Читать книгу The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 271, September 1, 1827 - Various - Страница 2

No. 1

BERNARD BARTON

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:—

His father died before Mr. Barton was seven years old; but his second marriage, which took place a few months before his death, provided an excellent parent for his children: to her, and to his two sisters,2 both several years older than himself, our author owed infinite obligations.

His education at one of the quaker seminaries was, of course, plain and circumscribed, being pretty much confined to useful, indeed necessary, branches of knowledge. But his father had been a man of greater natural and more cultivated intellect than many; he had read much, and on the abolition of slavery, in which he was one of Clarkson's earliest associates, he had, on several occasions, proved that he could write well, though, we believe, he was never avowedly an author. He had left no despicable collection of books, so that in his school vacations ample means were afforded to his son of indulging his taste for reading. A pleasing tribute to the memory of Mr. Barton's father will be found in his Napoleon and other Poems.

In the year 1806, Mr. Barton took up his residence in the pleasant town of Woodbridge, in Suffolk, and commenced business as a merchant; but an unlooked-for domestic affliction of the severest kind was about to visit him, and his wordly prospects were to receive an irrecoverable shock,—the loss of his amiable wife, before they had been married a twelvemonth, and soon after the birth of her child! This excellent woman, to whom our poet was, for so short a time, united, gave rise to some of his best pieces, particularly to the poem beginning, The heaven was cloudless,3 and that entitled A Portrait, in Napoleon and other Poems. In this last piece the poet no less beautifully than truly observes,—

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.

Such has been the literary career of Bernard Barton. If it have not left behind it the brilliant track of other poetical comets, it has been less erratic in its course; and if it have not been irradiated by the full blaze of a noonday sun, it has nevertheless been illumined by the silver lustre of the queen of night; and his Parnassian vespers may be said to possess all the mild and soothing beauties of the evening star. If his muse have not always reached the sunward path of the soaring eagle, it is no extravagant praise to say, that she has often emulated the sublimity of his aërial flight. But the great charm thrown around the effusions of the Suffolk bard is that "lucid veil" of morality and religion which "covers but not conceals"—that "silver net-work," through which his poetic "apples of gold" shine with an adventitious beauty, which even the gorgeous ornaments so profusely lavished by a Byron or a Moore would fail to invest them.

We have alluded to the amiable character of our poet; that his modesty is equal to his merit, the following extract, from a letter to a friend, will afford a pleasing evidence. Speaking of his literary career, he says, "it has been marked by an indulgence on the part of the public, and the dispensers of literary fame, which I never anticipated. When I consider that only about three years have elapsed since I avowed myself an author, I am really surprised at the notice my trivial productions have received, and the numerous acquaintance to which they have, by correspondence, introduced me. Much of this, I dare say, is owing to my quakerism; and to that, unquestionably, I was indebted for the article in the Edinburgh Review, and the more recent passing notice in the Quarterly. Still, as I do not believe that any outré or adventitious source of attraction would have alone procured me the attention I have found, I would hope it may partly have arisen from their simple, unaffected appeal to those quiet, domestic, secluded feelings, which endear the still undercurrent of existence—in short, to my being content to make the best I could of the homely and confined materials to which my situation has given me access, without affecting scholarship, or aiming at romantic embellishment. There is nothing like simple truth and nature, after all; and he who is satisfied with simply and faithfully describing what he actually sees, feels, and, thinks, may always hope to appeal successfully to the unsophisticated heart."4

We here conclude our notice of the bard of Woodbridge; and should this brief account excite the interest of our readers to become better acquainted with this "living author," we refer them to the whole-length portrait painted by himself, and held up to view in every page of his poems.

1

Poems, by B. Barton, p.190, 3rd edit.

2

One of these sisters is the present Mrs. Hack, favourably known as the authoress of several useful and highly interesting works for children. See some introductory verses to her, prefixed to the third edition of Mr. Barton's "Poems." His brother John has also distinguished himself by one or two judicious pamphlets on the situation and circumstances of the poor.

3

Poems, by B. Barton, p. 133, 3rd edit.

4

Time's Telescope, p. 18, vol. xi.