I suppose some manager had his eye on Macklin at Southwark Fair, in 1730, for he passed thence immediately to Lincoln's Inn Fields. He played small parts, noticed in another page, and was probably thankful to get them, not improving his cast till he went to Drury Lane, in 1733, when he played the elder Cibber's line of characters, and in 1735 created Snip in the farce of the "Merry Cobler," and came thereby in peril of his life. One evening, a fellow actor, Hallam, grandfather of merry Mrs. Mattocks, took from Macklin's dressing-room, a wig, which the latter wore in the farce. The players were in the "scene room," some of them seated on the settle in front of the fire, when a quarrel broke out between Hallam and Macklin, which was carried on so loudly that the actors then concluding the first piece were disturbed by it. Hallam, at length, surrendered the "property," but, after doing so, used words of such offence that Macklin, equally unguarded in language, and more unguarded in action, struck at him with his cane, in order to thrust him from the room. Unhappily the cane penetrated through Hallam's eye, to the brain, and killed him. Macklin's deep concern could not save him from standing at the bar of the Old Bailey on a charge of murder. The jury returned him guilty of manslaughter, without malice aforethought, and the contrite actor was permitted to return to his duty. Among the friends he possessed was Mrs. Booth, widow of Barton Booth, in whose house was domiciled as companion a certain Grace Purvor, who could dance almost as well as Santlow herself, and had otherwise great attractions. Colley Cibber loved to look in at Mrs. Booth's to listen to Grace's well-told stories; Macklin went thither to tell his own to Grace; and John, Duke of Argyle, flitted about the same lady for purposes of his own, which he had the honesty to give up, when Macklin informed him of the honourable interest he took in the friend of Mrs. Booth. Macklin married Grace, and the latter proved excellent both as wife and actress--of her qualities in the latter respect I have already spoken. For some years Macklin himself failed to reap the distinction he coveted. The attainment was made, however, in 1741, when he induced Fleetwood to revive Shakspeare's "Merchant of Venice," with Macklin for Shylock.