CHAPTER IV. RYAN, RICH, O'BRIEN. PERHAPS the last of the players who had been contemporary with Betterton, died when Richard Ryan departed this life, at his house in Crown Court, Westminster, in August, 1760. Westminster claims him as born within the Abbey precincts, Paul's School for a pupil, and a worthy old Irish tailor for a son, of whom he was proud. Garrick confessed that Ryan's Richard was the one which, in its general features, he took as the model of his own, and Addison especially selected him to play Marcus in his "Cato." He was but a mere boy when he first appeared with Betterton (who was playing Macbeth) as Seyton, wearing a full-bottomed wig, which would have covered two such heads as his. Between this inconvenience, and awe at seeing himself in presence of the greatest of English actors, the embarrassed boy hesitated, but the generous old actor encouraged him by a look, and young Ryan became a regularly engaged actor. From first to last he continued to play young parts, and his Colonel Standard, in 1757, was as full of the spirit which defies age, as his Marcus, in 1713, was replete with the spirit which knows nothing of age. Easy in action, strong, but harsh of voice, careless in costume and carriage, but always earnest in his acting, he obtained and kept a place at the head of actors of the second rank, which exposed him to no ill feeling on the part of the few players who were his superiors. Quin loved him like a brother: and it is singular that there was blood on the hands of both actors. Quin's sword dispatched aggressive Bowen and angry Williams to Hades; and Ryan, put on his defence, slew one of the vaporing ruffians of the day, to the quiet satisfaction of all decent persons. On June 20th, 1718, the summer season at the Lincoln's Inn Fields house had commenced with "Tartuffe." After the play, Ryan was supping at the Sun, in Long Acre; he had taken off his sword, placed it in the window, and was thinking of no harm to any one, when he saw standing before him, flushed with drink, weapon in hand, and all savagely a-thirst for a quarrel and a victim, one Kelly, whose pastime it was to draw upon strangers in coffee-houses, force them to combat, and send them home more or less marred in face or mutilated in body. Kelly stood there, not only daring Ryan, but making passes at him, which meant deadly mischief. The young actor took his sword from the window, drew it from the scabbard, and passing it through the bully's body, stretched him on the floor, with the life-blood welling from the wound. The act was so clearly one induced by self-protection, that Ryan was called to no serious account for it. ،، He had like to have fared worse on that later occasion, when, after playing Scipio, in "Sophonisba," he was passing home down Great Queen Street, and a pistol-shot was fired at him, by one of three or four footpads, another of whom seized his sword. In this fray his jaw was shattered. Friend, you have killed me; but I forgive you," said Ryan, who was picked up by the watch, and committed to surgical hands, from which he issued, after long suffering, something the worse for this scrious incident in his life. Ryan was "the esteemed Ryan" of numerous patrons, and when a benefit was awarded him, while he yet lay groaning on his couch, Royalty was there to honor it, and an audience in large numbers, the receipts from whom were increased by the golden guerdons forwarded to the sufferer from absent sympathizers. Perfect recovery he never reached, but he could still portray the fury of Orestes, the feeling of Edgar, the sensibility of Lord Townley, the grief and anger of Macduff, the villany of Iago, the subtilty of Mosca, the tipsiness of Cassio, the spirit of young Harry, the airiness of Captain Plume, and the characteristics of many other parts, with great effect, in spite of increasing age, some infirmities, and a few defects and oddities. I have already noticed how Quin, in his old days, declined any longer to play annually for Ryan's benefit, but offered him the £1,000 sterling, Quin had bequeathed to him in his will. Brave old actor! Dr. Herring, who was then Archbishop of Canterbury, had not in him a truer spirit of practical benevolence than James Quin manifested in this act to Dick Ryan—who died in 1760. In the following year, died Rich, the father of Harlequins, in England. He has never been excelled by any of his sons, however agile the latter may have been. Rich (or Lun, as he called himself) was agile, too, but he possessed every other qualification, and his mute Harlequin was eloquent in every gesture. He made no motion, by head, hand, or foot, but something thereby was expressed intelligibly. Feeling, too, was pre-eminent with this expression; and he rendered the scene of a separation from Columbine as graceful, to use the words of Davies, as it was affecting. Not only was he thus skilled himself, but he taught others to make of silent but expressive action the interpreter of the mind; Hippisley, Nivelon, La Guerre, Arthur, and Lalause, are enumerated by Davies, as owing their mimic power to the instructions given. to them by Rich, whose action was in as strict accordance with the sentiment he had to demonstrate, as that of Garrick himself. The latter, in his prologue to "Harlequin's Invasion," in which Garrick introduced a speaking Harlequin, thus alluded to the then defunct hero : "But why a speaking Harlequin? 