RICHARD RYAN, THE THEATRICAL TAILOR.
“Honest man;
Here’s all the words that thou art worth.”
Davenport: The City Nightcap.
Dignum and Moses Kean, the latter the uncle of Edmund Kean, were one day standing employed in jovial converse under the Piazza in Covent Garden, when Charles Bannister passed by with a friend. Dignum and Moses had been but indifferent tailors, before the one turned vocalist and the other mimic. “I never see those two fellows together,” said Charles, “without thinking of one of Shakspeare’s plays.” “And which is that?” inquired his friend. “Measure for Measure,” said Charles.
It is a custom with some Arab tribes for a man, when he becomes a father, to take his name from his son. Thus the bachelor Mahmoud ben Youssef, or Mahmoud son of Joseph, if he marries, no sooner has a boy, whom we will call Taleb, then he becomes Mahmoud Abu Taleb, or Mahmoud father of Taleb. In some such fashion the poor tailor Aaron Kean has no other name in history than that of the father of Edmund,—the greatest of our actors since the days of Garrick. The family of the Trees has, from as humble a source, been as bountiful, in its way, to the stage.
The ever-youthful Harley,—who looks almost as young now as he did when in 1815 he first appeared in London, at the Lyceum, as Marcelli in ‘The Devil’s Bridge,’—is not far removed from the profession on which I have been touching. His sire was a draper, and he himself is said to have been initiated into the mysteries of stay-making, and to have tried those of physic and the law, ere he settled down to comic acting and delighting the town.
But I must go further back than this, for my illustration of one who passed from a humble calling to add dignity to and gain credit in the exercise of a difficult vocation. When the manager was busy “casting” a new tragedy called ‘Cato,’ written by a gentleman about town, whose name is connected with the ‘Spectator,’ and lives in the “Addison” roads and terraces about Kensington, there was some hesitation as to the actor who should represent Marcus. A youthful and aspiring player looked blushingly on as the hesitation occurred. “There is hope, ay, and promise too, in that blush,” said Addison; “Dick Ryan shall be my lover.” “Why, a year ago he was only a tailor,” whispered Booth, who played the principal character. “A London tailor,” said the manager, Syphax Cibber. “And a present pretty fellow,” murmured Maria Oldfield. “And my Marcus,” said Addison, “or I do not make over the profits to the house.” And it was so. It may be a legitimate boast for the profession, that Addison selected a young tailor to play Marcus in his tragedy of ‘Cato,’ and that Garrick took from the same source some hints for the improvement of his Richard.
In the latter case, Garrick and Woodward went together to see Ryan’s Richard, thinking to be merry at witnessing such a character played by such a person. Ryan was then ungraceful in carriage, slovenly in style, and exceedingly ill-dressed; but Garrick discerned, in spite of all, some original ideas, to which he gave development, and therewith he struck out new beauties which he perhaps fairly claimed as his own. Foote alluded to this in a prologue spoke by him at Ryan’s benefit in 1754, in which he said, in allusion to Ryan himself,
“From him succeeding Richard took the cue;
And hence the style, if not the colour, drew.”
Garrick, however, was not generous enough to allow of the young tailor’s excellence; and in Bayes he used to caricature Ryan’s manner by delivering the passage beginning with
“Your bed of love from dangers will I free,”
in a sharp tone and lengthened, hesitating manner. Quin showed more regard for the ex-tailor, by giving his farewell performance on the Bath stage (in ‘Falstaff:’ Henry IV.), not for his own, but for Ryan’s benefit. This was in 1752. The receipts were so great, that Ryan applied to Quin, in a subsequent year, to repeat the performance. “I would play for you, if I could,” wrote the generous old fellow in reply, “but I will not whistle Falstaff for you. I have willed you £1000. If you want money, you may have that; and so save my executors trouble.”
Ryan had years before this met with an accident, which is so characteristic of the times that I may here recount it without apology. It was an accident which made such services as those rendered him by Quin highly acceptable. He had been playing Scipio, in ‘Sophonisba,’ at Covent Garden, and was passing down Great Queen-street, about midnight, when one from among a group of footmen stepped off the pavement, followed him into the road, and, as the actor turned round, discharged a pistol close to his face, bidding him at the same time “Stand and deliver!” The robber plundered the player only of his sword, and that he dropped in the street. As he was unbuckling it from Ryan’s side, the latter said, “Friend, you have killed me, but I forgive you.” The watch, too polite to intrude upon the pleasures of the thieves, picked up their victim, and conveyed him to the house of a neighbouring surgeon, who found that his patient had half his teeth shot out, and his face and jawbone much shattered. Of course, he was incapable of playing Loveless, in ‘Love’s Last Shift,’ as he was announced to do, on the 17th of the same month.
