The theatrical life of Quin embraces the following dates. James Quin began his career in Dublin in 1714, and ended it at Bath in 1753. His first character was Abel in the "Committee;" his last, Hamlet, played at Bath (whither he had retired), not for his own benefit, but for that of his friend, Ryan.[59] Of doing kindnesses to friends, James Quin was never weary; and if he did say that Garrick in Othello looked like the black boy in Hogarth's picture he was only temporarily jealous of Roscius. Quin was a careless dresser of his characters; and he had a sharp sarcasm, but not a lasting ill-feeling, for those who pretended to better taste, and gave it practical application.
I have already spoken of Quin's early life; his English birth, his Irish breeding, his disputed legitimacy, and his succession to an estate, from which he was debarred by the rightful proprietors. Necessity and some qualifications directed him to the Dublin stage, where he played under Ashbury, Queen Anne's old master of elocution. Quin, then about one-and-twenty, gave such promise that Chetwood the prompter recommended him "to try London," where at Drury Lane, during three seasons, he played whatever character he was cast for, and made use of opportunity whenever that character happened to be a prominent one.
In 1718 Quin passed to Lincoln's Inn Fields, where for four years[60] he was the great support of that house.[61] I have previously noticed his misadventure with Bowen the actor, whom he slew in honest self-defence under great provocation. It was kind-hearted, but hot-blooded, Quin's hard fate to kill two actors. A subordinate player named Williams was the Decius to Quin's Cato. Williams, in delivering the line "Cæsar sends health to Cato," pronounced the last name so affectedly—something like "Keeto"—that Quin in his impatience could not help exclaiming, "Would he had sent a better messenger!" This greatly irritated the little Welsh actor—the more that he had to repeat the name in nearly every sentence of his scene with Cato, and Quin did not fail to look so hard at him when he pronounced the name that the secondary player's irritation was at the highest when the scene concluded; and Decius turned away, with the remark—
"When I relate, hereafter,
The tale of this unhappy embassy,
All Rome will be in tears."
That tale, Williams went and told in the green-room, where he waited for Quin, who came off at the end of two scenes more, after uttering the word "death." It was what he brought, without meaning it, to the irascible Welshman, who attacked him on the not unreasonable ground that Quin had rendered him ridiculous in the eyes of the audience; and he demanded the satisfaction which gentlemen who wore swords were in the habit of giving to each other. Quin treated the affair as a mere joke, but the Welsh actor would not be soothed. After the play, he lay in wait for the offender in the Covent Garden Piazza, where much malapert blood was often spilt. There Quin could not refuse to defend himself, however ill-disposed he was to accept the combat, and after a few passes, Williams lay lifeless on the flag-stones, and Quin was arrested by the watch. Ultimately, he was absolved from blame, and no further harm came of it than the lasting regret of having shed the blood of a fellow-creature.
At a later period, Quin was well-nigh slaying a more ignoble foe than Williams, namely, Theophilus Cibber, whose scoundrelly conduct towards his beautiful and accomplished wife, Quin alluded to, under a very forcible epithet applied to her husband. Out of this incident arose a quarrel, and swords were again drawn in the Piazza, where Quin and Cibber slashed each other across the arm and fingers, till they were parted by the bystanders.
In 1732, Quin, with the company from the "Fields," established himself in the new theatre in Covent Garden, whence, after two seasons, he passed to Drury Lane, where he continued till 1741; after which, with some intervals, he again enrolled himself at the "Garden," where he remained till he quietly withdrew, in 1751. Of his rivalry with Garrick, I have already said something. If he was vanquished in that contest, he was not humiliated, though I think he was a little humbled in spirit. His great merit is, nevertheless, incontestable. His Cato and Brutus were good; he was excellent in Henry VIII., Volpone, Glo'ster, Apemantus, Ventidius, the Old Batchelor, and "all the Falstaffs." He was happy only in a few speeches of Pierre, especially, "I could have hugged the greasy rogues, they pleased me so!" and his execration of the senate. His Plain Dealer is commended, and the soliloquies of Zanga are eulogised. His Macheath and some other operatic parts, he played and sung extremely well. His failures were Macbeth, Othello, Richard, Lear, Chamont, and Young Bevil. His continuing to play these in opposition to Garrick and Barry censures his judgment. Davies says, he often gave true weight and dignity to sentiment by a well-regulated tone of voice, judicious elocution, and easy deportment. The expression of the tender, as well as of the violent, emotions of the heart was beyond his reach. The plain and the familiar rather than the striking and the vigorous, became him whose action was either forced or languid, and whose movements were ponderous or sluggish. From the retirement of Booth till the coming of Garrick, Quin can scarcely be said to have had a rival, unless it were the clever but lazy Delane, whose self-indulgence was not accompanied by the energy and industry which went with that of Quin. As Delane fell before Quin, so did Quin fall before the younger energy, and power, and perseverance, of Garrick. James's prophecy that the latter, in founding a new religion,—like Whitfield, would be followed for a time, but that people would all come to church again, was not fulfilled.
Nevertheless, it produced a very fair epigram:—