Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/442

Toft and the surgeon consequently withdrew from the investigation, of which he gave a guarded account to the king (cf. his subsequent account, entitled Some Observations concerning the Woman of Godlyman … by Cyriacus Ahlers, London, 1726, dated 8 Dec.)

The matter still seemed in suspense and the king accordingly despatched Limborch and Sir Richard Manningham [q.v.], one of the chief physician-accoucheurs of the day, to report upon the case. Manningham promptly satisfied himself that the woman was an impostor, and that the foreign bodies were artfully concealed about her person. On 29 Nov. she was brought to London and lodged in Lacy’s Bagnio in Leicester Fields. On 3 Dec. she was detected in an attempt to clandestinely to procure a rabbit, and having been severely threatened by Sir Thomas Clarges, a justice of the peace, she made on 7 Dec. a full confession of her imposture, in the presence of Manningham, Dr. James Douglas [q.v.], the Duke of Montagu, and Lord Baltimore. She was committed for a short time to the Bridewell in Tothill Fields, and she was ordered to be prosecuted under the statute of Edward III as a vile cheat and impostor; but the trial was proceeded with, and she returned to Godalming. She underwent a term of imprisonment in 1740 for receiving stolen goods, and died at her native place in January 1763.

The imposture gave rise to a torrent of pamphlets and squibs, many of which were highly indecent while several have repulsive illustrations. Hogarth lashed the temporary craze in the second version of his plate lettered ‘Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism’ (1762), and also in his early engraving ‘The Cunicularii, or the Wise Men of Godliman in Consultation.’ Voltaire gave a pleasant account of St. André’s doctrine of ‘générations fortuites’ in his ‘Singlarités de la Nature’ (chap. xxi., Œuvres, Paris, v. 819). William Whiston revived the memory of Mary Tofts when in 1752 he declared that she had clearly fulfilled the prediction in Esdras that monstrous women should bring forth monsters (Memoirs, ii. 108). A portrait of Mary Tofts was mezzotinted by Faber after Laguerre.

[The following are the chief of the contemporary pamphlets upon the imposture: An Exact Diary by Sir R. Manningham, 1726, 8vo; A Short Narrative, 1726 and 1727, 8vo; Remarks on A Short Narrative by Thos. Braithwaite, 1726, 8vo; Some Observations by Ahlers, 1726, 8vo; The Several Depositions of Edward Costen, &c., 1727, 8vo; The Sooterkin Dissected, 1726, 8vo; The Anatomist Dissected … by Lemuel Gulliver, 1727, 8vo; Advertisement occasioned by some Passages in Sir R. Manningham’s Diary, by I. Douglas, 1727, 8vo; Much Ado about Nothing, or the Rabbit Woman’s Confession, 1727, 8vo; A Letter from a Male Physician, 1726, 8vo; The Doctors in Labour, or a New Wim-Wam in Guildford (12 plates), 1727; The Discovery, or the Squire turned Ferret, 1727, fol. and 8vo; St. André’s Miscarriage, 1727; The Wonder of Wonders, Ipswich, 1726. Bound in rabbit-skin, sets of these tracts have frequently sold for from ten to fifteen guineas. For good modern accounts of the fraud see British Medical Journal, 1896, ii. 209; and Catalogue of Satirical Prints in British Museum, ed. Stephens, ii. 633-50. See also Lowndes’s Bibl. Man; Anecdotes of Hogarth ed. Nichols, 1833; Dobson's Hogarth, pp. 247, 284; Gent. Mag. 1842, i. 366; Mist’s Weekly Journal, 21 Jan. 1727; London Journal, 17 Dec. 1726; Noble’s Contin. Of Granger, iii. 477; Witkowski’s Accouchements chez tous les peoples, Paris, 1887, p. 249; Sketches of Deception and Credulity, 1837; Brit. Mus. Cat.]

 TOFTE, ROBERT (d. 1620), poet and translator, was, as he invariably described himself, a ‘gentleman’ who travelled in France and Italy, and was in Naples in 1593. Nothing more, however, is known of his antecedents, prior to the publication of his first work, ‘Laura. The Toyes of a Traueller. Or, The Feast of Fancie … By R. T. Gentleman,’ printed at London by Valentine Sims in 1597, 8vo. This little volume is dedicated to the Lady Lucy Percy, and consists of a collection of short poems ‘most parte conceiued in Italie, and some of them brought foorth in England,’ but it contains also more than thirty sonnets which are stated in ‘A Frends iust excuse’ appended to the work by ‘R.B.’ to be by another hand. Two copies only are known: one is in the British Museum; the other, formerly in the Isham collection, is now in the library at Britwell Court. 'Laura' was followed by ‘Alba. The Months Minde of a Melancholy Louer, diuided into three parts. By R. T. Gentleman,’ printed at London by Felix Kingston for Matthew Lownes in 1598, 8vo. It is dedicated to Mistress Anne Herne, but the ‘Laura’ and ‘Alba’ of Tofte’s muse appears to have been a lady of the name Caryll. The chief interest of ‘Alba,’ which is greatly superior to ‘Laura,’ lies in the reference to Shakespeare’s comedy of ‘Love’s Labour Lost,’ which occurs in the third part:
 * Loves Labor Lost, I once did see a Play
 * Ycleped so, so called to my paine,
 * Which I to heare to my small Ioy did stay,
 * Giuing attendance on my froward Dame,
 * My misgiuing mine presaging to me Ill,
 * Yet was I drawne to see it gainst my Will. 