Seasonable Hints from an Honest Man, published about 1761. He wrote some of the papers of the Craftsman, but I know not which of them.
Quin, the player, might have been mentioned in addition to Cibber, as proof of the false taste and bad manner of the old actors. He came on the stage about the year 1720, and of consequence played some years with Booth, whose manner therefore in tragedy probably bore some general resemblance to his. Quin, like all the other actors of that time, used to make inordinate long pauses by way of adding weight and dignity to a passage. When Garrick first came on the stage, the admirers of the old manner could not reconcile themselves to the new mode of playing introduced by him, and were clamorous in all public places in praise of Quin. At last it was fixed that they should perform in the same piece, and the admirers of the old stage had no doubt they should be triumphant. The Fair Penitent was the play chosen, in which Garrick performed Lothario, and Quin, Horatio. The first act took up an hour in the performance, from the contention between the parties who should be loudest and longest in the applause of their favourite; and from Quin’s slow and solemn recitation. At last a trivial circumstance gave Garrick the victory. In the last scene of the second act, Lothario challenges Horatio: “Two hours ere noon to-morrow, I expect thee.” Quin, with his usual stateliness paused so long before he gave an answer, that some simple fellow in the gallery grew impatient, and cried out: “D— your blood! why
