RICHARDSON, SAMUEL (1689-1761).—­Novelist, s. of a joiner, was b. at Derby.  His f. had intended him for the Church, but means failed, and at the age of 17 he went to London, and was apprenticed to a printer.  Careful and diligent, he prospered in business, became printer of the Journals of the House of Commons, and in the year before his death purchased the moiety of the patent of King’s Printer.  He was twice m., and each of his wives brought him six children, of whom, however, only four daughters were living at his death.  R., who was the originator of the modern novel, did not take seriously to literature until he was past 50 when, in 1740, Pamela appeared.  It originated in a proposal by two printers that R. should write a collection of model letters for the use of persons unaccustomed to correspondence, but it soon developed in his hands into a novel in which the story is carried on in the form of a correspondence.  With faults and absurdities, it struck a true note of sentiment, and exploded the prevalent idea that dukes and princesses were the only suitable heroes and heroines (Pamela was a maid-servant), and it won immediate and phenomenal popularity.  In 1748 Clarissa Harlow, his masterpiece, was pub., and in 1753 Sir Charles Grandison, in which the author embodies his ideal of a Christian gentleman.  All these surfer from an elaboration of detail which often becomes tedious; but in deep acquaintance with the motives of conduct, and especially of the workings of the female heart, they are almost unrivalled; their pathos also is genuine and deep.  R. had an unusual faculty as the platonic friend and counsellor of women, and was the centre of an admiring circle of the sex, who ministered to a vanity which became somewhat excessive.  R. has also the distinction of evoking the genius of Fielding, whose first novel, Joseph Andrews, was begun as a skit or parody upon Pamela.  R. is described as “a stout, rosy, vain, prosy little man.” Life by Sir W. Scott in Ballantyne’s Novelists Library. Works with preface by L. Stephen (12 vols., 1883), etc.

RITCHIE, LEITCH (1800?-1865).—­Novelist, b. at Greenock and in business as a clerk in Glasgow, but about 1820 adopted literature as his profession.  He wrote several novels of which the best known is Wearyfoot Common; others were The Robber of the Rhine and The Magician.  In his later years he ed. Chambers’s Journal.

RITSON, JOSEPH (1752-1803).—­Antiquary and critic, b. at Stockton-on-Tees, settled in London as a conveyancer, at the same time devoting himself to the study of ancient English poetry.  By his diligence as a collector and acuteness as a critic he rendered essential service to the preservation and appreciation of our ancient poetry.  His chief works are A Collection of English Songs (1783), Ancient Songs from Henry III. to the Revolution (1790), A Collection of Scottish Songs (1794), and A Collection of all the Ancient Poems, etc., relating to Robin Hood (1795).  Of a jealous and quarrelsome temper, R. was continually in controversy with his fellow-collectors and critics, including Johnson, Warton, and Percy.  His acuteness enabled him to detect the Ireland forgeries.  He d. insane.