One of his most diverting properties” is the set of “morals » he
draws to everything, of nonsensical literalness and infantile gravity,
the perfection of solemn fooling.
draws to everything, of nonsensical literalness and infantile gravity,
the perfection of solemn fooling.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v03 - Bag to Ber
I persuaded him that Venus and the Fates were the cause
of all my irregularities, which he complaisantly believed. Besides,
I was not sorry to return home: for to tell you a secret, Paris had
been unfaithful to me long before his death, and was fond of a
little Trojan brunette whose office it was to hold up my train;
but it was thought dishonorable to give me up. I began to think
love a very foolish thing: I became a great housekeeper, worked
## p. 1494 (#292) ###########################################
1494
ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD
the battles of Troy in tapestry, and spun with my maids by the
side of Menelaus, who was so satisfied with my conduct, and
behaved, good man, with so much fondness, that I verily think
this was the happiest period of my life.
Maintenon — Nothing more likely; but the most obscure wife
in Greece could rival you there. — Adieu! you have convinced me
how little fame and greatness conduce to happiness.
LIFE
L
IFE! I know not what thou art,
But know that thou and I must part;
And when or how or where we met,
I own to me's a secret yet.
But this I know, when thou art fled,
Where'er they lay these limbs, this head,
No clod so valueless shall be,
As all that then remains of me.
O whither, whither dost thou fly,
Where bend unseen thy trackless course,
And in this strange divorce,
Ah, tell where I must seek this compound I ?
To the vast ocean of empyreal flame,
From whence thy essence came,
Dost thou thy flight pursue, when freed
From matter's base encumbering weed ?
Or dost thou, hid from sight,
Wait, like some spell-bound knight,
Through blank oblivion's years th' appointed hour,
To break thy trance and reassume thy power ?
Yet canst thou without thought or feeling be?
O say what art thou, when no more thou’rt thee?
Life! we've been long together,
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;
'Tis hard part when friends are dear;
Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear;
Then steal away, give little warning,
Choose thine own time;
Say not good-night, but in some brighter clime
Bid me good-morning.
## p. 1495 (#293) ###########################################
ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD
1495
PRAISE TO GOD
P
RAISE to God, immortal praise,
For the love that crowns our days —
Bounteous source of every joy,
Let Thy praise our tongues employ!
For the blessings of the field,
For the stores the gardens yield,
For the vine's exalted juice,
For the generous olive's use;
Flocks that whiten all the plain,
Yellow sheaves of ripened grain,
Clouds that drop their fattening dews,
Suns that temperate warmth diffuse -
All that Spring, with bounteous hand,
Scatters o'er the smiling land;
All that liberal Autumn pours
From her rich o'erflowing stores:
These to Thee, my God, we owe -
Source whence all our blessings flow!
And for these my soul shall raise
Grateful vows and solemn praise.
Yet should rising whirlwinds tear
From its stem the ripening ear
Should the fig-tree's blasted shoot
Drop her green untimely fruit -
Should the vine put forth no more,
Nor the olive yield her store —
Though the sickening flocks should fall,
And the herds desert the stall —
Should Thine altered hand restrain
The early and the latter rain,
Blast each opening bud of joy,
And the rising year destroy:
Yet to Thee my soul should raise
Grateful vows and solemn praise,
And, when every blessing's flown,
Love Thee — for Thyself alone.
## p. 1496 (#294) ###########################################
1496
ALEXANDER BARCLAY
(1475-1552)
B
-an
ARCLAY's reputation rests upon his translation of the famous
"Ship of Fools and his original Eclogues. ' A controversy
as to the land of his birth - event which happened
about the year 1475 — has lasted from his century to our own. The
decision in favor of Scotland rests upon the testimony of two wit-
nesses: first, Dr. William Bullim, a younger contemporary of Barclay,
who mentions him in (A Dialogue Both Pleasaunt and Pietifull
Wherein is a Godlie Regement Against the Fever Pestilence with a
Consolation and Comforte Against Death,' which was published in
1564; and secondly, Barclay himself.
Bullim groups the Muses at the foot of Parnassus, and gathers
about them Greek and Latin poets, and such Englishmen as Chaucer,
Gower, Skelton, and Barclay, the latter “with an hoopyng russet
long coate, with a pretie hood in his necke, and five knottes upon
his girdle, after Francis's tricks. He was borne beyond the cold
river of Twede. He lodged upon a sweetebed of chamomill under
the sinamone-tree: about him many shepherdes and shepe, with
pleasaunte pipes; greatly abhorring the life of Courtiers, Citizens,
Usurers, and Banckruptes, etc. , whose daies are miserable. And the
estate of shepherdes and countrie people he accompted moste happie
and sure. Deprived of its poetic fancy, this passage means that
Barclay was a monk of the order of St. Francis, that he was born
north of the Tweed, that his verse was infused with such bitterness
and tonic qualities as camomile possesses, and that he advocated the
cause of the country people in his independent and admirable Ec-
logues,' another title for the first three of which is Miseryes of
Courtiers and Courtes of all Princes in General. '
Barclay was educated at Oxford and Cambridge, and upon his
return to England after several years of residence abroad, he was
made one of the priests of Saint Mary Ottery, an institution of devout
practice and learning in Devonshire. Here in 1508 was finished
(The Shyp of Folys of the Worlde translated out of Laten, Frenche,
and Doche into Englysshe tonge by Alexander Barclay, Preste, and
at that time chaplen in the sayd College. '
After his work was completed Barclay went to London, where
his poem was “imprentyd
in Fleet Street at the signe of
Saynt George by Rycharde Pyreson to hys Coste and charge: ended
## p. 1497 (#295) ###########################################
ALEXANDER BARCLAY
1497
C
the yere of our Saviour MDIX. the XIII. day of December. ” That he
became a Benedictine and lived at the monastery of the order at
Ely is evident from his "Eclogues. ' Here he translated at the
instance of Sir Giles Arlington, Knight, The Myrrour of Good Man-
ers,' from a Latin elegiac poem which Dominic Mancini published
in the year 1516.
“It was about this period of his life,” says Mr. Jamieson in his
admirable edition of the Ship of Fools,' “probably the period of
the full bloom of his popularity, that the quiet life of the poet and
priest was interrupted by the recognition of his eminence in the
highest quarters, and by a request for his aid in maintaining the
honor of the country on an occasion to which the eyes of all Europe
were then directed. In a letter to Wolsey dated oth April, 1520,
Sir Nicholas Vaux – busied with the preparation for that meeting of
Henry VIII. and Francis I. called the field of the Cloth of Gold -
begs the Cardinal to send them . . Maistre Barkleye, the Black
Monke and Poete, to devise histoires and convenient raisons to flor-
isshe the buildings and banquet house withal. ”
He became a Franciscan, the habit of which order Bullim refers
to; and
sure 'tis,” says Wood, “that living to see his monastery
dissolvid, in 1539, at the general dissolution by act of Henry VIII. ,
he became vicar of Much Badew in Essex, and in 1546, the same
year, of the Church of St. Matthew the Apostle at Wokey, in Som-
ersetshire, and finally in 1552, the year in which he died, of that of
All Saints, Lombard Street, London. In his younger days he was
esteemed a good poet and orator, but when years came on, he spent
his time mostly in pious matters, and in reading the histories of
Saints. ”
'The Ship of Fools) is the most important work associated with
Barclay's name. It was a translation of Sebastian Brandt's (Stulti-
fera Navis, a book which had attracted universal attention on the
Continent when it appeared in 1494. In his preface, Barclay admits
that it is not translated word by word according to the verses of my
actor. For I have but only drawn into our mother tongue in rude
language the sentences of the verses as near as the paucity of my
wit will suffer me, sometime adding, sometime detracting and taking
away such things as seemeth me necessary. ” The classes and con-
ditions of society that Barclay knew were as deserving of satire as
those of Germany. He tells us that his work was undertaken «to
cleanse the vanity and madness of foolish people, of whom over great
number is in the Realm of England. ”
The diction of Barclay's version is exceptionally fine. Jamieson
calls it “a rich and unique exhibition of early art,” and says:—Page
after page, even in the antique spelling of Pynson's edition, may be
## p. 1498 (#296) ###########################################
1498
ALEXANDER BARCLAY
read by the ordinary reader of to-day without reference to a diction-
ary; and when reference is required, it will be found in nine cases
out of ten that the archaism is Saxon, not Latin. This is all the
more remarkable that it occurs in the case of a priest translating
mainly from the Latin and French, and can only be explained with
reference to his standpoint as a social reformer of the broadest type,
and to his evident intention that his book should be an appeal to all
classes, but especially to the mass of people for amendment of their
follies. ”
As the original work belonged to the German satirist, the extract
from the Ship of Fools) is placed under the essay entitled “Sebastian
Brandt. ' His Eclogues' show Barclay at his best. They portray the
manners and customs of the period, and are full of local proverbs
and wise sayings. According to Warton, Barclay's are the first
Eclogues) that appeared in the English language. “They are like
Petrarch's,” he says, “and Mantuans of the moral and satirical kind;
and contain but few touches of moral description and bucolic im-
agery. ” Two shepherds meet to talk about the pleasures and crosses
of rustic life and life at court. The hoary locks of the one show
that he is old. His suit of Kendal green is threadbare, his rough
boots are patched, and the torn side of his coat reveals a bottle never
full and never empty. His wallet contains bread and cheese; he has
a crook, and an oaten pipe. His name is Cornix, and he boasts that
he has had worldly experience. The other shepherd, Coridon, having
seen nothing, complains of country life. He grumbles at the sum-
mer's heat and the winter's cold; at beds on the flinty ground, and
the dangers of sleeping where the wolves may creep in to devour
the sheep; of his stiff rough hands, and his parched, wrinkled, and
weather-beaten skin. He asks whether all men are so unhappy. Cor-
nix, refreshing himself at intervals with his bottle and crusts, shows
him the small amount of liberty at court, discourses upon the folly
of ambition, lays bare the rapine, avarice, and covetousness of the
worldly-minded, and demonstrates that the court is “painted fair with-
out, but within it is ugly and vile. ” He then gives the picture of
a courtier's life, which is cited below. He tells how the minstrels
and singers, philosophers, poets, and orators are but the slaves of
patronizing princes; how beautiful women deceive; describes to him,
who has known nothing but a diet of bread and cheese, the delights
of the table; dilates on the cups of silver and gold, and the crys-
tal glass shining with red and yellow wine; the sewers bearing
in roasted crane, gorgeous peacocks, and savory joints of beef and
mutton; the carver wielding his dexterous knife; the puddings, the
pasties, the fish fried in sweet oils and garnished with herbs; the
costumes of the men and women in cloth of gold and silver and gay
## p. 1499 (#297) ###########################################
ALEXANDER BARCLAY
1499
damask; the din of music, voices, laughter, and jests; and then
paints a picture of the lords and ladies who plunge their knives into
the meats and their hands into platters, spilling wine and gravy
upon their equally gluttonous neighbors. He finishes by saying:-
Shepherds have not so wretched lives as they:
Though they live poorely on cruddes, chese, and whey,
On apples, plummes, and drinke cleree water deepe,
As it were lordes reigning among their sheepe.
The wretched lazar with clinking of his bell,
Hath life which doth the courtiers excell;
The caytif begger hath meate and libertie,
When courtiers hunger in harde captivitie.
The poore man beggeth nothing hurting his name,
As touching courters they dare not beg for shame.
And an olde proverb is sayde by men moste sage,
That oft yonge courters be beggars in their age. ”
The third 'Eclogue begins with Coridon relating a dream that he
went to court and saw the scullions standing
(about me thicke
With knives ready for to flay me quicke. ”
This is a text for Cornix, who continues his tirade, and convinces
Coridon of the misery of the court and his happier life, ending as
follows:-
« Than let all shepheardes, from hence to Salisbury
With easie riches, live well, laugh and be mery,
Pipe under shadowes, small riches hath most rest,
In greatest seas moste sorest is tempest,
The court is nought els but a tempesteous sea;
Avoyde the rockes. Be ruled after me. ”
The fourth (Eclogue' is a dialogue on the rich man's treatment of
poets, by two shepherds, Codrus and Menalcas, musing in shadowe
on the green,” while their snowy flocks graze on the sweet meadow.
This contains a fine allegorical description of Labour. '
The fifth Eclogue' is the Cytezen and the Uplondyshman. '
Here the scene changes, and two shepherds, Faustus and Amyntas,
discourse in a cottage while the snows of January whirl without.
Amyntas has learned in London to go so manerly. ” Not a wrinkle
may be found in his clothes, not a hair on his cloak, and he wears
a brooch of tin high on his bonnet. He has been hostler, coster-
monger, and taverner, and sings the delights of the city. Faustus,
the rustic, is contented with his lot. The Cytezen and the Uplond-
yshman' was printed from the original edition of Wynkyn de Worde,
with a preface by F. W. Fairholt, Percy Society (Vol. xxii. ).
## p. 1500 (#298) ###########################################
1500
ALEXANDER BARCLAY
Other works ascribed to Barclay are:- 'The Figure of Our Holy
Mother Church, Oppressed by the French King'; The Lyfe of the
Glorious Martyr Saynt George, translated (from Mantuan) by Alex-
ander Barclay; "The Lyfe of the Blessed Martyr, Saynte Thomas';
Contra Skeltonum, in which the quarrel he had with his contem-
porary poet, John Skelton, was doubtless continued.
Estimates of Barclay may be found in "The Ship of Fools,' edited
by T. H. Jamieson (1874); Sibbald's Chronicle of Scottish Poetry,'
from the thirteenth century to the union of the crowns (1802); “The
History of English Poetry,' by Thomas Warton (1824); The History
of Scottish Poetry,' by David Irving (1861); and Chips from a Ger-
man Workshop,' by F. Max Müller (1870).
THE COURTIER'S LIFE
Second Eclogue
CORNIX
S®
OME men deliteth beholding men to fight,
Or goodly knights in pleasaunt apparayle,
Or sturdie soldiers in bright harnes and male,
Or an army arrayde ready to the warre,
Or to see them fight, so that he stand afarre.
Some glad is to see those ladies beauteous
Goodly appoynted in clothing sumpteous:
A number of people appoynted in like wise
In costly clothing after the newest gise,
Sportes, disgising, fayre coursers mount and praunce,
Or goodly ladies and knightes sing and daunce,
To see fayre houses and curious picture,
Or pleasaunt hanging or sumpteous vesture
Of silke, of purpure or golde moste oriente,
And other clothing divers and excellent,
Hye curious buildinges or palaces royall,
Or chapels, temples fayre and substantial,
Images graven or vaultes curious,
Gardeyns and medowes, or place delicious,
Forestes and parkes well furnished with dere,
Cold pleasaunt streams or welles fayre and clere,
Curious cundites or shadowie mountaynes,
Swete pleasaunt valleys, laundes or playnes,
Houndes, and such other things manyfolde
Some men take pleasour and solace to beholde.
## p. 1501 (#299) ###########################################
ALEXANDER BARCLAY
1501
But all these pleasоures be much more jocounde,
To private persons which not to court be bounde,
Than to such other whiche of necessitie
Are bounde to the court as in captivitie;
For they which be bounde to princes without fayle
When they must nedes be present in battayle,
When shall they not be at large to see the sight,
But as souldiours in the middest of the fight,
To runne here and there sometime his foe to smite,
And oftetimes wounded, herein is small delite,
And more muste he think his body to defende,
Than for any pleasour about him to intende,
And oft is he faynt and beaten to the grounde,
I trowe in suche sight small pleasour may be founde.
As for fayre ladies, clothed in silke and golde,
In court at thy pleasour thou canst not beholde.
At thy princes pleasour thou shalt them only see,
Then suche shalt thou see which little set by thee,
Whose shape and beautie may so inflame thine heart,
That thought and languor may cause thee for to smart.
For a small sparcle may kindle love certayne,
But skantly Severne may quench it clene againe;
And beautie blindeth and causeth man to set
His hearte on the thing which he shall never get.
To see men clothed in silkes pleasauntly
It is small pleasour, and ofte causeth envy.
While thy lean jade halteth by thy side,
To see another upon a courser ride,
Though he be neyther gentleman nor knight,
Nothing is thy fortune, thy hart cannot be light.
As touching sportes and games of pleasaunce,
To sing, to revell, and other daliaunce:
Who that will truely upon his lord attende,
Unto suche sportes he seldome may entende.
Palaces, pictures, and temples sumptuous,
And other buildings both gay and curious,
These may marchauntes more at their pleasour see
Men suche as in court be bounde alway to bee.
Sith kinges for moste part passe not their regions,
Thou seest nowe cities of foreyn nations.
Suche outwarde pleasоures may the people see,
So may not courtiers for lacke of libertie.
As for these pleasours of thinges vanable
Whiche in the fieldes appeareth delectable,
## p. 1502 (#300) ###########################################
1502
ALEXANDER BARCLAY
But seldome season mayest thou obtayne respite.
The same to beholde with pleasour and delite,
Sometime the courtier remayneth halfe the yere
Close within walls muche like a prisonere,
To make escapes some seldome times are wont,
Save when the powers have pleasour for to hunt,
Or its otherwise themselfe to recreate,
And then this pleasour shall they not love but hate;
For then shall they foorth most chiefely to their payne,
When they in mindes would at home remayne.
Other in the frost, hayle, or els snowe,
Or when some tempest or mightie wind doth blowe,
Or else in great heat and fervour excessife,
But close in houses the moste parte waste their life,
Of colour faded, and choked were with duste:
This is of courtiers the joy and all the lust.
CORIDON
What! yet may they sing and with fayre ladies daunce,
Both commen and laugh; herein is some pleasaunce.
CORNIX
Nay, nay, Coridon, that pleasour is but small,
Some to contente what man will pleasour call,
For some in the daunce his pincheth by the hande,
Which gladly would see him stretched in a bande.
Some galand seketh his favour to purchase
Which playne abhorreth for to beholde his face.
And still in dauncing moste parte inclineth she
To one muche viler and more abject then he.
No day over passeth but that in court men finde
A thousande thinges to vexe and greve their minde;
Alway thy foes are present in thy sight,
And often so great is their degree and might
That nedes must thou kisse the hand which did thee harm,
Though thou would see it cut gladly from the arme.
And briefly to speake, if thou to courte resorte,
If thou see one thing of pleasour or comfort,
Thou shalt see many, before or thou depart,
To thy displeasour and pensiveness of heart:
So findeth thy sight there more of bitternes
And of displeasour, than pleasour and gladnes.
## p. 1503 (#301) ###########################################
1503
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
(1788-1845)
he author of the Ingoldsby Legends belonged to a well-
defined and delightful class of men, chiefly found in mod-
ern England, and indeed mostly bred and made possible by
the conditions of English society and the Anglican Church. It is
that of clergymen who in the public eye are chiefly wits and diners-
out, jokers and literary humorists, yet are conscientious and devoted
ministers of their religion and curators of their religious charges,
honoring their profession and humanity by true and useful lives and
lovable characters. They are men of the
sort loathed by Lewis Carroll's heroine in
the “Two Voices,
( a kind of folk
Who have no horror of a joke,
and indeed love it dearly; but are as firm
in principle and unostentatiously dutiful in
conduct as if they were leaden Puritans or
narrow devotees.
By far the best remembered of this
class, for themselves or their work, are
Sydney Smith and Richard Harris Barham;
RICHARD H. BARHAM
but their relative repute is one of the odd-
est paradoxes in literary history. Roughly speaking, the one is
remembered and unread, the other read and unremembered. Syd-
ney Smith's name is almost as familiar to the masses as Scott's, and
few could tell a line that he wrote; Barham's writing is almost as
familiar as Scott's, and few would recognize his name. Yet he is in
the foremost rank of humorists; his place is wholly unique, and is
likely to remain so. It will be an age before a similar combination
of tastes and abilities is found once more. Macaulay said truly of
Sir Walter Scott that he "combined the minute learning of an anti-
quary with the fire of a great poet. ” Barham combined a like learn-
ing in different fields, and joined to a different outlook and temper
of mind, with the quick perceptions of a great wit, the brimming
zest and high spirits of a great joker, the genial nature and light-
ness of a born man of the world, and the gifts of a wonderful
improvisatore in verse. Withal, he had just enough of serious pur-
pose to give much of his work a certain measure of cohesive unity,
## p. 1504 (#302) ###########################################
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
1504
and thus impress it on the mind as no collection of random skits
could do. That purpose is the feathering which steadies the arrows
and sends them home.
It is pleasant to know that one who has given so good a time to
others had a very good time himself; that we are not, as so often
happens, relishing a farce that stood for tragedy with the maker, and
substituting our laughter for his tears. Barham had the cruel sor-
rows of personal bereavement so few escape; but in material things
his career was wholly among pleasant ways. He was well born and
with means, well educated, well nurtured. He was free from the
sordid squabbles or anxious watching and privation which fall to the
lot of so many of the best. He was happy in his marriage and its
attendant home and family, and most fortunate in his friendships
and the superb society he enjoyed. His birth and position as a gen-
tleman of good landed family, combined with his profession, opened
all doors to him.
But it was the qualities personal to himself, after all, which made
these things available for enjoyment. His desires were moderate;
he counted success what more eager and covetous natures might
have esteemed comparative failure. His really strong intellect and
wide knowledge and cultivation enabled him to meet the foremost
men of letters on equal terms. His kind heart, generous nature,
exuberant fun, and entertaining conversation endeared him to every
one and made his company sought by every one; they saved much
trouble from coming upon him and lightened what did come. And
no blight could have withered that perennial fountain of jollity,
drollery, and light-heartedness. But these were only the ornaments
of a stanchly loyal and honorable nature, and a lovable and unselfish
soul. One of his friends writes of him thus:-
«The profits of agitating pettifoggers would have materially lessened in a
district where he acted as a magistrate; and duels would have been nipped
in the bud at his regimental mess. It is not always an easy task to do
as you would be done by; but to think as you would be thought of and
thought for, and to feel as you would be felt for, is perhaps still more diffi-
cult, as superior powers of tact and intellect are here required in order to
second good intentions. These faculties, backed by an uncompromising love
of truth and fair dealing, indefatigable good nature, and a nice sense of
what was due to every one in the several relations of life, both gentle and
simple, rendered our late friend invaluable, either as an adviser or a peace-
maker, in matters of delicate and difficult handling. ”
Barham was born in Canterbury, England, December 6th, 1788,
and died in London, June 17th, 1845. His ancestry was superior, the
family having derived its name from possessions in Kent in Norman
days. He lost his father -
- a genial bon vivant of literary tastes who
## p. 1505 (#303) ###########################################
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
1505
seems like a reduced copy of his son - when but five years old; and
became heir to a fair estate, including Tappington Hall, the pictur-
esque old gabled mansion so often imaginatively misdescribed in the
Ingoldsby Legends, but really having the famous blood-stained
stairway. He had an expensive private education, which was nearly
ended with his life at the age of fourteen by a carriage accident
which shattered and mangled his right arm, crippling it perma-
nently. As so often happens, the disaster was really a piece of good
fortune: it turned him to or confirmed him in quiet antiquarian
scholarship, and established connections which ultimately led to the
Legends'; he may owe immortality to it.
After passing through St. Paul's (London) and Brasenose (Oxford),
he studied law, but finally entered the church. After a couple of
small curacies in Kent, he was made rector of Snargate and curate
of Warehorn, near Romney Marsh; all four in a district where smug-
gling was a chief industry, and the Marsh in especial a noted haunt
of desperadoes (for smugglers then took their lives in their hands),
of which the Legends) are rich in reminiscences. In 1819. during
this incumbency, he wrote a novel, Baldwin,' which was a failure;
and part of another, My Cousin Nicholas,' which, finished fifteen
years later, had fair success as a serial in Blackwood's Magazine.
