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.