Wan ghosts of woe-begone, self-slaughtered damsels In their best winding-sheets; start not; I bid them wipe Their gory bosoms; they'll look wondrous comely; Our link-boy, Will-o'-the-Wisp, is waiting too To light us to our grave. in his disorder to indicate the approach of deaththe invalid expired. Before quitting London, Tobin had left the Honeymoon 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 After some further speech, she asks him what he pieces by the same author-The Curfew and The means, and he replies: What mean I? Death and murder, Darkness and misery. To thy prayers and shrift, Earth gives thee back. Thy God hath sent me for thee; Repent and die. She returns gentle answers to him; but in the end he kills her, and afterwards mourns thus over her body: Dead art thou, Floribel; fair, painted earth, Look, what a face! had our first mother worn Mr Beddoes was son of DR THOMAS BEDDOES (1760-1808), an eminent physician, scholar, and man of scientific attainments, as well as of great versatility of literary talent. Dr Beddoes was married to a younger sister of Maria Edgeworth, and was an early patron of Sir Humphry Davy. His son, the dramatic poet (1803-1849), was only nineteen when The Bride's Tragedy was produced. He afterwards devoted himself to scientific study and foreign travel, but occasionally wrote poetry not unworthy of the reputation he achieved by his early performance. After his death was published Death's Jest-book, or the Fool's Tragedy (1850), and Poems, with a memoir (1851). Mr Beddoes was a writer of a high order, but restless, unfixed, and deficient both in energy and ambition. 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 Honeymoon, 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 School for Authors-were subsequently brought forward, but they are of inferior merit. The Honeymoon 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: This truth to manifest-A gentle wife To those who-wisely keep their honeymoon. The following passage, where the duke gives his directions to Juliana respecting her attire, is pointed out by Mrs Inchbald as peculiarly worthy of admiration, from the truths which it contains. The fair critic, like the hero of the play, was not ambitious of dress: I'll have no glittering gewgaws stuck about you, Juliana. I shall observe, sir. Duke. I should like well to see you in the dress I 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 flatterIn 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. THOMAS MORTON-MARIA EDGEWORTH. 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 all, Most of these were about fifty plays and farces. denominated comic operas or musical farces, and 451 some of them enjoyed great success. The Agreeable Surprise, Wild Oats, Modern Antiques, Fontainebleau, 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, the schoolmaster, is a laughable piece of broad humour. O'Keefe's writings, it is said, were merely intended to make people laugh, and they have fully answered that object. 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, the actor, and delivered a poetical address. He died at Southampton on the 4th of February 1833, having reached the advanced age of eighty-six. FREDERICK REYNOLDS (1765-1841) was one of the most voluminous of dramatists, author of seven-faithfully and pleasingly the various phases of teen popular comedies, and, altogether, of about a hundred dramatic pieces. He served Covent Garden for forty years in the capacity of what he called 'thinker'—that is, performer of every kind of literary 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 which were included all his hopes and wishes.' Out of the theatre, however, as in it, Reynolds was much esteemed. and satirical portraits, daily advancing in her powers, as in her desire to increase the virtues, prudence, and substantial happiness of life: Mrs Opie told her pathetic and graceful domestic tales; and Miss Austen exhibited her exquisite delineations of everyday English society and character. There are some things,' says a writer in the Edinburgh Review (1830), 'which women do better than men, and of these, perhaps, novel-writing is one. Naturally endowed with greater delicacy of taste and feeling, with a moral sense not blunted and debased by those contaminations to which men are exposed, leading lives rather of observation than of action, with leisure to attend to the minutiae of conduct and more subtle developments of character, they are peculiarly qualified for the task of exhibiting domestic life, and those varieties which chequer the surface of society. Accordingly, their delineations, though perhaps less vigorous than those afforded by the other sex, are distinguished, for the most part, by greater fidelity and consistency, a more refined and happy discrimination, and, we must also add, a more correct estimate of right and wrong. In works which come from a female pen, we are seldom offended by those moral monstrosities, those fantastic perversions of principle, which are too often to be met with in the fictions which have been written by men. Women are less stilted in their style; they are more content to describe naturally what they have observed, without attempting the introduction of those extraneous ornaments which are sometimes sought at the expense of truth. They are less ambitious, and are therefore more just; they are far more exempt from that prevailing literary vice of the present day, exaggeration, and have not taken their stand among the feverish followers of what may be called the intense style of writing; a Another veteran comic writer, THOMAS MORTON, style much praised by those who inquire only if a is author of