An opportunity offering in 1821, he stood for a minor canonry in
St. Paul's Cathedral, London, and obtained it; his income
less than before, but he had entered the metropolitan field, which
brought him rich enjoyment and permanent fame. He paid a terri-
ble price for them: his unhealthy London house cost him the lives
of three of his children. To make up for his shortened means he
became editor of the London Chronicle and a contributor to various
other periodicals, including the notorious weekly John Bull, some-
time edited by Theodore Hook. In 1824 he became a priest in the
Chapel Royal at St. James's Palace, and soon after gained a couple
of excellent livings in Essex, which put him at ease financially.
He was inflexible in principle, a firm Tory, though without ran-
He was very High Church, but had no sympathy with the
Oxford movement or Catholicism. He preached careful and sober
sermons, without oratorical display and with rigid avoidance of lev-
ity. He would not make the church a field either for fireworks or
jokes, or even for displays of scholarship or intellectual gymnastics.
In his opinion, religious establishments were kept up to advance
religion and morals. And both he and his wife wrought zealously in
the humble but exacting field of parochial good works.
He was, however, fast becoming one of the chief ornaments of
that brilliant group of London wits whose repute still vibrates from
the early part of the century. Many of them - actors, authors,
was
cor.
111-95
## p. 1506 (#304) ###########################################
1506
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
artists, musicians, and others — met at the Garrick Club, and Barham
joined it. The names of Sydney Smith and Theodore Hook are
enough to show what it was; but there were others equally delight-
ful, — not the least so, or least useful, a few who could not see a joke
at all, and whose simplicity and good nature made them butts for
the hoaxes and solemn chaff of the rest. Barham's diary, quoted in
his son's Life,' gives an exquisite instance.
In 1834 his old schoolmaster Bentley established Bentley's Miscel-
lany; and Barham was asked for contributions. The first he sent
was the amusing but quite conceivable Spectre of Tappington';
but there soon began the immortal series of versified local stories,
legendary church miracles, antiquarian curios, witty summaries of
popular plays, skits on London life, and so on, under the pseudonym
of Thomas Ingoldsby,' which sprang instantly into wide popularity,
and have never fallen from public favor since nor can they till
appreciation of humor is dead in the world. They were collected
and illustrated by Leech, Cruikshank, and others, who were inspired
by them to some of their best designs: perhaps the most perfect
realization in rt of the Devil in his moments of jocose triumph is
Leech's figure in 'The House-Warming. A later series appeared in
Colburn's New Monthly Magazine in 1843.
He wrote some excellent pieces (of their kind) in prose, besides
the one already mentioned: the weird and well-constructed Leech of
Folkestone) and the Passage in the Life of Henry Harris,' both half-
serious tales of mediæval magic; the thoroughly Ingoldsbian ‘Legend
of Sheppey,' with its irreverent farce, high animal spirits, and anti-
quarianism; the equally characteristic 'Lady Rohesia,' which would
be vulgar but for his sly wit and drollery. But none of these are as
familiar as the versified Legends,' nor have they the astonishing
variety of entertainment found in the latter.
The 'Ingoldsby Legends) have been called an English naturaliza-
tion of the French metrical contes ; but Barham owes nothing to his
French models save the suggestion of method and form. Not only is
his matter all his own, but he has Anglified the whole being of the
metrical form itself. His facility of versification, the way in which
the whole language seems to be liquid in his hands and ready to
pour into any channel of verse, was one of the marvelous things of
literature. It did not need the free random movement of the majority
of the tales, where the lines may be anything from one foot to six,
from spondaic to dactylic: in some of them he tied himself down to
the most rigid and inflexible metrical forms, and moved as lightly
and freely in those fetters as if they were non-existent. As to the
astonishing rhymes which meet us at every step, they form in them-
selves a poignant kind of wit; often double and even treble, one word
## p. 1507 (#305) ###########################################
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
1507
rhyming with an entire phrase or one phrase with another, — not
only of the oddest kind, but as nicely adapted to the necessities of
expression and meaning as if intended or invented for that purpose
alone, — they produce on us the effect of the richest humor.
One of his most diverting properties” is the set of “morals » he
draws to everything, of nonsensical literalness and infantile gravity,
the perfection of solemn fooling. Thus in the Lay of St. Cuthbert,'
where the Devil has captured the heir of the house,
«Whom the nurse had forgot and left there in his chair,
Alternately sucking his thumb and his pear,”
the moral is drawn, among others,-
« Perhaps it's as well to keep children from plums,
And pears in their season and sucking their thumbs. "
And part of the moral to the Lay of St. Medard' is
«Don't give people nicknames! don't, even in fun,
Call any one (snuff-colored son of a gun! ! )
And they generally wind up with some slyly shrewd piece of worldly
wisdom and wit. Thus, the closing moral to "The Blasphemer's
Warning' is:
«To married men this — For the rest of your lives,
Think how your misconduct may act on your wives!
Don't swear then before them, lest baply they faint,
Or — what sometimes occurs — run away with a Saint ! »
Often they are broader yet, and intended for the club rather than the
family. Indeed, the tales as a whole are club tales, with an audi-
ence of club-men always in mind; not, be it remembered, bestialities
like their French counterparts, or the later English and American
improvements on the French, not even objectionable for general read-
ing, but full of exclusively masculine joking, allusions, and winks,
unintelligible to the other sex, and not welcome if they were intelli-
gible.
He has plenty of melody, but it is hardly recognized because of
the doggerel meaning, which swamps the music in the farce. And
this applies to more important things than the melody. The average
reader floats on the surface of this rapid and foamy stream, covered
with sticks and straws and flowers and bonbons, and never realizes
its depth and volume. This light frothy verse is only the vehicle of
a solid and laborious antiquarian scholarship, of an immense knowl-
edge of the world and society, books and men. He modestly dis-
claimed having any imagination, and said he must always have
facts to work upon. This was true; but the same may be said of
## p. 1508 (#306) ###########################################
1508
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
some great poets, who have lacked invention except around a skele-
ton ready furnished. What was true of Keats and Fitzgerald can-
not nullify the meritof Barham. His fancy erected a huge and
consistent superstructure on a very slender foundation.
The same
materials lay ready to the hands of thousands of others, who, how-
ever, saw only stupid monkish fables or dull country superstition.
His own explanation of his handling of the church legends tickles
a critic's sense of humor almost as much as the verses themselves.
It is true that while differing utterly in his tone of mind, and his
attitude toward the mediæval stories, from that of the mediæval
artists and sculptors,— whose gargoyles and other grotesques were
carved without a thought of travesty on anything religious,- he is at
one with them in combining extreme irreverence of form with a total
lack of irreverence of spirit toward the real spiritual mysteries of
religion. He burlesques saints and devils alike, mocks the swarm of
miracles of the mediæval Church, makes salient all the ludicrous
aspects of mediæval religious faith in its devout credulity and bar-
barous gropings; yet he never sneers at holiness or real aspiration,
and through all the riot of fun in his masques, one feels the sincere
Christian and the warm-hearted man. But he was evidently troubled
by the feeling that a clergyman ought not to ridicule any form in
which religious feeling had ever clothed itself; and he justified him-
self by professing that he wished to expose the absurdity of old
superstitions and mummeries, to help countervail the effect of the
Oxford movement. Ingoldsby as a soldier of Protestantism, turning
monkish stories into rollicking farces in order to show up what he
conceived to be the errors of his opponents, is as truly Ingoldsbian a
figure as any in his own Legends. Yet one need not accuse him
of hypocrisy or falsehood, hardly even of self-deception. He felt
that dead superstitions, and stories not reverenced even by the
Church that developed them, were legitimate material for
any use
he could make of them; he felt that in dressing them up with his
wit and fancy he was harming nothing that existed, nor making any
one look lightly on the religion of Christ or the Church of Christ:
and that they were the property of an opposing church body was a
happy thought to set his conscience at rest. He wrote them thence-
forth with greater peace of mind and added satisfaction, and no doubt
really believed that he was doing good in the way he alleged. And
if the excuse gave to the world even one more of the inimitable
"Legends,' it was worth feeling and making.
Barham's nature was not one which felt the problems and trage-
dies of the world deeply. He grieved for his friends, he helped the
distresses he saw, but his imagination rested closely in the concrete.
He was incapable of weltschmerz; even for things just beyond his
## p. 1509 (#307) ###########################################
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
1509
personal ken he had little vision or fancy. His treatment of the
perpetual problem of sex-temptations and lapses is a good example:
he never seems to be conscious of the tragedy they envelop. To
him they are always good jokes, to wink over or smile at or be
indulgent to. No one would ever guess from Ingoldsby) the truth
he finds even in Don Juan,' that
“A heavy price must all pay who thus err,
In some shape. ”
But we cannot have everything: if Barham had been sensitive to
the tragic side of life, he could not have been the incomparable fun-
maker he was. We do not go to the (Ingoldsby Legends) to solace
our souls when hurt or remorseful, to brace ourselves for duty, or to
feel ourselves nobler by contact with the expression of nobility. But
there must be play and rest for the senses, as well as work and
aspiration; and there are worse services than relieving the strain of
serious endeavor by enabling us to become jolly pagans once again
for a little space, and care naught for the morrow.
AS I LAYE A-THYNKYNGE
THE LAST LINES OF BARHAM
A
s I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge,
Merrie sang the Birde as she sat upon the spraye;
There came a noble Knighte,
With his hauberke shynynge brighte,
And his gallant heart was lyghte,
Free and gaye;
As I laye a-thynkynge, he rode upon his waye.
As I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge.
Sadly sang the Birde as she sat upon the tree!
There seemed a crimson plain,
Where a gallant Knyghte lay slayne,
And a steed with broken rein
Ran free,
As I laye a-thynkynge, most pitiful to see!
As I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge,
Merrie sang the Birde as she sat upon the boughe;
A lovely mayde came bye,
And a gentil youth was nyghe,
And he breathed many a syghe,
And a vowe;
As I laye a-thynkynge, her hearte was gladsome now.
## p. 1510 (#308) ###########################################
1510
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
As I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge,
Sadly sang the Birde as she sat upon the thorne;
No more a youth was there,
But a Maiden rent her haire,
And cried in sad despaire,
cried that i de spioene »
As I laye a-thynkynge, she perished forlorne.
As I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge,
Sweetly sang the Birde as she sat upon the briar;
There came a lovely childe,
And his face was meek and milde,
Yet joyously he smiled
On his sire;
As I laye a-thynkynge, a Cherub mote admire.
But I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge,
And sadly sang the Birde as it perched upon a bier;
That joyous smile was gone,
And the face was white and wan,
As the downe upon the Swan
Doth appear,
As I laye a-thynkynge,-oh! bitter flowed the tear!
As I laye a-thynkynge, the golden sun was sinking,
Oh, merrie sang that Birde, as it glittered on her breast
With a thousand gorgeous dyes;
While soaring to the skies,
'Mid the stars she seemed to rise,
As to her nest;
As I laye a-thynkynge, her meaning was exprest:-
«Follow, follow me away,
It boots not to delay,”.
'Twas so she seemed to saye,
“HERE IS REST! »
## p. 1511 (#309) ###########################################
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
1511
THE LAY OF ST. CUTHBERT
OR
THE DEVIL'S DINNER-PARTY
A
LEGEND OF THE NORTH COUNTREE
Nobilis quidam, cui nomen Monsr. Lescrop, Chivaler, cum invitasset
convivas, et, hora convivii jam instante et apparatu facto, spe frustratus esset,
excusantibus se convivis cur non compararent, prorupit iratus in hæc verba:
« Veniant igitur omnes dæmones, si nullus hominum mecum esse potest ! »
Quod cum fieret, et Dominus, et famuli, et ancillæ, a domo properantes,
forte obliti, infantem in cunis jacentem secum non auferent, Dæmones incip-
iunt commessari et vociferari, prospicereque per fenestras formis ursorum,
luporum, felium, et monstrare pocula vino repleta. Ah, inquit pater, ubi
infans meus ? Vix cum hæc dixisset, unus ex Dæmonibus ulnis suis infan-
tem ad fenestram gestat, etc. - Chronicon de Bolton.
