1 The Macklin legend was solidified by Kirkman, James Thomas in Memoirs of Charles Macklin, Esq., 3 vols. (London, 1806)Google Scholar and Cooke, William in Life of Macklin (London, 1806).Google Scholar Nothing is said of innovation in his performances as Shylock in any piece of contemporary criticism.

2 Granville wrote two original plays, The She Gallants (1696) and Heroic Love (1702), an opera entitled The British Enchanters, or No Magic Like Love (1707), and a masque, Peleus and Thetis (1701?). The Jew of Venice is his only alteration.

3 The records of the London theatres between 1701 and 1741 are far from complete, and theatrical advertisements appear only sporadically in the newspapers. Therefore, it can be assumed that The Jew of Venice could have been produced several more times.

4 Incomplete records make it possible that other actors played the role during this period.

5 Lists of Macklin roles verify this. See The London Stage (II, III, and IV) or Charles Beecher Hogan's Shakespeare in the Theatre, 1701–1800. All Macklin roles are indexed in the first; only Shakespearean roles in the second.

6 The London Gazette, issued on that date, carried the following notice: “This day is Published, The Jew of Venice; a Comedy. Revised with great Alterations and an Additional Masque, by George Granville, Esq.; Printed by B. (Lintos) at the Post-house at the Middle-Temple Gate, Fleet Street.” This edition is used in the critical discussion of Granville's play.

7 Only the nine major characters are given lines to speak.

8 The author's dissertation, Shylock from Dogget to Macready (University of Pittsburgh, 1965), pp. 82–84, for a detailed discussion of the retention of Granville's structural changes.

9 The Genuine Works in Verse and Prose of the Right Honourable George Granville Lord Lansdowne (London, 1736), III, 133. Peleus and Thetis is published with Granville's poetry in Volume II. This edition is posthumous. Granville died in 1735.

10 “A Brief Supplement to Colley Cibber, Esq.: His Lives of the Late Famous Actors and Actresses,” in Volume II of Colley Cibber, Written by Himself (New York, n.d.), p. 317.

11 Ibid., p. 162.

12 Ibid., I, 266.

13 “Some Account of the Life, &c. of Mr. William Shakespeare,” in The Works of William Shakespeare, 2nd Ed., I (London, 1714), xix-xx. The same statement is found in the first edition, 1709.

14 Roscius Anglicanus (London, 1708), p. 52.

15 Cibber, I, 290.

16 Ibid., II, 317.

17 Quoted by Theodore Andrea Cook in Thomas Dogget Deceased: A Famous Comedian (London, 1908), p. 27. This is the only book devoted to Dogget, but most of it is devoted to the rowing prize Dogget donated at the accession of George I.

18 Cibber, I, 290.

19 Ibid., II, 162.

20 Ibid., p. 317.

21 Roth, Cecil, A History of the Jew in England (Oxford, 1949), pp. 194–195.Google Scholar Ensuing historical data concerning Jews in England is drawn from Roth; Henriques, H. S. Q., The Jews and English Law (Oxford, 1908)Google Scholar; Hyamson, Albert M., The Sephardim of England (London, 1951)Google Scholar; and Modder, Montagu Frank, The Jew in the Literature of England (Philadelphia, 1939).Google Scholar

22 Dogget returned to act for a few nights in 1717, but he did not play in The Jew of Venice.

23 Chetwood, William Rufus, The British Theatre (Dublin, 1750), p. 158.Google Scholar The same quotation is in The Companion to the Playhouse, II (London, 1764), n.p. Chetwood is not always accurate in his facts, but he was prompter at Drury Lane during the latter part of his career.

24 Dramatic Miscellanies (London, 1785), III, 42. Of these actors, only Shuter ever played Shylock twice during the Macklin era. Macklin,'too, was a distinguished Polonius.

25 A General History of the Stage (London, 1749), pp. 165–166. Griffin was less active at Drury Lane. According to The Critical Companion (London, n.d.), he was hired away from Lincoln's Inn Fields because it was “worth their while to buy off his weight against them in the Rival Theatre.” After eleven years of relative inactivity at Drury Lane, an anonymous critic, in The Comedian, or Philosophical Enquirer (October, 1732), p. 39, could say he knew of no one who did “not wish that Griffin acted oftener than he does.”

28 Dramatic Miscellanies, III, 5.

27 Ibid., I, 262.

28 Ibid., III, 278.

29 The London Stage credits him with a performance on February 22, 1731; but The Gentleman's Magazine, No. 1 (January, 1731), p. 33, carried the following notice: “Deaths–Mr. Boheme of Lincoln's Inn-Fields Playhouse.”

30 A General History of the Stage, p. 88.

31 Hogan notes that a play called The Distressed Merchant; or, The Jew of Venice was played at Phillip's Booth from September 18 to 23. This is the only evidence of the survival of Granville's play into the Macklin era.

32 The Theatrical Review: For the Year 1757, and Beginning of 1758 (London, 1758), p. 26.

33 The Present State of the Stage in Great Britain and Ireland (London, 1753), p. 47.

34 Arthur's twelve performances as Shylock makes him the fifth most popular Shylock in the eighteenth century: Macklin far surpassed any rival with at least 176 performances, Thomas King had 32, Richard Yates with 21, and John Hender son with 15. Macklin-era comments on Yates acting labeled him as a funny but tasteless comedian.

35 Twelve of Macklin's rivals played Shylock in benefit performances; eleven played the role only once. One, Lacey Ryan, had played a key role with all six pre-Macklin Shylocks. Ryan, however, was a romantic lead who usually played Bassanio before and during the Macklin period, a part he played into his sixties. The vast majority of Macklin's rivals were character comedians. None, except King and Macklin, approached star status. It is certain that the most popular Shylocks in the Macklin era played the role in a serious manner.

36 Roth, Henriques, Hyamson, and Modder supply the general historical background in the ensuing section.

37 Roth, p. 188.

38 Some historians believe that open immigration began after 1656. On May 16, 1656, a court decision established the right of property and residency for English Jews. Antonio Rodrigues Robles, a wealthy merchant of Spanish extraction, was suspected of Spanish and Catholic connections; but he escaped confiscation of his property by proving he was Jewish. A decision by the Court of the King's Bench in 1667 allowed Jews to give court testimony after swearing on the Old Testament. The most sizable immigration, however, began after the 1698 decision.

39 Dogget's Whig sentiments are mentioned by several contemporaries and are discussed in Thomas Dogget Decreased. See note 17.

40 Roth, p. 202.