Speed the Plough, Way to get Married, work is calculated to make a strong impression, and Cure for the Heartache, and the School of Reform, omit entirely the more important question, whether which may be considered standard pieces on the that impression be founded on truth or on delusion. stage. Besides these, Mr Morton produced Zorinski, Hence the agonics and convulsions, and dreamy Secrets Worth Knowing, and various other plays, rhapsodies, and heated exhibitions of stormy pasmost of which were performed with great applause. sions, in which several of our writers have lately The acting of Lewis, Munden, and Emery was indulged. Imagination has been flattered into greatly in favour of Mr Morton's productions on a self-sufficient abandonment of its alliance with their first appearance, but they contain the clements judgment, to which disunion it is ever least prone of theatrical success. The characters are strongly where it has most real power; and "fine creations" contrasted, and the scenes and situations well-well so called, as being unlike anything previously arranged for effect, with occasionally a mixture of pathos and tragic or romantic incident. In the closet these works fail to arrest attention; for their merits are more artistic than literary, and the improbability of many of the incidents appears glaring when submitted to sober inspection. Mr Morton was a native of Durham, and bred to the law. He died in 1838, aged seventy-two. MARIA EDGEWORTH, the celebrated novelist, was induced by the advice of her father, and that of a more competent judge, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, to attempt the drama. In 1817, she published Comic Dramas, in Three Acts. Three pieces were comprised in this volume, two of them Irish; but though the dialogue was natural, the plays were deficient in interest, and must be considered as dramatic failures. NOVELISTS. We have alluded to the success of Miss Burney, Charlotte Smith, and Mrs Radcliffe in the department of prose fiction. At no distant interval, Miss Edgeworth came forward with her moral lessons existing in nature-have been lauded, in spite of their internal falsity, as if they were of more value than the most accurate delineations of that world which we see around us.' To crown all, Sir Walter Scott commenced in 1814 his brilliant gallery of portraits of all classes, living and historical, which completely exterminated the monstrosities of the Minerva press, and inconceivably extended the circle of novel readers. Fictitious composition was now again in the ascendant, and never, in its palmiest days of chivalrous romance or modern fashion, did it command more devoted admiration, or shine with greater lustre. The public taste underwent a rapid and important change; and as curiosity was stimulated and supplied in such unexampled profusion from this master-source, the most exorbitant devourer of novels soon learned to look with aversion and disgust on the painted and unreal mockeries which had formerly deluded them. It appears to be a law of our nature, that recreation and amusement are as necessary to the mind as exercise is to the body, and in this light, Sir Walter Scott must be viewed as one of the greatest benefactors of his species. He the enthusiasm; and the tales which had charmed in the closet were reproduced, with scenic effect, in our theatres. has supplied a copious and almost exhaustless source of amusement as innocent as it is delightful. He revived the glories of past ages; illustrated the landscape and the history of his native country; The fashionable novels of Theodore Hook formed painted the triumphs of patriotism and virtue, and a new feature in modern fiction. His first series of the meanness and misery of vice; awakened our Sayings and Doings appeared in 1824, and attracted best and kindliest feelings in favour of suffering and considerable attention. The principal object of these erring humanity-of the low-born and the perse-clever tales was to describe manners in high-life, and cuted, the peasant, the beggar, and the Jew; he has furnished an intellectual banquet, as rich as it is various and picturesque, from his curious learning, extensive observation, forgotten manners, and decaying superstitions-the whole embellished with the lights of a vivid imagination, and a correct and gracefully regulated taste. In the number and variety of his conceptions and characters, Scott is entitled to take his seat beside the greatest masters of fiction, British or foreign. Some have excelled him in particular qualities of the novelist, but none in their harmonious and rich combination. 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 canvas, 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, Mrs Gore, Mr Disraeli, and others, followed up these tales of high-life. Bulwer in his first workPelham, published in 1828-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 domestic tales, which will come before us in a subsequent section. WILLIAM GODWIN. 