The Ingoldsby Legends; or, Mirth and Marvels

MEMOIR.

Richard Harris Barham, the "Thomas Ingoldsby" of literature, was born at Canterbury, December 6th, 1788. His family had long been residents in the archiepiscopal city, and had estates in Kent. He (Barham) used to trace his descent from a knight who came over to England with William the Conqueror, and whose son, Reginald Fitzurse, was one of the assassins of Thomas à Becket. After the deed Fitzurse fled to Ireland, and there changed his name to MacMahon, which has the same meaning. His brother Robert, who succeeded to the English estates, changed his patronymic to de Berham, converted in process of time into Barham.

Richard Barham was only between five and six years old when his father died, leaving him heir to a small estate in Kent. A portion of it consisted of a manor called Tappington Wood, often alluded to in the Ingoldsby Legends.

Richard was sent to St. Paul's School, and it was on his road thither, in 1802, that he met with an accident that endangered his life. The horses of the Dover mail, in which he was travelling, took fright and galloped off furiously: the boy put his right hand out of the window to open the door, when at that moment the coach upset; his hand was caught under it, and it was dragged along on a rough road and seriously mutilated. The surgeons, believing he would die, did not amputate the limb; and through the tender care of the headmaster's wife (he had been sent on to school) he recovered.

At school Barham formed some friendships which lasted his life: one of these school friends was afterwards his publisher, Mr. Bentley; Dr. Roberts, who attended him in his last illness, was another. He remained captain of St. Paul's School for two years, and when nineteen was entered as a Gentleman Commoner at Brasennose College. Here he was speedily elected a member of a first-class university club,--the Phœnix Common Room,--where he became acquainted with Lord George Grenville, Cecil Tattersall, and Theodore Hook, a friend of his after-life.

A specimen of his youthful humour has been preserved in an answer he made to his tutor, Mr. Hodson, when reproved by him for the late hours he kept and his absence from chapel. "The fact is, sir," said Barham, "you are too late for me." "Too late!" repeated the tutor. "Yes, sir; I cannot sit up till seven in the morning. I am a man of regular habits; and unless I get to bed by four or five at latest, I am really fit for nothing the next day." The habit that he had acquired of sitting up late continued during his life, and he believed that he wrote best at night.

His original intention had been to study for the Bar, but a very severe though short illness brought serious thoughts to the young man, and he determined to enter the Church, his mind having also been painfully impressed by the suicide of a young college friend; consequently he took Holy Orders, and obtained the curacy of Ashford, in Kent, from whence he was transferred to Westwell, a parish a few miles distant from his first one.

In 1814, when he had attained the age of twenty-six, Barham married Caroline, third daughter of Captain Smart of the Royal Engineers, a very charming young lady; and shortly afterwards he was presented to the living of Snargate, and accepted also the curacy of Warehorn. Both these parishes were situated in Romney Marsh, at the distance of only two miles from each other. The young clergyman took up his abode at Warehorn, a place then noted as a haunt of smugglers.

A second accident, by the upsetting of a gig, caused Mr. Barham a fracture of the leg, and it was during the seclusion entailed by this misfortune that he produced his first literary effort, a novel called Baldwin, for which he received £20; it issued from the Minerva Press, and was unsuccessful. He had scarcely recovered from this accident when the illness of one of his children took him to London, for the purpose of consulting Abernethy. Here he chanced to meet a friend, who was about to post a letter to invite a young clergyman to come up and become a candidate for a vacant Minor Canonry at St. Paul's. It suddenly struck him that the place might suit Mr. Barham, and they at once agreed that he should stand for it. He resigned at once his curacy and living, stood for the Canonship, and was elected. Thus in 1821 he exchanged Romney Marsh, its dulness and smugglers, for a residence in London and the society of a highly intellectual circle.

We will give here the testimony of a dear friend of the poet's, as to his character, at this time. "My first acquaintance with Mr. Barham," writes the Rev. John Hughes, "dated from his election into the body of Minor Canons of St. Paul's, of which Cathedral my late father was then a Residentiary. Mr. Barham had married early in life, and in every respect enviably. His previous career as a graduate of Brasennose College had thrown him much into contact with several gifted and accomplished men, upon whom a shred of Reginald Heber's mantle, and a smack and savour of the 'Whippiad,' had descended in the way of corporate inheritance, and his quick talents had mended the lesson. It was soon evident to the Dean and Chapter, and to my father in particular, that their new subordinate combined superior powers of conversation with most decorous and gentlemanly tact and attention to all points connected with his duties."

In 1824, Mr. Barham was appointed a priest in ordinary of the King's Chapel Royal, and was shortly afterwards presented with the incumbency of St. Mary Magdalene and St. Gregory-by-St. Paul. Mr. Barham was not an eloquent preacher, because he disapproved of all oratorical display in the pulpit, but he was an excellent parish priest, ever watchful over his flock, and delighting in doing good.

