Macklin

“ At his dinners every thing was done by the waiters, on signs made to them by Macklin himself who acted as chief waiter. One night, being at supper with Foote and some others at the Bedford, one of the company praised Macklin for the great regularity of his ordinary, and in particular his manner of directing his waiters by signals. Ay, sir, says Macklin, I knew it would do, and where do you think I picked up this hint?—well sir, I'll tell you, I picked it up from no less a man than James Duke of York, who you know sir, first invented signals for the fleet. ”

“ The rehearsals told them nothing, for there Macklin did little more than walk through the part, lest the manager should prohibit the playing of the piece, if the nature of the reform Macklin was about to introduce should make him fearful of consequences. In some such dress as that we now see worn by Shylock, Macklin, on the night of the 15th of February, [10] 1741, walked down the stage, and looking through the eyelet-hole in the curtain, saw the two ever-formidable front rows of the pit occupied by the most highly-dreaded critics of the period. The house was also densely crowded. ”

“ Macklin was celebrated in Shylock; and in some other sarcastic parts, particularly that of Sir Archy, in his comedy of "Love-à-la-Mode." We take him to have been one of those actors whose performances are confined to the reflection of their own personal peculiarities. The merits of Shuter, Edwin, Quick, and others who succeeded one another as buffoons, were perhaps a good deal of this sort; but pleasant humours are rare and acceptable. Macklin was a clever satirist in his writing, and embroiled himself, not so cleverly, with a variety of his acquaintances. ”

“ The dramatis personæ comprised an Irish officer, a Scottish baronet, a Jew broker, and an English squire, the Irishman being the only disinterested character. Despite some opposition it ultimately triumphed. It was a great advance upon any previous dramatic effort of Macklin. One act was printed in the 'Court Miscellany,' April 1766. The following season he went to Covent Garden, where he played, 28 Jan. 1761, Lord Belville, and Miss Macklin Angelica, in the first production of his own 'Married Libertine.' In Lord Belville Macklin was supposed to have ridiculed a well-known nobleman. ”

“ The colour of her eyes, too, you may mention:
Come, Sibyl, prophesy—I’m all attention.
p. 39SIR MACKLIN. Of all the youths I ever saw
None were so wicked, vain, or silly,
So lost to shame and Sabbath law,
As worldly Tom, and Bob, and Billy.
For every Sabbath day they walked
(Such was their gay and thoughtless natur)
In parks or gardens, where they talked
From three to six, or even later.
Sir Macklin was a priest severe
In conduct and in conversation,
It did a sinner good to hear
Him deal in ratiocination.
He could in every action show
Some sin, and nobody could doubt him. ”

“ There was a Stile for Tragedy!
Omnes. Ha! ha! ha!
Smart. Well, I wish his Farce may succeed, however.
Snarle. O so do I upon my word, Sir.—I have a great Regard for Macklin—but to be sure he is a very egregious Blockhead ever to think of writing; that I believe everybody will allow.
Omnes. Ay, ay, there's nobody will dispute that with you, Mr. Snarlewit.
Snarle. Notwithstanding he is such a Blockhead, I assure you, Mr. Smart, I have an Esteem for him.
Smart. Do you know what Characters or Business he has in his Farce? ”

“ She answered that she was dressed for Portia. 'Ah, very true,' said Macklin, 'but who is to play Shylock?' He went on the stage, spoke a few lines of his part, then making an apology, quitted the stage for ever.
At the death in 1790 of his only son, John, who had spent Macklin's savings, the actor found himself all but penniless. With a view to assist him an edition of his two plays, 'Love in a Maze' and 'The Man of the World,' was edited by Murphy, and published by subscription. An amount sufficient to secure him an annuity of 200l. ”

“ While Macklin was capitalizing on the popularity of a new play, he also, in THE NEW PLAY CRITICIZ'D, gave ironic portraits of rival playwrights who damned a play out of envy (note the subtitle, THE PLAGUE OF ENVY) for such trivial faults as the use of suspicious instead of jealous in the title, or for the lacing of Ranger's hat. Macklin's satiric portraits of such envious scribblers who were ready to attack any new author in Journals, Epigrams, and Pamphlets are lively records of mid-eighteenth century subjective criticism. ”