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 WILLIAM GODWIN, author of Caleb Williams, was history was in like manner ransacked for materials one of the most remarkable men of his times. The for fiction. Scott had shewn how much could be boldness of his speculations and opinions, and his done in this department by gathering up the apparent depth and ardour of feeling, were curiously scattered fragments of antiquarian research, or contrasted with his plodding habits, his imperturbentering with the spirit and skill of genius into the able temper, and the quict obscure simplicity of manners and events of a bygone age. He had his life and manners. The most startling and vivified and embodied-not described-the past. astounding theories were propounded by him with Many authors have followed in his train-Mr undoubting confidence; and sentiments that, if Horace Smith, Mr James, Sir Edward Bulwer-reduced to action, would have overturned the whole Lytton, Ainsworth, and other men of talent and framework of society, were complacently dealt out genius. Classic and foreign manners were also by their author as if they had merely formed an depicted. The Valerius of Lockhart is an exquisite ordinary portion of a busy literary life. Godwin Roman story; Morier and Fraser have familiarised was born at Wisbeach, in Cambridgeshire, on the us with the domestic life of Persia; Mr Hope, in 3d of March 1756. His father was a dissenting his Anastasius, has drawn the scenery and manners minister-a pious nonconformist-and thus the of Italy, Greece, and Turkey, with the fidelity and future novelist may be said to have been nurtured minuteness of a native artist, and the impassioned in a love of religious and civil liberty, without beauty of a poet; while the character and magni-perhaps much reverence for existing authority. ficent natural features of America-its trackless He soon, however, far overstepped the pale of forests, lakes, wild Indian tribes, and antique settlers dissent. After receiving the necessary education -have been depicted by its gifted sons, Irving and at the dissenting college at Hoxton, Mr Godwin Cooper. All these may be said to have been prompted became minister of a congregation in the vicinity by the national and historical romances of Scott. of London. He also officiated for some time at The current of imagination and description had been Stowmarket, in Suffolk. About the year 1782, turned from verse to prose. The stage also caught | having been five years a nonconformist preacher, Holcroft, Thelwall, Horne Tooke, and others, were He bears no token of the sabler streams, culous class,' as he himself states, and designed to mix human feelings and passions with incredible situations. His hero attains the possession of the philosopher's-stone, and secures exhaustless wealth by the art of transmuting metals into gold, and at the same time he learns the secret of the elixir vitæ, by which he has the power of renewing his youth. These are, indeed, 'incredible situations;' but the romance has many attractions-splendid description and true pathos. Its chief defect is an excess of the terrible and marvellous. In 1800 Mr Godwin that he obtained the large sum of £700 for his next publication. This was his famed Inquiry concerning In 1799 appeared his St Leon, a story of the 'miraPolitical Justice, and its Influences on General Virtue and Happiness, published in 1793. Mr Godwin's work was a sincere advocacy of an intellectual republic-a splendid argument for universal philanthropy and benevolence, and for the omnipotence of mind over matter. His views of the perfectibility of man and the regeneration of society-all private affections and interests being merged in the public good-were clouded by no misgivings, and he wrote with the force of conviction, and with no ordinary powers of persuasion and eloquence. The Inquiry was highly successful, and went through several editions. In a twelvemonth afterwards appeared his novel of Things as they Are, or the Adventures of Caleb Williams. His object here was also to inculcate his peculiar doctrines, and to comprehend 'a general review of the modes of domestic and unrecorded despotism, by which man becomes the destroyer of man. His hero, Williams, tells his own tale of suffering and of wrong-of innocence persecuted and reduced to the brink of death and infamy by aristocratic power, and by tyrannical or partially administered laws; but his story is so fraught with interest and energy, that we lose sight of the political object or satire, and think only of the characters and incidents that pass in review before us. The imagination of the author overpowered his philosophy; he was a greater inventor than logician. His character of Falkland is one of the finest in the whole range of English fictitious composition. The opinions of Godwin were soon brought still more prominently forward. His friends, If we may credit a curious entry in Sir Walter Scott's diary, Godwin must have been early mixed up with the English Jacobins. 'Canning's conversion from popular opinions,' says Scott, 'was strangely brought round. While he was studying in the Temple, and rather entertaining revolutionary opinions, Godwin sent to say that he was coming to breakfast with him, to speak on a subject of the highest importance. Canning knew little of him, but received his visit, and learned to his astonishment that, in expectation of a new order of things, the English Jacobins designed to place him, Canning, at the head of the revolution. He was much struck, and asked time to think what course he should take; and having thought the matter over, he went to Mr Pitt, and made the Anti-Jacobin confession of faith, in which he persevered until Canning himself mentioned this to Sir W. Knighton upon occasion of giving a place in the Charter-house, of some ten pounds a year, to Godwin's brother. He could scarce do less for one who had offered him the dictator's curule-chair.'