other leases, to take down many of the old buildings, to erect new premises, and repair and alter old ones, and to lay out new streets on the charity estate in Clerkenwell, and, in consequence, we find in 1830 the estate producing a rental of more than £3,000 a year. In 1844 the yearly rental had risen to £4,000. Since then it has much increased, and all this is devoted to the benefit of the Woodbridge poor.
In 1806 Bernard Barton, the Quaker poet, came to live at Woodbridge. When fourteen years old he was apprenticed to Mr. Samuel Jessup, a shopkeeper in Halstead, Essex. ‘There I stood,’ he writes, ‘for eight years behind the counter of the corner shop at the top of Halstead Hill, kept to this day (November 9, 1828) by my old master and still worthy uncle, S. Jessup.’ In Woodbridge he married a niece of his old master, and went into partnership with her brother as corn and coal merchant. But she died in giving birth to the Lucy Barton whose name still, unless I am mistaken, adorns our literature. Bernard gave up business and retired into the bank of the Messrs. Alexander, where he continued for forty years, working within two days of his death. He had always been fond of books, and was one of the
most active members of a Woodbridge Book Club, and had been in the habit of writing and sending to his friends occasional copies of verse. In 1812 he published his first volume, called ‘Metrical Effusions,’ and began a correspondence with Southey. A complimentary copy of verses which he had addressed to the author of the ‘Queen’s Wake,’ just then come into notice, brought him long and vehement letters from the Ettrick—letters full of thanks to Barton and praises of himself, and a tragedy ‘that will astonish the world ten times more than the “Queen’s Wake,”’ to which justice could not be done in Edinburgh, and which Bernard Barton was to try to get represented in London. In 1825 one of Bernard’s volumes of poems had run into a fifth edition, and of another George IV. had accepted the dedication. Thus prompted to exertion, he worked too hard; banking all day and writing poetry all night were too much for him. Lamb, however, cheered up the dyspeptic poet. ‘You are too much apprehensive about your complaint,’ he wrote. ‘I know many that are always writing of it and live on to a good old age. I knew a merry fellow—you partly know him, too—who, when his medical adviser told him he had drunk all that part, congratulated
himself, now his liver was gone, that he should be the longest liver of the two.’ Southey wrote in a soberer vein. ‘My friend, go to bed early; and if you eat suppers, read afterwards, but never compose, that you may lie down with a quiet intellect. There is an intellectual as well as a religious peace of mind, and without the former be assured there can be no health for a poet.’
At times Bernard Barton seems to have been troubled about money matters. On one occasion he appears to have made up his mind to have done with banking and devote himself to literature. ‘Keep to your bank,’ wrote Lamb, ‘and the bank will keep you. Trust not to the public: you may hang, starve, drown yourself, for anything that worthy personage cares. I bless every star that Providence, not seeing good to make me independent, has seen it next good to settle me on the stable foundation of Leadenhall. Sit down, good B. B., in the banking office. What! is there not from six to eleven p.m. six days in the week? and is there not all Sunday?’ Fortunately for B. B., friends came to his rescue. A few members of his Society, including some of the wealthier of his own family, raised among them £1,200 for his benefit. The scheme originated with Joseph John Gurney,
of Norwich, and in 1824 when the money was collected, it was felt that £1,200 was a great deal for a poet to receive. Bernard Barton’s daughter married a Suffolk gentleman, well-to-do in the world, but the lady and gentleman had not congenial minds, and parted almost as soon as the honeymoon was over.
B. B. was a great correspondent. As a banker’s clerk, necessarily his journeys were few and far between. Once or twice he visited Charles Lamb. He once also met Southey at Thomas Clarkson’s, at Playford Hall, perhaps the most picturesque old house in East Anglia, where the latter resided, and of which I have a distinct recollection, as, on the terrace before the moat with which it was surrounded, I once saw the venerable philanthropist and his grandchildren. Now and then B. B. also visited the Rev. Mr. Mitford at Benhall, a village between Woodbridge and Saxmundham, who was then engaged in editing the Aldine edition of the English Poets. But B. B.’s correspondents were numerous. Poor, unfortunate L. E. L. sent him girlish letters. Mrs. Hemans was also a correspondent, as were the Howitts and Mrs. Opie and Dr. Drake, of Hadley, whose literary disquisitions are now, alas! forgotten; and poor Charles Lloyd,
whose father wrote of his son’s many books ‘that it is easier to write them than to gain numerous readers.’ Dr. Bowring and Josiah Conder were also on writing terms with the Quaker poet. His excursions, his daughter tells us, rarely extended beyond a few miles round Woodbridge, to the vale of Dedham, Constable’s birthplace and painting-room; or to the neighbouring seacoast, including Aldborough, doubly dear to him from its association with the memory and poetry of Crabbe. Once upon a time he dined with Sir Robert Peel, when he had the pleasure of meeting Airy, the late Astronomer Royal, whom he had known as a lad at Playford. The dinner with Sir Robert Peel ended satisfactorily, as it resulted in the bestowal by the Queen on the poet of a pension of £100 a year. He was now beyond the fear of being tempted to commit forgery, and being hung in consequence—a possibility, which was the occasion of one of Lamb’s wittiest letters. The gentle Elia made merry over the chance of a Quaker poet being hung.
Amiable and liberal as was Bernard Barton, he could and did strike hard when occasion required. In East Anglia, when I was a lad, there was a great deal of intolerance—almost as much as exists in society circles at the present day—and
that is saying a great deal. Churchmen, in their ignorance, were ready to put down Dissent in every way, and occasionally, by their absurdity, they roused the righteous ire of the Quaker poet. One of them, for instance, had said at a public meeting: ‘This was the opinion he had formed of Dissenters, that they were wolves in sheep’s clothing.’ Whereupon B. B. wrote: