(1.) _The Life and Letters of the Rev. Richard Harris Barham._ By his
Son. London: Bentley.
(2.) _The Ingoldsby Legends._ By THOMAS INGOLDSBY, Esq. London: Bentley.
(3.) _The Bentley Ballads._ Edited by JOHN SHEEHAN. London: Bentley.
'Ingoldsby,' like Odysseus, has become a name. The word, used as a _nom
de plume_ by a facile versifier, has come to indicate the kind of verse
which he produced, and in which he has had hundreds of inferior
imitators. Mr. Carlyle, who objects utterly to the whole herd of
'Corvos poëtas et poëtrias picas,'
as being the emptiest shams the world has ever seen, would probably
regard the 'Ingoldsby Legends' as fathom-deep below contempt; but with
the highest respect for the philosopher of Chelsea, we hold such things
worth notice, and do not intend to allow his virtue to prevent our
reference to 'cakes and ale.' Indeed, there are times when the laughing
philosopher does considerable service in the removal of abuses and
prejudices; and if our Democritus writes in rhyme, it does not appear
that he is any the worse. The world, probably, would be none the less
happy for more true mirth than we at present get. There are laughters
hideous and contemptible--aye, and even pathetic. Ruin and cynicism, and
scorn and spite, have their hyæna laugh; but it differs wholly from the
pleasant laughter of the man to whom the world brings always joyous
impulses. We English are, assuredly, a humorous race, more humorous, in
all likelihood, than any other; this is shown, not only in Chaucer,
Shakspeare, Butler, Sterne, Dickens, but in the incidents of our
country and city life, in the quaint colloquy and light chaff of the
market-place and the way-side. 'Merry England,' is an ancient phrase;
and there is much merriment in our modern England that is not always
observed by philosophers and politicians. We happen to have walked
through most English counties, and to have enjoyed the marvellous
differences of humour which exist through the breadth of the land. We
have tracked Shakspeare through Central Warwick; have trodden the paths
of Wordsworth and Coleridge and Wilson, in the realm of lakes; have
talked with moormen on Dartmoor, and with shrimpers at Poulton-le-Sands.
Everywhere we have encountered a joyous humour, inextinguishable by
poverty and toil--a humour clearly designed to lighten men's hearts in
their passage through a world of many troubles. Recognising this, we
think that any form of humour is worth cultivation, and that a writer
like Barham, who, to many grave thinkers, might seem a lover of
ineffable nonsense, was not without his use in the world.
Three things may be affirmed in his favour. He caused good honest
laughter, by telling stories in a ridiculous style, without writing a
word to which the most absolute purist could object. He ridiculed
foolish and superstitious legends, blowing them away as the winds of the
vernal equinox blow the dead wood from the trees. And he proved that the
position of a minister of religion, doing his duty in a manner
thoroughly conscientious, was not inconsistent with a pleasant
mirthfulness of temper. Of him we may say, as Rosaline of Biron--
'A merrier man,
Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal.'
And, with all his merriment, Barham did not for a moment neglect his
clerical duty; indeed, there are indications that he was a remarkably
good specimen of the parson of the parish. If we found any fault with
this biography, which is, for the most part, well executed, it is that
Barham's life as a clergyman is too slightly indicated. His friend, Mr.
Hughes, father of the member for Frome, wrote of him thus in the _New
Monthly_:--
'It is not always an easy task to do as you would be done
by; but to think as you would be thought of and thought
for, and to feel as you would be felt for, is perhaps more
difficult, as superior powers of tact and intellect are
here required to second good intentions. These faculties,
backed by an uncompromising love of truth and fair
dealing, indefatigable good nature, and a nice sense of
what was due to every one in the several relations of life,
both gentle and simple, rendered our late friend
invaluable, either as an adviser or peacemaker, in matters
of difficult and delicate handling. How he managed to get
through his more important duties is a marvel. Certain it
is that they were well and punctually performed in every
point relating to cathedral matters, as well as his
engagements as a parochial incumbent and priest of the
Household, which, I believe, was the nature of his office
at the Chapel Royal.'
