Public interest was yet more keenly stimulated in comparing Garrick's and Quin's impersonations of Richard III, the popular verdict being loudly in favour of Garrick. But Quin's Falstaff in King Henry IV was emphatically preferred to the Hotspur of his rival. In consequence of an attempt made by Garrick in 1750–51 to draw him away from Covent Garden, Quin was enabled to extort from his manager a salary of £1000 a year, the highest figure then reached in the profession. Quin's last regular appearance was on 15 May 1757, as Horatio in the Fair Penitent, though in the following year he twice played Falstaff for the benefit of friends. He had retired to Bath, where he lived a happy life, with late hours and much eating and drinking, until his death on 21 January 1766. He was buried in the abbey church at Bath.
