rally supposed to purify and humanize the heart, may be blended with the most detestable and sanguinary propensities.

From the time of Nero the dramatic representations of the Romans declined every day more and more into licentiousness; all order and regularity was gradually banished; the representations became more vile and calumnious than ever, and their satire now personal and pointed, made up in bitterness and malice what it wanted in wit and humour. Genius withdrew from the stage, and the theatre fell at once into the most deplorable state, and soon after into decay and utter dissolution.

BIOGRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

OF THE LIFE OF JOHN TOBIN, ESQ. AUTHOR OF THE PLAY 66 CALLED THE HONEY MOON."

JOHN TOBIN was born, January 28th, 1770, at Salisbury. The maiden name of his mother was Elizabeth Webbe, a West Indian, and by her he was the third son of James Tobin, born in London, but an inhabitant of the island of Nevis. Quitting England for the West Indies, his parents sent him and his two elder brothers to the free-school of Southampton, where he remained seven years, and was afterward pupil to the reverend Mr. Lee of Bristol, in which city his father, returning from the Indies, embarked in a commercial partnership. Not having been bred to commerce, his father in early life had been devoted to the pursuit of the liberal arts, and the taste of the son was improved by residing in his father's house. His inclination, however, for the law, to which prefession he was destined, was by no means increased. He was for a short period with a Mr. Gautier, who taught French at Bristol. In 1785, he was articled to an eminent solicitor of Lincoln's Inn.

After the death of that gentleman, he became a partner with three other clerks in the office; but, disagreements happening

which ended in a chancery suit, he entered into a new firm with his

friend Mr. Ange.

Finding his health decline, by the advice of his physicians he went, in 1803, and resided with a relation in Cornwall; but his disorder assuming the form of consumption, he was induced, in November 1804, at the earnest solicitation of his friends, to embark at Bristol for the West Indies, hoping benefit from a warmer climate. In the same ship was the wife of a valued friend, suffering under the same disease and buoyed up by the same hopes. Detained at Cork some days, the vessel sailed from that port on the 7th of December, and on that day he died. Contrary winds obliged the ship to return to the Cove of Cork, and he was attended to his grave by the friend who had accompanied him on this short voyage. Previous to this disease, his health generally appeared good; but he was always of a spare habit, and, when a boy, indisposed to violent and muscular exercises. When at school he was quick in acquiring lessons, tranquil of disposition, and prone neither to give nor take offence. Delighting to indulge in reverie, his pursuits were of a peaceable and literary kind.. On the banks of the Avon, near Salisbury, where he spent his holidays with his grandfather, he acquired a love of angling, to which he was ever afterward devoted; and his ardor for it was increased by the few opportunities in which it could be indulged. Averse to walking, unless when he had a strong motive, his hours were lost in thought, or in the creations of an active mind. Abstracted and constitutionally indolent, he was alike apt to forget forms and neglect pecuniary concerns; yet, having a high sense of moral duty, he never broke even trifling engagements. Of inflexible integrity himself, he detested selfishness, and carefully avoided men of hollow principles, however bland their manners, or brilliant their accomplishments. By taking a part in school performances, and visiting the theatre at Southampton, he acquired a taste for the drama, and his first piece was written before the year 1789. Constantly engaged after this period in dramatic compositions, they were offered to the theatres, but were all rejected except a comedy called The Pharo Table, which was accepted at Drury-lane, though never performed. On quitting London, he left the Honey Moon, the last piece he had finished, with his brother: they had resided ten years together, united by kindred feelings and similarity of sentiment and pursuit. To this brother,

who had so often been his unsuccessful negociator at the theatres, he committed the care of bringing the piece on the stage, having received a promise from the manager that it should be performed.

For a mind like his, the court of Chancery had few charms; nor did he follow his profession with that zeal which can this way acquire wealth and fame; but he loved independence, had a just sense of duty, and was punctual, while in health, in attending at the office. His mind indeed might be absent, and when he left the place he ceased to think of such business.

The Pharo Table was chiefly written in bed, during illness, in the year 1795; and his other pieces, between the hours of nine and twelve, after his return from Lincoln's Inn. He frequently composed while walking the streets, and especially songs, which he usually committed to writing when he came home. Animated by society and enjoying rational conversation, yet, as solitude never displeas ed him, he did not anxiously seek company; though always happy to see a few valued friends, their absence was never perceptible. Unruffled by the accidents of life, possessed of fortitude not easily shaken, with a mind never unemployed, he was subject to no fits of weariness." He was altogether the happiest man I ever knew*." Though the progress of the disease alarmed him, he contemplated death without fear or superstition. Hope and fancy pictured to him his future success on the stage, while his bodily powers were wasting and his energies daily on the decline. "He died without a groan." While at Falmouth, he revised some of his works, and wrote notes on Shakspeare, intending to contribute to a new edition of our immortal bard. Two of his unfinished plays it was his intention to complete in the West Indies. A constant reader of Beaumont and Fletcher, and the writers of that age, he was no less an admirer of Farquhar and some of his contemporaries. He also read some Spanish comedies, but found little to admire except the ingenuity of their plots. Genuine comedy he supposed might yet find support from the public, and a better taste be revived, notwithstanding the mercenary motives by which it continues to be depraved. Deeply sensible of the moral influence of the drama, he scorned to flatter the base prejudices or the sickly imaginations of the great vulgar or the small.

*These are his brother's words.

The Honey Moon appeared at the theatre Royal, Drury Lane, on the 31st of January, 1805, where it was highly and deservedly applauded. It may be said to form an epocha in the annals of the drama, by being a modern attempt to revive the manner of writing which prevailed in the sixteenth century. In his plan the author has totally, and, were but common sense our guide, justly disregarded the vaunted unities of time and place; but, for the greater perfection of his piece, he neglected that which ought to be sacredly observed in dramatic composition, the unity of action, as it has been named by critics, but which would be more intelligible to young students were it rigidly inculcated as the unity of fable. By this it is understood that there should be but one story, and that every character introduced in a piece should concur in promoting one grand design.

Against this rule also the author has egregiously erred. Instead of one, there are three stories, and as many designs: a design to make a lively coquet play on the feelings of her lover; a design to ridicule and subdue a woman-hater; and a design to correct the haughty and angry temper of a termagant.

This last is the principal design; and in the manner of executing it, the appropriate nature and pleasantry of the sentiments, and the flowing and frequently poetical diction of the author, the sterling merit of the play consists. The plan of the fable is so far from new that it appears to be an absolute imitation of Shakspeare, not only in the characters of the duke and Juliana, who are literally Catherine and Petruchio drawn in a different point of view, but of Zamora, who is as truly a transcript of Viola in Twelfth Night. In the management of the principal plan, when the scene changes from the palace to the cottage, we are no less forcibly reminded of Rule a Wife and have a Wife, by Beaumont and Fletcher. The imitations, through the whole play, of the authors of that age, are too numerous to be cited; but they are frequently so happily made, and often executed with such an air of originality, that, instead of being blemishes, they seem to stamp a sterling merit, and to purify the dramatic gold that had so long and so basely been alloyed.

The Honey Moon possesses another antique novelty: it is chiefly written in blank verse, but interspersed with scraps of prose, which an attentive reader is apt to suspect the author at first intended