RICH Claudius James (1787-1821), Eastern traveller and scholar, was born near Dijon, March 28, 1787. While still an infant he was taken to Bristol, where he spent his youth. At a very early age he developed a wonderful capacity for the acquisition of languages, soon becoming familiar not only with Latin and Greek but also with Hebrew, Syriac, Persian, Turkish, and other Eastern tongues. His unusual intelligence and extraordinary acquirements in Oriental languages procured for him in 1803 a nomination to a writership in the Bombay establishment of the East India Company. In 1804 Rich proceeded to Constantinople, where, and at Smyrna, he stayed a considerable time, perfecting himself in the Turkish language. Proceeding to Alexandria as assistant to the British consul-general there, he devoted himself to Arabic and its various dialects, and made himself master of Eastern manners and usages. On leaving Egypt he proceeded by land to the Persian Gulf, disguised as a Mameluke, visiting Damascus, and entering the great mosque undetected. At Bombay, which he reached in September 1807, he was the guest of Sir James Mackintosh, whose eldest daughter he married in January 1808, proceeding soon after to Baghdad as resident. While gaining the respect of Turks of all classes, as well as of Europeans, he now began his investigations into the geography, history, and antiquities of the vastly interesting region in the midst of which he was placed, the results of which give him a high place among Eastern students. He made collections of all kinds, visited and examined the remains of Babylon, and projected a geographical and statistical account of the pashalic of Baghdad. The results of his investigations at Babylon appeared first in the Vienna serial the Mines dx l ’ Oment, and in 1811 ...in England, under the title Narrative of a Journey to the Site of Babylon in 1811. In 1839 this was republished by his widow, with Major Rennell’s remarks upon it, and a second memoir by Rich in reference to these remarks, together with the narrative of a journey to Persepolis. In 1813-14 Rich spent some time in Europe, and on his return to Baghdad paid special attention to the geography of Asia Minor, and collected much information in Syrian and Chaldaean convents concerning the Yezzidis. He continued, too, to collect manuscripts of all kinds, his collections being probably the most extensive and valuable brought together by any private person up to that time. His collection of coins—Greek, Parthian, Sasanian, and Moslem—as well as of gems and engraved stones, was much enlarged. During this period he made a second excursion to Babylon, and in 1820 he undertook an extensive tour to Kurdistan—from Baghdad north to Sulimania, eastward to Sinna, then west to Nineveh, and thence down the Tigris to Baghdad. The narrative of this journey, which for the first time furnished accurate knowledge (from scientific observation) regarding the topography and geography of the region traversed, was published by his widow in 1836. It abounds with information on the country and the people, their history and traditions, the ruins and inscriptions met with, characterized by the profundity and thoroughness of the real scholar and trained observer. He visited many of the ancient Christian churches in Chaldaea, adding largely to his stock of manuscripts, including ancient Syrian and Chaldaean versions of the Scriptures. In 1821 Rich went to Basora, whence he made an excursion to Shiraz, visiting the ruins of Persepolis and the other remains of antiquity in the neighbourhood. An account of these excursions is given in the posthumous publication referred to, which also contains many notes on Rich’s collections and minor excursions as well as a brief memoir. At Shiraz he was struck down by cholera on October 5, 1821. His early death was a vast loss to Oriental investigation. The work he did accomplish was of great value for Eastern archaeology and history.
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RICHARD earl of Cornwall and king of the Romans (1209-1272), second son of John, king of England, and IsabeLla, was born at Winchester, January 5, 1209. In 1225 he undertook the government of Gascony. In 1240 he went on a crusade, returning in 1241, after concluding a treaty with the sultan of Egypt. In 1242 he accompanied his brother on his unsuccessful expedition to Poitou. In 1244 and 1246 we find him heading the parliamentary opposition against Henry III., and a few years afterwards he befriended Simon de Montfort against his accusers. When Henry went to France in 1253, Richard, together with the queen, acted as regent. He had already (1252) declined the pope’s offer of the kingdom of Sicily, but in January 1257 he was elected emperor by a majority of the electors, and soon afterwards was crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle. In 1259 he returned to England and swore to observe the Provisions of Oxford. Next year he acted as peacemaker between Henry and the barons, and, after spending another year in Germany, he returned to England in 1263. It was largely owing to his mediation that the two parties submitted to the arbitration of Louis IX., but on the renewal of the civil war he took his brother’s side. Taken prisoner at the battle of Lewes, he was kept in confinement by De Montfort for a year, but released after the battle of Evesham. One of his last known acts was his mediation between the earl of Gloucester and the king. In 1269 he went to Germany again for a short time, and returned to England to die at Kirkham in 1272. He was thrice married—(1) to Isabella, sister of the earl of Pembroke; (2) to Sancia, daughter of Raymond, count of Provence; (3) to Beatrice of Falkenstein.
For authorities, see under Henry III.
RICHARD duke of Normandy. See Normandy, vol....
xvii. p. 541 sq.
RICHARD of Bury. See Aungervyle, Richard.
RICHARD of Cirencester (1335-1401), historical writer, was a member of the Benedictine abbey at Westminster, and his name (“Circestre ”) first appears on the chamberlain’s list of the monks of that foundation drawn up in the year 1355. In the year 1391 he obtained a licence from the abbot to go to Rome, his design being to visit limina Apostolorum, and in this licence the abbot gives his testimony to Richard’s perfect and sincere observance of religion for upwards of thirty years. In 1400 Richard was in the infirmary of the abbey, where his death took place in the following year. His only known extant work is Speculum Historiale de Gestis Regurn Angliae, IH f 7-1066. The manuscript of this is in the university library at Cambridge, and has been edited for the Master of the Rolls by Professor John E. B. Mayor (2 vols., 1863-1869). It is in four books, and at the conclusion of the fourth book Richard expresses his intention of continuing his narrative from the accession of William I., and incorporating a sketch of the Conqueror’s career from his birth. This design he does not, however, appear to have carried into effect. The value of the Speculum as a contribution to our historical knowledge is but slight, for it is mainly a compilation from Rodger Wendover, Geoffrey of Monmouth, William of Malmesbury, Florence, Asser, Henry of Huntingdon, and other writers; while even in transcribing these the compiler is guilty of great carelessness. He gives, however, numerous charters relating to Westminster Abbey, and also a very complete account of the saints whose tombs were in the abbey church, and especially of Edward the Confessor, with w r hose reign the fourth book is entirely occupied. The work was, notwithstanding, largely used by historians and antiquaries, until, with the rise of a more critical spirit, its value became more accurately estimated. Besides the Speculum Richard also wrote, according to the statement of William Woodford in his Answer to Wickliffe (Brown, Fasciculus Rerum expetendarum, p. 193), a treatise De Offi,ciis ; and there was formerly in the cathedral library at Peterborough another tractate from his pen, entitled Super Symbolum. Of neither of these works, however, does any known copy now exist.
Of the Speculum the main value may be said to be of a negative character, in that it affords the most conclusive proof of the spuriousness of another work attributed to Richard and long accepted by the learned world as his. This was the De Situ Britanniae, an elaborate forgery relating to the antiquities of Roman Britain which first appeared at Copenhagen in the year 1758. It was printed along with the works of Gildas and Nennius, under the editorship of Charles Julius Bertram, professor of English in the academy of Copenhagen in the middle of the last century, with the following special title :—“Richardi Corinensis monachi Westmonasteriensis de situ Britanniae libri duo. E Codici MS. descripsit, Notisque et Indice adornavit Carolus Bertram.”
