known to be a man of reading, distinguished rather for sprightly parts than profound speculations, and much esteemed in the circle of his friends. His bachelor of arts degree he took in the year 1757, and ranked as what is called a senior optime; he was of the same year with Dr Waring and Dr Jebb, the two first men of the year. The degree, though an inconsiderable one, and particularly so in 1757, procured him notice in the college, and he contested the silver cup given at Emanuel college to the best graduate of the year, with Mr Sawbridge, brother to the alderman of that name, but was unsuccessful. In 1760 he took his master of arts degree, and succeeded, as classical tutor, to Mr Bickham, who went off to the valuable living of Loughborough in Leicestershire, in the gift of Emanuel college. The first books that he lectured in were Euclid's Elements, Aristophanes, Tully's Offices, the Amphictyon of Plautus, and Hurd's Horace. In later periods he lectured in Quintilian, Grotius de Veritate Religionis Christianæ, and the Greek Testament. In discharge of the part of his office more immediately classical, Dr Farmer was entitled to considerable respect. He was a good scholar. But theology and mathematics were not his favourite studies. He did not give lectures in Euclid many years, but in Grotius and the Greek Testament he continued to lecture till he resigned the tuition. In the year 1767 he took the degree of bachelor in divinity. About this time he was appointed one of the preachers of Whitehall; an engagement that required him to be in London a certain number of months in the year, a situation favourable to one now becoming a collector of books. Farmer, though his expenses at that time were few, was as yet possessed of but a limited income, and now more particularly occupied his time in reading our old English authors. In a course of years, indeed, he collected many valuable books, and as his income increased, he could occasionally gratify a more expensive taste; but, generally speaking, he was as often seen at the end of an oid book stall, as in the splendid shops of more respectable booksellers, and the sixpence a-piece books were to him sometimes of more value than a Baskerville classic, or a volume printed at Strawberry-Hill. In this way he gradually got together an immense number of books, good, bad, and indifferent, which at length sold for more than £2000. In the year 1766 he published the first edition of his valuable Essay on the learning of Shakspeare, addressed to Joseph Cradock, Esq., of Gumley-Hall in Leicestershire. A second edition was called for in the following year. It appeared with only a few corrections of style, but no additional information. A third was printed in 1789, without any additions except a note at the end, accounting for his finally abandoning his intended publication of the Antiquities of Leicester. The Essay is also given at large in Mr Steevens' and Mr Reed's edition of Shakspeare, printed in 1793. The first piece of preferment obtained by Farmer was most probably given him as a token of esteem, no less than as a testimony to his literary merit. This was the chancellorship of Lichfield and Coventry, bestowed on him by his friend Bishop Hurd. A prebendary stall was also conferred on Farmer by the same prelate when afterwards advanced to that see. On the death of Dr Richardson, in the year 1775, he was chosen master of Emanuel college by the fellows of that society, Mr Hubbart, the senior fellow, declining it on account of age and infirmities. He now took his doctor of divinity's degree, and was shortly after succeeded in the tutorship by a man of great taste and learning, Mr afterwards Dr Bennet, bishop of Cloyne. He next obtained, on the death of Dr Barnardiston, the office of principal librarian: these two appointments he was fairly entitled to from his literary character. In the same year he served, in his turn, the office of vice-chancellor of the university, and was presented by the minister of the day, Lord North, with a valuable piece of preferment, a prebend of Canterbury. The offer of a bishopric was twice made him by Mr Pitt, but declined. The truth is, the solemnity and formality of the episcopal character would have sat but awkwardly on Farmer. He chose to move without restraint, and to enjoy himself without responsibility: to use his own language to a friend, "one that enjoyed the theatre and the Queen's Head in the evening, would have made but an indifferent bishop." A piece of preferment, however, was soon conferred on him by Mr Pitt, no less agreeable to his taste, in point of situation, than valuable in point of income,—a residentiaryship of St Paul's. This was given him in exchange for the prebend of Canterbury. It was agreeable to his taste, as requiring three months' residence in the capital, and only three, in the year; enabling him to enjoy in succession his literary clubs in London, and his literary retreat at Cambridge. The various editors of Shakspeare, not excepting Johnson, are to be ranked among the admirers and friends of Farmer. Steevens, Malone, Reed, &c. have all borne testimony to the merit of his Essay. In this work Dr Farmer fully demonstrates, that our immortal poet was more indebted to nature than to art, and that his matters of fact were deduced from our old chronicles and romances, and from translations of the classics, not from original writers. It is well-known that the other side