‘To you, my dear, I inscribe this comedy, because you approved, nay, was partial enough to admire the scenes, progressively, as they were written, and the play, when it became a whole. I inscribe it to you, because you have dedicated your talents, by your literary efforts, to the cause of morality, and have need of that patient resignation to which every writer is doomed. I inscribe it to you, and in this sense to my whole family, with sympathetic tenderness, as a solitary testimony of true and ardent affection: as such, I am well persuaded you will all receive it, though it has been publicly condemned. You will remember the giver; and the gift, though barren, will be welcome.’
Besides the plays which have been enumerated, Mr Holcroft, after his return to England, published ‘the Theatrical Recorder,’ in two volumes, a small volume of Poems, called ‘Tales in Verse,’ and the novel of ‘Brian Perdue.’
Mr Holcroft, at the time of the failure of his last play, had several dramatic, as well as other manuscripts in hand, which, had he been allowed to finish them, would have easily relieved him from his temporary embarrassments. He had however a young and increasing family to maintain; and the ill health, with which he had long struggled, now encreased fast upon him, and rendered all his efforts vain.
Mr Holcroft had, for nearly a year, been so much troubled with an asthma, as to render walking difficult to him. He was not, however, confined to his house till about half a year before his death. His disorder was violent spasms, accompanied with spitting of blood, and an enlargement of the heart, occasioned, as was supposed, by continual anxiety. It was during the two last months of his illness, when he could no longer rise from his bed, and when every effort to speak was almost convulsive, that he dictated the account of his own life, which has been inserted in the beginning of these volumes. Let it remain a proof of the energy of his character, and of that superiority of the mind over the body, which was one of his strongest sentiments. Through the whole time he discovered a fortitude in suffering, which has rarely been equalled: nor did he till the very last relinquish the hopes of recovering. If any thing could exceed the patient courage with which he passed through this trying scene, it was the affectionate, unwearied assiduity with which Mrs. Holcroft attended him night and day, through the whole. For the last six weeks, she scarcely once quitted his bed-side for a quarter of an hour together. The task was one, to which duty and affection were alone equal. In any other circumstances, her strength would have failed under such exertions: but Mr Holcroft was not satisfied unless she was with him, and that consideration prevailed over every other. Colonel Harwood, his son-in-law, was with him from the Sunday evening before he died; on which day, his physicians, Dr. Buchan and Dr. Hooper, had given him over. Many of the following particulars are taken from Colonel Harwood’s account.