"Memoir of Bernard Barton" and "Death of Bernard Barton" (1849) appear in Miscellanies of Edward Fitzgerald (1904), online here.

pp212-216

"(From a Letter of Bernard Barton)

“2 mo, II, 1839.
“Thy cordial approval of my brother John's hearty wish to bring us back to the simple habits of the olden time induces me to ask thee if I mentioned in either of my late letters the curious old papers he stumbled on in hunting through the repositories of our late excellent spinster sister? I quite forget whether I did or not; so I will not at a venture repeat all the items. But he found an inventory of the goods and chattels of our great-grandfather, John Barton of Ive-Gill, a little hamlet about five or seven miles from Carlisle; by which it seems our progenitor was one of those truly patriarchal personages, a Cumbrian statesman — living on his own little estate, and drawing from it all things needful for himself and his family. I will be bound for it my good brother was more gratified at finding his earliest traceable ancestor such an one than if he had found him in the college of heralds with gules purpura and argent emblazoned as his bearings. The total amount of his stock, independent of house, land, and any money he might have, seems by the valuation to have been £61 6s., and the copy of his admission to his little estate gives the fine as £5, so that I suppose its annual value was then estimated at £2 15s. This was about a century back. Yet this man was the chief means of building the little chapel in the dale, still standing. (He was a Churchman.) I doubt not he was a fine simple-hearted noble-minded yeoman, in his day, and I am very proud of him. Why did his son, my grandfather, after whom I was named, ever leave that pleasant dale, and go and set up a manufactory in Carlisle; inventing a piece of machinery1 for which he had a medal from the Royal Society? — so says Pennant. Methinks he had better have abode in the old grey stone, slate-covered homestead on the banks of that pretty brooklet the Ive! but I bear his name, so I will not quarrel with his memory.”

Thus far Bernard Barton traces the history of his family. And it appears that, as his grandfather's mechanical genius drew him away from the pastoral life at Ive- Gill, so his father, who was of a literary turn, reconciled himself with difficulty to the manufactory he inherited at Carlisle. '' I always," he wrote, '' perused a Locke, an Addison, or a Pope, with delight2, and ever sat down to my ledger with a sort of disgust ; " and he at one time determined to quit a business in which he had been '' neither successfully nor agreeably engaged," and become a " minister of some sect of religion — it will then be time," he says, 'to determine of what sect when I am enabled to judge of their respective merits. But this I will freely confess to you, that if there be any one of them, the tenets of which are more favourable to rational religion than the one in which I have been brought up, I shall be so far from thinking it a crime, that I cannot but consider it my duty to embrace it." This' however, was written when he was very young. He never gave up business, but changed one business for another, and shifted the scene of its transaction. His religious inquiries led to a more decided result. He very soon left the Church of England, and became a member of the Society of Friends.

[Footnote 1: The manufactory was one of calico-printing. The " piece of machinery " is thus described by Pennant: " Saw at Mr. Bernard Barton's a pleasing sight of twelve little girls spinning at once at a horizontal wheel, which set twelve bobbins in motion ; yet so contrived, that should any accident happen to one, the motion of that might be stopped without any impediment to the others."]
[Footnote 2: See an amusing account of his portrait, with his favourite books about him, painted about this time, Letter I of this Collection.]

About the same time he married a Quaker lady, Mary Done, of a Cheshire family. She bore him several children; but only three lived to maturity : two daughters, of whom the elder, Maria, distinguished herself, afterward, as the author of many useful children's books under her married name. Hack; and one son, Bernard, the poet, who was born on January 31, 1784.

Shortly before Bernard's birth, however, John Barton had removed to London, where he engaged in something of the same business he had quitted at Carlisle, but where he probably found society and interests more suited to his taste. I do not know whether he ever acted as minister in his Society ; but his name appears on one record of their most valuable endeavours. The Quakers had from the very time of George Fox distinguished themselves by their opposition to slavery: a like feeling had gradually been growing up in other quarters of England ; and in 1787 a mixed committee of twelve persons was appointed to promote the Abolition of the Slave-trade; Wilberforce engaging to second them with all his influence in Parliament. Among these twelve stands the name of John Barton, in honourable companionship with that of Thomas Clarkson.

