On the first night that the seceders opened the Haymarket, 21st September[19] 1733, with "Love for Love," Mrs. Pritchard played Nell, in the after-piece ("Devil to Pay"). The Daily Post had already extolled the "dawning excellence" she had exhibited in a booth, and prophesied that she would charm the age. She played light comic parts throughout the season; but her powers as a tragedian do not seem to have been suspected. Mrs. Pritchard thus entered on her long and honourable career, a married woman, with a large family, and an excellent character, which she never tarnished. Cibber's daughter, Mrs. Charke, played a round of male parts during the same season,[20] Roderigo, in "Othello," being one of them. In the March of 1734, the seceders closed the Haymarket, and joined the wreck of the old company at Drury Lane, on which Mrs. Pritchard, like Macklin, was laid aside for a time. But while those eminent players were "under a cloud," there appeared Miss Arne, whose voice charmed all hearers, whose beauty subdued Theophilus Cibber, but who was not yet recognised as the tragic actress, between whom and Mrs. Pritchard and Mrs. Yates, critics, and the town generally, were to go mad with disputation.
Meantime, no new drama was produced at Covent Garden, which lived in the public memory a month; but Quin shed a glory on the house, and quite eclipsed the careful, but heavy and decaying actor, Mills, who aspired to the parts which Booth's death had left unappropriated. In Macbeth and Othello, Thersites, Cato, Apemantus, and Gonzales, in the "Mourning Bride," he had at least no living rival. The contest for superiority had commenced before Booth's death; but Mills was never a match for Quin, and his name has not been preserved among us as that of a great actor.
As it is otherwise with Quin, let us recapitulate some details of his previous career, before we accompany him over that period which he filled so creditably, till he was rudely shaken by the coming of Garrick.
The father of James Quin was a barrister of a good Irish family, and at one time resided in King Street, Covent Garden, where James was born in 1693. Mrs. Quin happened to be the wife of two husbands. The first, who had abandoned her, and who, after years of absence, was supposed to be dead, re-appeared after Quin's birth, and carried off the boy's mother as his own lawful wife.[21] Thereby, the boy himself was deprived of his inheritance; the Quin property, which was considerable, passed to the heir at law, and at the age of twenty-one, the young man, intelligent but uneducated, his illusions of being a squireen in Ireland being all dissipated, and being specially fitted for no vocation, went at once upon the stage. His time of probation was first spent on the Dublin boards, in 1714, where he played very small parts with such great propriety, that in the following year, on the recommendation of Chetwood, the prompter, he was received, still as a probationer, into the company then acting at Drury Lane. Booth, Cibber, Mills, and Wilks were the chief players at that theatre, and the young actor was at least among noble professors. Among, but not of them, he remained for at least two seasons, acting the walking gentlemen, and fulfilling "general utility," without a chance of reaching a higher rank. One night, however, in 1716, when the run of the revived "Tamerlane" was threatened with interruption by the sudden illness of the most ferocious of Bajazets, Quin was induced, most reluctantly on the foolish fellow's side, to read the part. In doing this with conscientiousness and judgment, he received such testimonies of approval, that he made himself master of the words by the following night, and when the curtain fell, found himself famous. The critics in the pit, and the fine gentlemen who hung about the stage, united in acknowledging his merits; the coffee-houses tossed his name about pleasantly as a novelty, and Mr. Mills paid him the compliment of speedily getting well.
When Mr. Mills resumed Bajazet, young Quin sank down to the Dervise; and though, subsequently, his cast of characters was improved, his patience was so severely tried, that in the succeeding season he passed over to the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Modestly entering there in the part of Benducar, in "Don Sebastian,"[22] he at once established himself in the public favour, and before the close of the season 1718-19, the chivalry of his Hotspur, the bluntness of his Clytus, the fire of his Bajazet, the grandeur of his Macbeth, the calm dignity of his Brutus, the unctuousness of his Falstaff,[23] the duplicity of his Maskwell, and the coarse comedy of his Sir John Brute, were circumstances of which the town talked quite as eagerly as they did of the Quadruple Alliance, and the musket shot which had slain the royal Swede in the trenches before Frederickshall.
