It was not till after his thirtieth year that he began to acquire settled habits of study, to learn the languages--French, German, and Italian--in which he afterward became a ready translator, and to set about any kind of literary work. The first products of his pen appeared in the _Whitehall Evening Post_. He was in his thirty-fifth year when his first novel, "Alwyn, or the Gentleman Comedian," appeared. The year after this saw the issue of his earliest comedy, _Duplicity_, which was put on the stage at Covent Garden Theatre, and had a good run of success. This was followed by some thirty dramatic pieces of one kind or other, in poetry or prose, comedies and comic operas, dramas and melodramas, which last he had the credit of introducing into England. The _Road to Ruin_ is accounted, by some judges of note, the best of his dramas. Holcroft was a man of versatile powers and great industry. His natural gifts were remarkable, and his extensive knowledge was almost entirely self-acquired. As already indicated, he was a very prolific author. Besides the three novels and the plays referred to above, he issued translations from the _French_ of Toucher d'Obsonville and Pierre de Long; from the _German_, Goethe's "Herman and Dorothea;" and from the Italian. He spent much of his time in Germany and France, and his interesting work, "Travels into France," is one of his most valued productions. Thomas Holcroft died 23d March, 1809, at the age of sixty-four, having crowded as much work into his eventful life as most of the leading men of his time. JOSEPH BLACKET, POET, "THE SON OF SORROW."