The tutor took this jovial reply seriously, and Barham perceiving that he was really wounded, offered a sincere apology, and afterward attended prayers more regularly.
Entering the church, he devoted himself to his clerical duties with exemplary assiduity, and obtained valuable preferment, rising at length to be one of the Canons of St. Paul's Cathedral. This office brought him into relations with Sydney Smith, with whom, though Barham was a Tory, he had much convivial intercourse.
Very early in life Mr. Barham became an occasional contributor to Blackwood's Magazine, then in the prime of its vigorous youth. The series of contributions called "Family Poetry," which appear in the volumes for 1823, and subsequent years, were by him. Most of those humorous effusions have been transferred to this volume. In 1837 Mr. Bentley established his "Miscellany," and secured the services of his friend Barham, who, up to this time was unknown to the general public, though he had been for nearly twenty years a successful writer. The "Ingoldsby Legends" now appeared in rapid succession, and proved so popular that their author soon became one of the recognized wits of the day. A large number of these unique and excellent productions enrich the present collection, "As respects these poems," says Mr. Barham's biographer, "remarkable as they have been pronounced for the wit and humor which they display, their distinguishing attractions lies in the almost unparalleled flow and felicity of the versification. Popular phrases, sentences the most prosaic, even the cramped technicalities of legal diction, and snatches from well-nigh every language, are wrought in with an apparent absence of all art and effort that surprises, pleases, and convulses the reader at every turn. The author triumphs with a master hand over every variety of stanza, however complicated or exacting; not a word seems out of place, not an expression forced; syllables the most intractable, and the only partners fitted for them throughout the range of language are coupled together as naturally as those kindred spirits which poets tell us were created pairs, and dispersed in space to seek out their particular mates. A harmony pervades the whole, a perfect modulation of numbers, never, perhaps, surpassed, and rarely equaled in compositions of their class. This was the forte of Thomas Ingoldsby; a harsh line or untrue rhyme grated on his ear like the Shandean hinge." These observations are just. As a rhymer, Mr. Barham has but one equal in English literature—Byron.
Mr. Barham died at London on the 17th of June, 1845, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. He was an extremely amiable, benevolent character. It does not appear that his love of the humorous was ever allowed to interfere with the performance of his duties as a clergyman. Without being a great preacher, he was a faithful and kindly pastor, never so much in his element as when ministering to the distresses, or healing the differences of his parishioners. Unlike his friend, Sydney Smith, he was singularly fond of the drama, and for many years was a member of the Garrick Club. He was one of the few English writers of humorous verse, ALL of whose writings may be read aloud by a father to his family, and in whose wit there was no admixture of gall.
"BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY"—A London Monthly Magazine, founded about twenty years ago by Mr. Bentley, the publisher. Charles Dickens, and the author of the Ingoldsby Legends were among the first contributors.
BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE—First appeared in April, 1817 Founded by William Blackwood, a shrewd Edinburgh bookseller. Its literary ability and fierce political partisanship, soon placed it fore-most in the ranks of Tory periodicals. Perhaps no magazine has ever achieved such celebrity, or numbered such a host of illustrious contributors. John Wilson, the world-famous "Christopher North," was the virtual, though not nominal editor, Blackwood himself retaining that title. It would be a long task to enumerate all, who, from the days of Sir Walter Scott and the Ettrick Shepherd, to those of Bulwer and Charles Mackay, have appeared in its columns. Maginn, Lockhart, Gillies, Moir, Landor, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Lamb, Bowles, Barry Cornwall, Gleig, Hamilton, Aird, Sym, De Quincey, Allan Cunningham, Mrs. Hemans, Jerrold, Croly, Warren, Ingoldsby (Barham), Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Milnes, and many others, of scarcely less note, found in Blackwood scope for their productions, whether of prose or verse. In its early days much of personality and sarcasm marked its pages, savage onslaughts on Leigh Hunt, and "the Cockney School of Literature," alternating with attacks on the Edinburgh Review, the Quarterly, and all Whigs and Whig productions whatever. The celebrated Noctes Ambrosianae, a series of papers containing probably more learning, wit, eloquence, eccentricity, humor, and personality than have ever appeared elsewhere, formed part of the individuality of Blackwood. They were written by Wilson, Maginn, Lockhart, and Hogg, the two first named (and especially Wilson), having the pre-eminence. To the New York edition of this work, by Dr. Shelton Mackenzie (whose notes contain a perfect mine of information), we refer the reader for further particulars relative to Blackwood.
BROUGHAM, LORD—The well-known member of the English House of Peers. It seems, from some jocularities attributed to his lordship, that he adds to his many other claims to distinction that of being a man of wit.
BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN—The most celebrated of American poets. Editor of the "New York Evening Post." Born 1794.
BURNS, ROBERT—Born 1750, died 1796. The best loved, most national, most independent, truest, and greatest of Scottish poets, of whom to say more here were an impertinence.
BUTLER, SAMUEL—Born in 1612; the son of a substantial farmer in Worcestershire, England. Very little is known of the earlier portion of his life, as he had reached the age of fifty before he was so much as heard of by his contemporaries. He appears to have received a good education at the cathedral school of his native county, and to have filled various situations, as clerk in the service of Thomas Jeffries of Earl's Croombe, secretary to the Countess of Kent, and general man of business to Sir Samuel Luke, of Cople Hoo, Bedfordshire, who, it is said, served as the model for his hero, Hudibras. The first part of this singular poem was published at the close of 1662, and met with extraordinary success. Its wit, its quaint sense and learning, its passages of sarcastic reflection on all manner of topics, and above all, its unsparing ridicule of men and things on the Puritan side, combined to render it a general favorite. The reception of Part II., which appeared a year subsequent, was equally flattering. Yet its author seems to have fallen into the greatest poverty and obscurity, from which be never was enabled to emerge. It appears to have been his strange fate to flash all at once into notoriety, which lasted precisely two years, to fill the court and town during that time with continuous laughter, intermingled with inquiries who and what he was, and then for seventeen long years to plod on unknown and unregarded, still hearing his Hudibras quoted, and still preparing more of it, or matter similar, with no result. He died, in almost absolute destitution, in 1680, and was buried at a friend's expense, in the church-yard of St. Paul's, Covent Garden.