his violent temper and overbearing manners, Macklin seems to have had many unamiable and some disgraceful qualities. He was dogmatic, conceited, narrow-minded, and arrogant; Holcroft said that his delight in making others fear and admire him gave him an aversion for the society of those who were his superiors. Charles Lee Lewes [q. v.] writes: 'What Danton said of Marat may be applied to him, "He was volcanic, peevish, and unsociable,"' and adds: 'In his manners he was brutish; he was not to be softened into modesty either by sex or age. I have seen his levity make the matron blush; beauty and innocence were no safeguard against his rudeness,' O'Keeffe supplies a strangely different account, saying that 'he hated swearing, and discountenanced vulgar jests.'
As a dramatist he had high merit, and his stage-management was admirable. He anticipated Garrick in the reformation of the stage. His experiments in tragedy did him little credit as an actor, but he was a capable comedian, with an unequalled knowledge of his art. His voice was strong, clear, and resonant, and he had no vices of delivery and no stage tricks. He was robust in frame and his features were rugged and corrugated. He sought to be feared rather than loved, and in his lessons his pupils, many of them people of rank, were subjected to galling contempt. Shylock was his great part. He made the character so fearful in the trial scene that George II, discussing the means of cowing the House of Commons, is reported to have said to Walpole, 'What do you think of sending them to the theatre to see that Irishman play Shylock?', He had a sullen solemnity that suited the character, and in the stronger scenes a forcible and terrifying ferocity. John Bernard (1756–1828) (q. v.] classes it with the Lear of Garrick, the Falstaff of Henderson, the Pertinax of Cooke, and the Coriolanus of John Kemble. Peachum, Polonius, Scrub, Iago, Trappanti, Sir Paul Plyant, Sir Francis Wronghead, Sir Pertinax McSycophant, and Sir Archy McSarcasm were among his best characters. Churchill is less than just to Macklin in 'The Rosciad,' but praises his tuition.
Macklin's first wife (d. 1768?) was, according to Kirkman, a Mrs. Ann Grace, the widow of a Dublin hosier, and according to Cooke a Miss Grace Purvor. She was an excellent actress. Her Nurse in 'Romeo and Juliet' and her Hostess in 'King Henry V' were inimitable. Chetwood says: 'In my theatrical career of about thirty years I have not seen her equal in Widow Blackacre, Mrs. Day, Widow Lackit, Lady Plyant, Doris in "Æsop," Mrs. Amelet, Lady Wishfort.' She was the original Mrs. Subtle in Footers 'Englishman in Paris,' and died in the season of 1768-9. Maria Macklin (d. 1781), daughter of Macklin, was an actress of talent, and was highly trained, but had little histrionic genius. She made her first appearance as the Duke of York in 'Richard III,' at Drury Lane, probably 3 Jan. 1743, left the stage in 1777, after an operation rendered necessary by tight-gartering, and died in 1781. She played a large round of characters in tragedy and comedy, including Jane Shore, Monimia, Portia, Desdemona, Lady Anne in 'Richard III,' Lady Townley, Rosalind, Helena in 'All's Well that Ends Well,' Portia, Lady Betty Modish, &c, and was the original Ilyssus in 'Creusa,' Irene in 'Barbarossa,' Charlotte in 'Love a la Mode,' Clarissa in 'Lionel and Clarissa,' &c. Macklin's letters to her present the most pleasing aspect of his character. A benefit to Macklin's widow (his second wife) was given at Covent Garden, 17 June 1805.
A portrait by Opie of Macklin in his ninety-third year and another by De Wilde as Sir Pertinax McSycophant are in the Mathews collection in the Garrick Club. Engraved portraits of him are given in the various biographies.
In addition to the subscription edition of Macklin's two plays, 4to, 1793, an octavo edition of the same comedies and the 'True-born Irishman,' unmentioned by Lowndes, was issued, also by subscription, by William Jones, 86 Dame Street, Dublin. A burlesque prologue to Fielding's 'Wedding Day' is headed 'Writ and spoken by Mr. Macklin.' Mr. Austin Dobson assigns it to Macklin, but Mr. Frederick Lawrence, the biographer of Fielding, claims it for that author.