This forgery was accepted, as genuine by a well-known antiquary of the last century, Dr William Stukeley, and under the sanction of his authority continued for a long time to be regarded in the same light by numerous scholars and antiquaries. Among their number were Gibbon, John Whitaker, Richard Gough, and Lingard. On the other hand, critics of a later date, such as J. J. Conybeare, Dr Guest, Wex, Raine, and Woodward, from time to time gave expression, on various grounds, to a contrary conclusion. All doubt on the subject may, however, be held to have been effectually set at rest by the masterly and exhaustive exposure of the whole fraud drawn up by Professor Mayor in the preface to the edition above referred to of the Speculum. He has there not only demonstrated, from the external and internal evidence alike, the spuriousness of the whole treatise, but in a collation (extending to nearly a hundred pages) of numerous passages with corresponding passages in classical mediaeval authorities, has also traced out the various sources from whence Bertram derived the terminology and the facts which he reproduced in the De Situ. “To say nothing,” says Professor Mayor, “of antiquaries whose canons of criticism are so lax that they cite a supposed monk of 1400 a.d. as authority for events of 1000 b.c., we find a forger alike contemptible as penman, Latinist, historian, geographer, critic, imposing upon members of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies, and of the two ancient universities, of the youthful Society D. U. K., on the writers of Germany and Denmark, of England, and of Scotland,—the last bribed by the invention of Vespasiana.”
RICHARD of Sτ Victor (oδ. c. 1173), a Scot by birth, was subprior of his convent in 1159 and prior in 1162, and was a friend of St Bernard, to whom some of his books are dedicated. The tendency of his mysticism has been characterized in vol. xvii. p. 132. Of his works, which embrace exegesis, moral and dogmatic subjects, and mystical contemplation, the first edition appeared at Paris in 1528, the best at Rouen in 1650.
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RICHARD I. (1157-1199), king of England, called even before his death “the Lion” or “Coeur de Lion,” was the third son of Henry II. and Eleanor of Aquitaine. He was born, probably at Oxford, on September 8, 1157. When little more than eleven years old he was invested with the duchy of Aquitaine, and imbibed in southern France the spirit of the adventurer and the troubadour which characterized him through life. In 1173 he joined the league against Henry II., but when the rebellion was suppressed in 1171 he was pardoned by his father. Shortly afterwards he was affianced to Alice, the daughter of Louis VII. The death of his brother Henry in 1184 made Richard heir to the throne. From this time he was the centre of the disturbances which troubled the last five years of Henry II.’s reign. The pretext for his quarrel with his father was the refusal of the latter to allow the barons to do fealty to Richard as heir, and Henry’s wish to transfer Aquitaine to his younger son John. War was for some time averted by the preparations for the third crusade, and Richard himself took the cross (1187). Next year, however, a quarrel between Richard and his neighbour the count of Toulouse led to the final breach. I , hilip, king of France, took advantage of this quarrel to invade Berri, whence he was driven out again by Richard, who so far was acting in concert with his father. A truce was made between the two kings, and Philip used the opportunity to separate Henry from his son. In November 1188 Richard did homage to Philip for his French provinces, and the latter demanded that Henry should acknowledge him as heir. Henry hesitated, and Richard openly joined Philip. In the spring of 1189 the allies overran Maine and Touraine, and forced Henry, in a meeting at Colombières, to ...submit to their demands. Two days later Henry died at Chinon (July G, 1189), and Richard became king of England.
Richard’s reign falls into two equal divisions—the one comprising his crusade and captivity, the other his wars against Philip in France. On his father’s death he was at once acknowledged as duke of Normandy and count of Anjou. On September 3, 1189, he was crowned with great pomp at Westminster. This is the first English coronation of which we have a full account, and the formalities then adopted have been followed with little alteration ever since. Richard at once set to work to collect funds for the crusade. He sold ecclesiastical and temporal offices, released the king of Scotland from the vassalage to which Henry II. had subjected him; and, having by these means and by taxation collected a large sum of money, he crossed to Calais on December 12. Soon afterwards he met Philip at St Remy and made a treaty with him for a joint crusade. On June 27, 1190, the two armies assembled at Vezelai, whence they marched together as far as Lyons. There Philip took the route to Genoa, while Richard went by Marseilles. Visiting Naples on the way, he landed at Messina on September 23, where he found the French army and his own fleet awaiting him. The two kings remained in Sicily during the winter. William IL, king of Sicily, husband of Richard’s sister Joanna, had died shortly before, and Tancred, nephew of William, had seized the throne. During the negotiations for the recovery of Joanna and her dowry, disturbances broke out which ended in Richard’s forcing his way into Messina at the head of his army. His real enemy was, however, not Tancred, but Philip. The natural jealousy of the two kings grew into mutual hatred during their stay in Sicily, and Tancred informed Richard of French intrigues. In March 1191 Richard made a treaty with Tancred, and recognized him as king of Sicily. At the same time he repudiated Alice, Philip’s sister, and betrothed himself to Berengaria of Navarre. Philip was the first to leave Sicily. He arrived at Acre early in April. On April 10 Richard set sail, and a month later reached Cyprus, where he married Berengaria (May 12). He then proceeded to conquer Cyprus, took Isaac Comnenus and his daughter prisoners, and set out again for the Holy Land, reaching Acre on June 8. Guy of Lusignan, who claimed the throne of Jerusalem, had besieged that fortress since 1189, but the Christian army was itself hemmed in by the forces of Saladin. Richard’s arrival encouraged the besiegers, and on July 11 Acre surrendered. The two kings now settled the dispute between Guy of Lusignan and Conrad of Montferrat about the throne of Jerusalem and on August· 3 Philip left the Holy Land. Saladin having failed to fulfil the terms on which Acre had surrendered, Richard ordered the massacre in cold blood of some three thousand Mohammedan prisoners. Soon afterwards he set out for Jaffa, and on the way thither won the battle cf Arsuf. Having rebuilt Jaffa, he started for Jerusalem. About Christmas 1191 he arrived at Beit-nûba, within sight of the Holy City, but, owing to the reluctance or desertion of his French allies, he found it impossible to besiege it, and therefore withdrew to the coast. In April 1192, at the instance of his followers, he recognized Conrad as king of Jerusalem, indemnifying Guy with the crown of Cyprus. The murder of Conrad immediately afterwards was laid, probably without sufficient ground, to the charge of Richard, who conferred the vacant throne on Henry, count of Champagne. Bad news from England now made him anxious to go home, but he resolved on one more attempt to save Jerusalem. He set out on June 4, arrived again within sight of the city, and again retired without venturing to attack. Jaffa, which had been taken by Saladin, was retaken on August 1. This was Richard’s last exploit in the East. On September 1 he made a three years’ truce with Saladin, on the basis of the status quo ; and on October 9 he sailed for home, leaving behind him a name long remembered by the Saracens, but, beyond the capture of Acre, having accomplished none of the objects with which he set out.
