, i. 366).

[Memoir by Thomas Tyers in the Public Advertiser, reprinted in Gent. Mag. 1781, pp. 320, 513, and again, with critical remarks, in Nichols and Steeven's Genuine Works of Hogarth, London, 1808, i, 464–92; an account of his own poisoning will be found in the Gazette, 23 Feb. 1724–1725. The story of Mary Tofts, the rabbit breeder, is told at greater length in the British Medical Journal, 1896, ii. 209.]

 ST. AUBYN, CATHERINE (d. 1836), amateur artist, second daughter of Sir John St. Aubyn, fourth baronet, of Clowance in Cornwall, and sister of Sir John St. Aubyn (1758–1839) [q. v.], is known by a few privately printed etchings which she produced in 1788 and 1789. These comprise portraits of Lady St. Aubyn and Dolly Pentreath [see ], from pictures by Reynolds and Opie in her father's possession; a portrait of her sister, Mrs. Robert White; and a view of St. Michael's Mount. Two drawings by her of St. Michael's Mount were engraved by William Austin (1721–1820) [q. v.] Miss St. Aubyn married, on 26 June 1790, her cousin John Molesworth (d 1811), rector of St. Breocke, Cornwall, second son of Sir John Molesworth, bart., of Pencarrow, and died on 21 Oct. 1836. Her eldest son John (d. 1844), who took the name St. Aubyn, succeeded to the St. Aubyn estates.

[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Dodd's Memoirs of English Engravers (Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 33394); Burke's Landed Gentry, 1894, ii. 1770; Parochial History of Cornwall, i. 272.]

 ST. AUBYN, JOHN (1696–1744), third baronet, politician, born on 27 Sept. 1696, was son and heir of Sir John St. Aubyn, second baronet (d. 20 June 1714), who married, in 1695, Mary, daughter and coheiress of Peter de la Hay of Westminster. He was entered as gentleman-commoner at Exeter College, Oxford, on 10 June 1718, and created M.A. on 19 July 1721. In May 1722 he was returned to parliament for the county of Cornwall, and sat for it until his death. In the House of Commons St. Aubyn spoke ‘but seldom, and never but on points of consequence’ (Quarterly Review, October 1875, p. 376). Joining the opposition against Walpole, he was hostile to the Septennial Act and the employment of the Hanoverian troops, and on 9 March 1742 he seconded Lord Limerick's motion for a committee to inquire into the transactions of the previous twenty years, which was defeated by 244 votes to 242. A fortnight later he seconded a motion by the same member for a secret committee of twenty-one to examine into Walpole's official acts during the last ten years, and it was carried by 252 votes to 245. In the polling for the committee he obtained the first place with 518 votes, a result pronounced by Speaker Onslow to be without precedent, but he declined to preside over the proceedings. He is said to have also declined a seat at the board of admiralty. Walpole is believed in the west country to have remarked, when speaking