101 



TOALDO, GIUSEPPE. 



TOCQUEVILLE, COUNT DE 



102 



been a subject of much controversy, some placing it &s early as 52, 

 and others as late as 65. From the striking verbal resemblances 

 between it and tho first epistle to Timothy, it is not improbable that 

 they were written about the same time, and while the same ideas 

 and phrases were present to the author's mind. The genuineness 

 and authenticity of the epistle have never been disputed. 



St. Paul's design iu writing it was to instruct Titus in the discharge 

 of the duties of his ministry as head of the church in Crete. Accord- 

 ingly, in chap. i. he gives Titus instructions concerning the ordination 

 of elders, who were to be appointed for every city, and describes 

 what qualifications they should possess, and also directs him to oppose 

 the Judaising teachers of Christianity, who seem to have been numerous 

 in the island. In chap. ii. St. Paul informs Titus what precepts he was 

 to inculcate, according to the age and circumstances of those whom he 

 had to teach, and admonishes him how to show himself a pattern of all 

 good works, and an example of the doctrines which he tausrht. In 

 chap. iii. he teaches Titus to inculcate obedience to principalities and 

 powers, iu opposition to the Jews, who thought it an indignity to sub- 

 mit to idolatrous magistrates ; and also that he should enforce gentle- 

 ness and meekness towards all men. He then concludes with a request 

 that Titus would inculcate the necessity of good works, and avoid 

 foolish questions ; an injunction of the same kind as St. Paul gave to 

 Timothy. 



For the undesigned coincidences between this epistle and the Acts 

 of the Apostles, see Paley, ' Horse Paulinse,' pp. 357-367. See also 

 Home's ' Introduction to the Critical Study of the Scriptures,' vol. iv., 

 p. 387; Macknight on the New Testament, vol. iii.; Colly er's 'Sacred 

 Interpreter.' 



TOALDO, GIUSEPPE, a celebrated Italian geographer and meteoro- 

 logist, was born in 1719 at a small village near Vicenza. After having 

 received the usual rudiments of education, he was sent to the Uni- 

 versity of Padua, in order to qualify himself for the priesthood by 

 the study of literature and theology ; and while there, a taste for 

 natural philosophy, and particularly for astronomy, induced him to 

 devote a considerable portion of his time to the pursuit of those 

 branches of science ; this pursuit he continued, during the intervals 

 which his pastoral duties afforded, after he had quitted the university 

 and become the curate of a village in the neighbourhood. 



In 1762 he was appointed professor of physical geography and 

 astronomy in the same university, and he immediately availed himself 

 of the influence which his appointment gave him to obtain the grant 

 of a building which might be occupied as an observatory ; in this he 

 succeeded, and being allowed the use of an ancient tower, he placed 

 in it all the instruments which he could collect. In this building he 

 made a series of astronomical observations, in continuation of those 

 which had been made about forty years previously by Poleni; and the 

 first thunder-rod erected in the Venetian states was one which Toaldo 

 applied to the same building. 



He died suddenly at Padua, in. December 1798, in consequence of a 

 fit of apoplexy, which was supposed to have been brought on by a 

 domestic calamity. 



The Abbe" Toaldo applied himself to the study of mathematics only 

 as far as that branch of science is applicable to geography. In 1769 

 he published at Padua a treatise on plane and spherical trigonometry, 

 with a collection of tables; and at Venice, in 1773, a tract entitled 

 ' Compendio della Sfera e di Geographia.' In 1782 he published his 

 'Saggio di Studi Veneti nell' Astronomia e nella Marina;' and two 

 years afterwards, his method of finding the longitude of a place by 

 an observed transit of the moon. In 1789 appeared his 'Trattato di 

 Gnomonica,' and in 1791 a work entitled ' Schediasmata Astronomica.' 

 In 1776 he gave, in a letter to Mr. Strange, the British resident at 

 Venice, an account of the tides in the Adriatic, which he drew from 

 the. observations of Signior Temanza, an Italian architect and engineer. 

 (' Phil. Trans.,' vol. Ixvii.) 



The attention of Toaldo was strongly directed to meteorology at a 

 time when this branch of natural philosophy was but little studied; 

 and he is the first who took notice of the supposed connection of 

 atmospherical phenomena with the movement of the moon in her 

 orbit. . Having observed that those phenomena return in nearly the 

 same order at the end of every eighteen years, he drew up tables 

 exhibiting the state of the weather during three such periods; and an 

 account of his system was given in a paper entitled 'Le Saros Me'te'oro- 

 logique,' &c., which is contained in the ' Journal de Rosier' for 1782. 

 In 1770 Toaldo published a tract entitled ' Saggio Meteorologico sulla 

 vera Influenza degli Astri ;' and two years afterwards, a tract concern- 

 ing the method of protecting buildings from the effects of lightning. 

 He also published, in 1775, a work on the application of meteorology 

 to agriculture. 



Toaldo wrote a life of the Abbe" Conti, which was prefixed to an 

 edition of the works of that philosopher and poet, who had been his 

 instructor. 



