The doctor looked wise; 'A slow fever,' he said:
Prescribed sudorifics and going to bed.
'Sudorifics in bed,' exclaimed Will, are humbugs!
I've enough of them there without paying for drugs!'
Will kicked out the doctor; but when ill indeed,
E'en dismissing the doctor don't always succeed;
So, calling his host, he said, 'Sir, do you know,
I'm the fat single gentleman six months ago?
Look'e, landlord, I think,' argued Will with a grin,
"That with honest intentions you first took me in:
But from the first night-and to say it I'm bold-
I've been so hanged hot, that I'm sure I caught cold.'
Quoth the landlord, Till now, I ne'er had a dispute;
I've let lodgings ten years; I'm a baker to boot;
In airing your sheets, sir, my wife is no sloven;
And your bed is immediately over my oven.'

The oven!' says Will. Says the host, 'Why this

passion?

In that excellent bed died three people of fashion. Why so crusty, good sir?' 'Zounds!' cries Will, in a taking,

footmen waited at my door to take me an airing.' She allowed a sister who was in ill health £100 ayear. Many a time this winter,' she records in her diary, when I cried for cold, I said to myself, “but, thank God! my sister has not to stir from her room; she has her fire lighted every morning; all her provisions bought and brought ready cooked; she is now the less able to bear what I bear; and how much more should I suffer but for this reflection."' This was noble and generous self-denial. The income of Mrs Inchbald was now £172 per annum, and, after the death of her sister, she went to reside in a boarding house, where she enjoyed more of the comforts of life. Traces of female weakness break out in her private memoranda amidst the sterner records of her struggle for independence. The following entry is amusing: 1798. London. Rehearsing "Lovers' Vows;" happy, but for a suspicion, amounting to a certainty, of a rapid appearance of age in my face.' Her last literary labour was writing biographical and critical prefaces to a collection of plays, in twenty-five volumes; a col

'But I'd rather not perish while you make your bread.'

MRS ELIZABETH INCHBALD.

MRS ELIZABETH INCHBALD, an actress, dramatist, and novelist, produced a number of popular plays. Her two tales, The Simple Story, and Nature and Art, are the principal sources of her fame; but her light dramatic pieces are marked by various talent. Her first production was a farce entitled The Mogul Tale, brought out in 1784, and from this time, down to 1805, she wrote nine other plays and farces. By some of these pieces (as appears from her memoirs) she received considerable sums of money. Her first production realised £100; her comedy of Such Things Are (her greatest dramatic performance) brought her in £410, 12s.; The Married Man, £100; The Wedding Day, £200; The Midnight Hour, £130; Every One Has His Fuult, £700; Wives as they Were, and Maids as they Are, £427, 10s.; Lovers' Vows, £150; &c. The personal history of this lady is as singular as any of her dramatic plots. She was born of Roman Catholic parents residing at Standyfield, near Bury St Edmunds, in the year 1753. At the age of sixteen, full of giddy romance, she ran off to London, having with her a small sum of money, and some wearing apparel in a bandbox. After various adventures, she obtained an engagement for a country theatre, but suffering some personal indignities in her unprotected state, she applied to Mr Inchbald, an actor whom she had previously known. The gentleman counselled marriage. But who would marry me?' cried the lady. 'I would,' replied her friend, if you would have me.' 'Yes, sir, and would for ever be grateful'-and married they were in a few days. The union thus singularly brought about seems to have been happy enough; but Mr Inchbald died a few years afterwards. Mrs Inchbald performed the first parts in the Edinburgh theatre for four years, and continued on the stage, acting in London, Dublin, &c. till 1789, when she quitted it for ever. Her exemplary prudence, and the profits of her works, enabled her not only to live, but to save money. The applause and distinction with which she was greeted never led her to deviate from her simple and somewhat parsimonious habits. 'Last Thursday,' she writes, I finished scouring my bed-room, while a coach with a coronet and two

Theatre, in ten volumes. Phillips, the publisher, offered her a thousand pounds for her memoirs, but she declined the tempting offer. This autobiography was, by her own orders, destroyed after her decease; but in 1833, her Memoirs were published by Mr Boaden, compiled from an autograph journal which she kept for above fifty years, and from her letters written to her friends. Mrs Inchbald died in a boarding-house at Kensington on the 1st of August 1821. By her will, dated four months before her decease, she left about £6000, judiciously divided amongst her relatives. One of her legacies marks the eccentricity of thought and conduct which was mingled with the talents and virtues of this originalminded woman: she left £20 each to her late laundress and hair-dresser, provided they should inquire of her executors concerning her decease.

