RICHARD

See also:

• HARRIS, GEORGE, 1ST BARON (1746–1829)
• HARRIS, JAMES (1709-1780)
• HARRIS, JOEL CHANDLER (1848-1908)
• HARRIS, JOHN (c. 1666-1719)
• HARRIS, SIR WILLIAM SNOW
• HARRIS, THOMAS LAKE (1823-1906)
• HARRIS, WILLIAM TORREY (1835-1909)

HARRIS

See also:

• RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM (1788-1845)

BARHAM (1788-1845)  , English humourist, better known by his nom de plume of THOMAS INGOLDSBY, was born at Canterbury on the 6th of December 1788 . At seven years of age he lost his father, who left him a small estate, part of which was the manor of Tappington, so frequently mentioned in the Legends . At nine he was sent to St Paul's school, but his studies were interrupted by an accident which shattered his arm and partially crippled it for life . Thus deprived of the power of bodily activity, he became a great reader and diligent student . In 1807 he entered Brasenose College, Oxford, intending at first to study for the profession of the law . Circumstances, however, induced him to change his mind and to enter the church . In 1813 he was ordained and took a country curacy; he married in the following year, and in 1821 removed to London on obtaining the appointment of minor canon of St Paul's cathedral . Three years later he became one of the priests in ordinary of the King's Chapel Royal, and was appointed to a city living . In 1826 he first contributed to Blackwood's Magazine; and on the establishment of Bentley's Miscellany in 1837 he began to furnish the series of grotesque metrical tales known as The Ingoldsby Legends . These became very popular, were published in a collected form and have since passed through numerous editions In variety and whimsicality of rhymes these verses have hardly a rival since the days of Hudibras . But beneath this obvious popular quality there lies a store of solid antiquarian learning, the fruit of patient enthusiastic research, in out-of-the-way old books, which few readers who laugh over his pages detect . His life was grave, dignified and highly honoured .

His

sound judgment and his kind heart made him the trusted counsellor, the valued friend and the frequent peacemaker; and he was intolerant of all that was mean and base and false . In politics he was a Tory of the old school; yet he was the lifelong friend of the liberal Sydney Smith, whom in many respects he singularly resembled . Theodore Hook was one of his most intimate friends . Barham was a contributor to the Edinburgh Review and the Literary Gazette; he wrote articles for Gorton's Biographical Dictionary; and a novel, My Cousin Nicholas (1834) . He retained vigour and freshness of heart and mind to the last, and his last verses (" As I laye a-thynkynge ") show no signs of decay . He died in London after a long, painful illness, on the 17th of June 1845 . A' short memoir, by his son, was prefixed to a new edition of Ingoldsby in 1847, and a fuller Life and Letters, from the same hand, was published in 2 vols. in 1870 .