QUIN'S BENEVOLENCE. 201 when Ryan asked, in an emergency, for a loan, the answer from Quin was, that he had nothing to lend; but he had left Ryan £1000 in his will, and Ryan might have that, if he were inclined to cheat the government of the legacy duty! Frederick, Prince of Wales, was not half such a good patron to Thomson, as James Quin was. When the bard was in distress, Quin gave him a supper at a tavern, for half of which the poet expected he would have to pay; but the player designed otherwise. "Mr. Thomson," said he, "I estimate the pleasure I have had in perusing your works, at £100 at least; and you must allow me to settle that account, by presenting you with the money." In return, the minstrel repaid the good deed with a guerdon of song in the "Castle of Indolence." The dignity of the profession by which he worked such magic was dear to him. "What a pity it is, Mr. Quin,” said a peer who enjoyed his wit. “ that you are an actor !”—“ An actor?" exclaimed James, "why, what would you have me be ?— a Lord?" 66 Quin's social position, after leaving the stage, was one congenial to a man of his merits, taste and acquirements. At ducal Chatsworth, he and Garrick met. There had not been a cordial intimacy between the two, as actors; but as private gentlemen, they became friends. The two men were left alone, and Quin made the first step toward a reconciliation, by asking a question, the most agreeable he could put,-inquiring after Mrs. Garrick's health. Quin was Garrick's guest at Hampton, when he was stricken, in 1765, with the illness which ultimately proved fatal. He died, however, in his own house in Bath. “I could wish,” he said, the day before, "that the last tragic scene were over; and I hope I may be enabled to meet and pass through it with dignity." He passed through it becomingly, on the 21st of January, 1766; and Garrick placed becoming lines on the old actor's tomb, in the Abbey. Garrick struggled with Quin for mastery, vanquished him, became his friend, and hung up over his grave a glowing testimony to his talent and his virtues. Foote's portrait of Quin is so well drawn as to merit an extract:-" Mr. Quin's deportment through the whole cast of his characters is natural and unaffected, his countenance expressive without the assistance of grimace, and he is, indeed, in every circumstance, so much the person he represents, that it is scarcely possible for any attentive spectator to believe that the hypocritical, intriguing Maskwell, the suspicious superannuated rake, the snarling old bachelor, and the jolly, jocose Jack Falstaff are imitated, but real persons. I can only recommend the man who wants to see a character perfectly played, to see Mr. Quin in the part of Falstaff; and if he does not express a desire of spending an evening with that merry mortal, why, I would not spend one with him, if he would pay my reckoning." With a bottle of claret and a full house, all concurrent testimony shows that Quin, in this part, was unapproachable. Finally, Quin's will is not uninstructive as an illustration of the actor's character. There is, perhaps, not a friend he had possessed, or servant who had been faithful to him, who is forgotten in it. Various are the bequests, from £50 "to Mr. Thomas Gainsborough, limner," or to a cousin practising medicine in Dublin, to £500 and a share of the residue to a kindhearted oilman in the Strand. To one individual he bequeaths his watch, in accordance with an "imprudent promise" to that effect! James Quin did not like the man, but he would not break his word! Requiescat in pace! His death gave satisfaction to none but the John Dorys; and Walpole wrote no bad epitaph on him, when he said: "Pray, who is to give an idea of Falstaff, now Quin is dead?" CHAPTER XXVII. ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. IN 1753-4, Mrs. Cibber, at Drury, played with Garrick against Barry and Miss Nossiter, who increased Barry's ardour in Romeo, his tenderness in Jaffier, and his playfulness as Florizel, inasmuch as that he and the lady were mutually in love, and all the house was in the secret. Miss Nossiter, however, did not realise her early promise. Contemporary critics speak of the novice as being of a delicate figure, graceful in the expression of distress, but requiring carefulness in the management of her voice, and a more simple elocution. One of her judges curiously remarks:"She frequently alarmed the audience with the most striking attitudes.' At the end of a brief career, she died, after bequeathing to Barry, the Romeo, for whom more than Miss Nossiter professed to be dying,-£3,000. Mossop now succeeded Quin, at Drury Lane. Foote played the Cibber parts in comedy, and, in a revival of "King John," Garrick made an unlikely Falconbridge, and Mossop a superb tyrant. Drury played Glover's "Boadicea," which Walpole ridiculed, and Archbishop Herring thought admirable. Crisp's "Virginia" flourished through Garrick's acting. It was, however, a poor play, even for a custom-house officer. The third classical tragedy was Whitehead's "Creusa," founded on the Ion of Euripides. Walpole praises the