Of Rich, Garrick wrote:—­

    “When Lun appeared with matchless art and whim,
    He gave the power of speech to every limb;
    Though masked and mute conveyed his quick intent,
    And told in frolic’s gestures all he meant.”

Rich, however, erred in thinking himself a better actor than a Pantomimist; and, in fact, he thought himself a finer actor than the great Garrick himself.  “You should see me play Richard!” was a favourite cry of his.

In 1782, after seeing the Pantomime of “Robinson Crusoe,” Walpole said, “How unlike the Pantomimes of Rich, which were full of wit, and coherent, and carried on by a story.”

As I have shown above, Rich had, like many other people, his own particular little idiosyncrasies, and when in the season 1746-7 he netted nearly L9,000 from his Pantomimes, to the chagrin of Garrick and Quin, he was very angry and much annoyed because he, as Harlequin, had contributed little or nothing.  Another mannerism of his was to despise the regular drama on these occasions, and he has been known to look at the packed audience through a small hole in the curtain, and then ejaculate, “Ah! you are there, you fools, are you?  Much good may it do you!”

Rich used to address everyone as “Mister.”  On one occasion Foote, being incensed at being so addressed, asked Rich why he did not call him by his name.  “Don’t be angry,” says Rich, “I sometimes forget my own name.”  “I know,” replied Foote, “that you can’t write your own name, but I wonder you should forget it.”

The first of Rich’s successes was “Harlequin Sorcerer.”  On its production Pope wrote:—­

    “Behold a sober sorcerer rise
    Swift to whose wand a winged volume flies;
    All sudden, gorgon’s hiss and dragon’s glare,
    And ten horned fiends and giants rush to war. 
    Hell rises, heaven descends, and dance on earth,
    Gods, imps and monsters, music, rage and mirth,
    A fire, a jig, a battle, and a ball,
    Till one wide conflagration swallows all;
    Thence a new world to nature’s laws unknown,
    Breaks out refulgent with a heaven its own;
    Another Cynthia her new journey runs,
    And other planets circle after suns. 
    The forests dance, the rivers upwards rise,
    Whales sport in woods, and dolphins in the skies;
    At last, to give the whole creation grace,
    Lo! one vast egg produces human race.”

Of Harlequin, in “Harlequin Sorcerer,” being hatched from an egg by the rays of the sun.  This has been called a master-piece of Rich’s Miming “From the first chipping of the egg (says Jackson) his receiving of motion, his feeling of the ground, his standing upright, to his quick Harlequin trip round the empty shell, through the whole progression, every limb had its tongue, and every motion a voice.”