Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 48.djvu/267

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Richword
261
Rickards

third time member, but in 1828 was only an associate exhibitor. From 1829 until his death he was both a member and a frequent exhibitor. His subjects were mainly figures of a domestic nature, or scenes from Shakespeare, ‘Don Quixote,’ and the like, which he contributed to the annuals then in vogue. His paintings, which were executed in both oil and water colours, had great popularity, and many of them were engraved. They were exhibited under such titles as ‘The Brute of a Husband,’ ‘The Gamester,’ ‘The School in an Uproar,’ and ‘A Logician's Effigy.’

Richter was a student of metaphysical philosophy, a devoted disciple of Kant, and an intimate friend of William Blake. He wrote part of the article on ‘Metaphysics’ in the ‘Encyclopædia Londinensis,’ published a paper on ‘German Transcendentalism’ in 1855, and was engaged on translating a metaphysical work by Beck at the time of his death. In 1817 he published a curious work, entitled ‘Daylight, a recent Discovery in the Art of Painting, with Hints on the Philosophy of the Fine Arts, and on that of the Human Mind, as first dissected by Emmanuel Kant;’ an octavo pamphlet of sixty-four pages, fifty-two of which are explanatory notes.

Richter died at Lisson Grove, London, on 8 April 1857, aged 85.

[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Roget's Hist. of the ‘Old’ Watercolour Soc.; Graves's Dict. of Artists, 1760–1893; information from G. Milner-Gibson-Cullum, esq., F.S.A.]

L. C.

RICHWORD, WILLIAM (d. 1637), jesuit. [See Rushworth.]


RICKARDS, Sir GEORGE KETTILBY (1812–1889), political economist, born in London on 24 Jan. 1812, was the eldest son of George Rickards of Ripley, Surrey, by Frances, daughter of the Rev. Samuel Kettilby, D.D. On 10 July 1823 he was admitted at Westminster School, but left in 1824 for Eton. He matriculated from Balliol College, Oxford, on 6 April 1829, but was elected scholar of Trinity in the same year. He obtained the Newdigate prize in 1830 with a poem on the ‘African Desert,’ graduated B.A. in 1833, taking a second-class in classics, and proceeded M.A. in 1836. From 1836 to 1843 he was a fellow of Queen's College. In 1837 he was called to the bar of the Inner Temple, and in 1873 was elected a bencher. In 1851 he was appointed counsel to the speaker of the House of Commons, and was made K.C.B. on resigning that post in 1882. Elected Drummond professor of political economy at Oxford in 1851, he held the chair till 1857. He made little mark in a professorial capacity, but published three general lectures on his subject in a volume in 1852, and a course on population and labour in 1854. For the last seven years of his life he resided at Fyfield House, Oxford. He died suddenly at Hawkley Hurst, Hampshire, on 23 Sept. 1889. He was twice married: first, in 1842, to Frances Phoebe, daughter of the Rev. John Henry George Lefroy of Ewshott House, Hampshire, who died in 1859; and, secondly, in 1861, to Julia Cassandra (d. 1884), daughter of the Rev. Benjamin Lefroy, rector of Ashe, Hampshire.

Rickards was the author of: 1. ‘Remarks on the Laws relating to Attempts against the Person of the Sovereign,’ London, 1842, 8vo. 2. ‘The Financial Policy of War,’ London, 1855, 8vo. 3. ‘The House of Commons, its Struggles and Triumphs: a Lecture,’ London, 1856, 8vo. He translated into blank verse Virgil's ‘Æneid,’ bks. i.–vi. (1871), and bk. xi. (1872); contributed an essay on ‘Church Finance’ to Halcombe's ‘The Church and her Curates,’ London, 1874, 8vo; and assisted to edit the ‘Statutes at Large’ in 1857 and following years.

[Register of Westminster School, ed. Barker and Stenning; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886, and Men at the Bar, p. 392; Times, 24 Sept. 1889; Brit. Mus. Cat.]

E. I. C.

RICKARDS, SAMUEL (1796–1865), divine, son of Thomas Rickards of Leicester, was born in 1796. He matriculated from Oriel College, Oxford, on 28 Jan. 1813, graduating B.A. in 1817 and M.A. in 1820. He was a fellow there from 16 April 1819 to 6 Oct. 1822, being contemporary with John Keble [q. v.] and other leaders of the ritualistic movement. He was Newdigate prizeman, 1815, writing on the ‘Temple of Theseus,’ and English essayist, 1819, writing on ‘Characteristic Differences of Greek and Latin Poetry.’ From 1822 to 1832 he was the curate in charge of Ulcombe, Kent. J. H. Newman, while on a visit to him in September 1826, wrote his well-known verses, ‘Nature and Art,’ and, during a second visit in October 1827, ‘Snapdragon, a Riddle.’ In 1832 he was presented by a college friend, Henry Wilson, to the rectory of Stowlangtoft, Suffolk, where he passed the remainder of his life.

At an early period he parted company with the Oxford movement, and wrote expostulatory and warning letters to Keble and Newman. He was instrumental in the publication of Keble's ‘Christian Year,’ a duplicate manuscript copy of which was lent to him by Keble, and, when Keble's own copy was lost in Wales, this was printed. To