THOMAS HOLCROFT.

THOMAS HOLCROFT, author of the admired comedy, The Road to Ruin, and the first to introduce the melo-drama into England, was born in London on the 10th of December 1745. Till I was six years old,' says Holcroft, my father kept a shoemaker's shop in Orange Court; and I have a faint recollection that my mother dealt in greens and oysters.' Humble as this condition was, it seems to have been succeeded by greater poverty, and the future dramatist and comedian was employed in the country by his parents to hawk goods as a pedlar. He was afterwards engaged as a stable-boy at Newmarket, and was proud of his new livery. A charitable person, who kept a school at Newmarket, taught him to read. He was afterwards a rider on the turf; and when sixteen years of age, he worked for some time with his father as a shoemaker. A passion for books was at this time predominant, and the confinement of the shoemaker's stall not agreeing with him, he attempted to raise a school in the country. He afterwards became a provincial actor, and spent seven years in strolling about England, in every variety of wretchedness, with different companies. In 1780 Holcroft appeared as an author, his first work being a novel, entitled Alwyn, or the Gentleman Comedian. In the following year his comedy of Duplicity was acted with great success at Covent Garden. Another comedy, The Deserted Daughter, experienced a very favourable reception; but The Road to Ruin is universally acknowledged to be the best of his dramatic works. This comedy,' says Mrs Inchbald, ranks among the most successful of

you,

JOHN TOBIN.

JOHN TOBIN was a sad example, as Mrs Inchbald has remarked, of the fallacious hopes by which half mankind are allured to vexatious enterprise. He passed many years in the anxious labour of writing plays, which were rejected by the managers; and no sooner had they accepted The Honey-Moon, than he died, and never enjoyed the recompense of seeing it performed.' Tobin was born at Salisbury in the year 1770, and educated for the law. In 1785 he was articled to an eminent solicitor of Lincoln's Inn, and afterwards entered into business himself. Such, however, was his devotion to the drama, that before the age of twenty-four he had written several plays. His attachment to literary composition did not withdraw him from his legal engagements; but his time was incessantly occupied, and symptoms of consumption began to appear. A change of climate was recommended, and Tobin went first to Cornwall, and thence to Bristol, where he embarked for the West Indies. The vessel arriving at Cork, was detained there for some days; but on the 7th of December 1804, it sailed from that port, on which day—without any apparent change in his disorder to indicate the approach of death-the invalid expired. Before quitting London, Tobin had left the Honey-Moon' with his brother, the manager having given a promise that it should be performed. Its success was instant and decisive, and it is still a favourite acting play. Two other pieces by the same author (The Curfew, and The School for Authors) were subsequently brought forward, but they are of inferior merit. The Honey-Moon' is a romantic drama, partly in blank verse, and written somewhat in the style of Beaumont and Fletcher. The scene is laid in Spain, and the plot taken from Catherine and Petruchio, though the reform of the haughty lady is accomplished less roughly. The Duke of Aranza conducts his bride to a cottage in the country, pretending that he is a peasant, and that he has obtained her hand by deception. The proud Juliana, after a struggle, submits, and the duke having accomplished his purpose of rebuking the domineering spirit of her sex,' asserts his true rank, and places Juliana in his palace

I

Jul. I shall observe, sir.

Duke. I should like well to see you in the dress last presented you.

Jul. The blue one, sir?

Duke. No, love-the white. Thus modestly attired, A half-blown rose stuck in thy braided hair, With no more diamonds than those eyes are made of, No deeper rubies than compose thy lips, Nor pearls more precious than inhabit them; With the pure red and white, which that same hand Which blends the rainbow mingles in thy cheeks; This well-proportioned form (think not I flatter) In graceful motion to harmonious sounds, And thy free tresses dancing in the wind; Thou'lt fix as much observance, as chaste dames Can meet, without a blush.