Fearing to go through France, Richard sailed up the Adriatic, and made his way on foot, as a pilgrim and almost alone, to Erdburg near Vienna. Here he was discovered (December 21, 1192) by Leopold, duke of Austria, of whom, while at Ascalon, he had made a bitter enemy. After being confined for some time at Dürrenstein on the Danube, he was surrendered in March 1193 to the emperor Henry VI., who imprisoned him first at Trifels and afterwards at Worms. Legend was already rife about him, but the story of his discovery by Blondel only dates from the following century, and is of French origin. In order to liberate himself, Richard resigned his crown to Henry VI. as overlord of Christendom, promised to pay a yearly tribute, and received back the crown as a vassal of the emperor. At Easter a diet was held at Spires, at which Richard was charged with various misdoings,—the recognition of Tancred, the conquest of Cyprus, the murder of Conrad, even with the betrayal of the Holy Land to Saladin. He defended himself eloquently, and the charges were dropped. Shortly afterwards a treaty was made at Worms (July 29) for Richard’s release on payment of a ransom of 150,000 marks, with other conditions. Great efforts were made in England to collect the money, two-thirds of which was paid over to Henry, hostages being given for the rest. Philip and John were able, however, by offers of money and other means, to induce the emperor to detain Richard till the following spring. At length he was liberated. On March 13, 1194, he set foot again in England. He found his dominions in great confusion owing to the intrigues of Philip and John. He rapidly made himself master of the castles which held out for John, and on April 17, 1194, he was crowned a second time. He then collected more money from the impoverished country for the rest of his ransom and for an expedition to France, and on May 12 left England again never to return. Philip retired before him; John submitted and was pardoned. For the remaining five years of his reign Richard kept up an intermittent struggle with Philip, a struggle marked by no great battles, and interrupted only by fruitless negotiations and truces which were never kept. Neither party was strong enough to inflict a severe blow upon the other. In the autumn of 1198 the war went decidedly against Philip, but in January 1199 a peace for five years was made, each side retaining what it held. Shortly afterwards Richard, while besieging the castle of Chaluz near Limoges, which was held against him by one of his vassals, was wounded by an arrow. He died on April 6, 1199, and was buried at Fontevraud. His brother John succeeded him.
In person Richard was tall, muscular, ruddy, with light brown hair. He was lavish, generous, and fearless; a skilful commander, but incapable of extensive combinations or far-reaching plans; more religious than his father or brothers, but equally vicious; a bad husband and a bad son, with much of the ferocity that characterized his race;
in fact, a typical representative of the faults as well as the virtues of the chivalry of his day. His reign was signalized by no great legal or administrative reform, and England owes him nothing but barren fame.
Chief Authorities.—Hoveden, Chronica·, Ralph de Diceto, Imagines Historiarum; Gervase of Canterbury, Chronica, &c.; Chronicles and Memorials of the Reign of Richard I.; Gesta Regis Henriei II., &c. (ascribed to Benedict of Peterborough); all the above have been edited, with most valuable prefaces, by Dr Stubbs for the Rolls Series; also William of Newburgh, Historia Rerum Anglicarum, edited for the Engl. Hist. Society by H. C. Hamilton, and for the Rolls Series by R. Howlett; Richard of Devizes, Chronieon, &c., edited for the Engl. Hist. Society by J. Stevenson; Pauli, Geschichte von England, vol. iii.; Stubbs, Early Plantagenets; Lingard, History of England, vol. ii. (G. W. P. )
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RICHARD II. (1366-1400), king of England, the only son of Edward the Black Prince and Joan of Kent, was born at Bordeaux, April 13, 1366. He succeeded to the throne on the death of his grandfather Edward III., on June 21, 1377. He was crowned on July 16. During the first eleven years of his reign, Richard was in a position of tutelage. His uncles, John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, and Thomas, duke of Gloucester, were the most influential persons in the kingdom. The evils naturally inherent in a minority were intensified by war abroad, religious and social troubles at home, the existence of a turbulent nobility, and the intrigues and rivalries which broke up the royal house. Under the incapable rule of Lancaster, the southern coasts were ravaged by French fleets, the northern frontier was harried by the Scots, and the taxes collected for national purposes were wasted or embezzled. The weakness and unpopularity of the Government produced a ferment among the lower classes, which, aggravated by the heavy taxation of 1379 and 1380, culminated in the Peasants’ Revolt of June 1381. This revolt gave Richard, then a lad of fifteen, his first opportunity of distinguishing himself. On June 14 he met the rebels at Mile End, and, by promising the abolition of villenage, induced the Essex contingent to return home. Next day he met the Kentish men at Smithfield. In the parley which followed, their leader, Wat Tyler, was killed. The mob were about to avenge his death when the young king, riding forward alone, calmed their irritation and induced them to follθλv him to Islington. Here a body of troops came to the king’s aid, but Richard prevented a conflict, and persuaded the rioters to disperse. His presence of mind, extraordinary in one so young, not only saved his own life but ...averted a general disaster. In January 1382 he married Anne of Bohemia, daughter of the emperor Charles IV. Meanwhile the influence exerted by John of Gaunt was becoming more and more irksome to him. Charges of conspiracy brought against his uncle in 1384, though denied by Lancaster, so worked upon Richard that he attempted to seize him, but a reconciliation was soon afterwards effected. In 1385 the king led an expedition to Scotland. His refusal to allow the army to penetrate beyond Edinburgh is said to have caused another quarrel with the duke of Lancaster. The efforts made by Richard to form a party of personal adherents, in opposition to his uncles, are to be seen in the elevation of De Vere to the marquisate of Dublin and of De la Pole, the chancellor, to the earldom of Suffolk. After John of Gaunt’s departure to Portugal (July 1386) the quarrel between the king’s party and the opposition headed by Gloucester came to a head. Gloucester, supported by a strong majority in parliament, demanded the dismissal of the chancellor and the treasurer, to which Richard was obliged reluctantly to consent. The blow was followed up by the appointment of a committee of government which, like the baronial committee of 1258, practically superseded the monarchy. Richard submitted, but immediately set about making plans for the recovery of his authority. In November 1387 he came to London in order to overthrow the committee, but was anticipated by Gloucester, who, with Henry of Derby and three others, “appealed,” or impeached the king’s chief adherents of high treason. The party in power always found it easy to manipulate the elections, and the parliament which met in February 1388 was altogether on the side of the “appellants.” The leaders of the king’s party were executed, banished, or imprisoned, and Gloucester won a complete triumph. He failed, however, to establish his power on a firm basis, and in May 1389 Richard threw off the yoke. On the ground that he was now of full age, he suddenly informed his council that he intended to rule alone. Gloucester made no resistance; the nation acquiesced; and Richard was at last really king.