“I lost my mother,” again writes B. B., “when I was only a few days old; and my father married again in my infancy so wisely and so happily, that I knew not but his second wife was my own mother, till I learned it years after at a boarding school." The name of this amiable step-mother was Elizabeth Horne; a Quaker also; daughter of a merchant, who, with his house in London and villa at Tottenham was an object of B. B.'s earnest regard and latest recollection. “Some of my first recollections,” he wrote fifty years after, “are, looking out of his parlour windows at Bankside on the busy Thames, with its ever-changing scene, and the dome of St. Paul's rising out of the smoke on the other side of the river. But my most delightful recollections of boyhood are connected with the fine old country-house in a green lane diverging from the high road which runs through Tottenham. I would give seven years of life as it now is, for a week of that which I then led. It was a large old house, with an iron palisade and a pair of iron gates in front, and a huge stone eagle on each pier. Leading up to the steps by which you went up to the hall door was a wide gravel walk, bordered in summer-time by huge tubs, in which were orange and lemon trees, and in the centre of the grass-plot stood a tub yet larger, holding an enormous aloe. The hall itself to my fancy then lofty and wide as a cathedral would seem now, was a famous place for battledore and shuttlecock; and behind was a garden, equal to that of old Alcinous himself. My favourite walk was one of turf by a long strait pond, bordered with lime trees. But the whole demesne was the fairy ground of my childhood; and its presiding genius was grandpapa. He must have been a handsome man in his youth, for I remember him at nearly eighty, a very fine-looking one, even in the decay of mind and body. In the morning a velvet cap ; by dinner, a flaxen wig ; and features always expressive of benignity and placid cheerfulness. When he walked out into the garden, his cocked hat and amber-headed cane completed his costume. To the recollection of this delightful personage I am, I think, indebted for many soothing and pleasing associations with old age."

John Barton did not live to see the only child — a son — that was born to him by this second marriage. He had some time before quitted London, and taken partnership in a malting business at Hereford, where he died, in the prime of life. After his death his widow returned to Tottenham, and there with her son and step-children continued for some time to reside.

In due time Bernard was sent to a much-esteemed Quaker school at Ipswich: returning always to spend his holidays at Tottenham. When fourteen years old, he was apprenticed to Mr. Samuel Jesup, a shopkeeper at Halstead in Essex. “There I stood,” he writes, “for eight years behind the counter of the comer shop at the top of Halstead Hill, kept to this day” (November 9, 1828) “by my old master, and still worthy uncle, S. Jesup.”

In 1806 he went to Woodbridge ; and a year after married Lucy Jesup, the niece of his former master, and entered into partnership with her brother as coal and corn merchant. But she died a year after marriage, in giving birth to the only child, who now survives them both; and he, perhaps sickened with the scene of his blighted love, and finding, like his father, that he had less taste for the ledger than for literature, almost directly quitted Woodbridge, and engaged himself as private tutor in the family of Mr. Waterhouse, a merchant in Liverpool. There Bernard Barton had some family connexions; and there also he was kindly received and entertained by the Roscoe family, who were old acquaintances of his father and mother."

pp240-244

"(From the Ipswich Journal, February 24, 1849)

At Woodbridge, on the night of Monday last, February 19, between the hours of eight and nine, after a brief spasm in the heart, died Bernard Barton. He was born near London in 1784, came to Woodbridge in 1806, where he shortly after married, and was left a widower at the birth of his only child, who now survives him. In 1810 he entered as clerk in Messrs. Alexander's Bank, where he officiated almost to the day of his death. He had been for some months afflicted with laborious breathing which his doctor knew to proceed from disease in the heart, though there seemed no reason to apprehend immediate danger. But those who have most reason to lament his loss, have also most reason to be thankful that he was spared a long illness of anguish and suspense, by so sudden and easy a dismissal.

To the world at large Bernard Barton was known as the author of much pleasing, amiable, and pious poetry, animated by feeling and fancy, delighting in homely subjects, so generally pleasing to English people. He sang of what he loved — the domestic virtues in man, and the quiet pastoral scenes of Nature — and especially of his own county — its woods, and fields, and lanes, and homesteads, and the old sea that washed its shores; and the nearer to his own home the better he loved it. There was a true and pure vein of pastoral feeling in him. Thousands have read his books with innocent pleasure ; none will ever take them up and be the worse for doing so. The first of these volumes was published in 1811.

To those of his own neighbourhood he was known beside as a most amiable, genial, charitable man — of pure, unaffected, unpretending piety — the good neighbour — the cheerful companion — the welcome guest — a hospitable host — tolerant of all men, sincerely attached to many. Few, high and low, but were glad to see him at his customary place in the bank; to exchange some words of kindly greeting with him — few but were glad to have him at their own homes ; and there he was the same man and had the same manners to all; always equally frank, genial, and communicative, without distinction of rank. He had all George Fox's “better part” — thorough independence of rank, titles, wealth, and all the distinctions of haberdashery, without making any needless display of such independence. He could dine with Sir Robert Peel one day, and the next day sup off bread and cheese with equal relish at a farmhouse, and relate with equal enjoyment at the one place what he had heard and seen at the other.

He was indeed as free from vanity as any man, in spite of the attention which his books drew towards him. If he liked to write, and recite, and print his own occasional verses, it was simply that he himself was interested in them at the time — interested in the subject — in the composition, and amused with the very printing ; but he was equally amused with anything his friends had said or written — repeating it everywhere with almost disproportionate relish. And this surely is not a usual mark of vanity. Indeed, had he had more vanity, he would have written much less instead of so much, would have altered and polished and condensed. Whereas it was all first impulse with him: he would never correct his own verses, though he was perfectly ready to let his friends alter what they chose in them — nay, ask them to do so, so long as he was not called on to assist.