I
T's in Bolton Hall, and the clock strikes One,
And the roast meat's brown and the boiled meat's done,
And the barbecued sucking-pig's crisped to a turn,
And the pancakes are fried and beginning to burn;
The fat stubble-goose
Swims in gravy and juice,
With the mustard and apple-sauce ready for use;
Fish, Alesh, and fowl, and all of the best,
Want nothing but eating — they're all ready drest,
But where is the Host, and where is the Guest ?
Pantler and serving-man, henchman and page
Stand sniffing the duck-stuffing (onion and sage),
And the scullions and cooks,
With fidgety looks,
Are grumbling and mutt'ring, and scowling as black
As cooks always do when the dinner's put back;
For though the board's deckt, and the napery, fair
As the unsunned snow-flake, is spread out with care,
And the Dais is furnished with stool and with chair,
And plate of orféverie costly and rare,
Apostle-spoons, salt-cellar, all are there,
And Mess John in his place,
With his rubicund face,
And his hands ready folded, prepared to say Grace,
Yet where is the Host ? — and his convives — where?
## p. 1512 (#310) ###########################################
1512
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
The Scroope sits lonely in Bolton Hall,
And he watches the dial that hangs by the wall,
He watches the large hand, he watches the small,
And he fidgets and looks
As cross as the cooks,
And he utters a word which we'll soften to “Zooks! »
And he cries, “What on earth has become of them all ? -
What can delay
De Vaux and De Saye ?
What makes Sir Gilbert de Umfraville stay?
What's gone with Poyntz, and Sir Reginald Braye ?
Why are Ralph Ufford and Marny away?
And De Nokes and De Styles, and Lord Marmaduke Grey ?
And De Roe ?
And De Doe ?
Poynings and Vavasour — where be they?
Fitz-Walter, Fitz-Osbert, Fitz-Hugh, and Fitz-John,
And the Mandevilles, père et filz (father and son);
Their cards said Dinner precisely at One!
There's nothing I hate, in
The world, like waiting!
It's a monstrous great bore, when a Gentleman feels
A good appetite, thus to be kept from his meals! »
It's in Bolton Hall, and the clock strikes Two!
And the scullions and cooks are themselves in a stew,
And the kitchen-maids stand, and don't know what to do,
For the rich plum-puddings are bursting their bags,
And the mutton and turnips are boiling to rags,
And the fish is all spoiled,
And the butter's all oiled,
And the soup's got cold in the silver tureen,
And there's nothing, in short, that is fit to be seen!
While Sir Guy Le Scroope continues to fume,
And to fret by himself in the tapestried room,
And still fidgets and looks
More cross than the cooks,
And repeats that bad word, which we've softened to “Zooks! »
Two o'clock's come, and Two o'clock's gone,
And the large and the small hands move steadily or,
Still nobody's there,
No De Roos, or De Clare,
To taste of the Scroope's most delicate fare,
## p. 1513 (#311) ###########################################
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
1513
Or to quaff off a health unto Bolton's Heir,
That nice little boy who sits in his chair,
Some four years old, and a few months to spare,
With his laughing blue eyes and his long curly hair,
Now sucking his thumb, and now munching his pear.
Again Sir Guy the silence broke,
“It's hard upon Three! — it's just on the stroke!
Come, serve up the dinner! - A joke is a joke! ” —
Little he deems that Stephen de Hoaques,
Who “his fun,” as the Yankees say, everywhere “pokes,»
And is always a great deal too fond of his jokes,
Has written a circular note to De Nokes,
And De Styles and De Roe, and the rest of the folks,
One and all,
Great and small,
Who were asked to the Hall
To dine there and sup, and wind up with a ball,
And had told all the party a great bouncing lie, he
Cooked up, that the "fête was postponed sine die,
The dear little curly-wigged heir of Le Scroope
Being taken alarmingly ill with the croop! ”
When the clock struck Three,
And the Page on his knee
Said, “An't please you, Sir Guy Le Scroope, On a servi! »
And the Knight found the banquet-hall empty and clear,
With nobody near
To partake of his cheer,
He stamped, and he stormed — then his language! —Oh dear!
'Twas awful to see, and 'twas awful to hear!
And he cried to the button-decked Page at his knee,
Who had told him so civilly "On a servi,"
«Ten thousand fiends seize them, wherever they be!
- The Devil take them! and the Devil take thee!
And the DEVIL MAY EAT UP THE DINNER FOR ME! »
In a terrible fume
He bounced out of the room,
He bounced out of the house — and page, footman, and groom
Bounced after their master; for scarce had they heard
Of this left-handed grace the last finishing word,
Ere the horn at the gate of the Barbican tower
Was blown with a loud twenty-trumpeter power,
## p. 1514 (#312) ###########################################
1514
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
And in rush'd a troop
Of strange guests! - such a group
As had ne'er before darkened the door of the Scroope!
This looks like De Saye — yet — it is not De Saye —
And this is no, 'tis not — Sir Reginald Braye,
This has somewhat the favor of Marmaduke Grey -
But stay! - Where on earth did he get those long nails?
Why, they're claws. :— then Good Gracious! — they've all of them tails !
That can't be De Vaux — why, his nose is a bill,
Or, I would say a beak! - and he can't keep it still! -
Is that Poynings ? — Oh, Gemini! look at his feet! !
Why, they're absolute hoofs! — is it gout or his corns,
That have crumpled them up so ? — by Jingo, he's horns !
Run! run! — There's Fitz-Walter, Fitz-Hugh, and Fitz-John,
And the Mandevilles, père et fils (father and son),
And Fitz-Osbert, and Ufford - they've all got them on!
Then their great saucer eyes —
It's the Father of lies
And his Imps — run! run! run! - they're all fiends in disguise,
Who've partly assumed, with more sombre complexions,
The forms of Sir Guy Le Scroope's friends and connections,
And He — at the top there — that grim-looking elf -
Run! run! - that's the “muckle-horned Clootie” himself!
And now what a din
Without and within!
For the courtyard is full of them. — How they begin
To mop, and to mowe, and to make faces, and grin!
Cock their tails up together,
Like cows in hot weather,
And butt at each other, all eating and drinking,
The viands and wine disappearing like winking,
And then such a lot
As together had got!
Master Cabbage, the steward, who'd made a machine
To calculate with, and count noses, --I ween
The cleverest thing of the kind ever seen,
Declared, when he'd made
By the said machine's aid,
Up, what's now called the “tottle of those he surveyed,
There were just — how he proved it I cannot divine —
Nine thousand, nine hundred, and ninety and nine.
Exclusive of Him
Who, giant in limb,
## p. 1515 (#313) ###########################################
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
1515
And black as the crow they denominate Jim,
With a tail like a bull, and a head like a bear,
Stands forth at the window — and what holds he there,
Which he hugs with such care,
And pokes out in the air,
And grasps as its limbs from each other he'd tear ?
Oh! grief and despair!
I vow and declare
It's Le Scroope's poor, dear, sweet, little, curly-wigged Heir!
Whom the nurse had forgot and left there in his chair,
Alternately sucking his thumb and his pear.
What words can express
The dismay and distress
Of Sir Guy, when he found what a terrible mess
His cursing and banning had now got him into ?
That words, which to use are a shame and a sin too,
Had thus on their speaker recoiled, and his malison
Placed in the hands of the Devil's own “pal” his son! -
He sobbed and he sighed,
And he screamed, and he cried,
And behaved like a man that is mad or in liquor — he
Tore his peaked beard, and he dashed off his “Vicary,”
Stamped on the jasey
As though he were crazy,
And staggering about just as if he were “hazy,”
Exclaimed, «Fifty pounds! ” (a large sum in those times)
“To the person, whoever he may be, that climbs
To that window above there, en ogive, and painted,
And brings down my curly-wi' _» Here Sir Guy fainted!
With many a moan,
And many a groan,
What with tweaks of the nose, and some eau de Cologne,
He revived, Reason once more remounted her throne,
Or rather the instinct of Nature - 'twere treason
To her, in the Scroope's case, perhaps, to say Reason --
But what saw he then — Oh! my goodness! a sight
Enough to have banished his reason outright! -
In that broad banquet-hall
The fiends one and all
Regardless of shriek, and of squeak, and of squall,
From one to another were tossing that small
Pretty, curly-wigged boy, as if playing at ball;
## p. 1516 (#314) ###########################################
1516
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
Yet none of his friends or his vassals might dare
To fly to the rescue or rush up the stair,
And bring down in safety his curly-wigged Heir!
Well a day! Well a day!
All he can say
Is but just so much trouble and time thrown away;
Not a man can be tempted to join the mêlée :
E'en those words cabalistic, “I promise to pay
Fifty pounds on demand,” have for once lost their sway,
And there the Knight stands
Wringing his hands
In his agony — when on a sudden, one ray
Of hope darts through his midriff! - His Saint ! -
Oh, it's funny
And almost absurd,
That it never occurred ! -
«Ay! the Scroope's Patron Saint ! - he's the man for my money!
Saint — who is it? — really I'm sadly to blame,-
On my word I'm afraid, -I confess it with shame,-
That I've almost forgot the good Gentleman's name,
Cut- let me see - Cutbeard? — no— CUTHBERT! -- egad!
St. Cuthbert of Bolton! -- I'm right — he's the lad!
O holy St. Cuthbert, if forbears of mine -
Of myself I say little — have knelt at your shrine,
And have lashed their bare backs, and — no matter — with twine,
Oh! list to the vow
Which I make to you now,
Only snatch my poor little boy out of the row
Which that Imp's kicking up with his fiendish bow-wow,
And his head like a bear, and his tail like a cow!
Bring him back here in safety! — perform but this task,
And I'll give — Oh! - I'll give you whatever you ask! -
There is not a shrine
In the county shall shine
With a brilliancy half so resplendent as thine,
Or have so many candles, or look half so fine!
Haste, holy St. Cuthbert, then,- hasten in pity! — »
Conceive his surprise
When a strange voice replies,
«It's a bargain! -- but, mind, sir, THE BEST SPERMACETI! ».
Say, whose that voice ? — whose that form by his side,
That old, old, gray man, with his beard long and wide.
## p. 1517 (#315) ###########################################
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
1517
In his coarse Palmer's weeds,
And his cockle and beads ? —
And how did he come ? - did he walk ? - did he ride?
Oh! none could determine, -oh! none could decide, -
The fact is, I don't believe any one tried;
For while every one stared, with a dignified stride
And without a word more,
He inarched on before,
Up a flight of stone steps, and so through the front door,
To the banqueting-hall that was on the first floor,
While the fiendish assembly were making a rare
Little shuttlecock there of the curly-wigged Heir.
- I wish, gentle Reader, that you could have seen
The pause that ensued when he stepped in between,
With his resolute air, and his dignified mien,
And said, in a tone most decided though mild,
“Come! I'll trouble you just to hand over that child!
The Demoniac crowd
In an instant seemed cowed;
Not one of the crew volunteered a reply,
All shrunk from the glance of that keen-flashing eye,
Save one horrid Humgruffin, who seemed by his talk,
And the airs he assumed, to be cock of the walk.
He quailed not before it, but saucily met it,
And as saucily said, “Don't you wish you may get it? »
My goodness! — the look that the old Palmer gave!
And his frown! — 'twas quite dreadful to witness — "Why, slave!
You rascal! » quoth he,
“This language to ME!
At once, Mr. Nicholas! down on your knee,
And hand me that curly-wigged boy! -- I command it-
Come! none of your nonsense! - you know I won't stand it. ”
Old Nicholas trembled, — he shook in his shoes,
And seemed half inclined, but afraid, to refuse.
« Well, Cuthbert,” said he,
“If so it must be,
For you've had your own way from the first time I knew ye;
Take your curly-wigged brat, and much good may he do ye!
But I'll have in exchange ” — here his eye flashed with rage -
« That chap with the buttons - he gave me the Page! ”
“Come, come,” the saint answered, you very well know
The young man's no his than your own to bestow.
## p. 1518 (#316) ###########################################
1518
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
Touch one button of his if you dare, Nick — no!
of all my irregularities, which he complaisantly believed. Besides,
I was not sorry to return home: for to tell you a secret, Paris had
been unfaithful to me long before his death, and was fond of a
little Trojan brunette whose office it was to hold up my train;
but it was thought dishonorable to give me up. I began to think
love a very foolish thing: I became a great housekeeper, worked
## p. 1494 (#292) ###########################################
1494
ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD
the battles of Troy in tapestry, and spun with my maids by the
side of Menelaus, who was so satisfied with my conduct, and
behaved, good man, with so much fondness, that I verily think
this was the happiest period of my life.
Maintenon — Nothing more likely; but the most obscure wife
in Greece could rival you there. — Adieu! you have convinced me
how little fame and greatness conduce to happiness.
LIFE
L
IFE! I know not what thou art,
But know that thou and I must part;
And when or how or where we met,
I own to me's a secret yet.
But this I know, when thou art fled,
Where'er they lay these limbs, this head,
No clod so valueless shall be,
As all that then remains of me.
O whither, whither dost thou fly,
Where bend unseen thy trackless course,
And in this strange divorce,
Ah, tell where I must seek this compound I ?
To the vast ocean of empyreal flame,
From whence thy essence came,
Dost thou thy flight pursue, when freed
From matter's base encumbering weed ?
Or dost thou, hid from sight,
Wait, like some spell-bound knight,
Through blank oblivion's years th' appointed hour,
To break thy trance and reassume thy power ?
Yet canst thou without thought or feeling be?
O say what art thou, when no more thou’rt thee?
Life! we've been long together,
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;
'Tis hard part when friends are dear;
Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear;
Then steal away, give little warning,
Choose thine own time;
Say not good-night, but in some brighter clime
Bid me good-morning.
## p. 1495 (#293) ###########################################
ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD
1495
PRAISE TO GOD
P
RAISE to God, immortal praise,
For the love that crowns our days —
Bounteous source of every joy,
Let Thy praise our tongues employ!
For the blessings of the field,
For the stores the gardens yield,
For the vine's exalted juice,
For the generous olive's use;
Flocks that whiten all the plain,
Yellow sheaves of ripened grain,
Clouds that drop their fattening dews,
Suns that temperate warmth diffuse -
All that Spring, with bounteous hand,
Scatters o'er the smiling land;
All that liberal Autumn pours
From her rich o'erflowing stores:
These to Thee, my God, we owe -
Source whence all our blessings flow!
And for these my soul shall raise
Grateful vows and solemn praise.
Yet should rising whirlwinds tear
From its stem the ripening ear
Should the fig-tree's blasted shoot
Drop her green untimely fruit -
Should the vine put forth no more,
Nor the olive yield her store —
Though the sickening flocks should fall,
And the herds desert the stall —
Should Thine altered hand restrain
The early and the latter rain,
Blast each opening bud of joy,
And the rising year destroy:
Yet to Thee my soul should raise
Grateful vows and solemn praise,
And, when every blessing's flown,
Love Thee — for Thyself alone.
## p. 1496 (#294) ###########################################
1496
ALEXANDER BARCLAY
(1475-1552)
B
-an
ARCLAY's reputation rests upon his translation of the famous
"Ship of Fools and his original Eclogues. ' A controversy
as to the land of his birth - event which happened
about the year 1475 — has lasted from his century to our own. The
decision in favor of Scotland rests upon the testimony of two wit-
nesses: first, Dr. William Bullim, a younger contemporary of Barclay,
who mentions him in (A Dialogue Both Pleasaunt and Pietifull
Wherein is a Godlie Regement Against the Fever Pestilence with a
Consolation and Comforte Against Death,' which was published in
1564; and secondly, Barclay himself.
Bullim groups the Muses at the foot of Parnassus, and gathers
about them Greek and Latin poets, and such Englishmen as Chaucer,
Gower, Skelton, and Barclay, the latter “with an hoopyng russet
long coate, with a pretie hood in his necke, and five knottes upon
his girdle, after Francis's tricks. He was borne beyond the cold
river of Twede. He lodged upon a sweetebed of chamomill under
the sinamone-tree: about him many shepherdes and shepe, with
pleasaunte pipes; greatly abhorring the life of Courtiers, Citizens,
Usurers, and Banckruptes, etc. , whose daies are miserable. And the
estate of shepherdes and countrie people he accompted moste happie
and sure. Deprived of its poetic fancy, this passage means that
Barclay was a monk of the order of St. Francis, that he was born
north of the Tweed, that his verse was infused with such bitterness
and tonic qualities as camomile possesses, and that he advocated the
cause of the country people in his independent and admirable Ec-
logues,' another title for the first three of which is Miseryes of
Courtiers and Courtes of all Princes in General. '
Barclay was educated at Oxford and Cambridge, and upon his
return to England after several years of residence abroad, he was
made one of the priests of Saint Mary Ottery, an institution of devout
practice and learning in Devonshire. Here in 1508 was finished
(The Shyp of Folys of the Worlde translated out of Laten, Frenche,
and Doche into Englysshe tonge by Alexander Barclay, Preste, and
at that time chaplen in the sayd College. '
After his work was completed Barclay went to London, where
his poem was “imprentyd
in Fleet Street at the signe of
Saynt George by Rycharde Pyreson to hys Coste and charge: ended
## p. 1497 (#295) ###########################################
ALEXANDER BARCLAY
1497
C
the yere of our Saviour MDIX. the XIII. day of December. ” That he
became a Benedictine and lived at the monastery of the order at
Ely is evident from his "Eclogues. ' Here he translated at the
instance of Sir Giles Arlington, Knight, The Myrrour of Good Man-
ers,' from a Latin elegiac poem which Dominic Mancini published
in the year 1516.
“It was about this period of his life,” says Mr. Jamieson in his
admirable edition of the Ship of Fools,' “probably the period of
the full bloom of his popularity, that the quiet life of the poet and
priest was interrupted by the recognition of his eminence in the
highest quarters, and by a request for his aid in maintaining the
honor of the country on an occasion to which the eyes of all Europe
were then directed. In a letter to Wolsey dated oth April, 1520,
Sir Nicholas Vaux – busied with the preparation for that meeting of
Henry VIII. and Francis I. called the field of the Cloth of Gold -
begs the Cardinal to send them . . Maistre Barkleye, the Black
Monke and Poete, to devise histoires and convenient raisons to flor-
isshe the buildings and banquet house withal. ”
He became a Franciscan, the habit of which order Bullim refers
to; and
sure 'tis,” says Wood, “that living to see his monastery
dissolvid, in 1539, at the general dissolution by act of Henry VIII. ,
he became vicar of Much Badew in Essex, and in 1546, the same
year, of the Church of St. Matthew the Apostle at Wokey, in Som-
ersetshire, and finally in 1552, the year in which he died, of that of
All Saints, Lombard Street, London. In his younger days he was
esteemed a good poet and orator, but when years came on, he spent
his time mostly in pious matters, and in reading the histories of
Saints. ”
'The Ship of Fools) is the most important work associated with
Barclay's name. It was a translation of Sebastian Brandt's (Stulti-
fera Navis, a book which had attracted universal attention on the
Continent when it appeared in 1494. In his preface, Barclay admits
that it is not translated word by word according to the verses of my
actor. For I have but only drawn into our mother tongue in rude
language the sentences of the verses as near as the paucity of my
wit will suffer me, sometime adding, sometime detracting and taking
away such things as seemeth me necessary. ” The classes and con-
ditions of society that Barclay knew were as deserving of satire as
those of Germany. He tells us that his work was undertaken «to
cleanse the vanity and madness of foolish people, of whom over great
number is in the Realm of England. ”
The diction of Barclay's version is exceptionally fine. Jamieson
calls it “a rich and unique exhibition of early art,” and says:—Page
after page, even in the antique spelling of Pynson's edition, may be
## p. 1498 (#296) ###########################################
1498
ALEXANDER BARCLAY
read by the ordinary reader of to-day without reference to a diction-
ary; and when reference is required, it will be found in nine cases
out of ten that the archaism is Saxon, not Latin. This is all the
more remarkable that it occurs in the case of a priest translating
mainly from the Latin and French, and can only be explained with
reference to his standpoint as a social reformer of the broadest type,
and to his evident intention that his book should be an appeal to all
classes, but especially to the mass of people for amendment of their
follies. ”
As the original work belonged to the German satirist, the extract
from the Ship of Fools) is placed under the essay entitled “Sebastian
Brandt. ' His Eclogues' show Barclay at his best. They portray the
manners and customs of the period, and are full of local proverbs
and wise sayings. According to Warton, Barclay's are the first
Eclogues) that appeared in the English language. “They are like
Petrarch's,” he says, “and Mantuans of the moral and satirical kind;
and contain but few touches of moral description and bucolic im-
agery. ” Two shepherds meet to talk about the pleasures and crosses
of rustic life and life at court. The hoary locks of the one show
that he is old. His suit of Kendal green is threadbare, his rough
boots are patched, and the torn side of his coat reveals a bottle never
full and never empty. His wallet contains bread and cheese; he has
a crook, and an oaten pipe. His name is Cornix, and he boasts that
he has had worldly experience. The other shepherd, Coridon, having
seen nothing, complains of country life. He grumbles at the sum-
mer's heat and the winter's cold; at beds on the flinty ground, and
the dangers of sleeping where the wolves may creep in to devour
the sheep; of his stiff rough hands, and his parched, wrinkled, and
weather-beaten skin. He asks whether all men are so unhappy. Cor-
nix, refreshing himself at intervals with his bottle and crusts, shows
him the small amount of liberty at court, discourses upon the folly
of ambition, lays bare the rapine, avarice, and covetousness of the
worldly-minded, and demonstrates that the court is “painted fair with-
out, but within it is ugly and vile. ” He then gives the picture of
a courtier's life, which is cited below. He tells how the minstrels
and singers, philosophers, poets, and orators are but the slaves of
patronizing princes; how beautiful women deceive; describes to him,
who has known nothing but a diet of bread and cheese, the delights
of the table; dilates on the cups of silver and gold, and the crys-
tal glass shining with red and yellow wine; the sewers bearing
in roasted crane, gorgeous peacocks, and savory joints of beef and
mutton; the carver wielding his dexterous knife; the puddings, the
pasties, the fish fried in sweet oils and garnished with herbs; the
costumes of the men and women in cloth of gold and silver and gay
## p. 1499 (#297) ###########################################
ALEXANDER BARCLAY
1499
damask; the din of music, voices, laughter, and jests; and then
paints a picture of the lords and ladies who plunge their knives into
the meats and their hands into platters, spilling wine and gravy
upon their equally gluttonous neighbors. He finishes by saying:-
Shepherds have not so wretched lives as they:
Though they live poorely on cruddes, chese, and whey,
On apples, plummes, and drinke cleree water deepe,
As it were lordes reigning among their sheepe.
The wretched lazar with clinking of his bell,
Hath life which doth the courtiers excell;
The caytif begger hath meate and libertie,
When courtiers hunger in harde captivitie.
The poore man beggeth nothing hurting his name,
As touching courters they dare not beg for shame.
And an olde proverb is sayde by men moste sage,
That oft yonge courters be beggars in their age. ”
The third 'Eclogue begins with Coridon relating a dream that he
went to court and saw the scullions standing
(about me thicke
With knives ready for to flay me quicke. ”
This is a text for Cornix, who continues his tirade, and convinces
Coridon of the misery of the court and his happier life, ending as
follows:-
« Than let all shepheardes, from hence to Salisbury
With easie riches, live well, laugh and be mery,
Pipe under shadowes, small riches hath most rest,
In greatest seas moste sorest is tempest,
The court is nought els but a tempesteous sea;
Avoyde the rockes. Be ruled after me. ”
The fourth (Eclogue' is a dialogue on the rich man's treatment of
poets, by two shepherds, Codrus and Menalcas, musing in shadowe
on the green,” while their snowy flocks graze on the sweet meadow.