Richard did not for some time abuse his power. The “appellants” were not punished, and even remained members of the council. William of Wykeham, however, became chancellor, and it was apparently by his advice and that of John of Gaunt, who returned to England in 1389, that Richard regulated his conduct. For eight years he ruled constitutionally. The country was at peace at home and abroad. In June 1394 the queen died. In October of the same year Richard went to Ireland and received the submission of some of the chiefs. He remained in Ireland till May 1395. Next year he concluded a twenty-five years’ truce with France, and engaged to marry Isabella, the French king’s daughter. In September 1396 he w r ent to Calais and returned with his bride, a child of eight years old. This alliance seems to have encouraged Richard to carry out a stroke of policy which he had probably long contemplated. In July 1397 he suddenly seized the “appellants,” Warwick, Arundel, and Gloucester. The parliament, which met in September, repealed the acts of 1386, and declared the “appellants” guilty of high treason. Arundel was executed, Warwick imprisoned Gloucester died, probably by violence, in prison. Next year the parliament conferred on Richard tonnage and poundage for life, and delegated their authority to a committee of eighteen, practically chosen by the king, thus making him an absolute monarch. A treasonable conversation between Hereford and Norfolk, reported by the former, gave a pretext for the banishment of both. In February 1399 John of Gaunt died, and Richard seized the Lancaster estates, thus reducing Hereford to desperation. The latter at once began to prepare to recover his inheritance, and Richard, apparently ignorant of the danger, went over to Ireland (May 29), thus leaving the kingdom open to his rival. Henry landed in Yorkshire early in July, and rapidly collected an overpowering force. Richard returned to find Henry in possession of power and himself deserted by the nation. He surrendered to Henry at Flint (August 19) and was conveyed to London. On September 29 he executed a deed by which he resigned the crown. Next day the deed was read in parliament. Formal sentence of deposition was pronounced, and Henry claimed and received the crown. A month afterwards the date king was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, and was removed to Pontefract. The conspiracy against Henry IV., which was discovered in January 1400, sealed Richard’s fate. The manner of his death is unknown, but there can be little doubt that he died by violence. He is said to have been buried at Langley, February 14, 1400.
In person Richard was slight, fair-haired, beardless, with rounded face and elegant but rather feminine features. His character, a strange mixture of strength and weakness, courage and irresolution, indolence and energy, remains an enigma to the historian. He protected Wickliffe, encouraged Chaucer, and made a serious attempt to establish an absolute monarchy. His reign, w τ hether we regard it from the religious, the political, or the social point of view, is one of very great importance, and its history has as yet been by no means fully elucidated.
Chief Authorities.—Knighton, De Eventibus Angliae, ed. Twysden in the Decern Scriptores, 1652; Walsingham, Historia Anglieana, ed. Riley (Rolls Series); Adam de Usk, Chronicon, ed. Thompson, 1876; Chronicon Angliae, by a monk of St Albans, ed. Thompson (Rolls Series); Historia Vitae et Regni Rieardi II., by a monk of Evesham, ed. Hearne, 1729; Cronicque de la traison et mort de Riehart deux, &c., ed. Williams (Engl. Hist. Society); Histoire du Roi di Angleterre Richard, ed. Webb, in Archaeok Brit., vol. xx.; Froissart, Chronicles; Stubbs, Constitutional History, vol. ii.; Pauli, Geschichte von England, vol. iv. (G. W. P. )
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RICHARD III. (1452-1485), king of England, third son of Richard, duke of York, and Cicely Nevil, was born at Fotheringay on October 2, 1452. Having been sent out of England for safety on the death of his father in 1460, he was recalled next year by his brother Edward IY., who created him duke of Gloucester and appointed him lord high admiral. He remained faithful to his brother during the latter’s reign, sharing in his flight in 1470, and aiding him on his return in the victories of Barnet and Tewkesbury. In 1474 he married Anne, daughter of the earl of Warwick and widow of Prince Edward. In 1482 he led an army into Scotland to aid the duke of Albany against James III., occupied Edinburgh and captured Berwick. On the death of Edward IV. (April 9, 1483) Richard at once made himself master of the situation by seizing Prince Edward, his nephew. Having assumed the title of Protector, he rapidly developed his plans for securing the crown. Under the pretext of a plot against his life, he seized and beheaded Hastings, Grey, and others (June 13), forced the queen mother to give up her younger son Richard, and, on June 26, 1483, assumed the crown. The children of Edward IV. were set aside on the plea that their father was illegitimate. On July 6 Richard w τ as crowned king. Shortly afterwards it was publicly reported that the sons of Edward IV. were dead; their actual fate is to the present day unknown. In October 1483 the rebellion of the duke of Buckingham was put down; the duke himself was executed on November 2. A parliament which met in January 1484 acknowledged Richard as king, in return for which he assented to an Act abolishing benevolences. His only legitimate son, Edward, died on April 9, 1484, and in March 1485 the boy was followed by his mother. To strengthen his ...position Richard had made treaties with Scotland and Brittany (1484), and he now proposed to marry his niece Elizabeth. From this course, however, he was dissuaded. His short reign was mainly occupied in preparing to resist the invasion of Henry of Richmond. L τ nable to prevent Henry’s landing (August 7, 1485), Richard met his rival in battle at Bosworth (August 22), and at the same moment lost his crown and his life.
Tradition is divided as to Richard’s personal appearance, and the story of his deformity is possibly derived from Lancastrian malignity and from a misunderstanding of his nickname Crouchback. His courage, energy, and ability would have made a great and honoured name had not those qualities been matched by extreme ferocity and unscrupulousness, and perverted to an evil use by the turbulente of the time and his own nearness to the throne.
Chief Authorities.—Fabyan, Concordance of Histories, ed. Ellis, 1811; Historia Croylandensis, ed. Fell, Quinque Scriptores, 1687; Ross, Historia Regum Angliae; Paston Letters, ed. Gairdner, 1875; Letters and Papers illustrative of the reigns of Richard III. and Henry VII., ed. Gairdner (Rolls Series); Sir T. More, Histories of Edward V. and Richard 1II., 1556; H. Walpole, Historic Doubts on Richard III., 1768; Gairdner, Life and Reign of Richard III., 1878. (G. w. P.)
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RICHARDSON Sir John (1787-1865), naturalist, was born at Dumfries on November 5, 1787, and died near Grasmere on June 5, 1865. He became a surgeon in the navy in 1807, and is known by his share in the arctic explorations of Parry and Franklin, 1819-22 and 1825-26 (see Polar Regions, vol. xix. p. 319), and in the Franklin search expedition of 1848-49 (fib., p. 321), but especially by his Fauna Boreali-Americana (1829-37, 4 vols. 4 to). He also wrote Arctic Searching Expedition (1851), and other works on the zoology of the Arctic regions. He was knighted in. 1846....