This testimony from one who knew him well, makes us regret that more of
Barham's parochial life has not been revealed to us. Often there is a
curious difference between the practical and the literary half of a
man's career. _A priori_, one would not expect the 'Lay of St. Cuthbert'
to be the work of a Canon of St. Paul's. More information as to Barham's
clerical career would have been intensely interesting to the
psychological student; but his filial biographer has refrained from
entering on the subject to any extent. We are not certain as to his
motive. Perhaps he thought it hopeless to persuade the world that a good
parson could be a lover of fun. Well, another lover of fun was one
Sydney Smith, well known to all of us, also a Canon of St. Paul's. Smith
was a resolute Whig, Barham a high Tory, yet were they excellent good
friends. Here is proof. Barham sent Smith some game: here is the other
Canon's epigrammatic ironic reply:--
'Many thanks, my dear sir, for your kind present of game.
If there is a pure and elevated pleasure in this world, it
is the roast pheasant and bread sauce--barn-door fowls for
Dissenters, but for the real Churchman, the thirty-nine
times articled clerk--the pheasant, the pheasant!
'Ever yours,
'SYDNEY SMITH.'
The pheasant for rectors, the fowl for Dissenters--a characteristic bit
of chaff from Peter Plymley to Tom Ingoldsby. In these days, after
wonderful rapidity of movement, when the questions which troubled the
last generation have been merged in others far deeper and wider, it is
pleasant to think of Whig and Tory in the same cathedral precinct--Tory
sending Whig some game, and Whig replying with a gibe at all dwellers
without the orthodox limits. Few years have passed, yet the atmosphere
is marvellously clearer; there is not precisely the same relation
between Conformist and Nonconformist. The pheasant and the barn-door
fowl are rather more equally distributed, perhaps.
Mr. Barham's son and biographer thus states his determination not to
record his father's clerical life. 'With the details of his experience
as a clergyman, rarely suitable for publication as such particulars are,
I do not propose to deal. Of course, an outline will be given of his
professional progress; but the reader must, once for all, be requested
to bear in mind that it is intended, in the following pages, simply to
throw together some slight records of his leisure hours and recreative
pursuits.' This design has been very well executed; but we certainly
think that more might be done. However, we must perforce accept the
editor's view of the matter, and learn what we can of his father by
sidelong glimpses of him. Taken solely as a man of letters, Barham is
well worth study. Taken as husband and father, he is delightful. His
correspondence with his children is equal to Tom Hood's letters to
infant friends, though in quite a different style. His nonsense, prose
or verse, was always pleasant nonsense. Thus he writes to his daughter
Fanny:
'What do you think of Mr. Sydney Smith having offered me
his residentiary house to live in, together with a garden
at the back--magnificent for London--containing three
polyanthus roots, a real tree, a brown box border, a
snuff-coloured jessamine, a shrub which is either a dwarf
acacia or an overgrown gooseberry bush, eight broken
bottles, and a tortoiseshell tom-cat asleep in the sunniest
corner; the whole, as George Robins would say, capable of
the greatest improvement; with a varied and extensive
prospect of the back of the Oxford Arms, and a fine hanging
wood (the new drop at Newgate) in the distance, all being
situate in the midst of a delightful neighbourhood, and
well worth the attention of any capitalist wishing to make
an investment....
There is work enough cut out for you, I promise you, when
you get back: eighteen jars of onions to pickle, as many
double-damson cheeses to press, some dozen niggers to boil
into black currant jelly, and jams and marmalades to make
without end; for, unfortunately for you and all other
females connected with the family, the new house is
provided with that domestic curse, a roomy store-closet.
So, my dear old Fan, make hay or dirt pies, which is the
same thing, while you can, in comfort.'
