The theatrical life of Quin embraces the following dates. James Quin began his career in Dublin in 1714, and ended it at Bath in 1753. His first character was Abel in the "Committee;" his last, Hamlet, played at Bath (whither he had retired), not for his own benefit, but for that of his friend, Ryan.[59] Of doing kindnesses to friends, James Quin was never weary; and if he _did_ say that Garrick in Othello looked like the black boy in Hogarth's picture he was only temporarily jealous of Roscius. Quin was a careless dresser of his characters; and he had a sharp sarcasm, but not a lasting ill-feeling, for those who pretended to better taste, and gave it practical application. I have already spoken of Quin's early life; his English birth, his Irish breeding, his disputed legitimacy, and his succession to an estate, from which he was debarred by the rightful proprietors. Necessity and some qualifications directed him to the Dublin stage, where he played under Ashbury, Queen Anne's old master of elocution. Quin, then about one-and-twenty, gave such promise that Chetwood the prompter recommended him "to try London," where at Drury Lane, during three seasons, he played whatever character he was cast for, and made use of opportunity whenever that character happened to be a prominent one. In 1718 Quin passed to Lincoln's Inn Fields, where for four years[60] he was the great support of that house.[61] I have previously noticed his misadventure with Bowen the actor, whom he slew in honest self-defence under great provocation. It was kind-hearted, but hot-blooded, Quin's hard fate to kill two actors. A subordinate player named Williams was the Decius to Quin's Cato. Williams, in delivering the line "Cæsar sends health to Cato," pronounced the last name so affectedly--something like "Keeto"--that Quin in his impatience could not help exclaiming, "Would he had sent a better messenger!" This greatly irritated the little Welsh actor--the more that he had to repeat the name in nearly every sentence of his scene with Cato, and Quin did not fail to look so hard at him when he pronounced the name that the secondary player's irritation was at the highest when the scene concluded; and Decius turned away, with the remark-- "When I relate, hereafter, The tale of this unhappy embassy, All Rome will be in tears."