of the question had been maintained by most of the critics and commentators on Shakspeare,-Pope, Theobald, Warburton, Upton, Grey, Dodd, and Whalley. The purport of this pamphlet, and the province of the author of it, cannot be better explained than in Farmer's own words: "I hope, my good friend-he is addressing Mr Cradock-you have acquitted our great poet of all piratical depredations on the ancients, and are ready to receive my conclusion. He remembered perhaps enough of his schoolboy learning, to put the hig, hag, hog, into the mouth of Sir Hugh Evans, and might pick up in the writers of the time, or the course of his conversation, a familiar phrase or two of French or Italian; but his studies were most demonstratively confined to nature and his own language. In the course of this disquisition, you have often smiled at all such reading as was never read, and possibly I may have indulged it too far: but it is the reading necessary for a comment on Shakspeare. Those who apply solely to the ancients for this purpose, may with equal wisdom study the Talmud for an exposition of Tristram Shandy. Nothing but an intimate acquaintance with the writers of the time, who are frequently of no other value, can point out his allusions, and ascertain his phraseology. The reformers of his text are equally positive and equally wrong. The cant of the age, a provincial expression, an obscure proverb, an obsolete custom, a hint at a person, or a fact no longer remembered, hath continually defeated the best of our guessers: you must not suppose me to speak at random, when I assure you, that from some forgotten book or other, I can demonstrate this to you in many hundred places, and I almost wish that I had not been persuaded into a different employ. ment." The latter years of Dr Farmer's life were pretty equally divided between Emanuel college and the residentiary house at Amen-corner. His literary friends, as usual, engaged much of his time. Dr Farme died after a long and painful illness in 1797. Charles Macklin. BORN CIR. A. D. 1690.-DIED A. D. 1797. THIS veteran of the stage used to assert vehemently that he was born in the last year of the seventeenth century; there is pretty good evidence, however, that he was an infant of about two months old on the day of the ever-memorable battle of the Boyne, 1st July, 1690. His father was a Presbyterian, and his mother a Roman Catholic; he himself was known in his youth by the soubriquet of 'Wicked Charley,' and The Wild Irishman,'-appellations sufficiently indicative of his habits of life. He used to refer his earliest predilection for the stage to the circumstance of his having been employed by a lady, who was fond of private theatricals, to perform the part of Monimia in 'The Orphan,' when he was quite a boy. He came to England when about sixteen years of age, after having broke his apprenticeship with a saddler. For some time he acted in the capacity of a waiter in a London tavern; but, at his mother's desire, he returned to Ireland, and continued with his parents until accident threw him in the way of some strolling players. They offered to engage him; the temptation was too great for a youth of his dispositions and roving habits; he joined company with them, and roamed about the country for some time as a strolling actor. . In a year or two after, he paid a second visit to England, and spent some time in different itinerant companies, till at last he obtained an engagement in the metropolis. In 1725, he made his debut at the Lincoln's Inn theatre, in the part of Alcander, in Edipus.' We have his own authority for stating that he was unsuccessful: "I spoke so familiarly," he used to say, "and so little in the hoity-toity tone of the tragedy of that day, that the manager told me I had better go to grass for another year or two."-He accordingly joined a strolling company in Wales; but, before leaving London, having had the good fortune to win £400 at the gaming table, he furnished himself with a female companion, and for some time rambled about the country in the dress and style of a man of fashion. In September, 1730, he again appeared on the metropolitan boards in the character of Sir Charles Freeman; in the winter of the same year he enacted the part of an Irish witness in the Coffee-house Politician.' In 1735, in a dispute with a fellow-actor, he gave him a blow, which occasioned his death, and was in consequence tried for murder, but found guilty of manslaughter only. "The dispute," says his biographer, "originated about a wig, which Hallam (the other actor) had on in Fabian's Trick for Trick,' and which Macklin claimed as his property; in a warmth of temper he raised his cane, and gave him a fatal stroke in the eye." Macklin reached the summit of his fame in 1741, when the first attempt was made to revive the 'Merchant of Venice,' which had not been acted since 1701. Lord Lansdowne had adapted the play to the state of the stage and the prevailing taste; but for a long time nobody was found qualified to perform the character of Shylock, until Macklin offered to come forward; and being favoured by nature with a set of features well-calculated to express the malignity of the character, it was allotted to him. As Lord Lansdowne attended all the rehearsals, Macklin became acquainted with his lordship, and experienced some liberal marks of his patronage. Macklin was not deficient in self-confidence; but he often declared, that when