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 RICH, CLAUDIUS JAMES (1787–1821), English traveller and scholar, was born near Dijon on the 28th of March 1787. His youth was spent at Bristol. He early developed a gift for languages, becoming familiar not only with Latin and Greek but also with Hebrew, Syriac, Persian, Turkish and other Eastern tongues. In 1804 Rich went to Constantinople, where, and at Smyrna, he stayed some time, perfecting himself in Turkish. 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 travelled 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 Bagdad as resident. There he began his investigations into the geography, history and antiquities of the district. He explored the remains of Babylon, and projected a geographical and statistical account of the pashalic of Bagdad. The results of his work at Babylon appeared first in the Vienna serial Mines de l’orient, and in 1815 in England, under the title Narrative of a Journey to the Site of Babylon in 1811. In 1813–14 Rich spent some time in Europe, and on his return to Bagdad devoted himself to the study of the geography of Asia Minor, and collected much information in Syrian and Chaldaean convents concerning the Yezidis. During this period he made a second excursion to Babylon, and in 1820 undertook an extensive tour to Kurdistan—from Bagdad north to Sulimania, eastward to Sinna, then west to Nineveh, and thence down the Tigris to Bagdad. The narrative of this journey, which contained the first accurate knowledge (from scientific observation) regarding the topography and geography of the region, was published by his widow under the title, Narrative of a Residence in Koordistan and on the site of Ancient Nineveh, &c. (London, 1836). In 1821 Rich went to Basora, whence he made an excursion to Shiraz, visiting the ruins of Persepolis and the other remains in the neighbourhood. At Shiraz he died of cholera on the 5th of October 1821. His fine collections of manuscripts and coins was purchased by the British Museum.

RICH, JOHN (1692–1761), English actor, the “father of English pantomime, ” was the son of Christopher Rich (d. 1714), the manager of Drury Lane, with whose quarrels and tyrannies Colley Cibber’s Apology is much occupied. John Rich opened the new theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields left unfinished”by his father, and here, in 1716, under the stage name of Lun, he first appeared as Harlequin in an unnamed entertainment which developed into an annual (q.v.). By this departure he made successful headway in his competition with the stronger company at Drury Lane, including Cibber, Wilks and Booth. Rich was less happy in his management of Covent Garden, which he opened in 1733, until Garrick’s arrival (1746), when a most prosperous season ensued, followed by a bad one when Garrick went to Drury Lane. During Rich’s management occurred the rival performances of Romeo and Juliet—Barry and Mrs Cibber at Covent Garden, and Garrick and Miss Bellamy at Drury Lane—and the subsequent competition between the two rival actors in King Lear. Rich died on the 26th of November 1761. Garrick’s lines show that his acting was pantomime pure and simple, without words:—

RICH, PENELOPE, (c. 1562–1607), the Stella of Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella, was the daughter of Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex. She was a child of fourteen when Sir Philip Sidney accompanied the queen on a visit to Lady Essex in 1576, on her way from Kenilworth, and must have been frequently thrown into the society of Sidney, in consequence of the many ties between the two families. Essex died at Dublin in September 15761 He had sent a message to Philip Sidney from his death-bed expressing his desire that he should marry his daughter, and later his secretary wrote to the young man’s father, Sir Henry Sidney, in words which seem to point to the existence of a very definite understanding. Penelope’s great-grandmother was a sister of Anne Boleyn, and she and her brother Robert were therefore distantly connected with Elizabeth. Perhaps the marriage of Lady Essex with the earl of Leicester, which destroyed Sidney’s prospects as his uncle’s heir, had something to do with the breaking off of the proposed match with Penelope. Her relative and guardian, Henry Hastings, earl of Huntingdon, secured Burghley’s assent in March 1581 for her marriage with Robert Rich, 3rd Baron Rich. Penelope is said to have protested in vain against the alliance with Rich, who is represented as a rough and overbearing husband. The evidence against him is, however, chiefly derived from sources as interested as Sir Philip Sidney’s violent denunciation in the twenty-fourth sonnet of Astrophel and Stella, “Rich fooles there be whose base and filthy hart.” Sidney’s serious love for Penelope appears to date from her marriage with Rich. The earlier sonnets are in praise of her beauty, or treat of the conventional topic of the struggle between reason and love, while the later ones are marked by unmistakable passion. The eighth song of Astrophel and Stella narrates Stella’s refusal to accept Sidney as a lover. Lady Rich was the mother of six children by her husband when she contracted in 1595 an open liaison with Charles Blount, 8th Lord Mountjoy, a brilliant courtier and favourite of Elizabeth, to whom she had long been attached. Rich took no steps against his wife during her brother’s lifetime, and she nursed him through an illness in 1600, but they obtained a legal separation in 1601, and Mountjoy acknowledged her five children born after 1595. Mountjoy was created earl of Devonshire on the accession of James I., and Lady Rich was in high favour at court. In 1605, however, they legitimized their connexion by a marriage celebrated by William Laud, the earl’s chaplain. This proceeding, carried out in defiance of canon law, was followed by the disgrace of both parties, who were banished from court. Devonshire died on the 3rd of April 1606, and his wife within a year of that date. Her eldest son by Lord Rich, who became earl of Warwick in 1618, was Robert Rich, 2nd earl of Warwick (1587–1658). The second, Henry Rich, earl of Holland, was beheaded in 1649 for his share in the second Civil War. Her eldest son by Mountjoy, Mountjoy Blount, Baron Mountjoy and earl of Newport (c. 1597–1665) also figured in the Civil War.

RICH, RICHARD (fl. 1610), English soldier and adventurer, the author of Newes from Virginia, sailed from England on the 2nd of June 1609 for Virginia, with Captain Christopher Newport and the three commissioners entrusted with the foundation of the new colony. In his verse pamphlet he relates the adventures undergone by the expedition, and describes the resources of the new country, with the advantages offered to colonists. The title runs: ''Newes from Virginia. The lost Flocke Triumphant. With the happy Arrivall of that famous and worthy Knight Sr. Thomas Gates: and the well reputed and valiant Captaine Mr Christopher Newport, and others, into England. With the maner of their distresse in the Iland of Devils (otherwise called Bermoothawes), where they remayned 42 weeks, and builded two Pynaces, in which they returned into Virginia.'' By R. Rich, Gent., one of the Voyage (1610).” The only known copy of this tract is in the Huth Library. A reprint edited by J. O. Halliwell-Phillips appeared in 1865 (another ed., 1874). The adventures related by Rich are supposed to have been in Shakespeare's mind when he wrote The Tempest. Another tract by Rich mentioned in the Stationers’ Register, Good Speed to Virginia, is unknown.