interest, complexity, yet clearness and natural feeling of the plot. On the other hand, M‘Namara Morgan's romantic tragedy, "Philoclea" owed its ephemeral success to the fire, grace, beauty, and expression of Barry and Miss Nossiter (Pyrocles and Philoclea), the two lovers. The house literally "sighed like furnace" for very sympathy. Dr. Francis's "Constantine," in which Barry and Mrs. Bellamy played Constantine and Fulvia, was a failure; but, therefore, Mrs. Bellamy recommended the author to the patronage of Fox; and the father of Sir Philip Francis owed his promotion to the Suffolk rectory of Barrow, to Lord Holland. In the season of 1754-5, Garrick was supreme. Barry left Rich for Dublin, and Sheridan played in all his best parts against Garrick and Mossop. Rich brought out "Appius," the ill success of which was reasonably attributed by the author, Moncrieff, to the fact that Sheridan had lopped off the fifth act! Garrick created Achmet in "Barbarossa;" Mossop playing the tyrant, and Mrs. Cibber Zaphira. "There is not one new thought in it," wrote Walpole; "and, which is the next material want, but one line of perfect nonsense. And rain down transports in the shape of sorrow!'"" Yet it had a run; but love of novelty, grand scenery and costume, good acting and wise management, could, so says the Monthly Review, make any nonsense run for nine or ten nights. After Miss Barton, the Mrs. Abington of later times, had flashed her bright promise at the Haymarket, Garrick rendered the season of 1755-6 remarkable by three absurd assaults on Shakspeare, in emendations of the "Winter's Tale," "Taming of the Shrew," and the "Tempest," cutting, clipping, adding, taking away, and saying the while, that he wished:-"To lose no drop of that immortal man!" This season was also remarkable for the riot consequent on his producing the "Chinese Festival," when the public, hating the French, with whom we were at war, insisted on his asking pardon for the introduction of Swiss, Germans, and Italians! Garrick proudly answered, that if they would not allow him to go on with his part (Archer), he would never, never, again set foot on the stage! Still more famous was this season, for the fray between the Rival Queens, WoffingtonRoxana, and Bellamy-Statira. The superb dresses of the latter drove poor Peg into such fury, that she nearly stabbed her rival in downright earnest. Failing in her attempt, she stabbed her with words, and taunted Bellamy with having a minister (Henry Fox) who indulged her in such extravagances. "And you," retorted the other gentle creature, "have half the town who do not!" But not for these things, nor for Foote's satirical farces against Murphy, nor for Murphy's against Foote, was the season so famous, as it was for being that in which Barry returned to Covent Garden, and entered the lists once more against Garrick, by acting King Lear, with Miss Nossiter as Cordelia, which part Mrs. Cibber played to Garrick's King. In this contest, Garrick carried away the palm. Barry was dignified, impressive, pathetic, but unequal, failing principally in the mad scenes, which appear to have been over-acted. It was there where Garrick was most sublime, natural, and affecting. There was no rant, no violence, no grimacing. The feeble, miserable, but still royal old man was there; slow of emotion, vague of look, uncertain, forgetful of all things save of the cruelty of his daughters. It was said for Barry that he was every inch a king;" for Garrick, that he was 'every inch King Lear." The wits who admired the latter, repeated the epigram: "The town has found out diff'rent ways, To praise the diff'rent Lears! To Barry they give loud huzzas! To Garrick-only tears." others lauded Barry in the lines which said: "Critics attend! and judge the rival Lears; While each commands applause, and each your tears. In 1756-7, Garrick ventured King Lear, with less of Tate, and more of Shakspeare; he was as resolute, however, against introducing the Fool, as he was with respect to the Gravediggers, in Hamlet. On the other hand, he acted Don Felix. At the other house, Barry failed in Richard III.; but the treasury recovered itself by the production, in March, of "Douglas," in which Barry, six feet high, and in a suit of white puckered satin, played Norval to the Lady Randolph of Mrs. Woffington. The originals of those parts, when the piece was first played in Edinburgh, in the previous December, were Digges and Mrs. Ward. This piece was the glory of the Scottish stage, and a scandal to great part of the community. From the age of Mary Stuart, the church and the stage had been at odds; in Scotland, players came and went under alternate patronage and persecution. Actors found protection by being enrolled in noblemen's families as servants; and they were not tolerated by law when they opened the theatre in the Canongate, in 1746. Thither, ten years later, the Rev. John Home, then thirty-two years of age, brought his tragedy of "Douglas." He had been the successor of Blair (of the Grave), in the living of Athelstanford; and had left it, to fight against the Pretender, at Falkirk, where |