men among them; but the cry was so great against them, that no reason could be heard, and though this was the most magnificent spectacle in the ballet way that ever was represented, they were not suffered to proceed; and the audience not only pulled up the benches in the pit, demolished the scenes and chandeliers, and some of the sconces, but after having vented part of their rage at the theatre, they repaired to Mr. Garrick's house in Southampton Street, and broke every window in the front of it. This attempt to divert the town cost the managers, besides the expense of scenery and decorations which they prepared for the representation, upwards of a thousand pounds, by the damage they sustained from the depredations of the rioters. The From this time the theatres remained very peaceable till the winter of the year 1762, and though it is rather antedating events to mention it here, as I shall say but a few words upon it, the reader will, it is hoped, pardon a small anachronism, to be no farther disturbed hereafter with the tumults of the theatre. subject of this disturbance was the non-admittance of half-price to pantomimes. But this was rather the pretext than the cause; as the real source of this tumult might be traced to a misunderstanding between a certain Hibernian genius and Mr. Garrick, after he had been the manager's guest and toad-eater for some years; for having written a play, which was not approved of, and therefore not acted, all his former adulation was turned into scurrility and abuse; he attacked the manager in the public newspapers, criticised his acting, censured his gesticulation, condemned his pronunciation and tortured his economy into parsimony and meanness. Not contented with this literary revenge, he waited for an opportunity to injure him in his property, and make him odious in the eyes of the town. An opportunity at length occurred, and this individual, of no great consequence in life, had his vanity and resentment so far gratified, as to give laws to both theatres with respect to the prices of admittance. These are so many corroborating evidences of the inutility of the military power at the theatres; and if we take a retrospective view of the history of the stage from the time of the restoration of King Charles, and the restoration of the drama, to the year 1721, when the military aid was called in, we find there were few, if any, tumults at the theatres before that period; and that such delinquents as were refractory, and would disturb the amusement of the rest of the audience, were more severely punished before, than since it took place. CHAPTER XI. The quarrel between Rich and Quin impartially related. Quin leaves the stage. His connexions and acquaintance. His generous behaviour to Mr. Thomson. The effect of speaking the prologue to Coriolanus. We now approach that period, when Mr. Quin's loss to the stage was in many respects irreparable. At the end of the winter of the year 1748, Quin, having taken umbrage at Rich's behaviour, retired in a fit of spleen and resentment to Bath, notwithstanding his being under engagements to that manager. Though Rich ought to have known that Quin never put up with any insult and though he too late repented of what he had done, yet he thought by treating him with silent contempt, to make him submit to his own terms. On the other hand, Quin, whose generous heart began now to relent, having used his old acquaintance so cavalierly, resolved to sacrifice his resentment to his friendship, and wrote early the next season a laconic epistle to Rich in these words: Rich thought this by no means a sufficient apology for his behaviour, and returned an answer, in almost as laconic though not quite so civil a manner, -d. RICH. Stay there and be dd. This reply cost the public one of the greatest ornaments of the stage, for as he and Mr. Garrick did not agree very well together, whilst they continued rival actors, he could not brook submitting to his competitor in dramatic fame; and as he now took a firm resolution of never engaging again with so insolent a blockhead, as he styled Rich for this answer, there was no theatrical door open for him, without he had turned opera singer. He nevertheless came from Bath in the year 1749, to play the part of Othello at Covent Garden theatre, for the benefit of the unhappy sufferers by the fire in Cornhill, which happened on the 25th of March, in the year 1748; and he afterwards continued many successive years to come constantly to London, to perform the character of Sir John Falstaff, for his old and trusty friend Ryan; but in the year 1754, having lost two of his front teeth, he was compelled to decline the task, and wrote a comic epistle to Ryan upon the occasion. My dear Friend, There is no person on earth, whom I would sooner serve than Ryan-but, by G———, I will whistle Falstaff for no man. Thus have we gone through the theatrical character of Mr. Quin, who, having arrived at the summit of his profession, prudently retired to a private retreat, where, if he did not add to the lustre of his reputation as an actor, he avoided diminishing it as such, and never sullied it as a man. If he has not left behind him any one who can fill his most important parts so perfectly as himself; yet as long as Mr. Garrick chooses to indulge us with his performance, great justice will be done to Lear, Hamlet and Sir John Brute; in Barry we may still find an Othello and a Jaffier; in Mossop, a Zanga; and in Shuter, a Falstaff. Whilst Mr. Quin continued upon the stage, he constantly kept company with the greatest geniuses of the age; he was well known to Pope and Swift, and the present Earl of C- -d often invited him to his table; but there was none for whom he entertained a higher esteem than Mr. James Thomson, author of The Seasons, and many dramatic pieces. This genius had in the early part of his life, by his writings, and the recommendations they gave him, constantly enjoyed a very comfortable subsistence; he had travelled as a companion with the honourable