It was the same with his correspondence, which was one great amusement of his later years. He wrote off as he thought and felt, never pausing to turn a sentence, or to point one; and he was quite content to receive an equally careless reply, so long as it came. He was content with a poem so long as it was good in the main, without minding those smaller beauties which go to make up perfection — content with a letter that told of health and goodwill, with very little other news — and content with a friend who had the average virtues and accomplishments of men, without being the faultless monster which the world never saw, but so many are half their lives looking for. It was the same with his conversation. He never dressed himself for it, whatever company he was going into. He would quote his favourite poems in a farmhouse and tell his humorous Suffolk stories in the genteelest drawing-room — what came into his head at the impulse of the moment came from his tongue; a thing not in general commendable, but wholly pleasant and harmless in one so innocent, so kind, and so agreeable as himself.

He was excellent company in all companies; but in none more than in homely parties, in or out of doors, over the winter's fire in the farmhouse, or under the tree in summer. He had a cheery word for all ; a challenge to good fellowship with the old — a jest with the young — enjoying all, and making all enjoyable and joyous. Many hereabouts will long look to that place in their rooms where this good, amiable, and pleasant man used to sit and spread good-humour around him. Nor can the present writer forget the last out-of-door party he enjoyed with this most amiable man : it was in last June, down his favourite river Deben to the sea. Though far from well, when once on board he would be cheerful; was as lively and hearty as any at the little inn at which we disembarked to refresh ourselves; and had a word of cheery salute for every boat or vessel that passed or met us as we drifted home again with a dying breeze at close of evening.

He was not learned, in languages, or in science of any kind. Even the loftier poetry of our own country he did not much affect. He loved the masters of the homely, the pathetic, and the humorous — Crabbe, Cowper, and Goldsmith — for it may surprise many readers of his poems that he had as great relish for humour — good-humoured humour — as any man. And few of his friends will forget him as he used to sit at table, his snuff-box in hand, and a glass of genial wine before him as he repeated some humorous passage from one of his favourites, glancing his fine brown eyes around the company as he recited. Amongst prose works, his great favourite was Sir Walter Scott — him he was never tired of reading. He would not allow that one novel was bad, and the best were to him the best of all books. For the last four winters, the present writer has gone through several of these masterpieces with him — generally one night in the week was so employed — Saturday night, which left him free to the prospect of the Sunday's relaxation. Then was the volume taken down impatiently from the shelf, almost before tea was over; and at last when all was ready, candle snuffed, and fire stirred, he would read out, or listen to, those fine stories, one after another, anticipating with a smile or a glance the pathetic or humorous turns that were coming — that he relished all the more because he knew they were coming — enjoying all as much the twentieth time of reading as he had done at the first — till supper coming in, closed the book, and recalled him to his genial hospitality, which knew no limit. It was only on Friday last we finished the Heart of Midlothian, which he enjoyed, however ill at ease; on Sunday he wanted to know when we should (begin another novel), and on Monday night, after a little mortal agony (to use the words of one who loved him best, and by him was best beloved of all the world), that warm kind heart was still for ever.

It would not be fitting to record in a public paper the domestic virtues of a private man, but Bernard Barton was a public man ; and the public is pleased, or should be pleased, to know that a writer really is as amiable as his books pretend. No common case, especially in the poetic line, where the very sensibilities that constitute poetic feeling are most apt to revolt at the little rubs of common life. Scarce a year has elapsed since the death of one of his oldest and dearest friends — Major Moor — whose praise he justly celebrated in verse. Major Moor was also as well known to the public by his books, as much beloved by a large circle of friends. These two men were, perhaps, of equal abilities, though of a different kind; their virtues equal and the same. Long does the memory of such men haunt the places of their mortal abode ; stirring within us, perhaps, at the close of many a day, as the sun sets over the scenes with which they were so long associated. It is surely not improper to endeavour to record something to the honour of such men in their own neighbourhoods. Nay, should we not, if we could, make their histories as public as possible? for surely none could honour them without loving them, and, perhaps, unconsciously striving to follow in their footsteps.

(From the Ipswich Journal, March 3, 1849)
WOODBRIDGE
Funeral of Bernard Barton. — On Monday, February 26, the mortal remains of Bernard Barton were committed to the earth. A long train of members of the Society to which he belonged, and of old friends and fellow- townsmen, waited to follow him from the door from which he had so often been seen to issue alive and welcome to all eyes. Thus attended, the coffin was borne up the street to the cemetery of the Friends' Meeting-House ; and there, surrounded by the grave and decent Brotherhood, and amid the affecting silence of their ceremonial, broken but once by the warning voice of one reverent elder, was lowered down into its final resting-place.
Lay him gently in the ground.
The good, the genial, and the wise;
While Spring blows forward in the skies
To breathe new verdure o'er the mound
Where the kindly Poet lies.
Gently lay him in his place,
While the still Brethren round him stand ;
The soul indeed is far away,
But he would reverence the clay.
In which so long she made a stay,
Beaming through the friendly face,
And holding forth the honest hand —
Thou, that didst so often twine.
For other urns the funeral song,
One who has known and lov'd thee long
Would ere he mingles with the throng,
Just hang his little wreath on thine.
Farewell, thou spirit kind and true;
Old Friend, for evermore Adieu"