Review of Miss Benger's Life of Tobin. toil, invincible in military spirit. So visionary was the object, so apparently remote from selfish relations, that their fanaticism wears a character of generous virtue. The picture, however, becomes darkened, and nature recoils with horror from their cruelties, and with shame from their habitual folly and senselessness. Comparing the object with the cost, the gain proposed with the certain peril, we call the attempt the extremest idea of madness, and wonder that the western world should, for two hundred years, pour forth its blood and treasures in pursuit of a phantom. But the crusades were not a greater reproach to virtue and wisdom than most of the contests which, in every age of the world, pride and ambition have given rise to. If what is perpetual be natural, the dreadful supposition might be entertained, that war is the moral state of man. The miseries of bostilities might induce us to think, with the ancient sage, that man is the most wretched of animals. Millions of our race have been sacrificed at the altar of glory and popular praise, as well as at the shrine of superstition. Fanciful claims to foreign thrones, and the vanity of foreign dominion, have, like the crusades, contracted the circle of science and civilization, and turned the benevolent affections into furious passions. But "They err, who count it glorious to subdue Large countries, and in field great battles win, And all the flour.shing works of peace destroy." We feel no sorrow at the final doom of the crusades, because in its origin the war was iniquitous and unjust. THE BLOOD OF MAN SHOULD NEVER BE SHED IT IS WELL SHED FOR OUR FAMILY, FOR BUT TO REDEEM THE BLOOD OF MAN. OUR FRIENDS, for our GoD, FOR OUR KIND. THE REST 18 VANITY-THE REST IS CRIME.'t • Paradise Regained, book 111. 71, &c. † Burke. "Memoirs of Mr. John Tobin, Author of the Honey Moon, with a selection from his unpublished Writings. By Miss Benger, Author of Memoirs of Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton." London-Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Browne, 1820. Amongst those writers who contribute to public entertainment and improvement, the Dramatist is eminently conspi cuous; the impressions he makes on the mind are of an ardent and interesting character, and such as we are not willing to destroy-the feelings he creates arise from the fictitious portraitures which are so ingeniously deceptive that we almost receive them as realities-the arena of his action is a little world of his own imagination, in which he moulds, and decorates, and moves the fantastic beings of his thoughtthe resources of his fancy are the wild retreats of nature, the Review of Miss Benger's Life of Tobin. extensive track of history and poetry-and the moment of his triumph is when the silent and gushing tear breaks imperceptibly from the eye, when the heart of the spectator throbs with a rapid and unbidden sensation, or when the soul of mirth is roused, and spreads its glow of animation and joy over every countenance. The developement of the human mind in all its varieties-the delineation of the passions which urge men to crime, or preserve them from obliquity of the natural transitions of life, embodied in the actions of imaginary creatures--and of the features of guilt, madness, sorrow, happiness-wherein a deviation is a distortion, are the objects of his study; and to give these the effects of light and shade, opposition and peculiarity, is the difficulty imposed in dramatic composition. Shakespeare imitated nature as it existed, and scorned the restraints of classic rule; he considered the institution of the unities to be an innovation upon truth and beauty; and we have in one of his plays an infant born in the first act, who arrives at maturity in the last. Yet however the imagination may conceive a lapse of years, and the events consequent to a long period of time in the representation of a few hours, it is more natural and consistent with probability to involve in a drama a fable whose action occupies, as nearly as the poet's design will permit, only the length of the performance; there is a simplicity in the one which requires no effort of the spectator to reconcile its irregularities, while the anomalous display of the other calls forth the interference of our fancy to fill up the long pauses that intervene in the progress of the plot. The genius of Shakespeare, however, triumphed over incongruities which would have ruined the fame of another, and his very errors have admirers. Modern dramatists have struck out a line of writing as extraordinary as it is novel; and if they have preserved themselves from the broad and glaring faults of their predecessors, they have certainly deviated from that original which is the model for the poet, the painter, and the sculptor. If Shakespeare dethrones a monarch in one scene, and beheads his successor in the next, it is not surely so unpardonable as the monstrous melange of comedy, tragedy, pastoral, opera, &c. with which some of our later writers have favored us. The subject of the present memoir is a brilliant example of those who have disdained the track of cotemporary bards, and adopted that of the earlier writers; the name of JOHN TOBIN carries with it recollections of regret and pleasure, Review of Miss Benger's Life of Tobin. who that is acquainted with THE HONEYMOON, does not deplore the circumstances under which it was produced, while he holds it up as the relic of a genius that has not since been equalled? JOHN TOBIN was born at Salisbury the 26th January, 1770. His father was maried to the daughter of an opulent West Indian, and possessed an estate in the Island of Nevis, where he became a planter. The first years of this union were passed at Salisbury; during the winter season a company of actors sometimes enlivened the town, and young Tobin's raptures were excited on being occasionally permitted to visit the humble theatre. At the time of the American War, Mr. Tobin embarked with his wife for Nevis, leaving his three sons under the protection of their maternal grandfather Mr. Webbe, and the tuition of Doctor Mant. In his absence they were placed at a seminary at Southampton where in quickness and talent John outstripped all the boys of his own age; he was kind and amiable, and unambitious of pre-eminence, and it is mentioned as an illustration that when Cato was proposed to be played at school, he asked no better part than Lucius. He cherished silently his passion for poetry and the drama, which his unaspiring temper nursed in undisturbed solitude. He had an aversion for active pursuits, and angling was his favorite amusement, as it required no effort, and afforded him a pause from