“ He leaned his elbow on the table, and passed his hand across his eyes, as if to exclude some image of horror, muttering the last words of the sentence he had just concluded, again and again.
“Dr. Macklin,” he said, abruptly raising himself, and looking full upon the clergyman with an imploring eye, “I know you will do for me whatever may be done. You know now fully the circumstances and the nature of the mysterious agency of which I am the victim. I tell you I cannot help myself; I cannot hope to escape; I am utterly passive. ”

“ The only other thing which need be referred to in connection with this comedy—the last of his own dramatic works which Fielding ever witnessed upon the stage—is Macklin's doggerel Prologue. Mr. Lawrence attributes this to Fielding; but he seems to have overlooked the fact that in the Miscellanies it is headed, "Writ and Spoken by Mr. Macklin," which gives it more interest as the work of an outsider than if it had been a mere laugh by the author at himself. ”

“ The success of Foote's fun upon Macklin's Lectures, led him to establish a summer entertainment of his own at the Haymarket. He took up Macklin's notion of applying Greek Tragedy to modern subjects, and the squib was so successful that Foote cleared by it 500l., in five nights, while the great Piazza Coffee-room in Covent Garden was shut up, and Macklin in the Gazette as a bankrupt. ”

“ Evening came, and Old Drury seldom saw so crowded a house. The play was the Merchant of Venice, Macklin sustaining the part of Shylock, and his interesting daughter that of Jessica. Their reception was most enthusiastic; but in that scene where the Jew is informed of his daughter being carried off, the whole audience seemed to be quite carried away by Macklin's acting. The applause was immense, and Pope, who was standing in the pit, exclaimed,—
'That's the Jew that Shakspeare drew.'
Macklin was much respected in London. ”

“ Cheyne had known him, and liked him, before the great change had taken place in his fortunes; and one of the chief pleasures he had in contemplating his good luck was that by means of it he could do a service to Macklin by appointing his firm law-agents to the Shropshire property. Macklin was the quickest and most ready of men. When a thing was proposed to him he never made a difficulty. ”

“ The theatre was a constant source of gratification, and his criticisms on plays and players were usually severe, but generally acute and just. Meeting Macklin at Johnson's table, he shewed such deep knowledge in the art in which that celebrated man was so successful, not only as a writer, but as an actor, that when Fuseli took his leave, Macklin exclaimed, "I could sit all night to discourse with that learned Theban." Of Miss O'Neill he always spoke favourably, and considered [378] that her merits as an actress, however highly they were esteemed, had been undervalued rather than overrated. ”

“ Even to a trained social leader it must be trying to have a man presented to you on a sidewalk as the one who did not shoot your son.
Mrs. Fiske had a toy dog under one arm, and was holding up her train, but she slipped the dog to the groom, and gave me her hand.
“How do you do, Mr.—Captain Macklin,” she said. “My son has told me a great deal about you. Have you asked Captain Macklin to come to see us, Helen?” she said, and stepped into the brougham.
“Come in any day after five,” said Miss Fiske, “and we’ll have tortillas and frijoles, and build a camp-fire in the library. ”

“ Macklin, an Irishman, and in early life a Dragoon officer, was irritable, restless, and pugnacious; he obtained his first triumph at Drury Lane, as Shylock in 1741. In stern malignity, no one has surpassed Macklin. His acting was hard, but manly and weighty, though his features were rather rigid. He naturally condemned Garrick’s action and gesture as superabundant. His Sir Pertinax was excellent in its sly and deadly suppleness. He was also admirable in Lovegold, Scrub, Peachem, Polonius, and many Irish characters.
Quin was at Portugal Street as early as 1718-19. ”

“ Macklin condensed and tightened Regnard's five-act plot into a two-act afterpiece; the role of the apothecary is greatly reduced into the stock London-stage Frenchman, du Maigre, who can barely speak English; the servant Lucy is more the English maid than the French bonne of the Regnard play who gave orders to her master; and the satire of Macklin's afterpiece is directed not only at lawyers and physicians, as in the Regnard play, but at Methodist itinerant preachers. ”