It was Quin's success in Bajazet at Drury Lane that really cost Bowen his life. I have noticed the subject before, but it will admit of some further detail. Bowen had taunted Quin with being tame in Bajazet, and Quin retorted by speaking disparagingly of Bowen in Jacomo in the "Libertine," preferring Johnson in that part. Bowen was the more deeply stung as he prided himself on his acting in Jacomo, and the company agreed with the adverse critic. The quarrel, commenced by envy, was aggravated by politics. Bowen boasted of his honesty and consistency, a boast, the worthlessness of which was speedily shown by Quin's remark, that Bowen had as often drunk the Duke of Ormond's health as he had refused it. The disputants parted angrily, only to meet more incensed. They met, on the invitation of Bowen, and passed from one tavern to another, till they could find a room which less suited Quin's purpose than that of his irate companion—that of "fighting it out." Indeed, the younger player seems to have been hardly aware of his elder's definite purpose; for when they entered the room Bowen fastened the door, clapped his back to it, drew his sword, and threatened to run Quin through the body if he did not out with his rapier and defend himself. Remonstrance from the latter was of no avail, and he drew simply to keep Bowen off. But the latter impetuously pressed forward till he ultimately fell mortally wounded. Before his death, however, which occurred within three days, he justly and generously took the blame of the whole transaction upon himself. This, with corroborative evidence, secured the acquittal of Quin on his trial for manslaughter. So died poor, foolish Bowen, at the age of fifty-two, leaving a widow, for whom the public had not sufficient sympathy to render her "benefit" profitable, and a son, known in the London streets as "Ragged-and-Tough," and whose exploits, recorded in the Old Bailey Calendar, sent him to the colonies to found in another hemisphere a line of Bowens more honest and less angry than the latter scions of the race in England.
This was a transition period, terminated by the coming of Garrick. Quin passed over to Drury Lane, tempted by the annual £500 offered by Fleetwood, a wealthy personage, who had purchased the chief share in the patent. "No actor," said Rich, "is worth more than £300 a year," and declining to retain Quin at the additional required outlay, he brought forward a "citizen," named Stephens, to oppose him. Stephens had caught the exact sound of Booth's cadences and much of his manner. For a time audiences were delighted, but the magic of mere imitation soon ceased to attract; and Quin decidedly led the town in old characters, but with no opportunity yet offered him of a "creation." Mrs. Clive enchanted her hearers at Drury Lane, while Mrs. Horton took her beauty and happy assurance to Covent Garden. A greater than either, Mrs. Pritchard, played mere walking ladies, and made no step in advance till 1735, when she acted Lady Townley at the Haymarket. Old Cibber longing again for a smell of the lamps, and a sound of applause, played a few of his best parts during this season, and Macklin slowly made progress according to rare opportunity. Covent Garden chiefly depended on Ryan; but suddenly lost his services when they could be least spared. He was returning home, on the 15th of March 1735, when he was shot by a ruffian in Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, who robbed him of his sword. "Friend," said the generous actor, who was badly wounded in the face and jaw-bone, "you have killed me; but I forgive you!" In about six weeks, however, he was sufficiently recovered to appear again, after a general sympathy had been shown him, from the Prince of Wales down to the gallery visitors.
Drury Lane, too, lost, but altogether, an useful actor, Hallam. He and Macklin had quarrelled about a theatrical wig, and impetuous Macklin, raising his stick, thrust with it, in such blind fury, that it penetrated through Hallam's eye to the brain, and the unfortunate player died the next day. An Old Bailey jury let the rasher, but grief-stricken man, lightly off under a verdict of "Manslaughter."
From being a Queen of Song, Mrs. Cibber, the second wife of Theophilus, first took ground as an actress this season,[24] at Drury Lane, in Aaron Hill's adaptation of Voltaire's "Zara." Mrs. Cibber was the sister of Dr. Thomas Arne, the composer of "Artaxerxes," and daughter of an upholsterer in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden. Handel thought so well of her that he arranged one of his airs in the "Messiah" expressly to suit her voice. Her ambition, however, was to be a tragic actress, and Colley Cibber, who had sternly opposed her marriage with his son, overcome by her winning ways, not only was reconciled to her, but instructed her in her study for Zara, and some part of her success was owing to so accomplished a teacher.