RICHARDSON Samvel (1689—1761), as the inventor or the accidental discoverer of a new literary form, the modern novel of domestic life and manners, is entitled to a more prominent place in history than his powers, whether of thought or style, would justify. He stumbled on novel writing by accident and late in life. The son of a Derbyshire joiner (born in 1689), he had been apprenticed at the age of seventeen to a London printer (Wilde of Stationers’ Hall), had spent some years as a press reader or proof corrector—not a bad position for acquiring some knowledge of literature—had married his master’s daughter, and acquired an extensive business, trying his hand occasionally in composition as a writer of prefaces and dedications to the books that he printed. When he was near the age of fifty some bookseller friends of his, struck perhaps by the excellence of his letters, had suggested to him that he should compose a “familiar letter-writer”— “a little volume of letters, in common style, on such subjects as might be of use to those country readers who were unable to indite for themselves.” Richardson improved upon the suggestion. As it happened, he had had a singular experience in the way of writing letters for others. When he was a boy of thirteen three young women λvho could not write had employed him to conduct their correspondence with their sweethearts, which he did, he tells us, much to the satisfaction of his employers and without betraying their confidence. It occurred to him, turning over the project of the booksellers in his mind, and reverting to this early experience, that he might tell a story in a series of letters which would serve equally well as models for letter-writing and at the same time cultivate the principles of virtue and religion in the minds of the youth of both sexes. Accordingly, the publication being for country readers, he chose a country girl, Pamela, in the service of a young squire Mr B. (Fielding afterwards expanded the initial to “Booby ”), and made-her relate in letters to her friends her experiences from day to day and week to week in very trying circumstances. Friends write to advise Pamela in her difficulties, and so the story is carried on with circumstantial minuteness, Pamela describing with the most careful elaboration every particular of what happens to her, and adding her own reflexions, surmises, and appeals for approbation and counsel. The natural effect of this method is that, if we have any sympathy with the heroine, we get intensely interested in her perplexities,—the very fulness of the details and the close truth to nature with which the novelist follows every turn in the girl’s thoughts compelling us to read on. This effect was fully realized in days when the voluminous moralizing was more in harmony with the general taste than it is now, and the kind of thing was new and fresh. The success of Pamela was immediate and widespread, and extended at once far beyond the circle of country cousins for whom it was designed. It is said that ladies at Ranelagh Gardens were to be seen holding up one to another their copies of Pamela to show that they had in their possession the most popular book of the day. The industrious antiquary has cast doubt upon this anecdote, pointing out that Ranelagh Gardens were not open to the public till eighteen months after Pamela had begun to run through many editions. Vauxhall, however, was open if Ranelagh was not, and the incident may have been observed there. At any rate the fact expressed by the anecdote is true enough, that the novel was at once and universally popular. Pamela, the first of one long line of novels, was published in November 1740. In January 1741 the following appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine :—“Several encomiums on a series of Familiar Letters, published but last month, entitled Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, came too late for this magazine, and we believe there will be little occasion for inserting them in our next, because a second edition will then come out to supply the demands of the country, it being judged in town as great a sign of want of curiosity not to have read Pamela as not to have seen the French and Italian Dancers.” This testimony is hardly less quaint and significant than the accredited anecdote.
It was thus that this industrious prosperous printer, a stout, rosy, vain, precise little man, carrying himself with sensitive dignity, not at all the kind of man that might have been expected to be a fashionable novelist, stumbled in the natural course of his business upon a new species of composition for which he had an unsuspected genius.
The fame of Pamela made him a great personal favourite, especially with women, of λvhose hearts and fancies he had shown a knowledge so intimate. Several ladies of quality made a pet of him, deluged him with questions and confidences, and urged him to write more. Under this flattering encouragement, the sedate author, still keeping his head and following his own plans amidst a multitude of counsellors, produced Clarissa Harlowe (1749), a model of every virtue in higher life, and Sir Charles Grandison (1753), his ideal of a perfect gentleman. Clarissa is universally acknowledged to be his masterpiece. Au anecdote was given by Macaulay which shows how entrancing the story may become to readers once fairly caught by the current of it. He took the whole eight volumes with him, when he was in India, to a hill station during the hot season, and one day lent the first volume to the governor’s wife. She read it and lent it to the governor’s secretary, and went to Macaulay for the second. Thus all the eight volumes passed from hand to hand, and for a week or more the whole station was in a ferment over the fortunes of Clarissa, the readers anxiously waiting their turn for the successive volumes. Richardson is long-winded and prolix to a degree; but that, in spite of all his faults, he had the art of interesting his own generation was abundantly proved, and apparently his greatest novel is still capable in favourable circumstances of exerting its spell.
Richardson has long received the honour of being regarded as the founder of the English novel, but of late it has been customary to go a little farther back and trace the beginnings of the novel in the papers of Addison and Steele in the Tatler and the Spectator. The novel, it is said, λvas developed, not created, by Richardson. Now this is hardly fair to the ingenious printer, if it is meant to deny him any of the credit generally given to originators of new forms in literature. It is true that the novel was developed and not created, but it is not more true of Richardson’s novel than of any other new species of composition, such as Marlowe’s tragedy, or Scott’s romantic tale, or Byron’s personal epic. All alike are not created but developed in this sense that they have strongly marked affinities with kinds of writing immediately anterior to them. Thus in the novel of manners there are two elements—there is description of ordinary character, and there is plot-interest, i.e., there is a story. Both of these elements are found in the generation before Richardson. But not in combination. It was he that combined them in his novel of manners, and therefore he is entitled to the praise of being the father of a new species of composition. There is abundance of description of manners in the Spectator and there are many delicate studies of character. And the general reader in the days of Queen Anne and of George I. had abundance of stories to choose from—tales of scandal, of crime, of high-flown romance. But it had not occurred to anybody before Richardson to make a heroine out of such a character as Jenny Simper, or a hero out of her baronet Sir Anthony Love, or a story out of incidents within the probabilities of ordinary life. The epistolary form in which his stories were cast, and which remains as a memorial of their first suggestion, was abandoned by Richardson’s first great follower and satirist, Fielding; but it was Richardson that led the way into the new field of literature. He lived long enough to see many imitators. Within twelve years of the publication of Pamela, the Monthly Review began to complain of the labour of reading the multitude of novels submitted to its judgment, and the masterpieces of Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne were produced before his death in 1761. His correspondence was published in six volumes in 1804.
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RICHELIEU Armand du Plessis, Cardinal de (1585-1642), the greatest French statesman of the 17th century. As the chief events of his life have been recorded in connexion with the sketch of his political career in the article France (vol. ix. pp. 567-570), it only remains briefly to mention here some matters of secondary importance. In the early days of his courtiership when he retired for a time to Avignon Richelieu wrote two religious works which attained to considerable popularity— Principaux points de la foy défendus contre l’escrit adresse au roy par les quatre ministres de Charenton (1617), and La méthode la plus facile et assurée de convertir ceux qui sont séparés de l’Eglise (Paris, 1651). After he became master of France, his desire for distinction as a man of letters and especially as a dramatic author led him to resort to various devices that were as undignified and ludicrous as they were high-handed and arbitrary. In the life of Corneille it has already been told how he employed “five poets” to “wash his dirty linen” (as Voltaire described the similar service he rendered to Frederick the Great), and how he attempted to revenge himself on Corneille, the greatest of the five, by causing the French Academy to pass a hostile verdict on the Cifil. Even this high treason against art may perhaps be forgiven in consideration of the practical services the cardinal rendered to the cause of literature. Les Τhuileries, La Grande Pastorale, Mirame, and the other plays, over whose fate he trembled as over the result of an embassy or a campaign, have long been forgotten; but a permanent interest attaches to his Mémoires and correspondence (though owing to his way of working with substitutes and assistants it has been a difficult task to settle how much ...of what passes under his name is authentic) :— Mémoire d ’ Armand du Plessis de Richelieu, éveque de Luçon écrit de sa main, l’année 1607 ou 1610, alors qu’il méditait de paraître à la cour, edited by Armand Baschet, 1880; L’Histoire de la Mere et du Fils, (i.e., of Mary de’ Medici and Louis XIII.), Amsterdam, 1730, extending from 1610 to 1624, frequently attributed to Mézeray; Mémoires from 1624-1638, published in Petitot’s collection (Paris, 1823); Journal de M. le Cardinal de Richelieu, 1680-1631 (Amsterdam, 1664, 2 vols.); Testament politique du Cardinal de Richelieu (Paris, 1764); Les lettres, instructions diplomatiques, et papiers d’état du Cardinal de Richelieu, collected and edited by M. Avenel, and forming five volumes of the Collection de documents inédits sur l’histoire de France (Paris, 1853-56).
