Tobin was not easily induced to be silent; and with the earnestness of genuine affection he continued to animadvert on those habits of thoughtless improvidence which, in their school days, had rendered the poet an unsafe depositary for Mr. Webbe's Christmas gifts; and which, in riper years, per petually subjected him to imposition and inconvenience. The love of order was a prominent feature in the elder Tobin's character to his personal interests he was even more indifferent than his brother, and equally incapable of admitting to his breast one sordid thought or selfish sentiment; but he cherished prudence as the basis of generosity, and exacted regularity, as essential to usefulness.

In every action of life, accustomed to regulate his conduct by fixed principles, he could not help deploring the poet's habitual neglect of those minor duties, to which he justly attached importance. His

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reproofs were often conveyed in a tone of raillery, and always received by the delinquent with so good a grace, as proved he was utterly incorrigible. The happy serenity of his temper was unalterable by chance or circumstance; and whether he missed the money he had dropt from his purse, or discovered the premature dilapidations in his wardrobe, or listened to the objurgations of his affectionate monitor, he constantly preserved his gaiety and good humour.

On some occasions, the brothers appeared to change characters; when a rejected play was returned from the manager, it was Mr. James Tobin that appeared to suffer, whilst his brother broke the ominous seal with smiling composure. Never were two men more perfectly formed to harmonize, to unite together; they must know little of the human heart, who would require to be informed, that the difference of temperament, the

partial opposition in habits and conduct, by rendering them more completely dependent on each other, contributed to rivet the ties of attachment. It was remarked of the poet, that in his literary capacity, his ordinary habits of improvidence were completely inverted, since he hoarded even his lyrical stanzas with such jealous care, that he could seldom be induced to lend a single song to any pe riodical publication. Even his social instincts, originally so strong and ardent, confessed the supremacy of his master passion; and, attached as he was to his brother's society, he gladly availed himself of his absence to write in a solitary apartment; not even his faculty of abstraction rendering him indifferent to the privileges of quiet and seclusion.

No sooner was Mr. James Tobin settled in the Temple, than the Faro Table became the immediate object of his attention:

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and after many delays and difficulties he at length succeeded in procuring for it the perusal of Mr. Sheridan, by whom it was at first so warmly approved, that it was even read in the Green Room, with a promise of being performed the ensuing season. Suspense is inseparable from the poet's destiny. With Tobin, however, this was an interval of pleasing anticipation, since he flattered himself he had at length opened a fruitful vein, and in his alacrity to pursue the advantage, completed a second comedy. When the season arrived, Mr. Sheridan was no longer accessible; nor was it without reiterated importunities that Mr. James Tobin obtained a definitive answer, and with it the play, which, on reconsideration, was discovered to bear too close a resemblance to the School for Scandal, and (still worse) to contain certain allusions which might be suspected of an invidious meaning to a titled dowager who kept a faro bank. Till this moment the author had not been

aware of this lady's existence. Secluded in his habits, he seldom entered the sphere of fashionable life, and was little acquainted with its diurnal tales of scandal. It had been his object to introduce a female gambler, but he perhaps scarcely believed that the exact prototype could be found in human nature. With regard to the other objection, it was impossible he should stand acquitted either to himself or his friends of a strongly marked resemblance to the chef d'œuvre of Sheridan; but it was such as appears to have been rather caught from the sympathy of enthusiastic admiration, than produced by cold and artificial imitation.

On the whole, the unsuccessful issue of this negociation was palliated by many consoling reflections. To have arrested the attention of a Sheridan;-in such a judge to have created even a temporary bias in his favour, was highly flattering to a young and hitherto undistinguished author: even