A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. John W. Cousin
(1796–1874), and there is difficulty in allocating their respective contributions. After the death of John, Michael wrote Clough Fionn (1852), and The Town of the Cascades (1864).
BANNATYNE, RICHARD (d. 1605).—Secretary to John Knox, compiled Memorials of Transactions in Scotland from 1569 to 1573.
BARBAULD, ANNA LETITIA (1743–1825).—Poetess, etc., dau. of Dr. John Aikin (q.v.), was b. at Kibworth-Hencourt, Leicestershire. Her f. kept an academy for boys, whose education she shared, and thus became acquainted with the classics. In 1773 she pub. a collection of miscellaneous poems, which was well received, and in the following year she married the Rev. R. Barbauld, a French Protestant and dissenting minister, who also conducted a school near Palgrave in Suffolk. Into this enterprise Mrs. B. threw herself with great energy, and, mainly owing to her talents and reputation, it proved a success and was afterwards carried on at Hampstead and Newington Green. Meantime, she continued her literary occupations, and brought out various devotional works, including her Hymns in Prose for Children. These were followed by Evenings at Home, Selections from the English Essayists, The Letters of Samuel Richardson, with a life prefixed, and a selection from the British novelists with introductory essay.
BARBOUR, JOHN (1316?-1395).—Poet. Of B.'s youth nothing is certainly known, but it is believed that he was b. near Aberdeen, and studied at Oxford and Paris. He entered the Church, and rose to ecclesiastical preferment and Royal favour. He is known to have been Archdeacon of Aberdeen in 1357, when, and again in 1364, he went with some young scholars to Oxford, and he also held various civil offices in connection with the exchequer and the King's household. His principal poem, The Bruce, was in progress in 1376. It consists of 14,000 octosyllabic lines, and celebrates the praises of Robert the Bruce and James Douglas, the flowers of Scottish chivalry. This poem is almost the sole authority on the history it deals with, but is much more than a rhyming chronicle; it contains many fine descriptive passages, and sings the praises of freedom. Its style is somewhat bald and severe. Other poems ascribed to B. are The Legend of Troy, and Legends of the Saints, probably translations. B. devoted a perpetual annuity of 20 shillings, bestowed upon him by the King, to provide for a mass to be sung for himself and his parents, and this was duly done in the church of St. Machar until the Reformation.
The Bruce, edited by C. Innes for Spalding Club (1856), and for Early Engl. Text Soc. by W.W. Skeat, 1870–77; and for Scott. Text Soc. (1894); The Wallace and The Bruce re-studied, J.T.T. Brown, 1900; G. Neilson in Chambers' Cyc. Eng. Lit. (1903).
BARCLAY, ALEXANDER (1475?-1552).—Poet, probably of Scottish birth, was a priest in England. He is remembered for his satirical poem, The Ship of Fools (1509), partly a translation, which is of interest as throwing light on the manners and customs of the times to which it refers. He also translated Sallust's Bellum Jugurthinum, and the Mirrour of Good Manners, from the Italian of Mancini, and wrote five Eclogues. His style is stiff and his verse uninspired.
BARCLAY, JOHN (1582–1621).—Satirist, s. of a Scotsman, who was Professor of Law at Pont-à-Mousson, Lorraine, came with his f. to England about 1603. He wrote several works in English and Latin, among which are Euphormionis Satyricon, against the Jesuits, and Argenis, a political romance, resembling in certain respects the Arcadia of Sidney, and the Utopia of More.