Besides the older works of Aubery (1660) and Leclerc (1694) see A. Jay, Hist, du ministère de Richelieu, 1815; Capefigue, Richelieu, Mazarin, la Fronde, Ac., 1844; Caillet, L'administration en France sous Richelieu, 1860; Martineau, Le Cardinal de Richelieu, 1865; Topin, Louis XIII. et Richelieu, 1877; Sainte-Beauve, Causeries du lundi, vol. vii.
RICHELIEU Louis François Armand du Plessis, Duc de, marshal of France and grand-nephew of Cardinal Richelieu, was born in Paris, 13th March 1696, and died in the same city 8th August 1788. Besides his reputation as the most scandalous Lovelace of a scandalous age, he attained, in spite of a deplorably defective education, distinction as a diplomatist and general. As ambassador to Vienna (1725-1729) he settled in 1727 the preliminaries of peace; in 1745 he helped to gain the victory of Fontenoy; three years afterwards he made a brilliant defence of Genoa; in 1756 he expelled the English from Minorca by the capture of the San Felipe fortress; and in 1757-1758 he closed his military career by those pillaging campaigns in Hanover which procured him the sobriquet of Petit Père de la Maraude. In his early days he was thrice imprisoned in the Bastille,— in 1711 at the instance of his stepfather, in 1716 in consequence of a duel, and in 1719 for his share in Alberoni’s conspiracy against the Regent. He was thrice married: first, against his will, at the age of fourteen to Mademoiselle de Noailles; secondly, in 1734, by the intrigues (according to the witty Frenchman’s own account) of Voltaire, to Mademoiselle de Guise; and thirdly, when he was eighty-four years old, to an Irish lady. Marshal Richelieu’s Mémoires published by Soulavie in nine volumes (1790) are partially spurious.
RICHELIEU Armand Emmanuel du Plessis, Due de (born 25th September 1766, died 17th May 1822), grandson of the marshal, is remembered mainly as the enlightened and heroic governor of Odessa (1803-1813) who guided the city through the terrible years of the plague, and as the minister of foreign affairs under Louis XVIII. to whom it fell to sign the treaty of 1815. A pension of 50,000 francs, voted to him by the two chambers, he bestowed on the public charities of Bordeaux.
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RICHERUS a chronicler of the 10th century, son of Rodulf, a trusty councillor and captain of Louis IV., studied at Rheims under Gerbert, afterwards Pope Silvester II. His intimacy with this famous man gave him many opportunities of knowing the history of his time, and when Gerbert became archbishop of Rheims he charged Richerus with the task of writing a history of the Gauls. This history in four books begins with Charles the Fat and Eudes, and goes down to the year 995. From 969 onwards Richerus had no earlier history before him, and his work is the chief source for the period when the Capets superseded the Carlovingians. It was first edited in Pertz’s Monumenta Germaniae, vol. iii., and there have since been several separate editions.
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RICHMOND a town of Surrey, is situated on the south bank of the Thames, here crossed by a stone bridge of five arches, 8∣ miles west of Hyde Park Corner by road, and 9f from the Waterloo station of the South-Western Railway. The town, anciently called Syeηes and afterwards Schene and Sheen, until the name was in 1500 changed to Richmond by command of Henry VII., grew up round the royal manor house, which became a frequent residence of different sovereigns, but of which nothing more than a gateway now remains. Edward I. received the Scotch commissioners at his manor of Sheen in 1300. The palace was rebuilt by Edward III., who died there in 1377. It was frequently resided in by Richard IL, and here his wife Anne of Bohemia died, upon which he cursed the place and “caused it to be thrown down and defaced.” By Henry V. it was, however, rebuilt, and a great tournament was held at it in 1492 by Henry VII., who after its destruction by fire in 1499 restored it and named it Richmond. Henry VIII. gave it to Wolsey to reside in, after the latter presented him with the new palace of Hampton Court. James I. settled it on his son Henry, prince of Wales, who restored and embellished it at great expense. Charles I. added to it the new deer park generally known as Richmond Park, 2253 acres in extent, which is surrounded by a wall 11 miles in length. After the execution of the king, .the parliament presented the park to the citizens of London, who again presented it to Charles II. at the Restoration. Though partly dismantled, the palace was the residence of the queen dowager till 1665, and by J âmes II. it was used as a nursery for the young prince; but, gradually falling into decay, it was, about 1720, parcelled into tenements. In the old deer park extending northwards from the ...site of the palace towards Kew an observatory was erected in 1769, occupying the site of a Carthusian convent founded by Henry V., and a dwelling house in which Swift for some time resided. To the south-east of the town, at the entrance to Richmond Park, is Richmond Hill, from which is the famous view of the Thames with the surrounding country to the west. The White Lodge in Richmond Park is usually the residence of some member of the royal family. The town itself is without special interest, and consists chiefiy of one long and irregular street running north and south. The church of St Mary Magdalen is of considerable antiquity, but has been almost entirely rebuilt; it contains a large number of monuments to celebrated persons. The theatre, first established in 1719, was during his later years leased by Edmund Kean. The town has a Wesleyan theological college founded in 1834, a free public library, and public baths. The population of the urban sanitary district (area 1210 acres) in 1871 was 15,113, and in 1881 it was 19,066.
RICHMOND a borough in the North Riding of Yorkshire, is finely situated on the Swale, at the terminus of the Richmond branch of the North-Eastern Railway, 44 miles north-west of York and 15 south-west of Darlington. The interest of the town centres in the castle, said to have been founded by Alan Rufus, son of Hoel, count of Bretagne, who is also said to have rebuilt the town on his obtaining the estates of the Saxon Earl Edwin, embracing two hundred manors of Richmond and extending over nearly a third of the North Riding. When Henry VII. came to the throne these possessions reverted to the crown. Henry VIII. gave it to his son Henry by a daughter of Sir John Blount, and Charles II. bestowed the title of duke of Richmond on his son by the duchess of Portsmouth. The castle is situated on a perpendicular rock rising about 100 feet above the Swale, and from its great strength was considered inaccessible. Originally it covered an area of 5 acres, but the only portions of it now remaining are the Norman keep, with pinnacled tower and walls 100 feet high by 11 feet thick, and some other smaller towers. A portion of it is now occupied by the North York Rifles militia. The old church of St Mary, chiefly in the Gothic style, though with some traces of Norman, has been restored under the direction of Sir Gilbert Scott. For the free grammar school founded by Elizabeth a Gothic building was erected in 1850, in memory of the Rev. James Tate, a former master. The tower of the Franciscan abbey founded in 1258 still remains. The chief modern buildings are the town-hall, the masonic hall, and the workmen’s hall. The principal trade is in agricultural produce, but there are a paper mill and an iron and brass foundry. The town received its first charter from Elizabeth. Under the Municipal Corporations Act it is governed by a mayor, four aldermen, and tw r elve councillors. Up to 1885, when it ceased to be separately represented, Richmond was a parliamentary borough, returning two members till 1868, and one after that date. The population of the municipal borough (area 2520 acres) in 1871 was 4443, and in 1881 it was 4502.