he was to go upon the stage in the character of Shylock, his alarm and perturbation were ready to get the better of his resolution: "For," said he, "the pit, in those days, was the resort of learning, wealth, and dignity; lawyers, merchants, college doctors, and church-dignitaries, constituting so formidable a tribunal, as might have shaken the nerves of the hardiest veteran of the stage, much more a tyro in the art." His success in the part, and the extempore couplet that was pronounced in the theatre the same evening. by Pope, "This is the Jew That Shakspeare drew," raised him at once into notice. town. The following is his own account of wnat took place when the appointed evening arrived :-" When the long expected night at last came, the house was crowded, from top to bottom, with the first company in The two front rows of the pit, as usual, were full of critics. I eyed them," said Macklin, "I eyed them, Sir, through the slit in the curtain, and was glad to see them there; as I wished, in such a cause, to be tried by a special jury. When I made my appearance in the greenroom, dressed for the part, with my red hat on my head, my piqued beard, my loose black gown, and with a confidence which I had never before assumed, the performers all stared at one another, and evidently with a stare of disappointment. Well, Sir, hitherto all was right, till the last bell rung: then, I confess, my heart began to beat a little; however, I mustered up all the courage I could, and recommending my cause to Providence, threw myself boldly on the stage, and was received by one of the loudest thunders of applause I ever before experienced. The opening scenes being rather tame and level, I could not expect much applause; but I found myself well-listened to: I could hear distinctly in the pit, the words, Very well-very well, indeed! this man seems to know what he is about.' These encomiums warmed me, but did not overset me. I knew where I should have the pull, which was in the third act, and accordingly, at this period I threw out all my fire; and, as the contrasted passions of joy for the merchant's losses, and grief for the elopement of Jessica, open a fine field for an actor's powers, I had the good fortune to please beyond my most sanguine expectations. The whole house was in an uproar of applause; and I was obliged to pause between the speeches to give it vent, so as to be heard. The trial scene wound up the fulness of my reputation. Here I was well-listened to, and here I made such a silent, yet forcible impression on my audience, that I retired from this great attempt most perfectly satisfied. On my return to the green-room, after the play was over, it was crowded with nobility and critics, who all complimented me in the warmest and most unbounded manner; and the situation I felt myself in, I must confess, was one of the most flattering and intoxicating of my whole life. No money, no title could purchase what I felt." Our actor was soon after this enlisted, by Fleetwood, in the Drury Lane corps. While in this situation, he quarrelled with Quin, then the despot of the theatre, and, being expert in the pugilistic art, left such marks of his prowess upon him, that the latter could not proceed in the part of Manly, in the Plain Dealer,' without making an apology to the audience. This affair had nearly terminated in a duel, if the kindness of Fleetwood had not intervened, and effected at least an apparent reconciliation. Quin once observed, speaking of Macklin, "If God writes a legible hand, that fellow's a villain ;" and once seriously addressed Macklin himself, in the following manner :—“ Mr Macklin, by the lines, I should rather say, by the cordage of your face, you ought to be hanged !" In 1744, Macklin attempted to open the Haymarket theatre with a tribe of green performers, his pupils. The speculation failed, however, and he returned to Drury Lane in the following winter. In 1748, he acted in Dublin. In 1753, he affected to take a formal leave of the stage, with an epilogue for the occasion written by Garrick; but in 1758 he again appeared on the boards in Dublin, and in the following year brought out his amusing farce of Love à la Mode.' He produced two other clever pieces, entitled The True-born Irishman,' and the Man of the World.' He was In 1784 he accepted an engagement to perform in Dublin. at this period, at the lowest computation, eighty-five years of age; but more probably he was ninety-five; yet he continued to perform his principal characters with almost undiminished force and vivacity, until the 7th of May, 1789, when he took his final leave of the stage, in the character of Shylock. He proved unable for the effort. When the night arrived, he went dressed into the green room, and said to Mrs Pope, "My dear, are you to play to-night?"-"To be sure I am. Don't you see I am dressed for Portia ?"-" Ah! very true, I had forgot; but who is to play Shylock?" He said this in a tone of feeble sadness, that distressed all who heard it; but Mrs Pope, rousing herself, answered, “ Why, you! Are not you dressed for the part?" He put his hand to his forehead, and said, pathetically, "God help me my memory has, I fear, left me." He went, however, upon the stage, but was only able to deliver two or three speeches, at the termination of which he looked helplessly round, and exclaiming, "I can do no more !" quitted the stage for ever. He survived his retirement eight years. |