On 16 Jan. 1705, at Drury Lane, Katherine Tofts took part in Clayton's ‘Arsinoe,’ an opera which enjoyed some measure of success, running twenty-four nights in the first season, and eleven the following year. ‘Camilla,’ a pasticcio by Haym from Buononcini, afforded the heroine an effective scene with a wild boar, on whom was fathered a letter to the ‘Spectator’ explaining that his feigned brutality collapsed before the ‘erect mien, charming voice, and grateful motion’ of Tofts. On 4 March 1707 she played Queen Eleanor in Addison's ‘Fair Rosamund’ set by Clayton; and on 1 April in the pasticcio ‘Thomyris.’ The musical performances were then continued under Owen MacSwinny [see Swinny] at the Haymarket, where, on 14 Dec. 1708, was first produced Haym's arrangement of Scarlatti's ‘Pyrrhus and Demetrius,’ afterwards acted for thirty nights. With her performance in ‘Love's Triumph’ (February 1708–9) Katherine Tofts's brilliant operatic career came to an end.
Mrs. Tofts's voice was soprano, and she sang songs in various styles. Little idea of her executive power can be gained from the published music of her repertory, as much ornamentation was generally added by the vanity of the performer. Burney, however, quotes examples of her shake and iterated notes. Any defect which experts might have found in her manner of singing Italian was said by Cibber to be redeemed by her natural gifts. ‘The beauty of her fine-proportioned figure, the exquisitely sweet silver tone of her voice, with that peculiar rapid swiftness of her throat, were perfections not to be imitated by art or labour’ (Apology). Betterton remarked that scarce any nation had given us ‘for all our money’ better singers than Tofts and Leveridge. But Tofts drew a salary of 500l., which was far higher than that paid to the foreign members of the company (Coke MSS., now in the possession of Mr. Julian Marshall).
Early in 1709 Tofts retired with a fortune from the stage. It was believed that she lost her reason about the same date; but she recovered, and is stated to have married about 1710 Joseph Smith [q. v.], the British consul at Venice from 1740 to 1760. Her health relapsed, and she appears to have been put under restraint for some years prior to her death, which probably took place in 1757 or 1758.
[Clark Russell's Representative Actors, p. 38; Daily Courant, 1703, 1704, passim; Hughes's Correspondence, i. 211; Clayton's Queens of Song, vol. i.; Edwards's The Prima Donna, 1888, i. 9–22; Spectator, 1706; Grove's Dictionary, iv. 131; Cibber's Apology, 4th edit. i. 281; Hawkins's Hist. of Music, pp. 765, 816; Burney's Hist. of Music, iv. 197, 215, 633; Sotheby's Catalogues, 1773; Pope's Miscellanies, 1727; Tatler, 26 May 1709; Gildon's Life of Betterton, p. 157; Wentworth Papers, p. 66.]
TOLAND, JOHN (1670–1722), deist, was born on 30 Nov. 1670 in the peninsula of Inishowen, near Londonderry. He was christened Junius Janus, but took the name John, by his schoolmaster's desire, in order to avoid the ridicule of his comrades. It was reported that he was illegitimate, and that his father was a priest. The authorities of the Irish Franciscan college at Prague testified in 1708 that he was of an honourable and ancient family. Their authority was the ‘History of the kingdom,’ and, presumably, Toland's own statement. Toland was brought up as a catholic, but became a protestant before he was sixteen. His abilities attracted the notice of some ‘eminent dissenters,’ who resolved to educate him as a minister. He was at a school at Redcastle, near Londonderry, and in 1687 went to the college at Glasgow. In June 1690 he was created M.A. by the university of Edinburgh, and in July received from the magistrates of Glasgow a certificate of his behaviour as a ‘protestant and loyal subject’ during his stay in that city as a student (documents printed by Des Maizeaux). After living in some ‘good protestant families,’ probably as tutor, he went to Leyden to finish his studies under the younger Frederick Spanheim. He became known to Le Clerc, to whose ‘Bibliothèque Universelle’ he sent an abstract of ‘Gospel Truth’ by Daniel Williams [q. v.], founder of the library. He is described by Le Clerc as a ‘student in divinity.’ He spent two years at Leyden, and went in January 1694 to Oxford, where he read in the libraries and wrote some fragments preserved in his works. A letter in the posthumous collection (ii. 294, &c.) shows that he was already suspected of freethinking opinions, though he professed moderate orthodoxy. Before leaving Oxford in 1695 he had finished his ‘Christianity not Mysterious.’ Its publication in 1696 produced an outburst of controversy, the first act of the warfare between deists and the orthodox which occupied the next generation. Toland did not openly profess disbelief in the orthodox doctrines, though the tendency of his arguments was obvious. He was attacked by many divines, and the book was presented by the grand jury of Middlesex. Toland went to Ireland early in 1697, where he was welcomed by William Molyneux [q. v.]