TOBIN, JOHN. The author of one play which still holds possession 

 of the stage a play of considerable merit, although displaying little 

 of what may be termed original genius would scarcely be entitled to 

 notice in a work which does not profess to include the minor adven- 

 turers in literature, were it not for the peculiar circumstances under 

 which he devoted a life to dramatic writing. John Tobin was born at 

 Salisbury in 1770. His father had property in the Islo of Nevis, and 



from the political circumstances of the period, thinking his presence 

 necessary upon his plantation, he took up hia residence there, leaving 

 three sons under the care of their maternal grandfather. They were 

 placed at the free-school at Southampton, where John discovered some 

 precocious talents. His father, returning to England, settled at Bristol 

 in a mercantile employment, where his sons became pupils of the Rev. 

 Mr. Lee. John, who was the third son, was in 1785 placed in the 

 house of a London solicitor, in which house he eventually became a 

 partner. His ambition was however early directed to dramatic com- 

 position, and for fifteen years he persevered in offering to the theatres 

 play after play, each of which was uniformly rejected by the managers. 

 Tobin had perhaps more real talent than the greater number of those 

 who had possession of the stage, at a period when a successful 

 dramatic performance waa not only highly paid, according to any 

 commercial estimate of literary merit, but was very often a little 

 fortune to its author. But the stage was then also in the hands of 

 three or four writers, who perfectly understood the taste of the town, 

 and especially adapted themselves to the peculiarities of the actors 

 who were to represent their characters. It was a necessary conse- 

 quence of this system that whilst no drama was composed upon a 

 principle of aft whilst no attempt was made to sustain a plot by 

 consistent and natural character, wit or humour, pathos or poetry 

 whilst the author modelled his jokes according to his conception of 

 this comedian's flexibility of face, and his sentiment with a due 

 reverence for that tragedian's stride and intonation, there was still 

 something produced which was perfect in its way, through the power 

 of the machinery by which it was worked ; a thing to move laughter 

 or tears upon the stage, but singularly provocative of sleep in the 

 closet. This was the day when the drama existed upon elang and 

 clap-trap, miscalled comedy. Tragedy had died out in its dullness ; 

 and farce not legitimate farce demanded the five acts of Reynolds, 

 Morton, and George Colman the younger. At this period Tobin 

 essayed to become a writer of comedy. He produced ' The Faro- 

 Table,' ' The Undertaker,' and ' The School for Authors :' these were 

 all rejected. He then tried his hand at the romantic drama, and 

 wrote, with equal ill success, ' The Curfew ' and ' The Indians.' The 

 latter piece was called forth by the success of Sheridan's melo-drama 

 of ' Pizarro.' Some one, it is said, proposed this question to Tobin at 

 a social meeting where the state of the drama was a subject of dis- 

 cussion : " Would a revival of the dramatic spirit which produced the 

 plays of Shakspere and Fletcher be relished by the public ] " Tobin 

 thought it would, and he wrote ' The Honeymoon." This play was 

 presented to the managers of Covent Garden, and refused. It was 

 finally accepted at Drury Lane, and it was acted with a success which 

 has attended very few dramatic compositions. In the meantime its 

 author, who had a tendency to consumption, was obliged to leave 

 London, seeking the recovery of his health. He had worked for 

 many years at his profession by day, and at his dramatic compositions 

 by night. He died on the 8th of December 1804 ; and ' The Honey- 

 moon' was produced at Drury Lane on the 31st of January 1805. 

 Those who cater for the public taste have often an alacrity in dis- 

 covering the merits of a man when he is dead ; and so Tobin'a 

 rejected pieces were eventually brought upon the stage. They are 

 forgotten. 'The Honeymoon' is exactly such a piece as might have 

 been calculated upon, looking at the theory which is said to have 

 suggested it. It is throughout an imitation of the old dramatists ; 

 clever indeed but as an automaton compared to a man, for the 

 breath of poetical life has not been breathed into what moves before 

 ua in the attitudes of humanity. The dialogue is skilful, the chief 

 situations are interesting, there is a proper quantity of simile and 

 other embroidery which looks like poetry. But the high art with 

 which the old dramatists worked is not there. Tobin did the best he 

 could a.3 an imitator ; but the Shaksperian drama is not a thing for 

 imitation. The great and essential spirit of poetry is ever the same ; 

 but it only becomes original as it puts on new forms, the elements of 

 which are to be found in the aggregate thought of its own age. The 

 memoirs of John Tobin, with several of his unacted dramas, were 

 published by Miss Benger in 1820. 



* TOCQUEVILLE, HENRI-ALEXIS, COUNT DE, French states- 

 man and philosophical historian, was born in 1805, and received a 

 careful education. In 1831 he went on a government mission to North 

 America, along with M. Gustavo de Beaumont ; and the fruit of this 

 visit was his well-known work 'De la Democratic en Amerique,' pub- 

 lished in 1835, in which the political institutions of the United States 

 were described in a masterly manner, and their bearings philosophi- 

 cally investigated. The work immediately attracted attention, and 

 tran^ations of it were executed in England and America. In 1839, 

 M. de Tocqueville began active political life as a member of the Cham- 

 ber of Deputies, and attached himself to the ranks of the opposition. 

 In the same year a 'Report' on the subject of slavery came from his 

 pen. But it is since 1848 that M. de Tocqueville has been most heard 

 of as a politician. Ho was one of the ministry which Count Mold 

 proposed to form during the revolution of February, before it had 

 gone the length of the declaration of the republic. In the early days 

 of the republic he figured as a moderate liberal opposed to extreme 

 views. He wrote and spoke against the Right to Labour and other 

 measures of the socialists and vehement republicans. In 1849 he was 

 elected vice-president of the Assembly, and from June to October he 



