played, Macbeth was the most, and Henry V. the least, attractive. Romeo stood midway in profit, between those two. Mossop was the hero of the succeeding season, with profit to the management, after which Sheridan resumed the control; but not till he had been compelled to undergo a great humiliation. Fearing for the safety of his house, he consented to make public apology for his previous conduct to the management, and Sheridan was then patronized by the public, till Barry and Woodward, in October, 1758, opened a new theatre in Crow Street, and divided the patronage and the passions of the town. At Crow Street, there were Barry, young Mrs. Dancer, whom he afterwards married, Mossop, King, Woodward, and others. At Smock Alley Mrs. Abington alone was a sufficient counter-attraction. But when Mossop passed over to manage Smock Alley, and the Countess of Brandon patronized him, in return for his permitting her to cheat him at cards, and Mrs. Bellamy joined the same troop, then Barry was put on his mettle; he secured Mrs. Abington and Shuter; and the town became as divided, and as furious and unreasonable, as if they were at issue on some point of religious belief. Mrs. Bellamy was arrested by a partisan of the adverse house, simply that she might be prevented from acting at the other; and the players were so often seduced from their engagements by the respective managers, that the performers were sometimes called to go on the stage of one theatre, when they were actually dressing at another! If Mossop choose "Othello" for his benefit one night, Barry was sure to have it for his own, on the same, or the following evening. In short, the rival managers went on ruining each other. They exerted themselves, however, indefatigably, Barry playing even Macheath, and other operatic characters. He and Mossop formed extravagant engagements with every great actor, save Garrick, whom they could win over, down to clever dogs, and intelligent monkeys. At the end of a seven years' struggle, Barry found that Dublin could not support two theatres, and leaving Mossop in possession of the field, he returned to London, having ruined himself and Woodward, and lost every thing he possessed but his gentle humor, his suavity, his plausibility, and his hopes. As a sample of Dublin theatrical life, in Barry's time, I cite the following passage from Gilbert's History of Dublin, and there with close the subject for the present. "Dublin was kept in a state of commotion by the partisans of the rival theatres. As already noticed, the Countess of Brandon, with her adherents, attended constantly at Smock Alley, and would not appear at Crow Street; but Barry's tenderness in making love on the stage, at length brought the majority of the ladies to his house. Of the scenes which commonly occurred during this theatrical rivalry, on nights when some leading lady had bespoken a play, and made an interest for all parts of the house, particularly by pit and gallery tickets among her tradespeople, we have been left the following notice: The lady of the night goes early into the box-room to receive her company. This lady had sent out pit and gallery tickets to all her tradespeople, with the threatenings of the loss of her custom if they did not dispose of them; and the concern she was under, when the time was approaching for the drawing up of the curtain, at the sight of a thin pit and galleries, introduced the following entertainment. The lady was ready to faint; and after smelling bottles were applied, she cried out, 'She was ruined and undone! She never would be able to look dear Mr. B. in the face any more, after such a shocking disappointment.' At many of these repeated lamentations, the box-keeper advanced, and said: 'I beg your ladyship will not be so disheartened; indeed, your ladyship's pit will mend, and your ladyship's galleries too, will certainly mend, before the play begins!' At which the lady cried, 'Out, you nasty flattering fellow! I tell you I'm undone, ruined and undone! that's all. But I'll be revenged. I am resolved. I'll pay off M I'll turn off all my saucy tradespeople to-morrow morning.' During Barry's absence, some excellent actors took their last. farewell of the English stage. Of these I will speak in the next chapter. 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 tipsyness 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 re store 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, Put in his mouth a gag, and tied his tongue." |