The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 271, September 1, 1827

Оглавление

Various. The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 271, September 1, 1827

The New Prison, Norwich

LIVING AUTHORS

BERNARD BARTON

RETROSPECTIVE GLEANINGS

THE GREAT FIRE OF 1666

THE SKETCH BOOK

BEHIND THE SCENES; OR, A BREAKFAST IN NEWGATE

JEU D'ESPRIT

The Months

SEPTEMBER

ASTRONOMICAL OCCURRENCES

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

"THE WOODSMAN."

CAMBRIAN CONVIVIALITY

THE SELECTOR, AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS

NEW SOUTH WALES

FARM-HOUSES ON THE SNEEUWBERG MOUNTAINS

HOSPITAL FOR THE DUMB

Useful Domestic Hints

NORFOLK PUNCH. NO. 1

NORFOLK PUNCH. NO. 2

TO MANAGE AND IMPROVE RED PORT WINE WHEN POOR AND THIN

RED CURRANT WINE

The Gatherer

ON CRANIOLOGY

Отрывок из книги

The productions of Mr. Barton are doubtless familiar to most of our readers, and from them they have learnt much of the amiable turn of the poet's character. Mr. Barton's compositions afford indications of genuine feeling, of deep affection, of benevolence, sympathy, taste, and integrity; he seems to have an ear ever on the listen for the accents of charity, patriotism, and religion; where human anguish causes the tear to start, there he would fain be to soothe and alleviate. Such is the character of the poet, and in the following sketch such will be proved to be the character of the man.

Bernard Barton was born in the vicinity of London, on the 31st of January, 1784. His father was in trade in the metropolis, whither he had come from his native place, Carlisle. Bernard had the misfortune to lose his mother one month after his birth: her maiden name was Mary Done, and she was a native of Rockcliffe, Cumberland; she died at the early age of thirty-two. The following lines To a Profile evince the feelings with which our poet still cherishes her memory, or rather the recollection of what has been told him respecting her:—

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This mournful event, combined with discouraging prospects of a mercantile nature, induced our author to retire from commercial pursuits on his own behalf; and in 1810 he obtained a situation as a clerk in the Woodbridge bank, which he still holds.

Soon after Mr. Barton had entered upon his present situation, he began "to commit the sin of rhyme," and a new provincial paper being established about this time, it became the vehicle of his effusions: by degrees our young poet became bold enough to send a short piece now and then to a London paper, and at last, in 1812, ventured on an anonymous volume, entitled Metrical Effusions, 250 copies of which were printed by a bookseller of Woodbridge, and sold within the immediate circle of our author's acquaintance. In 1818, Mr. Barton printed, by subscription, an elegant volume, in elephant octavo, of Poems by an Amateur, of which 150 only were struck off, and none ever sold at the shops. Encouraged by the very flattering manner in which these impressions of his poems were received by his friends, our author at last ventured to publish, in a small volume, Poems, by Bernard Barton, which was very favourably noticed by the literary journals, and, being afterwards made still more known by an article in the Edinburgh Review, has now reached a third edition. He afterwards published, in a handsome octavo volume, his Napoleon and other Poems; and subsequently a volume of poems, entitled A Widow's Tale, which appeared in an early month of the present year.

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