In 1825 a series of domestic sorrows fell on the Minor Canon. His dearly-loved eldest daughter died; her loss was followed at intervals by that of four of his other children, to all of whom he was devotedly attached. How deeply the gentle-hearted clergyman felt these severe afflictions, some touching lines in Blackwood's Magazine of that date testify, though he bore them with Christian resignation. "The best substitute for stoicism which a man of keen and sensitive feelings finds it possible to adopt, is to think a little less of his own sorrows, and more of those of others; and this," writes Mr. Hughes, "I believe to have been Barham's secret for bearing with equanimity the loss of more than one

Who ne'er gave him pain till they died.

He strove to be happy in making others so, especially those more congenial spirits who more directly shared in his affections .... Here it may not be amiss to notice one trait of character connected with the appointment which he held as chaplain to the Vintners' Company. Part of his duty in this capacity was to perform divine service at an almshouse in the vicinity of town, tenanted by certain widows of decayed members of the corporation. The old ladies quarrelled sadly, and Barham was in the habit of devoting one extra morning a week to a pastoral visitation of these poor isolated old women, for charity and decency's sake, and acted as arbiter and referee in their ridiculous feuds, with as much gravity as it was in his nature to assume on such an occasion." There was surely no small degree of self-denial in a man of such talent devoting his valuable time to such an office.

The expenses of an increasing family made Mr. Barham once more attempt literary work--this time successfully; and he contributed light articles in rapid succession to Blackwood, John Bull, and The Globe. He also assisted in the completion of Gorton's Biographical Dictionary. "Cousin Nicholas" appeared in Blackwood in 1878. It owed its publication to Mrs. Hughes, the mother of John Hughes, Esq.,--from whose account of Barham we have just quoted,--a most remarkable and highly-gifted woman, the friend and correspondent of Scott, Southey, etc. The MS. was in an unfinished state, having been laid by for some years, when Barham submitted it to this lady. So highly did she think of it, and so aware was she of the author's sensitive doubts, that she sent it off at once to Mr. Blackwood, who was greatly pleased with it, and at once inserted it in his magazine. The first Barham knew of the fate of his MSS. was the appearance of the introductory chapters in Blackwood. He was thus compelled to finish it, and worked up the catastrophe with great skill. Nor was this the only benefit he derived from this gifted friend. It was to her he was indebted for much of the material of the poems that have made his fame as a writer, though this was to come afterwards.

In 1831, Sidney Smith was appointed one of the Canons of St. Paul's, and thus two of our famous wits became intimate. On October 2, 1831, Sidney Smith read himself in as Residentiary at St. Paul's. He told Barham that he had once nearly offended Sam Rogers by recommending him, when he sat for his picture, to be drawn saying his prayers--_with his face in his hat_.

Mr. Barham was by no means an ardent politician, and he never used his pastoral influence on either side. For himself, he was a staunch Conservative, and never failed, in spite of any personal inconvenience, himself to record his vote. He told one amusing anecdote about an election. As he was landing from the steamer at Gravesend, where his vote was to be taken, it was raining heavily, and the passengers landing from the boat naturally put up their umbrellas. Partisans of both candidates lined the pier, watching eagerly to see what colours the arrivals wore. Barham, remembering a dead cat that had been thrown at him on a previous occasion, wore none; nevertheless he was detected. He heard the Tory partisans cry out, "Here comes one on our side." "You be blowed," said a voter in sky-blue ribbons, "I say he's our'n." "Be blowed yourself," was the reply; "don't you see the gemman's got a silk umbrella?"

In 1837 appeared the famous "Ingoldsby Legends" in Blackwood.

Of their production Mr. Hughes thus writes: "In my mother's presentation copy of the Ingoldsby Legends, written in Barham's own hand, occurs the following distich,--

To Mrs. Hughes, who made me do 'em, Quod placeo est--si placeo--tuum.

The fact is that my mother, to whom Lockhart has alluded as a frequent correspondent of Scott and Southey, and who inherited a family stock of strange tales and legends, suggested the subject of 'Hamilton Tighe' to Barham. The original ghost story, in the circumstances of which he made some slight alteration, was said to have occurred in the family of Mr. Pye, the poet laureate, a neighbour and brother magistrate of my maternal grandfather, Mr. W., and the date of it was supposed to be connected with the taking of Vigo. This legend, which appeared in Bentley's Miscellany, was the first in the series, and is, as an illustration of his peculiar style, worth better criticism than my own. Suffice it to state that which my friend Miss Mitford can confirm, that the simple recitation of 'Hamilton Tighe' has actually made persons start and turn pale, and complain of nervous excitement. 'Patty Morgan the Milkmaid's Story' and the 'Dead Drummer' were transmitted also to him through the same medium,--the former having been recounted to us by Lady Eleanor Butler, as a whimsical Welsh legend which had diverted her much; the latter by Sir Walter Scott, who, having better means than most men of ascertaining facts and names, believed in their authenticity. I think, but am not certain, that the 'Hand of Glory' was suggested by a conversation at our house on the subject of country superstition. Of the source of the remaining legends I am ignorant, save that the basis of some of them was furnished by an old Popish book in the library of Sion College, from which, as from other sources, Barham was wont to gratify his love of heraldry and antiquarianism .... The Ingoldsby Legends were the occasional relief of a suppressed plethora of native fun.