exertion. Miss Benger gives the following brief and simple picture of the first dawnings of his genius. It was on the rural banks of the Avon that he first attempted to reduce his desultory ideas to order and measure. There, apparently absorbed in the angler's indolent and almost passive amusement, he surrendered himself to the delightful impressions of beauty and harmony, which in cultivated minds are produced by the genial aspect of nature. Having taken his station in some sequestered spot, whilst be inhaled the fresh air and enjoyed its stillness, he meditated without withdrawing his attention from external objects, and often began and ended a song which was never committed to paper: to his brother alone was this clansdetine indulgence acknowledged, for from him only did he look for sympathy and encouragement. At the conclusion of the American War, Mr. and Mrs. Tobin returned to England, and settled in mercantile concerns at Bristol, where John and James were restored to the paternal roof. They were now of that age that it became necessary to fix their pursuits-James was destined for the church, but, his friends considered John exactly fitted for a solicitor's office. "He was accordingly articled in his seventeenth year to an eminent solicitor in Lincoln's Inn. A residence in London gave him opportunities of visiting Review of Miss Benger's Life of Tobin. theatrical representations, with which he might not otherwise have been gratified-here his dramatic taste expanded, yet the toils of his profession seldom permitted him to indulge it, and during his clerkship he produced but one finished piece, and that was a farce." At length he was admitted to a partnership in the solicitor's office, and we find him about this period submitting an opera to Mr. Harris of Covent Garden Theatre-this, however, was rejected; but unsubdued by disappointment he shortly produced another, on a principle different from the former, entitled The Robbery, or, Your's or Mine; this met the same fate. At length he wrote the comedy of the Faro Table, which, through the unremitting assiduity of his brother James, found its way to Mr. Sheridan, who approved of it so warmly that it was read in the Green Room, "with a promise of being performed the ensuing season." The season arrived, Mr. Sheridan was not accessible, and Mr. James Tobin obtained a definitive answer, that on re-consideration it was found to be too close a resemblance to the School for Scandal, and to contain invidious allusions to a certain titled dowager who kept a faro bank. "Till this moment the "author had not been aware of this Lady's existence!" His spirit was still unbroken. His next comedy, called the Reconciliation, being disapproved of by his brother, was not offered to the Theatre. This was followed by the Undertaker, a farce, which was never performed. Observing that the old romantic drama held possession of the stage, and from the success of Colman the younger, he was induced to try a play upon this plan, and he now completed The Curfewthis, too, was rejected. A comment upon its merits is unnecessary-the public are now its judges, and they have assigned it a distinguished reputation. At this time Pizarro appeared, and the applause it received, brought Kotzebue and the German Drama into public favor; Tobin stimulated by its success, designed and finished The Indians in five acts, a play possessing an irregular fable, but natural and effective. We now find him for two years preparing plots and dialogues for operatic dramas. It was his hope to introduce a reform in that department, and with this view he wrote the Fisherman, and two or three unfinished operas. The School for Authors, one of his best efforts in comedy, was offered and rejected in 1800. He was still unsubdued, and still hoped to obtain admission to the stage, and even permitted a farce, one of his most juvenile productions, called All's fair in Love; Review of Miss Benger's Life of Tobin. or a Match for a Lawyer, to be brought out on the benefit night of Mr. Munden. To the author of the Curfew, this was indeed to launch a raft on the ocean; but repeating his motto of Nil desperandum, he repaired to the theatre on the appointed evening, and without any visible emotion took his station in the pit, accompanied by his brother, who could not so easily divest himself of anxious apprehensions. The author, on the contrary, declared, that after a momentary agitation, he became as composed as an indifferent spectator. May it not be suspected that this apparent indifference disguised the latent feelings of chagrin and regret, with which he must have contemplated the result of his long and meritorious probation? After all his exertions, his diligence, his perseverance, he had at length succeeded in bringing out a benefit farce, and such were the fruits of his long cherished hopes-such the sordid reality of his magnificent anticipations. p. 101. This farce, though successful, was not repeated. He now struck out a new line of composition: A question was one day started in his chambers at Bernard's-inn, how far it might be practicable to resuscitate the old English comedy, as it existed in the age of Shakespeare and Fletcher: Mr. James Tobin maintained, that this suggestion was perfectly feasible, and that the effort, if sustained by talent, would possess the attraction of novelty. On this question the poet appeared to suspend his judgment, but finally answered it by producing the comedy of The Honey Moon. p. 102. This play was rejected at Covent Garden-at Drury-lane it was referred to future consideration. His health at this period obliged him to leave London, to spend the winter of 1804 with a relation in Cornwall. He was so accustomed to disappointments that he abandoned the hope of getting out the Honey Moon, and he employed his leisure in designing a new edition of Shakespeare. While he was thus employed, his brother in London succeeded, through the interference of Mr. Wroughton, in obtaining a candid hearing for the Honey Moon-at last, to his unspeakable joy it was declared to be accepted. He instantly wrote to Cornwall, desiring the Poet immediately to prepare the Prologue and Epilogue;-but the energies which were once alive to every thing belonging to the Drama, were now feeble, and incapable of an effort-the mandate came too late-his frame was sinking under consumption, and a voyage being recommended by his physicians, he was about returning to Bristol to embark for the West Indies. In the first moments of his pleasure, however, he endeavoured to obey his brother's desires-but bodily pain triumphed over mental exertion, and after many struggles he completed four lines, with the acknowledgment that he was unable to accomplish more. |