It was Quin's success in Bajazet at Drury Lane that really cost Bowen his life. I have noticed the subject before, but it will admit of some further detail. Bowen had taunted Quin with being tame in Bajazet, and Quin retorted by speaking disparagingly of Bowen in Jacomo in the "Libertine," preferring Johnson in that part. Bowen was the more deeply stung as he prided himself on his acting in Jacomo, and the company agreed with the adverse critic. The quarrel, commenced by envy, was aggravated by politics. Bowen boasted of his honesty and consistency, a boast, the worthlessness of which was speedily shown by Quin's remark, that Bowen had as often drunk the Duke of Ormond's health as he had refused it. The disputants parted angrily, only to meet more incensed. They met, on the invitation of Bowen, and passed from one tavern to another, till they could find a room which less suited Quin's purpose than that of his irate companion--that of "fighting it out." Indeed, the younger player seems to have been hardly aware of his elder's definite purpose; for when they entered the room Bowen fastened the door, clapped his back to it, drew his sword, and threatened to run Quin through the body if he did not out with his rapier and defend himself. Remonstrance from the latter was of no avail, and he drew simply to keep Bowen off. But the latter impetuously pressed forward till he ultimately fell mortally wounded. Before his death, however, which occurred within three days, he justly and generously took the blame of the whole transaction upon himself. This, with corroborative evidence, secured the acquittal of Quin on his trial for manslaughter. So died poor, foolish Bowen, at the age of fifty-two, leaving a widow, for whom the public had not sufficient sympathy to render her "benefit" profitable, and a son, known in the London streets as "Ragged-and-Tough," and whose exploits, recorded in the _Old Bailey Calendar_, sent him to the colonies to found in another hemisphere a line of Bowens more honest and less angry than the latter scions of the race in England.