Moon’s essays opens: “William Hatchett’s The Fall of Mortimer was famously suppressed by Sir Robert Walpole’s government in 1731…”—which is a fine opening, except there is no evidence that The Fall of Mortimer was actually written by William Hatchett. The attribution was first made a century after the play was published, without evidence, and not obviously to William Hatchett, as I explained in my Bibliography of Eliza Haywood in 2004 (under De.1, De.4, De.5).
Moon only attempts to support her attribution with a footnote (393n1), not an in-text discussion. Her footnote states that “eighteenth-century historians and theatre scholars identified William Hatchett as its author”—naming Allardyce Nicoll as having made the attribution (actually he only reported the attribution, which seems to have been first made in 1834), Thomas Lockwood as having “acknowledged” it (in 1989) and Jennifer Airey—also of the University of Tulsa—as “confirming” it (2013).
All of these claims are either misleading or false (see below). It is not clear whether Moon misunderstood or intentionally misrepresented her sources, but her failure to identify the source and status of the attribution of The Fall of Mortimer to Hatchett—to either recognise or acknowledge that there is no primary source at all for it—undermines her argument and many (most?) of the claims she makes in her essay. Although many of her claims about Hatchett and the text are somewhat weak anyway, it is a shame that Moon undermined her own work at the outset, since she is certainly right that “critics have evinced almost no interest in Hatchett’s work” (384).
It is both surprising and disappointing (the usual combination) that New Theatre Quarterly’s referees did not pick up this rather fundamental flaw in Moon's argument. When I asked the editors about it they—at first—tried to ignore the question altogether, and then—when pressed—pretended that Moon had not, in fact, mischaracterised her sources at all.
Since there are so few essays on Hatchett, I think it is important to acknowledge that Moon's essay is based on an unsubstantiated claim (or, at least, a poorly substantiated one). But rather than write a formal essay arguing how Moon has mischaracterised her sources, I thought I'd simply transcribe here her footnote and the relevant sections of her sources, with a few brief notes, so the reader can judge for themselves.
Airey, ‘Was Ever Treason so Unnatural?’: 393n1: "In The Politics of Drama in Augustan England, John Loftis argues that the anonymity [of The Fall of Mortimer] was inevitable because it was ‘a dangerous play to acknowledge’ (p. 105). Likewise, its two printed versions in 1731 and 1763 did not have the author’s name. As a result, the authorship of The Fall of Mortimer remained obscure. Nonetheless, despite the anonymity, eighteenth-century historians and theatre scholars identified William Hatchett as its author. For example, in A History of English Drama 1660–1900, Allardyce Nicoll attributes The Fall of Mortimer to Hatchett, introducing a hand-list of plays (p. 371). In ‘William Hatchett, A Rehearsal of Kings (1737), and the Panton Street Puppet Show (1748)’, Thomas Lockwood also acknowledges Hatchett’s authorship of the play (p. 317). In ‘Staging Rape in the Age of Walpole: Sexual Violence and the Politics of Dramatic Adaptation in 1730s Britain’, Jennifer Airey also confirms his authorship of The Fall of Mortimer (p. 101)."
"Nicoll attributes" (nope, he avoids doing this)
Airey's citation is Allardyce Nicoll, A History of English Drama 1660–1900, 3rd edn. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 2.371 (in the "a hand-list of plays"). There were three editions of Nicoll's Early eighteenth century drama: 1925, 1929, 1952, in all editions The Fall of Mortimer does not appear under Hatchett's name (in the 3rd ed. this is on 2.334), but—instead—appears under the heading "Unknown Authors" where Nicoll records that the play had been "Attributed to William Hatchett". If Nicoll accepted this attribution, or thought it was reliable, The Fall of Mortimer would appear under Hatchett's name.
"Lockwood acknowledges the authorship" (not really, he also hedges)
Lockwood, "William Hatchett, A Rehearsal of Kings (1737)": 316–17: "It was apparently Hatchet also who reupholstered the old play of King Edward the Third as The Fall of Mortimer"; 231n6 "As Hume has noted (Henry Fielding and the London Theatre, p.80 n), the attribution to Hatchett goes back only to Lowndes's Bibliographer’s Manual, rev. Henry G. Bohn, 6 vols. (London, 1857-64), 3.1619. See also Lance Bertelsen, "The Significance of the 1731 revisions to The Fall of Mortimer’, Restoration and 18th Century Theatre Research, 2nd Ser., 2 (1987), 17–18. … If Hatchett did write The Fall of Mortimer then he would also have been the author of the pamphlet in its vindication, The History of Mortimer …". Note here "apparently," "only" and "If…then"—this is Lockwood hedging, though both of his sources are less cautious.
Hume, 80n86: "The adaptation was anonymous, Lowndes credits [William] Hatchett, plausibly, but without explanation"—citing the 1857-64 edition of Lowndes's Bibliographer’s Manual. (In fact, the attribution appears first in William Thomas Lowndes, The Bibliographer’s Manual of English Literature (London: William Pickering, 1834), 3.1302: "by — Hatchett.") Hume is admirably clear and concise (plausible, but no evidence), though he does not dwell on the identification of "— Hatchett" as William Hatchett.
Bertelsen, 17: "William Hatchett, the probable reviser of The Fall of Mortimer"; 17–18 "If, as seems likely, Hatchett did indeed transform King Edward the Third…" Note that, while Bertelsen suggests that the attribution is probable, he reminds the reader that would only make Hatchett the reviser of the play (a characterisation consistent with the "Advertisement" in the 3rd ed. of 1731), before attributing to Hatchett Remarks on an Historical Play call'd The Fall of Mortimer.
"Airey confirms his authorship" (no, she really doesn't)
Unfortunately for Moon, Airey’s “Staging Rape in the Age of Walpole” does no such thing; it simply mentions The Fall of Mortimer, in passing, in a list of nine plays, in the form "William Hatchett's The Fall of Mortimer" (96). There is no evidence offered by Airey for the attribution, or any work of reference cited in proximity to this list.
Airey was the only scholar mentioned by Moon who I was unfamiliar with, and so I was anxious to read her essay, which is woeful. I was not remotely surprised to discover that Airey had not "confirmed" the Hatchett attribution, that she had simply repeated the Hatchett attribution without evidence, since I already knew that Nicoll made no such attribution and that Lockwood's "acknowledgement" amounts to nothing when it comes to evidencing an attribution.
Sadly, I found what I expected, that Moon had either misunderstood or lied about Airey in an attempt, it seems, to obscure the fact that there is no primary evidence for this attribution. At all. That Moon does not once mention either Remarks on an Historical Play or The History of Mortimer indicates just how shollow her interest is in attribution questions or—I'd argue—the play itself.
* * * * *
Jina Moon, “‘Was Ever Treason so Unnatural?’: Phallic Mothers and Propaganda in Two Plays by William Hatchett,” which was published in New Theatre Quarterly, 34, No. 4 (November 2018): 383–94.
Jennifer Airey, “Staging Rape in the Age of Walpole: Sexual Violence and the Politics of Dramatic Adaptation in 1730s Britain,” in Interpreting Sexual Violence, 1660–1800, edited by A. Greenfield (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2014), 95–106.
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