This contains a fine allegorical description of Labour. '
The fifth Eclogue' is the Cytezen and the Uplondyshman. '
Here the scene changes, and two shepherds, Faustus and Amyntas,
discourse in a cottage while the snows of January whirl without.
Amyntas has learned in London to go so manerly. ” Not a wrinkle
may be found in his clothes, not a hair on his cloak, and he wears
a brooch of tin high on his bonnet. He has been hostler, coster-
monger, and taverner, and sings the delights of the city. Faustus,
the rustic, is contented with his lot. The Cytezen and the Uplond-
yshman' was printed from the original edition of Wynkyn de Worde,
with a preface by F. W. Fairholt, Percy Society (Vol. xxii. ).
## p. 1500 (#298) ###########################################
1500
ALEXANDER BARCLAY
Other works ascribed to Barclay are:- 'The Figure of Our Holy
Mother Church, Oppressed by the French King'; The Lyfe of the
Glorious Martyr Saynt George, translated (from Mantuan) by Alex-
ander Barclay; "The Lyfe of the Blessed Martyr, Saynte Thomas';
Contra Skeltonum, in which the quarrel he had with his contem-
porary poet, John Skelton, was doubtless continued.
Estimates of Barclay may be found in "The Ship of Fools,' edited
by T. H. Jamieson (1874); Sibbald's Chronicle of Scottish Poetry,'
from the thirteenth century to the union of the crowns (1802); “The
History of English Poetry,' by Thomas Warton (1824); The History
of Scottish Poetry,' by David Irving (1861); and Chips from a Ger-
man Workshop,' by F. Max Müller (1870).
THE COURTIER'S LIFE
Second Eclogue
CORNIX
S®
OME men deliteth beholding men to fight,
Or goodly knights in pleasaunt apparayle,
Or sturdie soldiers in bright harnes and male,
Or an army arrayde ready to the warre,
Or to see them fight, so that he stand afarre.
Some glad is to see those ladies beauteous
Goodly appoynted in clothing sumpteous:
A number of people appoynted in like wise
In costly clothing after the newest gise,
Sportes, disgising, fayre coursers mount and praunce,
Or goodly ladies and knightes sing and daunce,
To see fayre houses and curious picture,
Or pleasaunt hanging or sumpteous vesture
Of silke, of purpure or golde moste oriente,
And other clothing divers and excellent,
Hye curious buildinges or palaces royall,
Or chapels, temples fayre and substantial,
Images graven or vaultes curious,
Gardeyns and medowes, or place delicious,
Forestes and parkes well furnished with dere,
Cold pleasaunt streams or welles fayre and clere,
Curious cundites or shadowie mountaynes,
Swete pleasaunt valleys, laundes or playnes,
Houndes, and such other things manyfolde
Some men take pleasour and solace to beholde.
## p. 1501 (#299) ###########################################
ALEXANDER BARCLAY
1501
But all these pleasоures be much more jocounde,
To private persons which not to court be bounde,
Than to such other whiche of necessitie
Are bounde to the court as in captivitie;
For they which be bounde to princes without fayle
When they must nedes be present in battayle,
When shall they not be at large to see the sight,
But as souldiours in the middest of the fight,
To runne here and there sometime his foe to smite,
And oftetimes wounded, herein is small delite,
And more muste he think his body to defende,
Than for any pleasour about him to intende,
And oft is he faynt and beaten to the grounde,
I trowe in suche sight small pleasour may be founde.
As for fayre ladies, clothed in silke and golde,
In court at thy pleasour thou canst not beholde.
At thy princes pleasour thou shalt them only see,
Then suche shalt thou see which little set by thee,
Whose shape and beautie may so inflame thine heart,
That thought and languor may cause thee for to smart.
For a small sparcle may kindle love certayne,
But skantly Severne may quench it clene againe;
And beautie blindeth and causeth man to set
His hearte on the thing which he shall never get.
To see men clothed in silkes pleasauntly
It is small pleasour, and ofte causeth envy.
While thy lean jade halteth by thy side,
To see another upon a courser ride,
Though he be neyther gentleman nor knight,
Nothing is thy fortune, thy hart cannot be light.
As touching sportes and games of pleasaunce,
To sing, to revell, and other daliaunce:
Who that will truely upon his lord attende,
Unto suche sportes he seldome may entende.
Palaces, pictures, and temples sumptuous,
And other buildings both gay and curious,
These may marchauntes more at their pleasour see
Men suche as in court be bounde alway to bee.
Sith kinges for moste part passe not their regions,
Thou seest nowe cities of foreyn nations.
Suche outwarde pleasоures may the people see,
So may not courtiers for lacke of libertie.
As for these pleasours of thinges vanable
Whiche in the fieldes appeareth delectable,
## p. 1502 (#300) ###########################################
1502
ALEXANDER BARCLAY
But seldome season mayest thou obtayne respite.
The same to beholde with pleasour and delite,
Sometime the courtier remayneth halfe the yere
Close within walls muche like a prisonere,
To make escapes some seldome times are wont,
Save when the powers have pleasour for to hunt,
Or its otherwise themselfe to recreate,
And then this pleasour shall they not love but hate;
For then shall they foorth most chiefely to their payne,
When they in mindes would at home remayne.
Other in the frost, hayle, or els snowe,
Or when some tempest or mightie wind doth blowe,
Or else in great heat and fervour excessife,
But close in houses the moste parte waste their life,
Of colour faded, and choked were with duste:
This is of courtiers the joy and all the lust.
CORIDON
What! yet may they sing and with fayre ladies daunce,
Both commen and laugh; herein is some pleasaunce.
CORNIX
Nay, nay, Coridon, that pleasour is but small,
Some to contente what man will pleasour call,
For some in the daunce his pincheth by the hande,
Which gladly would see him stretched in a bande.
Some galand seketh his favour to purchase
Which playne abhorreth for to beholde his face.
And still in dauncing moste parte inclineth she
To one muche viler and more abject then he.
No day over passeth but that in court men finde
A thousande thinges to vexe and greve their minde;
Alway thy foes are present in thy sight,
And often so great is their degree and might
That nedes must thou kisse the hand which did thee harm,
Though thou would see it cut gladly from the arme.
And briefly to speake, if thou to courte resorte,
If thou see one thing of pleasour or comfort,
Thou shalt see many, before or thou depart,
To thy displeasour and pensiveness of heart:
So findeth thy sight there more of bitternes
And of displeasour, than pleasour and gladnes.
## p. 1503 (#301) ###########################################
1503
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
(1788-1845)
he author of the Ingoldsby Legends belonged to a well-
defined and delightful class of men, chiefly found in mod-
ern England, and indeed mostly bred and made possible by
the conditions of English society and the Anglican Church. It is
that of clergymen who in the public eye are chiefly wits and diners-
out, jokers and literary humorists, yet are conscientious and devoted
ministers of their religion and curators of their religious charges,
honoring their profession and humanity by true and useful lives and
lovable characters. They are men of the
sort loathed by Lewis Carroll's heroine in
the “Two Voices,
( a kind of folk
Who have no horror of a joke,
and indeed love it dearly; but are as firm
in principle and unostentatiously dutiful in
conduct as if they were leaden Puritans or
narrow devotees.
By far the best remembered of this
class, for themselves or their work, are
Sydney Smith and Richard Harris Barham;
RICHARD H. BARHAM
but their relative repute is one of the odd-
est paradoxes in literary history. Roughly speaking, the one is
remembered and unread, the other read and unremembered. Syd-
ney Smith's name is almost as familiar to the masses as Scott's, and
few could tell a line that he wrote; Barham's writing is almost as
familiar as Scott's, and few would recognize his name. Yet he is in
the foremost rank of humorists; his place is wholly unique, and is
likely to remain so. It will be an age before a similar combination
of tastes and abilities is found once more. Macaulay said truly of
Sir Walter Scott that he "combined the minute learning of an anti-
quary with the fire of a great poet. ” Barham combined a like learn-
ing in different fields, and joined to a different outlook and temper
of mind, with the quick perceptions of a great wit, the brimming
zest and high spirits of a great joker, the genial nature and light-
ness of a born man of the world, and the gifts of a wonderful
improvisatore in verse. Withal, he had just enough of serious pur-
pose to give much of his work a certain measure of cohesive unity,
## p. 1504 (#302) ###########################################
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
1504
and thus impress it on the mind as no collection of random skits
could do. That purpose is the feathering which steadies the arrows
and sends them home.
It is pleasant to know that one who has given so good a time to
others had a very good time himself; that we are not, as so often
happens, relishing a farce that stood for tragedy with the maker, and
substituting our laughter for his tears. Barham had the cruel sor-
rows of personal bereavement so few escape; but in material things
his career was wholly among pleasant ways. He was well born and
with means, well educated, well nurtured. He was free from the
sordid squabbles or anxious watching and privation which fall to the
lot of so many of the best. He was happy in his marriage and its
attendant home and family, and most fortunate in his friendships
and the superb society he enjoyed. His birth and position as a gen-
tleman of good landed family, combined with his profession, opened
all doors to him.
But it was the qualities personal to himself, after all, which made
these things available for enjoyment. His desires were moderate;
he counted success what more eager and covetous natures might
have esteemed comparative failure. His really strong intellect and
wide knowledge and cultivation enabled him to meet the foremost
men of letters on equal terms. His kind heart, generous nature,
exuberant fun, and entertaining conversation endeared him to every
one and made his company sought by every one; they saved much
trouble from coming upon him and lightened what did come. And
no blight could have withered that perennial fountain of jollity,
drollery, and light-heartedness. But these were only the ornaments
of a stanchly loyal and honorable nature, and a lovable and unselfish
soul. One of his friends writes of him thus:-
«The profits of agitating pettifoggers would have materially lessened in a
district where he acted as a magistrate; and duels would have been nipped
in the bud at his regimental mess. It is not always an easy task to do
as you would be done by; but to think as you would be thought of and
thought for, and to feel as you would be felt for, is perhaps still more diffi-
cult, as superior powers of tact and intellect are here required in order to
second good intentions. These faculties, backed by an uncompromising love
of truth and fair dealing, indefatigable good nature, and a nice sense of
what was due to every one in the several relations of life, both gentle and
simple, rendered our late friend invaluable, either as an adviser or a peace-
maker, in matters of delicate and difficult handling. ”
Barham was born in Canterbury, England, December 6th, 1788,
and died in London, June 17th, 1845. His ancestry was superior, the
family having derived its name from possessions in Kent in Norman
days. He lost his father -
- a genial bon vivant of literary tastes who
## p. 1505 (#303) ###########################################
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
1505
seems like a reduced copy of his son - when but five years old; and
became heir to a fair estate, including Tappington Hall, the pictur-
esque old gabled mansion so often imaginatively misdescribed in the
Ingoldsby Legends, but really having the famous blood-stained
stairway. He had an expensive private education, which was nearly
ended with his life at the age of fourteen by a carriage accident
which shattered and mangled his right arm, crippling it perma-
nently. As so often happens, the disaster was really a piece of good
fortune: it turned him to or confirmed him in quiet antiquarian
scholarship, and established connections which ultimately led to the
Legends'; he may owe immortality to it.
After passing through St. Paul's (London) and Brasenose (Oxford),
he studied law, but finally entered the church. After a couple of
small curacies in Kent, he was made rector of Snargate and curate
of Warehorn, near Romney Marsh; all four in a district where smug-
gling was a chief industry, and the Marsh in especial a noted haunt
of desperadoes (for smugglers then took their lives in their hands),
of which the Legends) are rich in reminiscences. In 1819. during
this incumbency, he wrote a novel, Baldwin,' which was a failure;
and part of another, My Cousin Nicholas,' which, finished fifteen
years later, had fair success as a serial in Blackwood's Magazine.
