Pope’s collection of the pieces written against him, on account of the Dunciad, are in Bishop Hurd’s possession.
Mr. Warburton, about the year 1750 or 1752, being in company with Quin, the player, at Mr. Allen’s, near Bath, took several opportunities of being sharp upon him, on the subject of his love of eating and his voluptuous life. However, in the course of the evening, he said he should be obliged to Quin for “a touch of his quality,” as he could never again see him on the stage. Quin said that plays were then quite out of his head; however, he believed he remembered a few lines of Pierre; on which he got up, and looking directly at Mr. Allen, repeated ore rotunda—
Are the soft easy cushions on which knaves
Repose and fatten.”
Warburton gave him no further trouble for the rest of the evening.
The late Lord Bath (formerly Mr. Pultney) used to say that Quin was incomparably the best performer of Sir John Brute; Cibber, the worst; and Garrick, next to Quin.
I have never been able to meet with any person who had seen Betterton or Booth; but am persuaded that their manner was very pompous and false, and that they spoke in a high, unnatural tone. Yet if we are to believe the Tatler’s description of Betterton’s Hamlet, it was all nature. I am, however,