BARCLAY, ROBERT (1648–1690).—Apologist of the Quakers, s. of Col. David B. of Ury, ed. at the Scots Coll. in Paris, of which his uncle was Rector, made such progress in study as to gain the admiration of his teachers, specially of his uncle, who offered to make him his heir if he would remain in France, and join the Roman Catholic Church. This he refused to do, and, returning to Scotland, he in 1667 adopted the principles of the Quakers as his f. had already done. Soon afterwards he began to write in defence of his sect, by pub. in 1670 Truth cleared of Calumnies, and a Catechism and Confession of Faith (1673). His great work, however, is his Apology for the Quakers, pub. in Latin in 1676, and translated into English in 1678. It is a weighty and learned work, written in a dignified style, and was eagerly read. It, however, failed to arrest the persecution to which the Quakers were exposed, and B. himself, on returning from the Continent, where he had gone with Foxe and Penn, was imprisoned, but soon regained his liberty, and was in the enjoyment of Court favour. He was one of the twelve Quakers who acquired East New Jersey, of which he was appointed nominal Governor. His latter years were spent at his estate of Ury, where he d. The essential view which B. maintained was, that Christians are illuminated by an inner light superseding even the Scriptures as the guide of life. His works have often been reprinted.
BARHAM, RICHARD HARRIS (1788–1845).—Novelist and humorous poet, s. of a country gentleman, was b. at Canterbury, ed. at St. Paul's School and Oxford, entered the church, held various incumbencies, and was Divinity Lecturer, and minor canon of St. Paul's. It is not, however, as a churchman that he is remembered, but as the author of the Ingoldsby Legends, a series of comic and serio-comic pieces in verse, sparkling with wit, and full of striking and often grotesque turns of expression, which appeared first in Bentley's Miscellany. He also wrote, in Blackwood's Magazine, a novel, My Cousin Nicholas.
BARLOW, JOEL (1754–1812).—Poet, b. at Reading, Connecticut, served for a time as an army chaplain, and thereafter betook himself to law, and finally to commerce and diplomacy, in the former of which he made a fortune. He was much less successful as a poet than as a man of affairs. His writings include Vision of Columbus (1787), afterwards expanded into the Columbiad (1807), The Conspiracy of Kings (1792), and The Hasty Pudding (1796), a mock-heroic poem, his best work. These are generally pompous and dull. In 1811 he was app. ambassador to France, and met his death in Poland while journeying to meet Napoleon.
BARNARD, LADY ANNE (LINDSAY) (1750–1825).—Poet, e. dau. of the 5th Earl of Balcarres, married Andrew Barnard, afterwards Colonial Secretary at Cape Town. On the d. of her husband in 1807 she settled in London. Her exquisite ballad of Auld Robin Gray was written in 1771, and pub. anonymously. She confessed the authorship to Sir Walter Scott in 1823.
BARNES, BARNABE (1569?-1609).—Poet, s. of Dr. Richard B. Bishop, of Durham, was b. in Yorkshire, and studied at Oxford. He wrote Parthenophil, a collection of sonnets, madrigals, elegies, and odes, A Divine Centurie of Spirituall Sonnets, and The Devil's Charter, a tragedy. When at his best he showed a true poetic vein.
BARNES, WILLIAM (1801–1886).—Poet and philologist, s. of a farmer, b. at Rushay, Dorset. After being a solicitor's clerk and a schoolmaster, he entered the Church, in which he served various cures. He first contributed to a newspaper, Poems in Dorset Dialect, separately pub. in 1844. Hwomely Rhymes followed in 1858, and a collected edition of his poems appeared in 1879. His philological works include Philological Grammar (1854), Se Gefylsta, an Anglo-Saxon Delectus (1849). Tiw, or a View of Roots (1862), and a Glossary of Dorset Dialect (1863). B.'s poems are characterised by a singular sweetness and tenderness of feeling, deep insight into humble country life and character, and an exquisite feeling for local scenery.
BARNFIELD, RICHARD (1574–1627).—Poet, e.s. of Richard B., gentleman, was b. at Norbury, Shropshire, and ed. at Oxford. In 1594 he pub. The Affectionate Shepherd, a collection of variations in graceful verse of the 2nd Eclogue of Virgil. His next work was Cynthia, with certain Sonnets and the Legend of Cassandra in 1595; and in 1598 there appeared a third vol., The Encomion of Lady Pecunia, etc., in which are two songs ("If music and sweet poetrie agree," and "As it fell upon a day") also included in The Passionate Pilgrim, an unauthorised collection, and which were long attributed to Shakespeare. From this time, 1599, B. produced nothing else, and seems