The stage lost this year an excellent actor, Irish Bowen, who, at the age of fifty-two, was slain in duel by young Quin.[104] Hitherto the sword had dealt lightly with actors. In 1692, indeed, Sandford nearly killed Powell, on the stage. On the 13th of October they were acting together, in "OEdipus, King of Thebes," when the former, to whom a real dagger had been delivered by the property-man, instead of a weapon, the blade of which run up, when the point was pressed, into the handle, gave poor Powell a stab three inches deep; the wound was, at first, thought to be mortal, but Powell recovered. Five years later, in July 1697, I find brief mention in the papers of a duel between an actor and an officer. The initials only of the principals are given: "Mr. H., an actor, of Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, fought Mr. D., an officer, at Barnes Elms." Whether the former was young Hodgson or young Harris is not now to be determined, nor the grounds of the quarrel. The issue of it was that the player dangerously wounded the soldier; and it is added, that both parties exhibited brilliant courage. Bowen was the original representative of Sir Joshua[105] Wittol ("Old Batchelor"), Jeremy ("Love for Love"), and Foigard ("Beaux' Stratagem"). Quin passed over to Lincoln's Inn Fields in this season of 1717-18, where he played Hotspur, Tamerlane, Morat ("Aurungzebe"), Mark Antony, and created the part of Scipio, in the "Scipio Africanus," written by young Beckingham, the pride of Merchant Tailors' School. Beckingham must also have been the pride of Fleet Street, and especially of the craft of linen-drapers, of which his father was a worthy and well-to-do member. The piece was played on the 18th of February 1718. The author was then but nineteen years of age, and was full of bright promise. A tragedy by one so young, excited the public, and most especially the juvenile public, at Merchant Tailors', where Dr. Smith was head-master. The Doctor and sub-masters held the stage in abhorrence till now, when a brilliant _alumnus_ was likely to shed lustre on the corporation of "Merchant Tailors and Linen Armourers." Now they proclaimed high jubilee, gave the lads a half-holiday on the author's night, and joyfully saw the whole school swarming to the pit of Lincoln's Inn, to uphold the tragedy by this honoured _condiscipulus_. The masters, in this, acted against their own former precept and example; but they made amends for it by religious zeal, and by expelling all the Jewish pupils from the school! Israel was the scapegoat, and the Christian sense of propriety was gratified. But Quin's Scipio established a taste for theatricals at Merchant Tailors', where classical plays were acted, for some years, as at Westminster. Beckingham's tragedy exhibits a romantic story, or stories, in a classical costume. There is severity enough to gratify rigid tastes, with a little of over-warmth of action on the part of one of three lovers, which shows that the young