Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. JAMES QUIN (1693-1766). Quin was the immediate predecessor of Macklin, and the last of that old school of actors which Macklin did so much to abolish. Some slight sketch of his career as a man, and his methods as an actor, will throw light on Macklin's difficulties, and exhibit more clearly the reforms Macklin made in elocution and stage management, by showing what was the accepted standard of perfection, which he helped to alter and replace by better things. It is to be regretted that no one has seen fit to compile a good biography of James Quin. A volume, published in 1766, reported by some to have been written by Goldsmith, is wholly unworthy of reference, and so dull and defective in picturesque qualities, that we may safely acquit the poet of having had any hand in its compilation. From what I can gather from various sources, not without fear, however, of further consolidating errors, the following is set down as an accepted outline of his life. James Quin was the descendant of an Irish family of good position. His grandfather, Mark Quin, was Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1676, and his father, after receiving his education at Trinity College, Dublin, removed to London, where he was called to the bar by the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn. James Quin is often spoken of as an Irishman by birth, but the better opinion seems to be that he was born in King Street, Covent Garden, on February 24, 1693, and that shortly afterwards, on his grandfather's death, he was taken to Ireland by his father, who then came into possession of a very considerable fortune. In Dublin young Quin was educated by Dr. Jones, a teacher celebrated for his learning, and, being destined by his father for the bar, remained under his tuition until 1710, when his father died. Whether he ... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.