A benefit was got up for the wounded ex-tailor on the 19th. Everybody loved him, and public and players exerted themselves in his behalf. The play was ‘The Provoked Husband.’ Royalty patronized it; and many who could not attend, sent cheques on their bankers as their representatives. Ryan lay for some little time in a deplorable state, and it was very much doubted whether he would ever be able to articulate again. The public looked with sympathy upon their favourite actor; and when, on the 26th of the following month, April, he made his appearance in a new part, that of Bellair, in the ‘Double Deceit,’ great was the delight of the playgoers to find that “their esteemed Ryan,” as he was called, was little, if any, the worse in speech, spirits, or gracefulness, and that the footpad’s pistol had not destroyed the man for whom Garrick himself had shown respect, by at once imitating and caricaturing him. Ryan however never did perfectly recover, although he retained his position on the stage for many years longer.
It was probably more necessity than inclination that kept him on the stage till 1760, in which year he died, after playing the lovers in Tragedy and the fine gentlemen in Comedy for more than thirty years. The line which he took was subsequently ably filled by Charles Kemble, and for something like the same period. But Charles Kemble had, naturally, advantages which Ryan did not at first possess, and which he only slowly acquired. The former however was the subject of much critical ridicule when he first appeared, so awkward was he in spite of his natural advantages. If Ryan never became thoroughly graceful, he was always perfectly easy; and, notwithstanding a harsh and dissonant voice, he could, like Edmund Kean, so manage that organ as to create good effect out of its very defects. He had, with some slight extravagance, excellent judgement, sense, and feeling; and Johnson could not have said to the honest tailor turned actor, as he did sneeringly to Garrick, that Punch had no feeling. In scenes where Comedy trenched upon the domain of the sister Muse by the exhibition of profound emotion, Ryan was very great; and probably no actor has so nearly resembled him in this respect as Mr. Robson, whose origin is as modestly respectable as Ryan’s was. They who can recollect Elliston, as he played, in his latter days, the genial Rover, may have some idea of what Ryan was, when he grew old, in Captain Plume,—namely, defiant of age, and full of the natural assumption of a spirit that seemed backed by the strength which was not there, but which had a substitute in irresistible goodwill.
The gay and graceful Woodward was a contemporary of Ryan’s; and though he was not originally a tailor, he was a pupil of “Merchant Tailors’,” and, if I mistake not, head scholar there in his youth. One good consequence resulting therefrom was, that Woodward never had a benefit without active and liberal patronage on the part of that establishment, which felt itself honoured at ranking so distinguished an actor among its celebrities; and distinguished indeed was Harry Woodward. Since his time the part of Bobadil has never been justly represented; it may be said to have died with him. At a period when correct costume was not cared for, he was ever careful regarding the proprieties of dress; and, more fortunate than Ryan, he sustained the assaults of Time without letting the consequent ravages be seen. Charles Mathews is, in many respects, exactly what Woodward is said to have been; but Woodward could play a far wider range of characters. His scamps were perfect for their cool impudence; his modern fops, for their brazen impertinence; his fops of earlier days, for their elegant rascality; his every-day simpletons, for their vulgar stolidity; his mock-brave heroes, for their stupendous but ever-suspected courage; and his Shakspearian light characters, for their truly Shakspearian spirit. He was gracefully shaped, and bore a serious dignity of countenance, but he was no sooner before the foot-lights than a ripple of funny emotion seemed to roll over his face; and this, with the tones of a capital stage voice, never failed to arouse a laughter which was inextinguishable until the green curtain separated the old pupil of Merchant Tailors’ from his ecstatic audience.
The younger Rich used, like Foote, to ridicule actors who had abandoned other professions for the stage, and generally on the ground of their ignorance. But neither Ryan the actual tailor, nor Woodward the “Merchant Tailor,” ever exhibited so much ignorance as Rich and Foote themselves. Rich always confounded the words turbot and turban; and he was once heard to insist upon the necessity of “laying the empharsis on the adjutant.” Foote had more wit than Rich, but not more wisdom. “I almost forget my own name,” said the latter, by way of apology for calling Foote by no other appellation than “Mr.” “Well,” remarked Foote, “I knew you couldn’t write your name, but I didn’t suppose you could forget it.” The latter displayed his own ignorance when he laughed at the idea of a ghost taking a corporal oath. He forgot that such an oath was so called because it was taken on the corporale, or cloth which covers the elements in the Sacrament.
But even tailors on the stage would be nothing if the poets did not write for them; and here is a poet-tailor to our hand, doing honour to two crafts.