Présentation de l'éditeur
An excerpt of a review from Public Opinion, Volume 7:
A Quaint Classic….
It is not likely that the author of "The Knight and the Lady" and “ The Jackdaw of Rheims” will ever be forgotten. The book of which these choice bits of fantastic humor form a part has amused two generations of readers, and it will continue to be a favorite as long as men and women in civilized life retain a relish for satire without malice and wit without scurrility. Richard Harris Barham, better known by his penname of "Thomas Ingoldsby, Esquire," was born at Canterbury one hundred and one years ago. He was a clergyman of the Church of England, and his genealogy, as traced by himself, is of curious historical interest. His earliest English ancestor was a knight who came over with William the Conqueror. A son of this knight, Reginald Fitzurse by name, was one of the assassins of Thomas à Becket, the famous Archbishop of Canterbury. We are told that Fitzurse fled to Ireland, where he changed his name to McMahon, and that his brother Robert, who succeeded to the English estates, took the name of de Berham which in time was converted into Barham, and thus the humorous parson carried his patronimic back to the reign of Henry II. The author of the “Ingoldsby Legends" was a graduate of Oxford and a most unpromising candidate for holy orders, if his mischievous and devil-may-care disposition in early life has been correctly described by himself and others. And yet he adopted the clerical profession, held important livings, and was made one of the minor canons of St. Paul's, where he was honored by the friendship of the famous Sidney Smith. In fact it appears that the conscientious pursuit of his sacred calling developed in Barham a most amiable disposition—a disposition at once sunny and sympathetic, genial, hearty, an affectionate. To this must be added, as rare seasoning for such a character, keen and unfailing wit that never wounded its victim, and an irrepressible humor, often whimsical, always kindly. In 1837 the "Ingoldsby Legends” appeared in Blackwood’s, and the Rev. John Hughes tells us that the fly-leaf of a copy presented to his mother bore this quaint distich in Barham’s own handwriting:
“To Mrs. Hughes, who made me do ’em,
Quod placeo est—st placeo—tuum."
Mr. Barham had a singular talent for turning almost impossible rhymes. So rare, indeed, was this talent that the sinuosities of the Ingoldsbian verse seem to defy imitation. Neither Swift nor Hood ever approached the minor canon of St. Paul‘s in that remarkable deftness in forcing rhythmical effects. Many contemporary wits tried their hands at the same art, only to be laughed at for their pains. With Barham, although a rhyme seems often reached by painful effort, so difficult is it to catch the jingling sound, such fantastic twists of his mother tongue were apparently as easy and as natural to him as his own spontaneous and good-humored laughter. And yet this genial poet, over whose rollicking rhymes the world has laughed for more than half a century, was a man of man sorrows. In 1825 his eldest daughter died, and at short intervals thereafter he lost four of his other children, the last being the youngest and the most promising. The philosophy that kept him from breaking down under the weight of these afflictions and losing his taste for healthy and life giving humor is briefly explained by an appreciative biographer: " The best substitute for stoicism which a man of keen and sensitive feelings finds it possible to adopt is to think less of his own sorrows and more of those of others.” Such was the creed of this large-hearted and amiable humorist. We are glad to see anew edition in cheap and popular form of these jingling, punning poems, which will always be a source of innocent mirth to thousands of readers.
Présentation de l'éditeur
Leopold Classic Library is delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive collection. As part of our on-going commitment to delivering value to the reader, we have also provided you with a link to a website, where you may download a digital version of this work for free. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. Whilst the books in this collection have not been hand curated, an aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature. As a result of this book being first published many decades ago, it may have occasional imperfections. These imperfections may include poor picture quality, blurred or missing text. While some of these imperfections may have appeared in the original work, others may have resulted from the scanning process that has been applied. However, our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. While some publishers have applied optical character recognition (OCR), this approach has its own drawbacks, which include formatting errors, misspelt words, or the presence of inappropriate characters. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with an experience that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic book, and that the occasional imperfection that it might contain will not detract from the experience.
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