JOHN O'KEEFE-FREDERICK REYNOLDS-THONAS

MORTON.

JOHN O'KEEFE, a prolific farce writer, was born in Dublin in 1746. While studying the art of drawing to fit him for an artist, he imbibed a passion for the stage, and commenced the career of an actor in his native city. He produced generally some dramatic piece every year for his benefit, and one of these, entitled Tony Lumpkin, was played with success at the Haymarket theatre, London, in

1778.

He continued supplying the theatres with new pieces, and up to the year 1809,. had written, in Most of these all, about fifty plays and farces. and some of them enjoyed great success. The Agreewere denominated comic operas or musical farces, able Surprise, Wild Oats, Modern Antiques, Fontain bleau, The Highland Reel, Love in a Camp, The Poor Soldier, and Sprigs of Laurel, are still favourites, especially the first, in which the character of Lingo, humour. O'Keefe's writings, it is said, were merely the schoolmaster, is a laughable piece of broad intended to make people laugh, and they have fully answered that intent. The lively dramatist was in his latter years afflicted with blindness, and in 1800 he obtained a benefit at Covent Garden theatre, on which occasion he was led forward by Mr Lewis, died at Southampton on the 4th of February 1833, the actor, and delivered a poetical address. He having reached the advanced age of 86.

FREDERICK REYNOLDS (1765-1841) was one of the most voluminous of dramatists, author of sevenhundred dramatic pieces. He served Covent Garden teen popular comedies, and, altogether, of about a for forty years in the capacity of what he called thinker'-that is, performer of every kind of lite rary labour required in the establishment. Among his best productions are, The Dramatist, Laugh when you Can, The Delinquent, The Will, Folly as it Flies, Life, Management, Notoriety, How to Grow Rich, The Rage, Speculation, The Blind Bargain, Fortune's Fool, &c. &c. Of these, the Dramatist' is the best. The hero Vapid, the dramatic author, who goes to Bath 'to pick up characters,' is a laughable caricature, in which it is said the author drew a likeness of himself; for, like Vapid, he had 'the ardor scribendi upon him so strong, that he would rather you'd ask him to write an epilogue or a scene than offer him your whole estate the theatre was his world, in

masters of fiction, British or foreign. Some have excelled him in particular qualities of the novelist, but none in their harmonious and rich combination.

We had now a new race of imitators, aiming at a high standard of excellence, both as respects the design and the execution of their works. The peculiarities of Scottish manners in humble life, which Scott had illustrated in his early novels, were successfully developed by Galt, and in a more tender and imaginative light by Wilson. Galt, indeed, has high merit as a minute painter: his delineations, like those of Allan Ramsay, bring home to his countrymen traits of undefinable expression, which had escaped every eye but that of familiar affection.' His pathos is the simple grief of nature. In this painting of national manners, Scott's example was all potent. From Scotland it spread to Ireland. Miss Edgeworth, indeed, had previously portrayed the lights and shades of the Irish character, and in this respect was the preceptress of Scott. But with all her talent and penetration, this excellent authoress can scarcely be said to have reached the heart of her subject, and she stirred up no enthusiasm among her countrymen. Miss Edgeworth pursued her high vocation as a moral teacher. Miss Owenson, who had, as early as 1807, published her Wild Irish Girl, | continued (as Lady Morgan) her striking and humorous pictures of Irish society, and they were afterwards greatly surpassed by Banim, Griffin, Lover, Carleton, and others. The whole soil of Ireland, and its races of people, have been laid open, like a new world, to the general reader. English history was in like manner ransacked for materials for fiction. Scott had shown how much could be done in this department by gathering up the scattered fragments of antiquarian research, or entering with the spirit and skill of genius into the manners and events of a bygone age. He had vivified and embodied—not described the past. Many authors have followed in his train-Mr Horace Smith, Mr James, Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer, Ainsworth, and other men of talent and genius. Classic and foreign manners were also depicted. The Valerius of Lockhart is an exquisite Roman story; Morier and Fraser have familiarised us with the domestic life of Persia; Mr Hope, in his Anastasius, has drawn the scenery and manners of Italy, Greece, and Turkey, with the fidelity and minuteness of a native artist, and the impassioned beauty of a poet; while the character and magnificent natural features of America-its trackless forests, lakes, wild Indian tribes, and antique settlers have been depicted by its gifted sons, Irving and Cooper. All these may be said to have been prompted by the national and historical romances of Scott. The current of imagination and description had been turned from verse to prose. The stage also caught the enthusiasm; and the tales which had charmed in the closet were reproduced, with scenic effect, in our theatres.