Mr. Charles Talbot with whom he visited most of the courts of Europe, and returned with his views greatly enlarged, not of exterior nature only, and the works of art, but of human life and manners, and of the constitution and policy of the several states, their connexions and their religious institutions. Upon his return to England, the Chancellor, at Mr. Talbot's recommendation, made him his secretary of briefs, a place of little attendance, suiting his retired indolent way of life, and equal to all his wants. This place fell, when death not long after deprived him of his noble patron, and he then found himself reduced to a state of precarious dependence; in this situation, having created some few debts, and his creditors finding that he had no longer any certain support, became inexorable and imagined by confinement to force that from his friends which his modesty would not permit him to ask. One of these occasions furnished Mr. Quin with an opportunity of displaying the natural goodness of his heart, and the disinterestedness of his friendship. Hearing that Thomson was confined in a spunging-house, for a debt of about seventy pounds, he repaired to the place, and having enquired for, was introduced to the bard. Thomson was a good deal disconcerted at seeing Quin in such a place, as he had always taken great pains to conceal his wants, and the more so as Quin told him he was come to sup with him, being conscious that all the money he possessed would scarce procure a good one, and that there was no credit to be expected in those houses. His anxiety upon this head was however removed, upon Quin's informing him, that as he supposed it would have been inconvenient to have had the supper dressed at the place they were in, he had ordered it from an adjacent tavern; and as a prelude, half a dozen of claret was introduced. Supper being over, and the bottle circulating pretty briskly, Quin said, "It is time now we should balance accounts:" this astonished Thomson, who imagined he had some demand upon him--but Quin perceiving it, continued, "Mr. Thomson, the pleasure I have had in perusing your works, I cannot estimate at less than a hundred pounds, and I insist upon now acquitting the debt:" on saying this, he put down a note of that value, and took his leave without waiting for a reply. By this means was Thomson released from confinement, and Quin had the pleasure to see him a few years after again in affluence, having obtained the place of surveyor-general of the Leeward Islands. After this he wrote several dramatic pieces, amongst others his tragedy of Agamemnon which was acted with applause in 1738; and the tragedy of Edward and Eleanora which he prepared for the stage the ensuing year, when he was refused a license for it. Coriolanus was the last dramatic piece he wrote, and had not yet been acted, as the prologue testifies, at the time of his death in 1748. This pleasing poet's principal merit not lying in the dramatic way, and this, though the last, being far from the best of his works, even of that kind, I cannot pay any very exalted compliments to the piece: yet in justice to the amicable character of its author, I must not avoid calling to mind in this place, the grateful tribute of sensibility paid to his memory at the first representation of it; when, on a recapitulation of his loss in the prologue in a manner peculiarly affecting, and not without the visible tear trickling down his cheek, "I come not here your candour to implore, scarce an eye but began to moisten, and ere he had finished the prologue, a tributary tear was bestowed by almost every spectator, so general was the sense shewn of the value of a good and moral man. CHAPTER XII. The attention that was paid Mr. Quin by the late Prince of Wales. Is appointed tutor for the English language to his royal highness's children. They perform plays under his tuition. His extatic exclamation upon a public occasion. His encounter with Theophilus Cibber at the Bedford coffee-house. His retreat to Bath, and manner of living there. MR. QUIN had, during the course of his acting, from his judgment in the English language, and the knowledge of the history of Great Britain, corrected many mistakes which our immortal bard Shakespeare had by oversight, or the volatileness of his genius, suffered to creep into his works; he also changed many obsolete phrases in his favourite poet, and restored the proper pronunciation of various words to the stage, from whence it had long been banished. These talents joined to his merits as an actor recommended him to the observation of his late royal highness the Prince of Wales, father to his present Majesty, who appointed him to instruct his children in the true pronunciation of their mother tongue. In order to accomplish this the more effectually, it was necessary they should accustom themselves to the reading of Milton, and some of our best dramatic poets; this naturally created in them a desire to perform the parts they rehearsed; and his late royal highness, who was a tender and indulgent father, readily gratified their inclination. Mr. Quin perfected his royal pupils in their parts, and his present Majesty, with his brothers and sisters, represented several plays under his tuition at Leicester-house. Nothing could surpass the joy he felt, when he was from time to time informed of the virtuous and gracious disposition of his royal pupil, contemplating with pleasure the felicity of the nation under so good and just a prince; and upon being informed with what elegance and noble propriety his Majesty delivered his first gracious speech from the throne, he cried out in a kind of ecstasy-"Ay-I taught the boy to speak!"-Nor did his Majesty forget his old tutor, though so remote from court; for it is positively averred, that soon after his accession to the throne, he gave orders, without any application being made to him, that a genteel pension should be paid Mr. Quin during his life. It is true, that Mr. Quin was not in absolute need of this royal bene |