'tis wrong, The wits will say, to give the fool a tongue. When Lun appeared, with matchless art and whim, He gave the pow'r of speech to ev'ry limb. Though mask'd and mute, convey'd his quick intent, But now the motley coat, and sword of wood, To introduce the speaking Harlequin was, however, only to restore to speech one of the most loquacious fellows who ever wore motley. For, as Colman had it, poor Harlequin— "Once spoke, And France and Italy admired each joke. But Roundhead England, all things who curtails, By malice led, by rage and envy stung, Rich thought himself so much a better actor than mimic, that he was ten times happier when giving foolish instruction to a novice training for Hamlet, than when he was marshalling his corps of pantomimists, and admirably teaching them to say every thing, and yet be silent. A man like John Rich, of course had his little jealousies. He was angry when the combination of Garrick and Quin filled his house and treasury, and when the season of 1746-7 yielded him a profit of nearly £9,000, to which his wand of Harlequin had contributed little or nothing. He was wont to look at the packed audience, through a hole in the green curtain, and then murmur, "Ah! you are there, are you? much good may it do you!" The avidity of the old public, however, to witness harlequinades, was even more remarkable than that of the present day. Then, pantomimes went through, not merely a part of one, but several seasons. Theobald's "Harlequin Sorcerer," which had often filled "Lincoln's Inn Fields," was even more attractive at "Covent Garden," above a quarter of a century later. The company assembled at mid-day, and sometimes broke the doors open, unless they were opened to them, by three o'clock, and so took the house by storm. Those who could not gain admittance, went over to Drury Lane, but Garrick found them without heart for tragedy; the grown-up masters and misses had been deprived of their puppet-show and rattle, and were sulky accordingly. Booth, Wilks, and Cibber, came under the somewhat dirty censure of Hogarth, who ridiculed them in a well-known unsavory engraving, for producing Harlequin Jack Sheppard. Booth tolerated these harlequinades, and Garrick acted in like fashion; remarking-"If you won't come to Lear and Hamlet, I must give you Harlequin ;" and he perhaps gave them the best the stage ever had, save Rich, in Woodward, who had worn the party-colored jacket before, but who, in "Queen Mab," and in speaking Harlequins, exhibited an ability, the effect of which is illustrated in a contemporary print, wherein you see all the great actors of the day in one scale, and Harlequin Woodward in the other, who makes them kick the beam. From the very first, however, the poets made protest against the invasion of the stage by foreign dancers and home-born Harle quins; and Cibber quotes Rowe as complaining, or asking, in a prologue to one of his first plays "Must Shakspeare, Fletcher, and laborious Ben, Be left for Scaramouch and Harlequin ?" One of the most curious features connected with pantomime, and which certainly dignified Harlequin, was the assumption of that character by such sterling actors as Woodward and O'Brien. The London Magazine, a century ago, wished "that so eminent an actor as Woodward might never be permitted to put on the fool's coat again." Rich thought himself, indeed, as good an actor as they; but, though the son of a gentleman, he was illiterate sometimes said turbot for turban; talked of larning Wilkinson to be a player; told Signora Spiletta always to lay her emphasis "on the djutant;" and said to Tate, "You should see me play Richard!" Nevertheless, John Rich was supreme, in his own particular line. His "catching the butterfly," and his "statue scene" were salient portions of his Harlequin, which people went to see because of their excellence. Still finer was that in which Harlequin is hatched from the egg by the heat of the sun. Jackson calls it a masterpiece in dumb show; "from the first chipping of the egg, his receiving of motion, his feeling of the ground, his standing upright, to his quick harlequin trip round the empty shell, through the whole progression, every limb had its tongue, and every motion a voice which spoke with most miraculous organ to the understandings and sensations of the observers." There was this difference between Rich and Garrick in their conduct towards authors. Garrick would decline with courteous commendation a manuscript he had never looked at; but Rich kept a drawer full of such copy, and when an author demanded his piece, Rich would tell him to take which he liked best, he would probably find it better than his own. Rich's good humor seldom failed him, though he was warm of temper; he was less witty than Foote, but he was of a better nature. One night, during his proprietorship of Covent Garden, a man, rushing down the gallery, fell over into the pit. He was nearly killed; but Rich paid all the medical and other expenses, and the poor fellow, when his broken bones were whole again, |