-Lockhart's Life of Scott. This occurrence must have taken place before 1793, as in that year Canning was introduced by Pitt into parliament. produced his unlucky tragedy of Antonio; in 1801, Romances paint at full length people's wooings, History of the Commonwealth. The great men of that era were exactly suited to his taste. Their resolute energy of character, their overthrow of the monarchy, their republican enthusiasm and strange notions of faith and the saints, were well adapted to fire his imagination and stimulate his research. The history extended to four large volumes, which were published at intervals between 1824 and 1828. It is evident that Mr Godwin tasked himself to produce authorities for all he advanced. He took up, as might be expected, strong opinions; but in striving to be accurate and minute, he became too specific and chronological for the interest of his narrative. It was truly said that the style of his history 'creeps and hitches in dates and authorities.' In 1830 Mr Godwin published Cloudesley, a tale in three volumes. Reverting to his first brilliant performance as a novelist, he made his new hero, like Caleb Williams, a person of humble origin, and he arrays him against his patron; but there the parallel ends. The elastic vigour, the verisimilitude, the crowding incidents, the absorbing interest, and the overwhelming catastrophe of the first novel, are not to be found in Cloudesley. There is even little delineation of character. Instead of these we have fine English, 'clouds of reflections without any new occasion to call them forth; an expanded flow of words without a single pointed remark.' The next production of this veteran author was a metaphysical treatise, Thoughts on Man, &c.; and his last work (1834) a compilation, entitled Lives of the Necromancers. In his later years, Mr Godwin enjoyed a small government office, yeoman-usher of the Exchequer, which was conferred upon him by Earl Grey's ministry. In the residence attached to this appointment, in New Palace Yard, he terminated his long and laborious scholastic life on the 7th of April 1836. No man ever panted more ardently, or toiled more heroically, for literary fame; and we think that, before he closed his eyes, he must have been conscious that he had 'left something so written to after-times, as they should not willingly let it die.' This cannot be said of Mr Godwin. Great part of Fleetwood is occupied with the hero's matrimonial troubles and afflictions; but they only exemplify the noble poet's further observation-'no one cares for matrimonial cooings.' The better parts of the novel consist of the episode of the Macneills, a tale of family pathos, and some detached descriptions of Welsh scenery. For some years Mr Godwin was little heard of. He had married again, and, as a more certain means of maintenance, had opened a bookseller's shop in London, under the assumed name of 'Edward Baldwin.' In this situation he ushered forth a number of children's books, small histories and other compilations, some of them by himself. Charles Lamb mentions an English Gram- Caleb Williams is unquestionably the most intemar, in which Hazlitt assisted. He tried another resting and original of Mr Godwin's novels, and is tragedy, Faulkner, in 1807, but it was unsuccessful. altogether a work of extraordinary art and power. Next year he published an Essay on Sepulchres, It has the plainness of narrative and the apparent written in a fine meditative spirit, with great beauty reality of the fictions of Defoe or Swift, but is of expression; and in 1815, Lives of Edward and far more pregnant with thought and feeling, and John Phillips, the nephews of Milton. The latter is touches far higher sympathies and associations. also creditable to the taste and research of the The incidents and characters are finely developed author, and illustrates our poetical history about and contrasted, an intense earnestness pervades the time of the Restoration. In 1817 Mr Godwin the whole, and the story never flags for a moment. again entered the arena of fiction. He had paid a The lowness of some of the scenes never inspires visit to Scotland, and concluded with Constable for such disgust as to repel the reader; and the awful another novel, Mandeville, a tale of the times of crime of which Falkland is guilty is allied to so Cromwell. The style of this work is measured and much worth and nobleness of nature, that we are stately, and it abounds in that moral anatomy in involuntarily led to regard him with feelings of which the author delighted, but often carried beyond exalted pity and commiseration. A brief glance at truth and nature. The vindictive feelings deli- the story will shew the materials with which Godwin neated in Mandeville are pushed to a revolting 'framed his spell.' Caleb Williams, an intelligent extreme. Passages of energetic and beautiful young peasant, is taken into the house of Mr composition-reflective and descriptive-are to be Falkland, the lord of the manor, in the capacity found in the novel; and we may remark, that as of amanuensis, or private secretary. His master the author advanced in years, he seems to have cul- is kind and compassionate, but stately and solemn tivated more sedulously the graces of language and in manner. An air of mystery hangs about him; diction. The staple of his novels, however, was his address is cold, and his sentiments impenetrable; taken from the depths of his own mind-not from and he breaks out occasionally into fits of causeless extensive surveys of mankind or the universe; and it jealousy and tyrannical violence. One day Williams was obvious that the oft-drawn-upon fountain began surprises him in a closet, where he heard a deep to dry up, notwithstanding the luxuriance of the groan expressive of intolerable anguish, then the lid foliage that shaded it. We next find Mr Godwin of a trunk hastily shut, and the noise of fastening combating the opinions of Malthus upon population a lock. Finding he was discovered, Falkland flies (1820), and then setting about an elaborate into a transport of rage, and threatens the intruder |