private grounds at the Hermitage the first monument raised in this country to Chatterton's memory. Five years later he purchased a barn at Sandgate, near Hythe, and converted it into a dwelling-house, whence he could contemplate the shores of France, into which country he made an excursion in 1791, and was in Paris during an early period of the revolution. In the following year he was once more at Bath, which he finally left in the autumn for the continent, and on 19 Nov. 1792 he suddenly died in a coach near Boulogne, while on his way to Paris with his wife. He was buried in the protestant cemetery at Boulogne, where a monument was erected to his memory by his widow (Ipswich Journal, 30 March 1793).
Thicknesse is described by John Nichols (Lit. Anecd. ix. 288) as ‘a man of probity and honour, whose heart and purse were always open to the unfortunate.’ Another writer (Fulcher) says ‘he had in a remarkable degree the faculty of lessening the number of his friends and increasing the number of his enemies. He was perpetually imagining insult, and would sniff an injury from afar.’ It is thought that Graves pictured Thicknesse in the character of Graham in the ‘Spiritual Quixote;’ and he is one of the authors pilloried in Mathias's ‘Pursuits of Literature’ (8th edit. p. 71).
He married thrice: first, in 1742, Maria, only daughter of John Lanove of Southampton, a French refugee; she died early in 1749; and on 10 Nov. in the same year he married Elizabeth Touchet, eldest daughter of the Earl of Castlehaven. She died on 28 March 1762, leaving three sons and three daughters. The eldest son succeeded to the barony of Audley. The terms on which Thicknesse lived with this son may be gathered from the title of his ‘Memoirs’ (No. 24, below) and from a clause in his will, wherein he desires his right hand to be cut off and sent to Lord Audley, ‘to remind him of his duty to God, after having so long abandoned the duty he owed to his father.’ His third wife was Anne (1737–1824) [q. v.], daughter of Thomas Ford, whom he married on 27 Sept. 1762. She is separately noticed.
As an author Thicknesse was voluminous and often interesting, especially in his notices of his experiences in Georgia and Jamaica, and on the continent of Europe. His first pieces were contributions to the ‘Museum Rusticum’ (1763). These were followed by: 1. ‘A Letter to a Young Lady,’ 1764, 4to. 2. ‘Man-Midwifery Analysed,’ 1764, 4to. 3. ‘Proceedings of a Court Martial,’ 1765, 4to. 4. ‘Narrative of what passed with Sir Harry Erskine,’ 1766, 8vo. 5. ‘Observations on the Customs and Manners of the French Nation,’ 1766, 8vo; 2nd and 3rd edit. 1779 and 1789. 6. ‘Useful Hints to those who make the Tour of France,’ 1768, 8vo. 7. ‘Account of four Persons starved to Death at Detchworth, Herts,’ 1769, 4to. 8. ‘Sketches and Characters of the most Eminent and most Singular Persons now living,’ 1770, 12mo. 9. ‘A Treatise on the Art of Deciphering and Writing in Cypher, with an Harmonic Alphabet,’ 1772, 8vo. 10. ‘A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain,’ 1777, 8vo, 2 vols.; 2nd and 3rd edit. 1778 and 1789 (cf. Nichols, Illustr. of Lit. v. 737). 11. ‘New Prose Bath Guide for the Year 1778,’ 8vo. 12. ‘The Valetudinarian's Bath Guide; or the Means of obtaining Long Life and Health,’ 1780, 8vo. 13. ‘Letters to Dr. Falconer of Bath,’ 1782. 14. ‘Queries to Lord Audley,’ 1782, 8vo. 15. ‘Père Pascal, a Monk of Montserrat, vindicated,’ 1783. 16. ‘The Speaking Figure, and the Automaton Chess Player exposed and detected,’ 1784 (anon.) 17. ‘A Year's Journey through the Pais Bas, and Austrian Netherlands,’ 1784, 8vo; 2nd edit., with additions, 1786. 18. ‘An Extraordinary Case and Perfect Cure of the Gout … as related by … Abbe Man, from the French,’ 1784. 19. ‘A farther Account of l'Abbe Man's Case,’ 1785. 20. ‘A Letter to the Earl of Coventry,’ 1785, 8vo. 21. ‘Letter to Dr. James Makittrick Adair’ [q. v.], 1787, 8vo. 22. ‘A Sketch of the Life and Paintings of Thomas Gainsborough,’ 1788, 8vo. 23. ‘Junius Discovered’ (in the person of Horne Tooke), 1789, 8vo. 24. ‘Memoirs and Anecdotes of Philip Thicknesse, late Lieutenant-governor of Languard Fort, and unfortunately father to George Touchet, Baron Audley,’ 1788–91, 3 vols. 8vo. The third volume contains a portrait. His old enemy Dr. Adair (see No. 21) published ‘Curious Facts and Anecdotes not contained in the Memoirs of Philip Thicknesse,’ 1790, with a caricature portrait by Gillray, who also satirised Thicknesse in a caricature entitled ‘Lieut.-governor Gall-stone, &c.’ (cf. Wright and Grego, James Gillray, pp. 116, 119).
[Nichols's Lit. Anecd. ix. 256; Gent. Mag. 1809 ii. 1012, 1816 ii. 105 (view of Thicknesse's house, Felixstowe Cottage); Monkland's Literature and Literati of Bath, 1854, p. 22; Cheshire Notes and Queries, 1885, v. 49; Fulcher's Life of Gainsborough, 1856, p. 42; Brock-Arnold's Gainsborough, 1881; Hinchliffe's Barthomley, p. 174; G. E. C[okayne]'s Complete Peerage, i. 201; Brit. Mus. Addit. MSS. 19166 ff. 409–13, 19170 ff. 207–9, 19174 ff. 702–3.]