RICHMOND a city of the United States, the county seat of Wayne county, Indiana, is situated in a fine agricultural region on the east branch of the White Water River (a sub-tributary of the Ohio), 68 miles east of Indianapolis. It is an important railway junction, has a city park 135 acres in extent, manufactures machinery, agricultural implements, &c., and contains a public library (15,000 volumes), a museum, two theatres, and two educational institutions (Earlham College, 1859) belonging to the Society of Friends, which is strongly represented in the city. The population was 9445 in 1870, and 12,742 in 1880. The city obtained its charter in 1845.
RICHMOND a city of the United States, the capital of Virginia, is situated in Henrico county, on the north side of the James River, at the point where the lower falls (100 feet in 6 miles) mark the limit of the tide ascending from Chesapeake Bay. On the other side of the river, and in the county of Chesterfield, but connected with Richmond by bridges, is Manchester. By rail the city is 116 miles south-south-west of Washington. At mean high tides vessels drawing 14 feet of water can come up to Rocketts, as the lower district is called. The town proper occupies a group of hills—Gamble’s Hill, Shockoe Hill, Church Hill, &c.—and looks down over the river, from which it is separated by a strip of flat ground. Main Street is a typical street after the old Southern style, the large portion burned in 1865 having been rebuilt in keeping with the remnant that escaped. By far the most conspicuous edifice in the city is the Capitol, on the summit of Shockoe Hill, designed by Thomas Jefferson, after the Maison Carrée of Nîmes. Beneath the dome of the central hall stands Houdon’s marble life-size statue of Washington in the uniform of a pre-Revolutionary American general, and in the esplanade near the west gates of Capitol Square is Crawford’s famous bronze equestrian statue of the same hero (1858), surrounded by bronze figures of Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, George Mason, Thomas Nelson, and Andrew Lewis. North of the Capitol stands Foley’s bronze statue of General “Stonewall” Jackson, the gift of English admirers of that great Confederate leader. A governor’s house, a State penitentiary, a custom-house and post office, a city-hall and almshouse, and two market-houses are among the principal public buildings. Libby prison, in which thousands of Federal prisoners were confined during the Civil War, was originally a disused tobacco factory, and is now scarcely distinguishable from the other dilapidated brick warehouses in its vicinity. St John’s Episcopal church on Church Hill was, in 1775, the meeting-place of the Virginia convention to which Patrick Henry addressed his famous “Give me liberty or give me death,” and in 1788 of another convention summoned to discuss the ratification of the Federal Constitution. Monumental Church (Episcopal) commemorates the disastrous burning in 1811 of the theatre which then occupied the site. The State Library, the Virginia Historical Society, Southern Historical Society, Richmond College, and the Medical College (1838) are institutions of note. Holywood Cemetery, occupying a district of great natural beauty to the west of the city, contains the graves of thousands of Confederate soldiers and the monuments of President Monroe and General J. E. B. Stuart, and the Confederate soldiers’ monument. Previous to the Civil War Richmond was the commercial capital of the South and a great entrepot for the produce of the Southern States, Cuba, South America, and Great Britain. Its clipper ships made fast voyages to the Pacific for tea, silk, and other Eastern wares. Its auction sales (monthly or even fortnightly) drew buyers from every part of the Union, even from the northern cities which now supply it with the very commodities they then visited it to purchase. When the war was over Richmond was without ships, merchants, or capital. The tea trade had gone to London, the South-American to New York and Boston, In recent years, however, a new period of commercial prosperity appears to have set in, and, while several of the old sources of wealth have disappeared, the city still remains the natural centre of some of the principal trades of the South. Before the war more tobacco was sold in Richmond than perhaps in any city of the Union (fifty-six manufacturers were numbered in 1857), and this still remains an important staple. The flour trade is also of great extent. There are a large number of iron works, including those of the Tredegar Company; and granite quarries are worked in the vicinity of the city. In 1857 the real estate of Richmond was assessed at $18,259,816, and the personal property at $10,287,278. By 1885 the corresponding figures were $34,502,903 and $15,000,000. The city is the owner of both gas and water works. The population, which was only 5737 in the beginning of the century, has increased as follows:—9785 in 1810; 12,067 in 1820; 16,060 in 1830; 20,153 in 1840; 27,570 in 1850; 37,910 in 1860; 51,038 in 1870; 63,600 in 1880 (27,832 coloured).
The first settlement on part of the site of Richmond is said to date from 1609; and Fort Charles was erected as a defence against the Indians in 1644-45. But the real origin of the town, which was incorporated in 1745, was Byrd’s warehouse, erected by Colonel William Byrd in the close of the 17th century. It was still a small village when in 1779 it was made the capital of the State of Virginia. From May 1861 till April 1865, when it was occupied by the Federal army, Richmond was the seat of government of the
Confederate States. On the capture of Petersburg by General Grant the Confederate leaders thought it impossible to hold the city, in spite of the strength of its fortifications; and Ewell, who commanded the rear-guard of the retreating army, set the great tobacco factories and Hour-mills and the arsenal on fire; the conflagration lasted till the evening of the following day. In September 1870 part of the city was laid under water by the floods of the James river.
RICHMOND Legh (1772-1827), writer of tracts, was born 29th January 1772 at Liverpool, where his father was a physician. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1794 and M.A. in 1797. In 1798 he was appointed to the joint curacies of Brading and Yaverland in the Isle of Wight. Through the perusal of Wilberforce’s Practical View an evangelical bias was given to his mind, which led him to devote himself with great earnestness to the reclamation of the masses. He took a prominent interest in the British and Foreign Bible Society, the Church Missionary Society, and various other institutions of a similar kind. In 1805 he became chaplain to the Lock Hospital, London, and in the same year was presented to the rectory of Turvey, Bedfordshire, where he remained till his death, 8th May 1827. He was also appointed chaplain to the duke of Kent. The best known of the tracts of Legh Richmond is the Dairymanhs Daughter, of which as many as four millions in nineteen languages were circulated before 1849. A collected edition of his tracts was first published in 1814 under the title of Annals of the Poor. He was also the author of Domestic Portraiture, and Memoirs of his Three Children·, and he edited a series of the Fathers of the English Church.
See Memoirs by Grimshawe, 1828; Life by Bedell, 1829.
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RICHTER Ernst Friedrich Eduard (1808-1879), writer on musical theory and composition, was born at Grosschönau in Saxony, on October 24, 1808. He first studied music at Zittau, and afterwards at Leipsic, where he attained so high a reputation that in 1843 he was appointed professor of harmony and counterpoint at the conservatorium of music, then newly founded by Mendelssohn. On the death of Hauptmann, January 3, 1868, he was elected cantor of the Thomasschule, which office he retained until his death, April 9, 1879. He is best known by three theoretical works — Lehrbτwh der Harmonie, Lehre vom Contrapunct, and Lehre von der Fuge— originally written for the use of his pupils at the Conservatorium, but now everywhere accepted as valuable text-books, and well known to English students through the excellent translation by Mr Franklin Taylor....