_Pater peramans_, evidently. Here again is a pleasant piece of chaff
addressed to the same young lady, on 'having nothing to say' in a
letter:--
'As your correspondence increases, my dear girl, you will
find that this having nothing to say, and being obliged to
say it, will be one of the great and incipient stumbling
blocks of your literary life. Nothing, in fact, is so
difficult to express--that is, with any degree of
propriety--as nothing; and when once you have attained a
proficiency in this, your education may be considered to be
to a certain extent completed. Till then many people may
think, and may assure you, that you know nothing, but do
not believe them. You may know, and I dare say do, very
little; but to be thoroughly acquainted with nothing
requires not only a great deficiency of talent far below
the common run of intellect, but also a want of application
which, though it is possible you may possess it in a very
considerable degree, I have never yet seen in you to the
extent absolutely requisite.'
So easy and regular was the course of Barham's life, that there is
really nothing to say about it. As landowner, Canon of St. Paul's,
parson of a City church, he moved pleasantly in society, and had only to
encounter life's inevitable troubles. We remember him in our hot youth,
at the long-extinct Chapter Coffee-house in St. Paul's churchyard, whose
landlord bore the appropriate name of Faithful, improvising marvellous
verses over a glass of antique port. Perhaps his life was almost too
facile; perhaps men of serious temperament would regard such productions
as the 'Ingoldsby Legends' as things intolerable: but Barham had his
mission, depend on it, and if you go to a 'Penny Reading' in the country
any winter evening, the chances are that you will get selections from
'Pickwick' or from 'Ingoldsby,' whatever else may greet your ear.
Everybody knows Sam Weller and Tiger Tim--both typical man-servants:--
'Tiger Tim was clean of limb,
His boots were polished, his jacket was trim;
With a very smart tie in his smart cravat,
And a smart cockade on the top of his hat;
Tallest of boys, or shortest of men,
He stood in his stockings just four foot ten;
And he asked, as he held the door on the swing,
"Pray, did your lordship please to ring?"'
Everybody also recollects that rascally 'Jackdaw of Rheims'--related,
doubtless, to the _graculus superbus_ of Phaedrus--who stole the
Cardinal's ring just as his Latin predecessor stole the peacock's
feathers. There is no _reductio ad absurdum_ extant equal to this
whimsical legend. Excommunication, which was slightly damaged in value
by the curse of Ernulphus, came to a ridiculous end when the Cardinal
Lord Archbishop of Rheims tonitrated his worst maledictions at a
thievish jackdaw. 'Maledictus sit vivendo, moriendo, manducando,
bibendo, esuriendo, sitiendo, jejunando, dormitando, dormiendo,
vigilando, ambulando, stando, sedendo, jacendo, operando, quiescendo,'
&c., &c.
'The Cardinal rose with a dignified look,
He called for his candle, his bell, and his book.
In holy anger and pious grief,
He solemnly cursed the rascally thief.
He cursed him at board, he cursed him in bed,
Prom the sole of his foot to the crown of his head;
He cursed him in sleeping, that every night
He should dream of the devil, and wake in fright;
He cursed him in eating, he cursed him in drinking.
He cursed him in coughing, in sneezing, in winking,
He cursed him in sitting, in standing, in lying;
He cursed him in walking, in riding, in flying,
He cursed him in living, he cursed him in dying:
Never was heard such a terrible curse.
But what gave rise
To no little surprise--
Nobody seemed one penny the worse.'
When after awhile the mystery was out--when the poor little comminated
jackdaw presented himself in a sad state, so that of the cathedral
officers, sacristans, and vergers, and the like, it is recorded,
'That heedless of grammar, they all cried,
"That's him!"'
the absurdity reached its climax. For our own part, though these humours
are not of the highest or deepest order, we laugh at them. Life has its
follies; Shakspeare had his clowns. In the old forgotten coaching days,
there was wonderful humour at the wayside inns. Sam Weller was possible
then: a railway porter has no time to be humorous. Of the Ingoldsby
humour, as practised by Barham himself, there is this to be said: it was
always harmless, and it was directed against absurdity and nonsense.
Ingoldsby has had disciples, who have not disgraced their master, yet
who have never quite equalled him in certain peculiar points. There is
Hood's admirable story of 'Miss Killmannsegg,' wherein, if we remember
aright, he depicts certain folks as--
'Washing, their hands with invisible soap
In imperceptible water.'