RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM

(1788-1845)

The author of the ‘Ingoldsby Legends’ belonged to a well-defined and delightful class of men, chiefly found in modern 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.

[Illustration:  RICHARD H. BARHAM]

By far the best remembered of this class, for themselves or their work, are Sydney Smith and Richard Harris Barham; but their relative repute is one of the oddest paradoxes in literary history.  Roughly speaking, the one is remembered and unread, the other read and unremembered.  Sydney 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 antiquary with the fire of a great poet.”  Barham combined a like learning 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 lightness of a born man of the world, and the gifts of a wonderful improvisatore in verse.  Withal, he had just enough of serious purpose to give much of his work a certain measure of cohesive unity, 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 sorrows 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 gentleman of good landed family, combined with his profession, opened all doors to him.