The fashionable novels of Theodore Hook formed a new feature in modern fiction. His first series of Sayings and Doings appeared in 1824, and attracted considerable attention. The principal object of these clever tales was to describe manners in high-life, and the ridiculous and awkward assumption of them by citizens and persons in the middle ranks. As the author advanced in his career, he extended his canvass, and sketched a greater variety of scenes and figures. Their general character, however, remained the same: too much importance was, in all of them, attached to the mere externals of social intercourse, as if the use of the silver fork,' or the etiquette of the drawing-room, were the be-all and the end-all' of English society. The life of the accomplished

author gives a sad and moral interest to his tales. He obtained the distinction he coveted, in the notice and favour of the great and the fashionable world: for this he sacrificed the fruits of his industry and the independence of genius; he lived in a round of distraction and gaiety, illuminated by his wit and talents, and he died a premature death, the victim of disappointment, debt, and misery. This personal example is the true handwriting on the wall,' to warn genius and integrity in the middle classes against hunting after or copying the vices of fashionable dissipation and splendour! Mr Ward, Lord Normanby, Mrs Trollope, Lady Blessington, and others, followed up these tales of high-life with perfect knowledge of the subject, wit, refinement, and sarcasm, but certainly with less vigour and less real knowledge of mankind than Theodore Hook. Bulwer imparted to it the novelty and attraction of strong contrast, by conducting his fashionable characters into the purlieus of vice and slang society, which also in its turn became the rage, and provoked imitation. 'Dandies' and highwaymen were painted en beau, and the Newgate Calendar was rifled for heroes to figure in the novel and on the stage. This unnatural absurdity soon palled upon the public taste, and Bulwer did justice to his high and undoubted talents by his historical and more legitimate romances. Among the most original of our living novelists should be included Captain Marryat, the parent, in his own person and in that of others, of a long progeny of nautical tales and sketches.

The last and, next to Scott, the greatest of modern writers of fiction, is Mr Charles Dickens, who also deals with low-life and national peculiarities, especially such as spring up in the streets and resorts of crowded cities. The varied surface of English society, in the ordinary and middle ranks, has afforded this close observer and humorist a rich harvest of characters, scenes, and adventures-of follies, oddities, vices, and frailties, of which he has made a copious and happy use. In comic humour, blended with tenderness and pathos, and united to unrivalled powers of observation and description, Dickens has no equal among his contemporaries; and as a painter of actual life, he seems to be the most genuine English novelist we have had since Fielding. His faults lie upon the surface. Like Bulwer, he delights in strong colouring and contrasts-the melodrame of fiction-and is too prone to caricature. The artist, delighting in the exhibition of his skill, is apparent in many of his scenes, where probability and nature are sacrificed for effect. But there is a spirit of goodness' at the heart of all Dickens's stories, and a felicitous humour and fancy, which are unknown to Bulwer and his other rivals. His vivid pictures of those poor in-door sufferers in populous city pent' have directed sympathy to the obscure dwellers in lanes and alleys, and may prove the precursor of practical amelioration. He has made fiction the handmaid of humanity and benevolence, without losing its companionship with wit and laughter. The hearty cordiality of his mirth, his warm and kindly feelings, alive to whatever interests or amuses others, and the undisguised pleasure, brimming o'er,' with which he enters upon every scene of humble city-life and family affection, make us in love with human nature in situations and under circumstances rarely penetrated by the light of imagination. He is a sort of discoverer in the moral world, and has found an El Dorado in the outskirts and byways of humanity where previous explorers saw little but dirt and ashes, and could not gather a single flower. This is the triumph of genius, as beneficial as it is brilliant and irresistible.

It will be remarked that a large proportion of the