“ Rain had started to fall and Macklin, who knowing nothing of their coming had not prepared a place for them in the hold, turned to a group of the islanders and asked for some help to put the bales in the shelter of the alleyway, where they would be protected from the rain. Not a man stirred, each saying it had nothing to do with him. Macklin had to search out each man in turn to help with his own bag for none of them would touch anything that did not belong to him personally. ”

“ Accordingly, having thanked his acquaintance, and accepted his offer, the next day was fixed upon for his introduction to Macklin. The friend, on whom Holcroft had thus unexpectedly lighted was, in fact, a kind of scout, employed by Macklin, to pick up young adventurers of promising talents: it being one of this actor’s passions to make actors of others; though he was in some respects the worst qualified for the office of any man in the world. ”

“ One can detect in the creation strong resemblances to Macklin's interpretation of Shylock, something of Sir Giles Overreach, who was also known to eighteenth-century play-goers, and possibly of Tartuffe. In his resolute defiance of the conventions of comedy of sensibility, Macklin resisted the pressure to allow Sir Pertinax to soften in the end and terminate the play on a note of happy reconciliation and family harmony. ”

“ When a person is smooth-tongued, meek-looking, over civil, and deceitful, he is plauzy [plausible] , 'as mild as ever on stirabout smiled.' 'Oh she is sly enough; she looks as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.' (Charles Macklin—an Irish writer—in The Man of the World.) This last expression of Macklin's is heard everywhere here. ”

“ She blew a thin strand of red-gold hair back from her forehead, and sat for an instant drumming her fingers on the desktop. Then her woman's curiosity got the better of her. She arose quickly, piled the unread manuscripts on top of the blue-penciled ones and strode out of the office.
The clicking of the battered typewriter in the office adjacent to her own stopped abruptly and Jim Macklin, his collar loosened and his tie awry, called out to her. ”

“ The foundation is always temperance. Macklin must have been very lucky in his physical advantages, for he did not keep any very strict rein over his temper; nor does he appear to have followed any regimen, till latterly, and then he consulted the immediate ease of his stomach, and not the quality of what he took. ”

“ But Macklin’s usual good ear for dialogue is missing from this play, nor is any character except his own as Pasquin followed long enough to make his characteristic speech identifiable. Since plot is absent too, all that remains is the wealth of topical and personal satire which in itself is interesting to the historian of the mid-eighteenth-century theatre. ”

“ Dave compared the composition with the odd bits of paper and at once reached the conclusion that both had been written by the sneak of the school. He handed the composition back to the teacher, and hurried away. Outside he asked for Macklin, and learned that the boy was up in his dormitory. Going up he found the sneak and Gus Plum together, and both talking earnestly.
"What do you want here?" demanded Plum, sourly, as Dave entered.
"I want to talk to Macklin, Plum. Can I see you alone?" he asked of the sneak.
"What do you want?" was Macklin's question, in alarm. ”

“ So much in earnest was Macklin that he accepted a farewell benefit at Drury Lane theatre, at which he recited a good-bye prologue commending his daughter to the favour of playgoers. In the greenroom that night, when regrets were expressed at the loss of so admirable an actor, Foote remarked, "You need not fear; he will first break in business, and then break his word." ”

“ Lesingham, the handsome and too intimate friend of Harris, the proprietor, coming on to speak a prologue, in which she was so imperfect, that a man stood close to her with a copy, to prompt her in the words. For less disrespect than this, the same audience had demanded the dismissal of an actor, and condemned him to penury. Macklin suffered twice in this way, from the capricious but cruel judgment of the house; and having here mentioned his name, I will proceed to notice the career of a man who belongs to so many eras. ”

“ At the above date he had been seven years on the London boards, having first appeared at the ‘Garden’ in 1786, as Flutter in ‘The Belle’s Stratagem.’ His name was William Macready, father of the Macready, and his début on the English stage was owing to the influence of Macklin, whom the young fellow had gratified by playing Egerton to the veteran’s Sir Pertinax, exactly according to the elaborate instructions he had patiently received from Macklin himself at rehearsal. ”