Chapter Barham to Barrow of B by Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

Barham to Barrow

Barham, Richard Harris (1788-1845).—Novelist and humorous poet, son of a country gentleman, was born at Canterbury, educated at St. Paul’s School and Oxford, entered the church, held various incumbencies, and was Divinity Lecturer, and minor canon of St. Paul’s. It is not, however, as a churchman that he is remembered, but as the author of the Ingoldsby Legends, a series of comic and serio-comic pieces in verse, sparkling with wit, and full of striking and often grotesque turns of expression, which appeared first in Bentley’s Miscellany. He also wrote, in Blackwood’s Magazine, a novel, My Cousin Nicholas.

Barlow, Joel (1754-1812).—Poet, born at Reading, Connecticut, served for a time as an army chaplain, and thereafter betook himself to law, and finally to commerce and diplomacy, in the former of which he made a fortune. He was much less successful as a poet than as a man of affairs. His writings include Vision of Columbus (1787), afterwards expanded into the Columbiad (1807), The Conspiracy of Kings (1792), and The Hasty Pudding (1796), a mock-heroic poem, his best work. These are generally pompous and dull. In 1811 he was appointed ambassador to France, and met his death in Poland while journeying to meet Napoleon.

Barnard, Lady Anne (Lindsay) (1750-1825).—Poet, e. dau. of the 5th Earl of Balcarres, married Andrew Barnard, afterwards Colonial Secretary at Cape Town. On the died of her husband in 1807 she settled in London. Her exquisite ballad of Auld Robin Gray was written in 1771, and published anonymously. She confessed the authorship to Sir Walter Scott in 1823.

Barnes, Barnabe (1569?-1609).—Poet, son of Dr. Richard Barnes Bishop, of Durham, was born in Yorkshire, and studied at Oxford. He wrote Parthenophil, a collection of sonnets, madrigals, elegies, and odes, A Divine Centurie of Spirituall Sonnets, and The Devil’s Charter, a tragedy. When at his best he showed a true poetic vein.

Barnes, William (1801-1886).—Poet and philologist, son of a farmer, born at Rushay, Dorset. After being a solicitor’s clerk and a schoolmaster, he entered the Church, in which he served various cures. He first contributed to a newspaper, Poems in Dorset Dialect, separately published in 1844. Hwomely Rhymes followed in 1858, and a collected edition of his poems appeared in 1879. His philological works include Philological Grammar (1854), Se Gefylsta, an Anglo-Saxon Delectus (1849), Tiw, or a View of Roots (1862), and a Glossary of Dorset Dialect (1863). Barnes’s poems are characterised by a singular sweetness and tenderness of feeling, deep insight into humble country life and character, and an exquisite feeling for local scenery.

Barnfield, Richard (1574-1627).—Poet, e. s. of Richard Barnfield, gentleman, was born at Norbury, Shropshire, and educated at Oxford. In 1594 he published The Afjectionate Shepherd, a collection of variations in graceful verse of the 2nd Eclogue of Virgil. His next work was Cynthia, with certain Sonnets and the Legend of Cassandra in 1595; and in 1598 there appeared a third vol., The Encomion of Lady Pecunia, etc., in which are two songs (“If music and sweet poetrie agree,” and “As it fell upon a day”) also included in The Passionate Pilgrim, an unauthorised collection, and which were long attributed to Shakespeare. From this time, 1599, Barnfield produced nothing else, and seems to have retired to the life of a country gentleman at Stone in Staffordshire, in the church of which he was buried in 1627. He was for long neglected; but his poetry is clear, sweet, and musical. His gift indeed is sufficiently attested by work of his having passed for that of Shakespeare.

Barrow, Isaac (1630-1677).—Divine, scholar, and mathematician, son of a linen-draper in London, was educated at Charterhouse, Felsted, Peterhouse, and Trinity Coll., Cambridge, where his uncle and namesake, afterwards Bishop of St. Asaph, was a Fellow. As a boy he was turbulent and pugnacious, but soon took to hard study, distinguishing himself in classics and mathematics. Intending originally to enter the Church, he was led to think of the medical profession, and engaged in scientific studies, but soon reverted to his first views. In 1655 he became candidate for the Greek Professorship at Cambridge, but was unsuccessful, and travelled for four years on the Continent as far as Turkey. On his return he took orders, and, in 1660, obtained the Greek Chair at Cambridge, and in 1662 the Gresham Professorship of Geometry, which he resigned on being appointed first Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in the same university.