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 print, because it would have hindred his Practice,’ London, 1669, 12mo. The sixth edition of this work was published in 1713, the fifteenth in 1750, the nineteenth in 1775, and the twentieth at Leeds in 1792. Among Rich's editors or ‘improvers’ were William Addy, Samuel Botley, Nathaniel Stringer, and Philip Doddridge, who made the study of the system obligatory in his theological academy at Northampton [see art. ]. John Locke was among the admirers of Rich's shorthand, which has had a very wide vogue.

Rich's tiny volume of the Psalms in metre, written in stenographic characters, was published in 1659, and the companion volume, the New Testament, appeared in the same year, with the names of many of his patrons.

Rich's portrait was engraved by Cross.

[Athenæum, 4 and 18 Sept. and 27 Nov. 1880; Biogr. Brit. (Kippis), i. 538 n.; Bromley's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, p. 107; Gibbs's Hist. Account of Compendious and Swift Writing, p. 45; Gibson's Bibliography of Shorthand; Granger's Biogr. Hist. of England, 5th ed. iv. 77; Journalist, 1 April 1887, p. 397; Levy's Hist. of Shorthand; Lewis's Hist. of Shorthand, p. 69; Notes and Queries, 5th ser. vi. 7, 115; Pocknell's Legible Shorthand, p. 75; Rockwell's Teaching, Practice, and Literature of Shorthand.] 

RICH, JOHN (1682?–1761), pantomimist and theatrical manager, the son of Christopher Rich [q. v.], is said to have been born about 1682. On the death of his father, on 4 Nov. 1714, Rich, with his brother Christopher Mosyer Rich, came into possession of the new theatre, then all but completed, in Lincoln's Inn Fields. This edifice he opened on 18 Dec., coming forward dressed in mourning to speak an elegiacal prologue (cf., New History of the English Stage, ii. 388). The piece given was the ‘Recruiting Officer’ of Farquhar, John Leigh from Ireland making his first appearance as Captain Plume. The remainder of the cast is unknown. Rich's company consisted, however, of seceders from Drury Lane, Keen, the Bullocks, Pack, Spiller, Griffin, Mrs. Rogers, Mrs. Kent, Mrs. Cross, and others, who seem, on joining him, to have run a risk of being silenced by the lord chamberlain; the latter's interference in the theatres was at the time equally arbitrary and tyrannical. The company was announced as playing under letters patent granted by Charles II. In 1715, as Essex in Banks's ‘Unhappy Favourite,’ Rich made his appearance as a tragedian, a line he soon abandoned.

No special feature distinguished at the outset Rich's management. His theatre was large, and had a large stage, gorgeously furnished with mirrors. The opening receipts were 143l., a sum rarely exceeded during the season. Shorn as it was of some of its best actors, Drury Lane, under the admirable management of Colley Cibber, Booth, and Wilks, still possessed the more capable company, and the new theatre held a secondary place in public estimation. Rich accordingly began in 1716 to give entertainments in the Italian style, which speedily developed into pantomime. On 22 April the performance of the ‘Cheats’ was followed by that of a piece unnamed, of which the characters only are given. These consist of Harlequin by Lun, Punch by Shaw, and Scaramouch by Thurmond. Lun was the name under which in pantomime Rich invariably appeared.

Rich is thus to be credited with the invention of what in England has, under changing conditions, been known as pantomime. Davies says, concerning these entertainments: ‘By the help of gay scenes, fine habits, grand dances, appropriate music, and other decorations, he exhibited a story from Ovid's “Metamorphoses,” or some other fabulous writer. Between the pauses or acts of this serious representation he interwove a comic fable consisting chiefly of the courtship of Harlequin and Columbine, with a variety of surprising adventures and tricks which were produced by the magic wand of Harlequin, such as the sudden transformation of palaces and temples to huts and cottages, of men and women into wheel-barrows and joint-stools’ (Life of Garrick, i. 130). Rich himself invariably played Harlequin. From 1717 to 1760, the year before his death, Rich produced a pantomime annually. Few failed of success, most of them running forty or fifty nights consecutively; Drury Lane, put on the defensive, was obliged reluctantly to follow the example set at Lincoln's Inn Fields.

Rich's management continued on the whole eminently successful. In the season of 1718–1719 the ‘Two Harlequins’ (from the French of Lenoble) was acted by a French company at Lincoln's Inn Fields, and printed in English and French in 1718. ‘The Fair of St. Germain’ (‘La Foire de St. Germain’ of Boursault), translated by John Ozell [q. v.], was given under similar conditions. On 1 Feb. 1721, during the performance of ‘Macbeth,’ a disturbance took place. Rich politely expressed his intention to stop a drunken earl who sought to cross the stage while the play was in progress, and received a box on the ears which he promptly re-