n him by one of these water-bullies, who neither regard men or
manners. I remember, the same night, as he was brought on the bier,
after his suppos'd death in the fourth act of 'Cato,' the blood, from
the real wound in the face, gush'd out with violence; that hurt had
no other effect than just turning his nose a little, tho' not to
deformity; yet some people imagine it gave a very small alteration to
the tone of his voice, tho' nothing disagreeable." And a very good
advertisement it was, no doubt.

In later years another much-discussed accident befell Mr. Ryan. As he
was going home from the theatre one night, the actor was attacked by a
footpad, and received in his face two bullets which broke a portion of
his jaw. "By the help of a lamp [again is the quotation from Chetwood]
the robber knew Mr. Ryan, as I have been inform'd, begg'd his pardon
for his mistake, and ran off. Of this hurt, too, he recover'd, after a
long illness, and play'd with success, as before, without any seeming
alteration of voice or face. His Royal Highness, upon this accident
(was it the Prince of Wales, afterwards George II?) sent him a
handsome present; and others, of the nobility, copy'd the laudable
example of the second illustrious person in the three kingdoms."

This was Lacy Ryan, who in his time played many different parts, among
them Iago, Hamlet, Macduff, Captain Plume, and Orestes. He was not in
any sense of the word a great actor, but he well adorned the station
of theatrical life in which it had pleased heaven to place him, and
strutted his lengthy hour upon the stage with much satisfaction to
his companions and the public. Even when Ryan had to kill a bully in
self-defence (it was a fellow named Kelly, who loved to haunt the
coffee-houses, pick quarrels with peaceable citizens, and then half
murder them), the world looked on approvingly, and averred that the
player had acted with his usual conscientiousness.

Another contemporary of Nance was Benjamin Johnson,[A] who achieved
curiously enough some of his greatest successes in the plays of his
namesake, the other Ben Jonson. He began life as a scene painter, but
afterwards turned his attention to the front, rather than the back,
of the stage--or, as he would humorously explain, "left the saint's
occupation to take that of a sinner." Johnson seems to have been a man
of the world, and he saw a good deal of life, even though he never
passed through the rough-and-tumble adventures of La