Today, 7 October 2026, marks the 140th anniversary of the death of the Rev. William Barnes (1801–1886) — Dorset’s celebrated poet, philologist, antiquarian and country parson. Barnes died at his home at Winterborne Came on 7 October 1886, aged 86, leaving behind a remarkable body of work that captured the people, landscape, language and traditions of Dorset. Published just a week after his death, this newspaper article offers a fascinating contemporary tribute to his life and character. It records the circumstances of his death and funeral, reflects on his extraordinary scholarship and literary achievements, and includes tributes from other newspapers alongside a moving memorial poem. Above all, it reveals the affection and respect in which Barnes was held by his contemporaries, and provides a poignant glimpse into how Dorset mourned one of its most distinctive and enduring voices.

Southern Times and Dorset County Herald 15 October 1886

Death of the Dorset Poet.

The Rev. W. Barnes died on Thursday at Came after a prolonged but not painful illness at the age of 86. No man has contributed so largely to the literature and archæology of his native county as Mr. Barnes, but his fame rests chiefly on his poems, the reputation of which is world-wide. The Dorset County Chronicle has been indebted to him for not less than half-a-century for numerous valuable contributions, especially his charming poems, many of which appeared in this paper previous to their being collected and published as a whole; in fact, till within a few weeks of his death he favoured us with examples of his poetic talents. Throughout a long series of years the columns of the Chronicle have been enriched with numerous proofs of his versatile and profound genius, areasological, philological, scientific, and ecclesiastical, for his knowledge might be truly said to have been universal. Personally, and in our journalistic relations with him, we have reasons to sincerely mourn his death, and we may truly and feelingly say we “shall not look upon his like again.” The members of the Dorset Field Club have also ample cause to regret the departure of one who brought an exclusive fund of learning and research to inform and delight them at their meetings, and the papers read or contributed by Mr. Barnes on those occasions will, we are sure, be amongst the most cherished records of their proceedings. All who knew the Dorset Poet esteemed him highly, and we may safely say that his death has been heard of with sorrow, not only in Dorchester and neighbourhood, but wherever deep learning, almost unlimited attainments, sterling sincerity of character, and unaffected piety are appreciated.

The funeral of the deceased gentleman took place on Monday afternoon in the churchyard at Came. It was like his life—quiet and unobtrusive in character. The funeral procession left the rectory shortly before three, the coffin being carried on a bier. It was of polished oak with brass mountings, and upon the cover was an oak cross, and the inscription, “WILLIAM BARNES, died Oct. 7th, 1886, Aged 86.” Following it were the Rev. W. M. Barnes and Mrs. Barnes, the Misses and Masters Barnes (Winterborne Monkton), Miss Barnes, and Mr. and Mrs. Gardner, besides a number of friends from far and near, among whom were Mr. F. T. Palgrave (Professor of Poetry, Oxford), and his son, Dr. Daniel Epsom; Messrs. Grove, Paul, and Hawkins (churchwardens of Came and Winterborne); Captain E. W. Williams, Mr. Bartley Williams, Mr. John Flyer, Mr. G. W. Flyer, Hon. and Rev. A. Spring-Rice, the Mayor of Dorchester, Mr. Gregory, Mr. Pearce-Edgecumbe, Mr. E. Cunnington, Rev. T. Russell-Wright, Rev. A. A. Leonard, Rev. R. M. L. Lee, Rev. M. Green, Mr. E. C. Drury, Mr. Thomas Hardy, Mr. B. F. Lock, Mr. A. H. Lock, Mr. W. B. Good, Mr. Jameson, Mr. J. F. Ralph, besides the parishioners and servants of the deceased.

The living of Came was presented 24 years ago to the Rev. W. Barnes by Captain Mansel-Damer, the owner of the estate, who had telegraphed to us stating that through ill health he was prevented from attending the ceremony, but he sent his second son, Mr. Montague Damer, to represent him. He was to have been in attendance, but was held back by the arrangement of the procession. The Rev. Mr. Hayes, who led the way into the church, where he read the text of the sublime burial service of the Church of England. The coffin was lowered to the grave side, where the Office for the Dead was concluded. On the coffin being lowered to its last resting place it was literally covered with beautiful wreaths and crosses sent by loving friends and parishioners; among those who manifested this tribute of affection being the Misses Smith (West Stafford) and Miss Bessie Campbell, Dorchester. The schoolchildren of Came, with Miss Foot, the mistress, were present, and dropped flowers, chiefly wild, into the grave. At the close of the ceremony several lingered to take a last fond look at the coffin of him whose memory will long be cherished with sincere affection.

The funeral arrangements were in the hands of Mr. C. Voss, of Princes-street, Dorchester, who also made the coffin, and satisfaction was expressed with the way the duties of undertaker were discharged.

