prolongation to deep water at the mouth of the estuary, to ensure
the formation of a stable, continuous, navigable channel. Experiments
with a model, moulded to the configuration of the estuary
under consideration and reproducing in miniature the tidal ebb
and flow and fresh-water discharge over a bed of very fine sand, in
which various lines of training walls can be successively inserted,[1]
are capable in some cases of garnishing valuable indications of the
respective effects and comparative merits of the different schemes
proposed for works which have often evoked very conflicting
opinions and have sometimes produced most unexpected results.
(L. F. V.-H.)
RIVER-HOG, a sportsman's name for the African wild pigs of which the southern representative is known to the Boers as the bosch-vark (“bush-pig”). They constitute a genus, Potamochoerus, nearly allied to the typical pigs of the genus Sus (see Swine), from which they are distinguishable by the presence in the males of a long horny ridge below the eye; while they are further characterized by their thick coat of bristly and often brightly coloured hair, and by tufts of long bristles at the tips of the elongated and pointed ears. The southern P. choeropotamus, of southern and east Africa, is typically a greyish-brown animal, but one of its eastern representatives is orange-red. In north-east Africa occurs the allied P. johnstoni, while in Kordofan and Abyssinia this is in turn replaced by P. hassama. The most remarkable member of the group is, however, the red river-hog, P. porcus, which is a heavy, short-legged species remarkable for its bright red colour, the great length of the ear-tufts and the white rings round the eyes. It is a native of the great forest-tracts, extending from Senegambia, Liberia and Angola on the W., to Monbuttu in the E. Very noteworthy is the occurrence of a small yellow-haired representative of the group (P. larvatus) in Madagascar, which evidently must have reached its present habitat from the mainland. (R. L.*)
RIVERINA, a large tract of pastoral country between the rivers Murray and Darling in New South Wales, Australia. It gives name to the see of an Anglican bishop who has his seat at Hay. The chief towns are Deniliquin, Hay, Moulamein, Oxley and Booligal.
RIVERS, EARL, an English title held in succession by the families of Woodville or Wydeville, Darcy and Savage. In 1299 John Rivers, or de Ripariis, was summoned to parliament as a baron, and his son John was similarly summoned by Edward II. The earldom was created for Sir Richard Woodville in 1466 and remained in this family until 1491. (For the three earls of his line see below.) As borne by the Woodvilles the title was not derived from the name of a place, but from an ancient family name, Redvers, or Reviers, members of this family, whose arms are quartered on the Rivers shield, having been sometime earls of Devon.
From 1626 to his death in 1640 the earldom was held by Thomas Darcy, Viscount Colchester, from whom it descended by special remainder to his grandson John (c. 1610-1654), the son of his daughter Elizabeth (d. 1651) by her marriage with Sir Thomas Savage (d. 1635), who was created Viscount Savage in 1626. John's son Thomas (c. 1626-1694) was the 3rd earl, and his grandson Richard the 4th earl (see below). The title became extinct when John, the 5th earl, died about 1735.
A new barony of Rivers, held by the family of Pitt and its later representative, that of Pitt-Rivers, was in existence from 1776 to 1880.
RIVERS, ANTHONY WOODVILLE, or Wydeville, 2nd Earl (c. 1442–1483), statesman and patron of literature, and author of the first book printed on English soil, was born probably in 1442. He was the son of Richard de Wydeville and his wife, Jacquetta de Luxemburg, duchess of Bedford. His father was raised to the peerage in his son's infancy, and was made earl of Rivers in 1466. Anthony, who was knighted before he became of age, and fought at Towton in 1461, married the daughter of Lord Scales, and became a peer jure uxoris in 1462, two years after the death of that nobleman. Being lord of the Isle of Wight at the time, he was in 1467 appointed one of the ambassadors to treat with the duke of Burgundy, and he exalted his office by challenging Anthony, comte de la Roche, the bastard of Burgundy, to single fight in what was one of the most famous tournaments of the age (see the elaborate narrative in Bentley's Excerpta Historica, 176–182). In 1469 Anthony was promoted to be lieutenant of Calais and captain of the king's armada, while holding other honorary posts. His father and brother were beheaded after the battle of Edgecot, and he succeeded in August of that year to the earldom. He accompanied Edward in his temporary flight to the Continent, and on his return to England had a share in the victory of Barnet and Tewkesbury and defended London from the Lancastrians. In 1473 he became guardian and governor to the young prince of Wales, and for the next few years there was no man in England of greater responsibility or enjoying more considerable honours in the royal service. It is now that for the first time we become aware of Lord Rivers's literary occupations. His mother, the duchess, died in 1472, and his first wife in 1473; in 1475 and the following year he went on pilgrimage to the holy places of Italy; from this time forth there was a strong tincture of serious reflection thrown over his character; he was now, as we learn from Caxton, nominated “Defender and Director of the Siege Apostolic for the Pope in England.” Caxton had in 1476 rented a shop in the Sanctuary at Westminster, and here had set up a printing-press. The first MS. which he undertook in London was one sent to him by “the noble and puissant lord, Lord Antone, Erle of Ryvyers,” consisting of a translation “into right good and fayr Englyssh” of Jean de Teonville's French version of a Latin work, “a glorious fair mirror to all good Christian people.” In 1477 Caxton brought out this book, as Dictes and Sayengis of the Philosophers, and it is illustrious as the first production of an English printing-press. To this succeeded the Moral Proverbs of Christine de Pisan, in verse, in 1478, and a Cordial, in prose, in 1479. The original productions of Lord Rivers, and, in particular, his Balades against the Seven Deadly Sins, are lost. In 1478 a marriage was arranged between him and Margaret, sister of King James III. of Scotland, but it was mysteriously broken off. Rivers began to perceive that it was possible to rise too high for the safety of a subject, and he is now described to us as one who “conceiveth well the mutability and the unstableness of this life.” After the death of Edward IV., he became the object of Richard III.'s peculiar enmity, and was beheaded by his orders at Pontefract on the 25th of June 1483. He was succeeded by his brother Richard, the 3rd and last earl of the Wydeville family, who died in 1491. Lord Rivers is spoken of by Commines as “un très-gentil chevalier,” and by Sir Thomas More as “a right honourable man, as valiant of hand as politic in counsel.” His protection and encouragement of Caxton were of inestimable value to English literature, and in the preface to the Dictes the printer gives an account of his own relations with the statesman which illustrates the dignity and modesty of Lord Rivers in a very agreeable way. Rivers was one of the purest writers of English prose of his time.
“Memoirs of Anthony, Earl Rivers” are comprised in the Historical Illustrations of the Reign of Edward the Fourth (ed. W. H. B[lack]). (E. G.)
RIVERS, RICHARD SAVAGE, 4th Earl (c. 1660-1712), was the second son of Thomas, 3rd earl; and after the death about 1680 of his elder brother Thomas, styled Viscount Colchester, he was designated by that title until he succeeded to the peerage. Early in life Richard Savage acquired notoriety by his dare-devilry and dissipation, and he was, too, one of the most conspicuous rakes in the society of the period. After becoming Lord Colchester on his brother's death he entered parliament as member for Wigan in 1681 and procured a commission in the Horseguards under Sarstield in 1686. He was “the first nobleman and one of the first persons” who joined the prince of Orange on his landing in England, and he accompanied William to London. Obtaining promotion in the army, he served with distinction in Ireland and in the Netherlands, and was made major-general in 1693 and
- ↑ Rivers and Canals, 2nd ed. pp. 327–342, and plate 10.
