Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 2.djvu/402

 398 MACKLIN, of rear-admiral of the red, and in July to that of vice admiral of the blue. After some time he commanded the squadron in the North Seas, but soon quitted that station, on which no circumstance occurred to enable him to sig malize himself. On the 1st of June, 1795, he obtained the rank of vice-admiral of the red, but does not appear to have ever held any naval employment after quitting the command in the North Sea. CHARLES MACKLIN. This eminent dramatist and actor, was born in the northern province of Ireland, about the beginning of the eighteenth century, (others say in 1690,) and descended from a respectable family of the name of M*Laughlin, which, in his own words, he englishfied on becoming an actor. He was placed by his mother, then a widow, under the care of a Mr. Nicholson, a gentleman of Scotland, who at this time kept a respectable school in Dublin. In 1726, he came over to England, and having a passion for the stage, joined several strolling companies, and was after wards engaged at Lincoln’s-inn-fields, where he first dis covered his merit, in a small character in Fielding’s “Coffee House Politician.” For several seasons he performed comic characters, and in 1785, was unfortunate enough to kill Mr. Hallam, an actor in the same theatre with him self, and who was grandfather to the present Mrs. Mat tocks. The dispute originated about a wig which Mr. Hallam had on, and which the other claimed as his pro perty, and in the warmth of temper (to which he had been always addicted) he raised his cane, and gave him a fatal stroke in the eye. He was brought to trial in consequence, but no malicious intent appearing in evidence, he was acquitted. In 1741 (February 14), he established his fame as an actor, in the character of Shylock, in the “Merchant of Venice,” for his own benefit, and restored to the stage a play which had been forty years supplanted by Lord Lansdowne's “Jew of Venice,” which was a