and Smock Alley Theatres and in the Crow Street Theatre, which he founded in 1758. Macklin was replaced by Samuel Foote at Drury Lane when he was appearing in An Englishman in Paris. It was written by Foote and he took Macklin's role. Maria Macklin remained in the cast and Macklin opened his own establishment in 1753. He opened a tavern at which he gave a nightly lecture followed by a debate, which Macklin called the British Inquisition. According to some histories, Macklin claimed at one of these shows to have such a good memory that he could recite any speech after reading through it once. As a challenge, Samuel Foote allegedly wrote The Great Panjandrum, a nonsense poem designed to be particularly difficult to memorise. The word Panjandrum has since passed into the English language. In about 1768 Johan Zoffany created a painting of her father's renowned role of Shylock. Maria Macklin was included in the painting in the role of Portia and Jane Lessingham is at the foot of the dias. The painting is unusual in that it includes the lawyer Lord Mansfield to the left who may have commissioned the painting. The painting is now in The Tate in London. Macklin returned to the stage, but finally retired in 1789, when he found he was no longer able to recall the entire part of Shylock. He lived another eight years, supported by the income from a subscription edition of two of his best plays, The Man of the World and Love in a Maze. Playwright He wrote many plays, including Love a la Mode (1759), The School for Husbands, or The Married Libertine (1761), and The Man of the World (1781). The True-Born Irishman (1763), renamed The Irish Fine Lady for its English production, was a hit in Ireland, but a flop in England. Macklin observed: "I believe the audience are right. There's a geography in humour as well as in morals, which I had not previously considered." Brian Friel used the play as the basis for his one-act The London Vertigo produced in Dublin in 1992. Introduction of naturalistic acting Macklin revolutionised acting in the 18th century by introducing a natural style of acting, being the first actor of his generation to break away from the old declamatory style. According to Wilson Goldfarb, "the predominant approach to acting in the 18th century is usually described as