An opportunity offering in 1821, he stood for a minor canonry in
St. Paul's Cathedral, London, and obtained it; his income
less than before, but he had entered the metropolitan field, which
brought him rich enjoyment and permanent fame. He paid a terri-
ble price for them: his unhealthy London house cost him the lives
of three of his children. To make up for his shortened means he
became editor of the London Chronicle and a contributor to various
other periodicals, including the notorious weekly John Bull, some-
time edited by Theodore Hook. In 1824 he became a priest in the
Chapel Royal at St. James's Palace, and soon after gained a couple
of excellent livings in Essex, which put him at ease financially.
He was inflexible in principle, a firm Tory, though without ran-
He was very High Church, but had no sympathy with the
Oxford movement or Catholicism. He preached careful and sober
sermons, without oratorical display and with rigid avoidance of lev-
ity. He would not make the church a field either for fireworks or
jokes, or even for displays of scholarship or intellectual gymnastics.
In his opinion, religious establishments were kept up to advance
religion and morals. And both he and his wife wrought zealously in
the humble but exacting field of parochial good works.
He was, however, fast becoming one of the chief ornaments of
that brilliant group of London wits whose repute still vibrates from
the early part of the century. Many of them - actors, authors,
was
cor.
111-95
## p. 1506 (#304) ###########################################
1506
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
artists, musicians, and others — met at the Garrick Club, and Barham
joined it. The names of Sydney Smith and Theodore Hook are
enough to show what it was; but there were others equally delight-
ful, — not the least so, or least useful, a few who could not see a joke
at all, and whose simplicity and good nature made them butts for
the hoaxes and solemn chaff of the rest. Barham's diary, quoted in
his son's Life,' gives an exquisite instance.
In 1834 his old schoolmaster Bentley established Bentley's Miscel-
lany; and Barham was asked for contributions. The first he sent
was the amusing but quite conceivable Spectre of Tappington';
but there soon began the immortal series of versified local stories,
legendary church miracles, antiquarian curios, witty summaries of
popular plays, skits on London life, and so on, under the pseudonym
of Thomas Ingoldsby,' which sprang instantly into wide popularity,
and have never fallen from public favor since nor can they till
appreciation of humor is dead in the world. They were collected
and illustrated by Leech, Cruikshank, and others, who were inspired
by them to some of their best designs: perhaps the most perfect
realization in rt of the Devil in his moments of jocose triumph is
Leech's figure in 'The House-Warming. A later series appeared in
Colburn's New Monthly Magazine in 1843.
He wrote some excellent pieces (of their kind) in prose, besides
the one already mentioned: the weird and well-constructed Leech of
Folkestone) and the Passage in the Life of Henry Harris,' both half-
serious tales of mediæval magic; the thoroughly Ingoldsbian ‘Legend
of Sheppey,' with its irreverent farce, high animal spirits, and anti-
quarianism; the equally characteristic 'Lady Rohesia,' which would
be vulgar but for his sly wit and drollery. But none of these are as
familiar as the versified Legends,' nor have they the astonishing
variety of entertainment found in the latter.
The 'Ingoldsby Legends) have been called an English naturaliza-
tion of the French metrical contes ; but Barham owes nothing to his
French models save the suggestion of method and form. Not only is
his matter all his own, but he has Anglified the whole being of the
metrical form itself. His facility of versification, the way in which
the whole language seems to be liquid in his hands and ready to
pour into any channel of verse, was one of the marvelous things of
literature. It did not need the free random movement of the majority
of the tales, where the lines may be anything from one foot to six,
from spondaic to dactylic: in some of them he tied himself down to
the most rigid and inflexible metrical forms, and moved as lightly
and freely in those fetters as if they were non-existent. As to the
astonishing rhymes which meet us at every step, they form in them-
selves a poignant kind of wit; often double and even treble, one word
## p. 1507 (#305) ###########################################
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
1507
rhyming with an entire phrase or one phrase with another, — not
only of the oddest kind, but as nicely adapted to the necessities of
expression and meaning as if intended or invented for that purpose
alone, — they produce on us the effect of the richest humor.
One of his most diverting properties” is the set of “morals » he
draws to everything, of nonsensical literalness and infantile gravity,
the perfection of solemn fooling. Thus in the Lay of St. Cuthbert,'
where the Devil has captured the heir of the house,
«Whom the nurse had forgot and left there in his chair,
Alternately sucking his thumb and his pear,”
the moral is drawn, among others,-
« Perhaps it's as well to keep children from plums,
And pears in their season and sucking their thumbs. "
And part of the moral to the Lay of St. Medard' is
«Don't give people nicknames! don't, even in fun,
Call any one (snuff-colored son of a gun! ! )
And they generally wind up with some slyly shrewd piece of worldly
wisdom and wit. Thus, the closing moral to "The Blasphemer's
Warning' is:
«To married men this — For the rest of your lives,
Think how your misconduct may act on your wives!
Don't swear then before them, lest baply they faint,
Or — what sometimes occurs — run away with a Saint ! »
Often they are broader yet, and intended for the club rather than the
family. Indeed, the tales as a whole are club tales, with an audi-
ence of club-men always in mind; not, be it remembered, bestialities
like their French counterparts, or the later English and American
improvements on the French, not even objectionable for general read-
ing, but full of exclusively masculine joking, allusions, and winks,
unintelligible to the other sex, and not welcome if they were intelli-
gible.
He has plenty of melody, but it is hardly recognized because of
the doggerel meaning, which swamps the music in the farce. And
this applies to more important things than the melody. The average
reader floats on the surface of this rapid and foamy stream, covered
with sticks and straws and flowers and bonbons, and never realizes
its depth and volume. This light frothy verse is only the vehicle of
a solid and laborious antiquarian scholarship, of an immense knowl-
edge of the world and society, books and men. He modestly dis-
claimed having any imagination, and said he must always have
facts to work upon. This was true; but the same may be said of
## p. 1508 (#306) ###########################################
1508
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
some great poets, who have lacked invention except around a skele-
ton ready furnished. What was true of Keats and Fitzgerald can-
not nullify the meritof Barham. His fancy erected a huge and
consistent superstructure on a very slender foundation.
The same
materials lay ready to the hands of thousands of others, who, how-
ever, saw only stupid monkish fables or dull country superstition.
His own explanation of his handling of the church legends tickles
a critic's sense of humor almost as much as the verses themselves.
It is true that while differing utterly in his tone of mind, and his
attitude toward the mediæval stories, from that of the mediæval
artists and sculptors,— whose gargoyles and other grotesques were
carved without a thought of travesty on anything religious,- he is at
one with them in combining extreme irreverence of form with a total
lack of irreverence of spirit toward the real spiritual mysteries of
religion. He burlesques saints and devils alike, mocks the swarm of
miracles of the mediæval Church, makes salient all the ludicrous
aspects of mediæval religious faith in its devout credulity and bar-
barous gropings; yet he never sneers at holiness or real aspiration,
and through all the riot of fun in his masques, one feels the sincere
Christian and the warm-hearted man. But he was evidently troubled
by the feeling that a clergyman ought not to ridicule any form in
which religious feeling had ever clothed itself; and he justified him-
self by professing that he wished to expose the absurdity of old
superstitions and mummeries, to help countervail the effect of the
Oxford movement. Ingoldsby as a soldier of Protestantism, turning
monkish stories into rollicking farces in order to show up what he
conceived to be the errors of his opponents, is as truly Ingoldsbian a
figure as any in his own Legends. Yet one need not accuse him
of hypocrisy or falsehood, hardly even of self-deception. He felt
that dead superstitions, and stories not reverenced even by the
Church that developed them, were legitimate material for
any use
he could make of them; he felt that in dressing them up with his
wit and fancy he was harming nothing that existed, nor making any
one look lightly on the religion of Christ or the Church of Christ:
and that they were the property of an opposing church body was a
happy thought to set his conscience at rest. He wrote them thence-
forth with greater peace of mind and added satisfaction, and no doubt
really believed that he was doing good in the way he alleged. And
if the excuse gave to the world even one more of the inimitable
"Legends,' it was worth feeling and making.
Barham's nature was not one which felt the problems and trage-
dies of the world deeply. He grieved for his friends, he helped the
distresses he saw, but his imagination rested closely in the concrete.
He was incapable of weltschmerz; even for things just beyond his
## p. 1509 (#307) ###########################################
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
1509
personal ken he had little vision or fancy. His treatment of the
perpetual problem of sex-temptations and lapses is a good example:
he never seems to be conscious of the tragedy they envelop. To
him they are always good jokes, to wink over or smile at or be
indulgent to. No one would ever guess from Ingoldsby) the truth
he finds even in Don Juan,' that
“A heavy price must all pay who thus err,
In some shape. ”
But we cannot have everything: if Barham had been sensitive to
the tragic side of life, he could not have been the incomparable fun-
maker he was. We do not go to the (Ingoldsby Legends) to solace
our souls when hurt or remorseful, to brace ourselves for duty, or to
feel ourselves nobler by contact with the expression of nobility. But
there must be play and rest for the senses, as well as work and
aspiration; and there are worse services than relieving the strain of
serious endeavor by enabling us to become jolly pagans once again
for a little space, and care naught for the morrow.
AS I LAYE A-THYNKYNGE
THE LAST LINES OF BARHAM
A
s I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge,
Merrie sang the Birde as she sat upon the spraye;
There came a noble Knighte,
With his hauberke shynynge brighte,
And his gallant heart was lyghte,
Free and gaye;
As I laye a-thynkynge, he rode upon his waye.
As I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge.
Sadly sang the Birde as she sat upon the tree!
There seemed a crimson plain,
Where a gallant Knyghte lay slayne,
And a steed with broken rein
Ran free,
As I laye a-thynkynge, most pitiful to see!
As I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge,
Merrie sang the Birde as she sat upon the boughe;
A lovely mayde came bye,
And a gentil youth was nyghe,
And he breathed many a syghe,
And a vowe;
As I laye a-thynkynge, her hearte was gladsome now.
## p. 1510 (#308) ###########################################
1510
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
As I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge,
Sadly sang the Birde as she sat upon the thorne;
No more a youth was there,
But a Maiden rent her haire,
And cried in sad despaire,
cried that i de spioene »
As I laye a-thynkynge, she perished forlorne.
As I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge,
Sweetly sang the Birde as she sat upon the briar;
There came a lovely childe,
And his face was meek and milde,
Yet joyously he smiled
On his sire;
As I laye a-thynkynge, a Cherub mote admire.
But I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge,
And sadly sang the Birde as it perched upon a bier;
That joyous smile was gone,
And the face was white and wan,
As the downe upon the Swan
Doth appear,
As I laye a-thynkynge,-oh! bitter flowed the tear!
As I laye a-thynkynge, the golden sun was sinking,
Oh, merrie sang that Birde, as it glittered on her breast
With a thousand gorgeous dyes;
While soaring to the skies,
'Mid the stars she seemed to rise,
As to her nest;
As I laye a-thynkynge, her meaning was exprest:-
«Follow, follow me away,
It boots not to delay,”.
'Twas so she seemed to saye,
“HERE IS REST! »
## p. 1511 (#309) ###########################################
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
1511
THE LAY OF ST. CUTHBERT
OR
THE DEVIL'S DINNER-PARTY
A
LEGEND OF THE NORTH COUNTREE
Nobilis quidam, cui nomen Monsr. Lescrop, Chivaler, cum invitasset
convivas, et, hora convivii jam instante et apparatu facto, spe frustratus esset,
excusantibus se convivis cur non compararent, prorupit iratus in hæc verba:
« Veniant igitur omnes dæmones, si nullus hominum mecum esse potest ! »
Quod cum fieret, et Dominus, et famuli, et ancillæ, a domo properantes,
forte obliti, infantem in cunis jacentem secum non auferent, Dæmones incip-
iunt commessari et vociferari, prospicereque per fenestras formis ursorum,
luporum, felium, et monstrare pocula vino repleta. Ah, inquit pater, ubi
infans meus ? Vix cum hæc dixisset, unus ex Dæmonibus ulnis suis infan-
tem ad fenestram gestat, etc. - Chronicon de Bolton.