RICHTER Johann Paul Friedrich (1763-1825), usually called Jean Paul, the greatest German humorist, was born at Wunsiedel, in Bavaria, on the 21st March 1763. His father was a schoolmaster and organist at Wunsiedel, but in 1765 he became a pastor at Joditz, and in 1776 at Schwarzenbach, where he died in 1779. Having attended the gymnasium at Hof for two years, Richter went in 1780 to the university of Leipsic. His original intention was to enter his father’s profession, but theology did not interest him, and he soon devoted himself wholly to the study of literature. Unable to maintain himself at Leipsic, he secretly left it in 1784 and lived with his mother at Hof. From 1787 to 1789 he served as a tutor at Töpen, a village near Hof; and afterwards he taught the children of several families at Schwarzenbach. During all these years he had to struggle with extreme poverty, but he never lost the buoyancy of his temper, nor did he doubt for a moment that his genius would in the end be generally recognized. His hardships left no trace of bitterness on his frank and manly spirit.
Richter began his career as a man of letters by writing the Gronldndisehe Processe and Auswahl aus des Teufels
Papieren, the former of which was issued in 1783-84, the latter in 1789. These works were not received with much favour, and in later life Richter himself had little sympathy with their satirical tone. His next book, Die Unsichtbare Loge, a romance, published in 1793, had all the qualities which were soon to make him famous, and its power was immediately recognized by some of the best critics of the day. Soon after the appearance of this book he abandoned his work at Schwarzenbach, and lived again with his mother at Hof, occasionally paying long visits to a friend at Baireuth. Encouraged by the reception of Die Unsichtbare Loge, he sent forth in rapid succession Hesperus (1794), Biographische Belustigungen unter der Gehirnschale einer Riesin (1796), Leben des Quintus Fixlein (1796), Blumen-, Frucht-, und Dornenstikke, oder Ehestand, Tod, und Hochzeit des Armenadvocaten Siebenkas (1796-97), Der Jubelsenior (1797), and Das Kampaner Thal (1798). This series of writings secured for Richter a great place in German literature, and during the rest of his life every work he produced was welcomed by a wide circle of admirers.
After his mother’s death he went in 1797 to Leipsic, and in the following year to Weimar, where he had much pleasant intercourse with Herder, by whom he was warmly appreciated. He did not become intimate with Goethe and Schiller, to both of whom his literary methods were repugnant; but in Weimar as elsewhere his remarkable conversational powers and his genial manners made him a favourite in general society. He was especially liked by women, and Frau von Kalb, who has also a place in the biography of Schiller, even offered to obtain a divorce in order to marry him. In 1801, however, he married Caroline Mayer, a bright, accomplished, and amiable lady whom he met in Berlin in 1800. They lived first at Meiningen, then at Coburg; and finally, in 1804, they settled at Baireuth. Here Richter spent a quiet, simple, and happy life, constantly occupied with his work as a writer. In 1808 he was fortunately delivered from anxiety as to outward necessities by the kindness of the prince primate, who gave him a pension of a thousand florins. Before settling at Baireuth, Richter had published Das heimliche Klaglied der jetzigen Männer (1801), and Titan (1800-3); and these were followed by Flegeljahre (1804-5). Titan and Flegeljahre he regarded as his masterpieces, and this judgment has been confirmed by posterity. His later imaginative works were Dr Katzen-bergeds Badereise (1809), Des Feldpredigers Schmelze Reise nach Flatz (1809), Leben Fibels (1812), and Der Komet, oder Nikolaus Marggraf (1820-22). In Vorschule der Aesthetik (1804) he expounded his ideas on art; he discussed the principles of education in Levana, oder Erziehungslehre (1807); and the opinions suggested by current events he set forth in Friedenspredigt (1808), Dämmerungen für Deutschland (1809), Mars und PEobus Thronwechsel im J. 18lj (1814), and Politische Fastenpredigten (1817). In his last years he began Wahrheit aus Jean Paul's Leben, to which additions from his papers and other sources were made after his death by C. Otto and E. Förster. In 1821 Richter lost his only son, a youth of the highest promise; and he never quite recovered from this shock. He died of dropsy on the 14th November 1825.
Schiller said of Richter that he would have been worthy of admiration “if he had made as good use of his riches as other men made of their poverty.” And it is true that in the form of his writings he never did full justice to his great powers. In working out his conceptions he found it impossible to restrain the expression of any powerful feeling by which he might happen to be moved. He was equally unable to resist the temptation to bring in strange facts or notions which occurred to him; and of such facts and notions he had a vast store, for he was an omnivorous reader, and forgot nothing that had ever touched his fancy or awakened his sympathies. Hence every one of his works is irregular in structure, and in some of them it is hard to detect the governing idea by which the relation of the parts to the whole is supposed to be controlled. His style, too, lacks directness, precision, and grace. With the main idea of a sentence he almost invariably associates a crowd of subordinate ideas; and they are often grouped in an order so capricious and so fantastic that the meaning can be made out only by the closest study. The splendour of Richter’s genius, however, makes it easy for the class of readers to whom he appeals to forgive even these grave defects. His imagination was one of extraordinary fertility, and he had a surprising power of suggesting great thoughts by means of the simplest incidents and relations. No German prose writer has presented more fascinating pictures of childhood and youth, of friendship and love; nor has any one shown more finely how sordid circumstances may evoke the noblest qualities of loyal and generous minds. The love of nature was one of Richter’s deepest pleasures, and he communicates his own delight in its beauty by many a description glowing with all the colour and the radiance of the real world. His expressions of religious feelings are also marked by a truly poetic spirit, for to Richter visible things were but the symbols of the invisible, and in the unseen realities alone he found elements which seemed to him to give significance and dignity to human life. His humour, the most distinctive of his qualities, cannot be dissociated from the other characteristics of his writings. It mingled with all his thoughts, and to some extent determined the form in which he embodied even his most serious reflections. That it is sometimes extravagant and grotesque cannot be disputed, but it is never harsh nor vulgar, and generally it springs naturally from the perception of the incongruity between ordinary facts and ideal laws. There are works of imaginative genius which we may read and enjoy without necessarily thinking of the author. The writer may reflect nature with so much fidelity that at first sight no element may seem to be imported into his conceptions from his personal peculiarities. But we appear always to see Richter’s face and to hear his voice behind the printed page; and his creations are true and suggestive only in so far as they are (manifestations of his own inward life. This means, of course, that his genius was not in any important sense dramatic, and that he was much more closely akin to the romantic than to the classic school; but it does not imply that his works produce a monotonous impression. Richter’s personality was so deep and many-sided that in every new book he had some fresh secret to disclose. And the more he is known through his unconscious selfrevelation the more he is loved and honoured; for we soon learn that with all his wilfulness and eccentricity he was a man of a pure and sensitive spirit, with a passionate scorn for pretence and an ardent enthusiasm for truth and goodness.
In 1826-38 a complete edition of Richter's works was published in sixty-five volumes, including several posthumous works. The second edition (1840-42) was in thirty-three volumes, the third (1860-63) in thirty-four. There are also a good many volumes of Richter's correspondence. See Döring, Leben und Charakteristik Richters (1826); Kunz, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter (1839); and Nerrlich, Jean Paul und seine Zeitgenossen (1876). There are two admirable articles on Richter in Carlyle’s Miscellanies.
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