James Quin

James Quin 1693-1766, English actor. He made his London debut in 1714. The successor of Barton Booth, he was the last of the declamatory school. At his best in declaiming the great tragic roles, Quin was in constant rivalry with the young Garrick until Quin left the stage in 1751. He was regarded as one of the greatest interpreters of the role of Falstaff.

Quin, James (1693–1766), an actor who took leading parts in tragedy. He was the last of the old school of actors, which gave place to that of Garrick.

Quin, James (1693–1766), English actor, the last of the declamatory school whose supremacy was successfully challenged by Garrick. He made his first appearance at the Smock Alley Theatre in Dublin in 1712 and two years later was playing small parts at Drury Lane, where he made an unexpected success as Bajazet in Rowe's Tamerlane when the actor billed to play the part was taken ill. In 1718 he went to Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre where he remained for 14 years, appearing first as Hotspur in Henry IV, Part One, and then in a wide range of Shakespearian parts. He later went to Covent Garden and finally returned to Drury Lane, retiring in 1751 to live in Bath. A man of great gifts but very little education, he was obstinate and quarrelsome and a great stickler for tradition, refusing to the end to alter one detail of his original costumes. A portrait of him as the hero of Thomson's Coriolanus (1748) shows him equipped with plumes, peruke, and full spreading short skirt in the style of the later 17th century. There is a description of his acting in Smollett's Humphry Clinker (1771).