I
T's in Bolton Hall, and the clock strikes One,
And the roast meat's brown and the boiled meat's done,
And the barbecued sucking-pig's crisped to a turn,
And the pancakes are fried and beginning to burn;
The fat stubble-goose
Swims in gravy and juice,
With the mustard and apple-sauce ready for use;
Fish, Alesh, and fowl, and all of the best,
Want nothing but eating — they're all ready drest,
But where is the Host, and where is the Guest ?
Pantler and serving-man, henchman and page
Stand sniffing the duck-stuffing (onion and sage),
And the scullions and cooks,
With fidgety looks,
Are grumbling and mutt'ring, and scowling as black
As cooks always do when the dinner's put back;
For though the board's deckt, and the napery, fair
As the unsunned snow-flake, is spread out with care,
And the Dais is furnished with stool and with chair,
And plate of orféverie costly and rare,
Apostle-spoons, salt-cellar, all are there,
And Mess John in his place,
With his rubicund face,
And his hands ready folded, prepared to say Grace,
Yet where is the Host ? — and his convives — where?
## p. 1512 (#310) ###########################################
1512
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
The Scroope sits lonely in Bolton Hall,
And he watches the dial that hangs by the wall,
He watches the large hand, he watches the small,
And he fidgets and looks
As cross as the cooks,
And he utters a word which we'll soften to “Zooks! »
And he cries, “What on earth has become of them all ? -
What can delay
De Vaux and De Saye ?
What makes Sir Gilbert de Umfraville stay?
What's gone with Poyntz, and Sir Reginald Braye ?
Why are Ralph Ufford and Marny away?
And De Nokes and De Styles, and Lord Marmaduke Grey ?
And De Roe ?
And De Doe ?
Poynings and Vavasour — where be they?
Fitz-Walter, Fitz-Osbert, Fitz-Hugh, and Fitz-John,
And the Mandevilles, père et filz (father and son);
Their cards said Dinner precisely at One!
There's nothing I hate, in
The world, like waiting!
It's a monstrous great bore, when a Gentleman feels
A good appetite, thus to be kept from his meals! »
It's in Bolton Hall, and the clock strikes Two!
And the scullions and cooks are themselves in a stew,
And the kitchen-maids stand, and don't know what to do,
For the rich plum-puddings are bursting their bags,
And the mutton and turnips are boiling to rags,
And the fish is all spoiled,
And the butter's all oiled,
And the soup's got cold in the silver tureen,
And there's nothing, in short, that is fit to be seen!
While Sir Guy Le Scroope continues to fume,
And to fret by himself in the tapestried room,
And still fidgets and looks
More cross than the cooks,
And repeats that bad word, which we've softened to “Zooks! »
Two o'clock's come, and Two o'clock's gone,
And the large and the small hands move steadily or,
Still nobody's there,
No De Roos, or De Clare,
To taste of the Scroope's most delicate fare,
## p. 1513 (#311) ###########################################
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
1513
Or to quaff off a health unto Bolton's Heir,
That nice little boy who sits in his chair,
Some four years old, and a few months to spare,
With his laughing blue eyes and his long curly hair,
Now sucking his thumb, and now munching his pear.
Again Sir Guy the silence broke,
“It's hard upon Three! — it's just on the stroke!
Come, serve up the dinner! - A joke is a joke! ” —
Little he deems that Stephen de Hoaques,
Who “his fun,” as the Yankees say, everywhere “pokes,»
And is always a great deal too fond of his jokes,
Has written a circular note to De Nokes,
And De Styles and De Roe, and the rest of the folks,
One and all,
Great and small,
Who were asked to the Hall
To dine there and sup, and wind up with a ball,
And had told all the party a great bouncing lie, he
Cooked up, that the "fête was postponed sine die,
The dear little curly-wigged heir of Le Scroope
Being taken alarmingly ill with the croop! ”
When the clock struck Three,
And the Page on his knee
Said, “An't please you, Sir Guy Le Scroope, On a servi! »
And the Knight found the banquet-hall empty and clear,
With nobody near
To partake of his cheer,
He stamped, and he stormed — then his language! —Oh dear!
'Twas awful to see, and 'twas awful to hear!
And he cried to the button-decked Page at his knee,
Who had told him so civilly "On a servi,"
«Ten thousand fiends seize them, wherever they be!
- The Devil take them! and the Devil take thee!
And the DEVIL MAY EAT UP THE DINNER FOR ME! »
In a terrible fume
He bounced out of the room,
He bounced out of the house — and page, footman, and groom
Bounced after their master; for scarce had they heard
Of this left-handed grace the last finishing word,
Ere the horn at the gate of the Barbican tower
Was blown with a loud twenty-trumpeter power,
## p. 1514 (#312) ###########################################
1514
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
And in rush'd a troop
Of strange guests! - such a group
As had ne'er before darkened the door of the Scroope!
This looks like De Saye — yet — it is not De Saye —
And this is no, 'tis not — Sir Reginald Braye,
This has somewhat the favor of Marmaduke Grey -
But stay! - Where on earth did he get those long nails?
Why, they're claws. :— then Good Gracious! — they've all of them tails !
That can't be De Vaux — why, his nose is a bill,
Or, I would say a beak! - and he can't keep it still! -
Is that Poynings ? — Oh, Gemini! look at his feet! !
Why, they're absolute hoofs! — is it gout or his corns,
That have crumpled them up so ? — by Jingo, he's horns !
Run! run! — There's Fitz-Walter, Fitz-Hugh, and Fitz-John,
And the Mandevilles, père et fils (father and son),
And Fitz-Osbert, and Ufford - they've all got them on!
Then their great saucer eyes —
It's the Father of lies
And his Imps — run! run! run! - they're all fiends in disguise,
Who've partly assumed, with more sombre complexions,
The forms of Sir Guy Le Scroope's friends and connections,
And He — at the top there — that grim-looking elf -
Run! run! - that's the “muckle-horned Clootie” himself!
And now what a din
Without and within!
For the courtyard is full of them. — How they begin
To mop, and to mowe, and to make faces, and grin!
Cock their tails up together,
Like cows in hot weather,
And butt at each other, all eating and drinking,
The viands and wine disappearing like winking,
And then such a lot
As together had got!
Master Cabbage, the steward, who'd made a machine
To calculate with, and count noses, --I ween
The cleverest thing of the kind ever seen,
Declared, when he'd made
By the said machine's aid,
Up, what's now called the “tottle of those he surveyed,
There were just — how he proved it I cannot divine —
Nine thousand, nine hundred, and ninety and nine.
Exclusive of Him
Who, giant in limb,
## p. 1515 (#313) ###########################################
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
1515
And black as the crow they denominate Jim,
With a tail like a bull, and a head like a bear,
Stands forth at the window — and what holds he there,
Which he hugs with such care,
And pokes out in the air,
And grasps as its limbs from each other he'd tear ?
Oh! grief and despair!
I vow and declare
It's Le Scroope's poor, dear, sweet, little, curly-wigged Heir!
Whom the nurse had forgot and left there in his chair,
Alternately sucking his thumb and his pear.
What words can express
The dismay and distress
Of Sir Guy, when he found what a terrible mess
His cursing and banning had now got him into ?
That words, which to use are a shame and a sin too,
Had thus on their speaker recoiled, and his malison
Placed in the hands of the Devil's own “pal” his son! -
He sobbed and he sighed,
And he screamed, and he cried,
And behaved like a man that is mad or in liquor — he
Tore his peaked beard, and he dashed off his “Vicary,”
Stamped on the jasey
As though he were crazy,
And staggering about just as if he were “hazy,”
Exclaimed, «Fifty pounds! ” (a large sum in those times)
“To the person, whoever he may be, that climbs
To that window above there, en ogive, and painted,
And brings down my curly-wi' _» Here Sir Guy fainted!
With many a moan,
And many a groan,
What with tweaks of the nose, and some eau de Cologne,
He revived, Reason once more remounted her throne,
Or rather the instinct of Nature - 'twere treason
To her, in the Scroope's case, perhaps, to say Reason --
But what saw he then — Oh! my goodness! a sight
Enough to have banished his reason outright! -
In that broad banquet-hall
The fiends one and all
Regardless of shriek, and of squeak, and of squall,
From one to another were tossing that small
Pretty, curly-wigged boy, as if playing at ball;
## p. 1516 (#314) ###########################################
1516
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
Yet none of his friends or his vassals might dare
To fly to the rescue or rush up the stair,
And bring down in safety his curly-wigged Heir!
Well a day! Well a day!
All he can say
Is but just so much trouble and time thrown away;
Not a man can be tempted to join the mêlée :
E'en those words cabalistic, “I promise to pay
Fifty pounds on demand,” have for once lost their sway,
And there the Knight stands
Wringing his hands
In his agony — when on a sudden, one ray
Of hope darts through his midriff! - His Saint ! -
Oh, it's funny
And almost absurd,
That it never occurred ! -
«Ay! the Scroope's Patron Saint ! - he's the man for my money!
Saint — who is it? — really I'm sadly to blame,-
On my word I'm afraid, -I confess it with shame,-
That I've almost forgot the good Gentleman's name,
Cut- let me see - Cutbeard? — no— CUTHBERT! -- egad!
St. Cuthbert of Bolton! -- I'm right — he's the lad!
O holy St. Cuthbert, if forbears of mine -
Of myself I say little — have knelt at your shrine,
And have lashed their bare backs, and — no matter — with twine,
Oh! list to the vow
Which I make to you now,
Only snatch my poor little boy out of the row
Which that Imp's kicking up with his fiendish bow-wow,
And his head like a bear, and his tail like a cow!
Bring him back here in safety! — perform but this task,
And I'll give — Oh! - I'll give you whatever you ask! -
There is not a shrine
In the county shall shine
With a brilliancy half so resplendent as thine,
Or have so many candles, or look half so fine!
Haste, holy St. Cuthbert, then,- hasten in pity! — »
Conceive his surprise
When a strange voice replies,
«It's a bargain! -- but, mind, sir, THE BEST SPERMACETI! ».
Say, whose that voice ? — whose that form by his side,
That old, old, gray man, with his beard long and wide.
## p. 1517 (#315) ###########################################
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
1517
In his coarse Palmer's weeds,
And his cockle and beads ? —
And how did he come ? - did he walk ? - did he ride?
Oh! none could determine, -oh! none could decide, -
The fact is, I don't believe any one tried;
For while every one stared, with a dignified stride
And without a word more,
He inarched on before,
Up a flight of stone steps, and so through the front door,
To the banqueting-hall that was on the first floor,
While the fiendish assembly were making a rare
Little shuttlecock there of the curly-wigged Heir.
- I wish, gentle Reader, that you could have seen
The pause that ensued when he stepped in between,
With his resolute air, and his dignified mien,
And said, in a tone most decided though mild,
“Come! I'll trouble you just to hand over that child!
The Demoniac crowd
In an instant seemed cowed;
Not one of the crew volunteered a reply,
All shrunk from the glance of that keen-flashing eye,
Save one horrid Humgruffin, who seemed by his talk,
And the airs he assumed, to be cock of the walk.
He quailed not before it, but saucily met it,
And as saucily said, “Don't you wish you may get it? »
My goodness! — the look that the old Palmer gave!
And his frown! — 'twas quite dreadful to witness — "Why, slave!
You rascal! » quoth he,
“This language to ME!
At once, Mr. Nicholas! down on your knee,
And hand me that curly-wigged boy! -- I command it-
Come! none of your nonsense! - you know I won't stand it. ”
Old Nicholas trembled, — he shook in his shoes,
And seemed half inclined, but afraid, to refuse.
« Well, Cuthbert,” said he,
“If so it must be,
For you've had your own way from the first time I knew ye;
Take your curly-wigged brat, and much good may he do ye!
But I'll have in exchange ” — here his eye flashed with rage -
« That chap with the buttons - he gave me the Page! ”
“Come, come,” the saint answered, you very well know
The young man's no his than your own to bestow.
## p. 1518 (#316) ###########################################
1518
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
Touch one button of his if you dare, Nick — no!
