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 fluent speaker, more eloquent, perhaps, in Welsh than in English, but forcible in both. ‘He was the first real exponent in the House of Commons of the puritan and progressive life of Wales, and he expounded the principles which nonconformity has breathed into the very heart and life of the Welsh people’ (Letter of Mr. Thomas Ellis, M.P., in Cymru Fydd for October 1888). His friendship with Cobden is attested by the fact that the latter's widow requested Richard to write a biography of her husband. He ‘sifted and arranged much of the correspondence,’ but the work was finally entrusted to Mr. John Morley, who, in his preface to ‘The Life of Richard Cobden’ (London, 1881), acknowledges the value of Richard's preparatory work. Perhaps his best literary work is his ‘Letters on Wales,’ which is written in a clear, forcible style. In addition to the works already mentioned, as well as his speeches, many of which were published separately, and ephemeral pamphlets, he was author of:
 * 1) ‘The Effects of the Civil War in England on the National Liberties, Morality, and Religion,’ London, 1862, 8vo.
 * 2) ‘The Destruction of Kagosima and our intercourse with Japan,’ London, 1863, 12mo; 2nd ed. same year, 8vo.
 * 3) ‘Memoirs of Joseph Sturge,’ London, 1864, 8vo.
 * 4) ‘On Standing Armies and their Influence on Nations,’ London, 1868, 8vo.
 * 5) ‘The Recent Progress of International Arbitration,’ London, 1884, 8vo.



RICHARDS, ALFRED BATE (1820–1876), dramatist, journalist, and a chief promoter of the volunteer movement of 1859, was born on 17 Feb. 1820 at Baskerville House, Worcestershire, where his father was then residing. He was eldest son of John Richards, esq., of Wassell Grove near Stourbridge, in that county, who was M.P. for Knaresborough in the West Riding of Yorkshire from 1832 to 1837. Alfred was educated at the Edinburgh high school and Westminster School, where he was admitted on 18 Jan. 1831. He matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, on 19 Oct. 1837, and entered his name as a law student at Lincoln's Inn on 16 May 1839. He graduated B.A. in 1841, and on 18 Nov. brought out an anonymous pamphlet entitled ‘Oxford Unmasked,’ in which he denounced abuses in the organisation of the university, which were afterwards removed by parliament. This brochure rapidly passed through five editions. On its authorship becoming known, Richards deemed it prudent to close his academic career and move to London. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn on 20 Nov. 1845, and for a brief time he went on circuit, but soon devoted himself entirely to literature. His maiden work, published in 1845, was a five-act tragedy called ‘Crœsus, King of Lydia.’ Four other five-act dramas followed—namely, ‘Runnymede’ in 1846, ‘Cromwell’ in 1847, ‘Isolda, or Good King Stephen’ in 1848, and ‘Vandyck, a Play of Genoa,’ in 1850. In 1846 there appeared his first volume of poems, called ‘Death and the Magdalen,’ and in 1848 another, entitled ‘The Dream of the Soul.’

From 1848 to 1850 he gained his earliest experience as a journalist by editing a weekly newspaper named ‘The British Army Despatch.’ Of patriotic temperament and strongly opposed to the Manchester school of politicians, he issued in 1848, in the form of a letter addressed to Richard Cobden, a fierce denunciation of the peace-at-any-price party, under the title of ‘Cobden and his Pamphlet considered,’ as well as a volume called ‘Britain Redeemed and Canada Preserved,’ in which he foreshadowed, some thirty years before its actual construction, the interoceanic railway between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

On 3 Aug. 1850 he started a new weekly journal called ‘The Mirror of the Time,’ which lasted only a year. His chief contributions to it he reissued under the titles of ‘Poems, Essays, and Opinions’ (2 vols.), and ‘Essays and Opinions’ (2 vols.). During the Crimean war he brought out, in 1854, a collection of lyrics called ‘The Minstrelsy of War.’ From 29 June to 31 Dec. 1855 he held the office of first editor of the ‘Daily Telegraph.’

Already Richards had advocated at every opportunity the enrolling of rifle corps throughout the three kingdoms as a precaution against invasion; and, when editor of the ‘Daily Telegraph,’ he brought the subject prominently into public notice. In 1858 he was appointed secretary of the National and Constitutional Defence Association, which was formed to give effect to the scheme. A public meeting was held, through his energy, in St. Martin's Hall, Long Acre, on 16 April 1859; Admiral Sir Charles Napier