greatest Shylock that had appeared, at least since the days of Shakespeare, and remained unapproachable until Edmund Kean took up the part.

Fleetwood became so deeply in debt with the actors that there was a general revolt of the company. Consequent on this occurred the celebrated quarrel between Garrick and Macklin, who had been great friends and pledged to stand by each other. On Garrick's return to the theatre, Macklin was terribly incensed, and would receive no apology or explanation. He went everywhere retailing his grievances, and filled the theatre with his friends on Garrick's reappearance. The great man was hissed off the stage, and the riot grew so as to make it necessary to drop the curtain. The next night the manager solved the problem, by calling to his help the élite of Hockley-in-the-Hole and all the pugilists he could muster. On the recurrence of the uproar, the prizefighting legion charged in solid phalanx and cleared the pit, so that the performance went on unruffled by the Macklinites.

This affair made a great stir at the time; for then it was said there were four estates—the King, the Lords, the Commons, and the Theatres. Macklin never forgave Garrick, and always afterward took every occasion to say bitter and sarcastic things; though the latter continued to treat the irate Irishman with kindness, and a year or two afterward gave him the use of Drury Lane for a farewell benefit, when he contemplated quitting the stage. He also reëngaged him and his wife, when Macklin returned to the boards, which could scarcely spare him, in spite of the constellation of talent then glittering in the drama.

Macklin, after his quarrel, oscillated from one theatre

to another, fighting with his managers and continually discontented, till, in 1753, he quitted the theatre to carry out an eccentric enterprise. From the incubation of such ideas to their parturition he knew no rest. The craze on this occasion was to become a licensed victualer, the landlord of a tavern under the Covent Garden piazza, and to open a school of oratory, which he called by the extraordinary title of "The British Inquisition." The advertisement by which the latter undertaking was heralded is so extraordinary that it is worth transcribing: "At Macklin's Great Room in Hart Street, Covent Garden, this day, being the 21st of November, will be opened

"THE BRITISH INQUISITION.

"This Institution is upon the plan of the ancient Greek, Roman, and modern French and Italian societies of liberal investigation. Such subjects in arts, sciences, literature, criticism, philosophy, history, politics, and morality as shall be found useful and entertaining to society will be there lectured upon and freely debated; particularly Mr. Macklin intends to lecture upon the Comedy of the Ancients, the use of their masks and flutes, their mimes and pantomimes, and the use and abuse of the stage. He will likewise lecture upon the rise and progress of the modern Theatres, and make a comparison between them and those of Greece and Rome, and between each other he proposes also to lecture upon each of Shakespeare's plays; to consider the original stories whence they are taken; the artificial or inartificial use, according to the laws of the drama, that Shakespeare has made of them; his fable, moral character, passion, manners, will likewise be criticised, and how his capital characters have been acted heretofore, are acted, and ought to be acted. And as the design of this inquiry is to endeavor at an acquisition of truth in matters of taste, particularly theatrical, the lecture being ended any gentleman may offer his thoughts upon the subject.

"The doors will be open at five, the lecture begin precisely at seven o'clock, every Monday and Friday evening.

"There is a public ordinary every day at four o'clock, price three shillings, each person to drink port, claret, or whatever liquor he shall choose."

Now, as Macklin understood nothing of Greek and Latin, he could not discourse very learnedly upon the classical drama; as his knowledge of French was not sufficient to even read the language, he could not obtain much assistance from that next best source; and as he was totally ignorant of the contemporary literature of Shakespeare, he could scarcely be expected to throw much light upon the originals of his plots. The whole affair consequently degenerated into something very like burlesque, which was greatly intensified by the portentous gravity with which Macklin, attired in full dress, gave forth his nothings. The wits made merry over it, more especially Foote, who seldom missed one of the lectures or joining in the discussion that followed. One night the subject of the discourse was on the cause of the prevalence of dueling in Ireland. The lecturer, tracing back the early history of the country, had got as far as Elizabeth, when Foote rose up and intimated that he desired to say something. "Well, sir, and what have you got to say upon this subject?" demanded Macklin. "Only to crave a little attention. I think I can settle the point in a few words," replied Foote. "What o'clock is it?" "What has that to do with the question, sir?" "Everything: will you please to answer me?" Very much annoyed, Macklin pulled out his watch, and told him it was half-past ten. "Very well," pursued Foote, "about this time every gentleman in Ireland who can possibly afford it is in his third bottle of claret, and

in a fair way of getting drunk; from drunkenness he proceeds to quarreling, from quarreling to dueling, and there's an end of the chapter." Amid the laughter that followed, Macklin in great dudgeon shut up his book, and brought the lecture to a close. In the following summer Foote gave burlesque lectures, à la Macklin, at the Haymarket. Macklin told Garrick one day he intended to decide in the next lecture the claims of the rival Romeos, then agitating the town. Garrick was anxious to know how he proposed to do.

"I mean to show your different merits in the garden scene. Barry comes into it, sir, as a great lord, swaggering about his love and talking so loud that, if we don't suppose the servants of the Capulet family almost dead with sleep, they must have come out and tossed him in a blanket. Well, sir, after having fixed my auditors' attention to this part, then I shall ask: But how does Garrick act this? Why, sir, sensible that the family are at enmity with him and his house, he comes creeping in upon his toes, whispering his love, and looking about him like a thief in the night."

From the lecture-room let us take a glimpse at the tavern. Dinner was announced by public advertisement to be ready at four o'clock, and as the clock struck the hour a bell affixed to the top of the house was rung for five minutes. Ten minutes afterward the dinner was served, and then the room-door was closed and no other person was admitted. Macklin himself, in full dress, always brought in the first dish, then with a low bow retired to the sideboard, where he remained with his two principal waiters, one on each side of him. He had had the servants under training for months previously; they were not allowed to open their lips save to answer the

guests, and they communicated with each other while in the room only by signs. "From whom do you think I picked up these signs?" he inquired of Foote one day. "Can't say, I'm sure," was the reply. "From no less a person than James, Duke of York, who, you know, sir, first invented signs for the Fleet." "And it will be very good poetical justice," responded the wit, "as from the fleet they were taken, so to the Fleet [prison] both master and signals are likely to return!"

Both the ordinary and "The British Inquisition turning out failures, Macklin sought about for a new idea. It appeared in the form of a scheme to build a new theatre in Dublin, in which he induced Barry, the actor, to join. He went over to Ireland to overlook the workmen, and, full of his recent studies, pestered them so much about the way in which the ancient Greek theatres were constructed as to impede the work. But ere it could be opened, he had quarreled with Barry about parts: he desired to alternate the leading characters of tragedy, the Macbeths and Hamlets, with him. Barry, perfectly aware that he would fail in them, objected; the other insisted, and the end of the matter was that the partnership was dissolved, and Barry engaged him only as an actor. Macklin has been praised for his correct judgment, but it certainly did not extend to a just estimate of his own capabilities, or he would never have played Mercutio, as he did once, or have desired to appear in "Macbeth" or "Hamlet." The New Crow Street Theatre was opened in October, 1758, but by December, 1759, we find him entering into an engagement with the opposition house. It was never fulfilled, however, and he went back to Drury Lane at a large salary.