The Rev. William Barnes, B.D., was born at Rushay, near Sturminster Newton, in the Vale of Blackmore, Dorset. He was descended from a family who, in the time of Philip and Mary, held Mageston in the parish of Gillingham, and to one of whom (William Barnes) land in Gillingham was granted in the 31st of Henry VIII though later generations (from 1733 had lost their land and were farmers at East Stour and Marnhull. At the higher scholarship with his University degree, was won, by a pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, Mr. Barnes kept for some years a school at Dorchester, and also pupils from many people (we say especially among those of the late Mr. Tolbort) who studied for service in India, and when he forwarded in the elements of Hindoostance and Persian, he was appointed to the curacy of Whitcombe, Dorset, in 1847; and was instituted to the rectory of Winterbourne Came, Dorchester, in 1862. He was the author of three volumes of Poems of Rural Life, in the Dorset Dialect, “A Grammar and Glossary of the Dorset Dialect,” “A Philological Grammar, grounded upon English, and formed from a comparison of more than sixty languages: being an Introduction to the Science of Grammar of all Languages, especially English, Latin, and Greek”; “Tiw; or, a View of the Roots and Stems of the English as a Teutonic Tongue”; “An Anglo-Saxon Delectus, including Extracts from Anglo-Saxon History and the Saxon Chronicle”; “Notes on Ancient Britain and the Britons,” being the result of his collections for a course of lectures on this subject; “Views of Labour and Gold”; “Early England and the Saxon English”; “Rural Poems in common English,” of which a handsome illustrated edition has been printed in America; “An Outline of English Speechcraft,” and “An Outline of Redecraft.” In a very life he contributed about twenty-five letters on topographical and other subjects to the Gentleman’s Magazine, with some wood-cuts by his own hand, and he has contributed numerous papers of great value to various learned and antiquarian societies, especially the Dorset Field Club. He was also in receipt of a Civil List pension as an acknowledgment of his literary merits. He was deservedly esteemed for his sterling qualities and his simplicity of character.

We have received from esteemed correspondents and other sources the following obituary notices:—

William Barnes, son of John and Grace Barnes, was born at Rushay House, an old farmhouse which has since been burnt down. The precise date of his birth is not known, but it is supposed to have occurred in 1800 or 1801, as he was baptised on March 20th of the latter year in Sturminster Newton Church. Young Barnes developed very early a passion for books and reading, which was not looked upon with much favour in a busy little farmhouse, and he had frequently to seek retired spots in the fields and elsewhere, where he could indulge his passion without fear of interference. His mother, Grace Scott, possessed intellectual tastes, and from her he inherited a love for poetry and art. As a boy he entered as an engraver’s clerk the office of Mr. Dashwood, who was soliciting at Sturminster Newton. In 1818 he removed to Dorchester and took a similar post in the office of Mr. Coombs, solicitor. Here in his leisure time he acquired some knowledge of French with an old friend, Mr. Edward Fuller. In 1823 he removed to Mere, and took the school, which had been hitherto carried on by Mr. Robertson. At Mere Mr. Barnes found a good French master in Mons. C. Masson, a French surgeon, who had been brought to England as a prisoner and had married an English lady, with whom he settled in that neighbourhood.

At Mere Mr. Barnes improved himself in Latin, Greek, Italian, and German, and commenced Persian, and also Russian, but the last named language he discarded when he found it possessed no literature. His diary at this time was kept in Italian and German to improve himself in those languages. At Mere Mr. Barnes rented for his school the Country House, which has since, we believe, been much altered. Of poetical works, Petrarch was his favourite author in those days, and a volume of Petrarch and occasionally a volume of Dante’s “Divina Commedia” was his pocket and inseparable companion; in Italian, a few of which have been preserved.

Mr. Barnes as a recreation had previously acquired some skill with the graver, and he utilised this talent in illustrating various works. It was to Mere Mr. Barnes brought home his wife, whom he had previously met in Dorsetshire, and to her society some of the happiest years of his life were passed. The story of the meeting and engagement, which were somewhat romantic, will doubtless be recorded when the story of his life is told.

The holiday of 1831 was spent in Wales, where he occupied his time in acquiring some knowledge of the Welsh language and of the Welsh people, and almost to the day of his death he received and read a Welsh newspaper weekly.

In 1835 Mr. Barnes left the Chantry House, Mere, and came to reside at Dorchester, where he opened a school. The change from the old house with its fine open garden and lawn to the narrow street of Dorchester was depressing; but the school prospered, and soon had to be removed to more commodious premises in South-street. Though he never gave up the superintendence of his school to the under-master, and was always at his post, he contrived to find time for carrying on his studies chiefly by early rising and late working. With the assistance of an old friend, Colonel Beasant, a good Oriental scholar, he improved his knowledge of Hindustani, Persian, and Sanscrit. Hebrew he also gave much attention to, and some Jews who were occasionally in Dorchester were called in to his assistance. Spanish and some European and other dialects also received attention. He read up also works of science, and used the knowledge thus acquired in lectures which he delivered daily to his pupils, and of which they took notes from which they reproduced the lecture for their home lessons.

The Anglo-Saxon and British languages and history had been a favourite study of his, and on these subjects he became an authority as well as an antiquarian subject—especially relating to them.

In 1833 Mr. Barnes entered his name on the boards of St. John’s College, Cambridge, and in due course proceeded to the degree of B.D. When in residence at St. John’s, Cambridge, the University Library afforded him a store of wealth and an opportunity for prosecuting the studies in which he delighted. Some memoirs which have been found of books taken out by him from the University Library afford a sample of the kind of book Mr. Barnes chose for his reading in his leisure hours:—

Challenge Grammar.

El Arte del Basconense.

Grammatica Lappone.

Apperçu de la Langue des Iles Marquises.

Elementa Grammaticae Teutonae.

Lattani’s Egyptian Grammar.

Elemens de la Grammaire Maudobeone.

J. W. Pohl Byzantische Sprache.

Grammatica Danubiana.

Vocabulo Gram Malto.

Evangelia Gothica and Anglo Saxonica.

Edilbecha Chinesische Grammatik.

At Dorchester Mr. Barnes experienced the great sorrow of his life in the death of his dearly loved wife.

In 18— he received through the Bishop of Salisbury, from whom he had previously received an invitation, Her Majesty’s command to read his poems before her. The lamented death of Her Grace’s son prevented this engagement from being carried out.

In 1844 the original collection of Dorset Poems, which first appeared in the columns of the Dorset County Chronicle, was published in one volume, and under the name of the author; this settled the question of their authorship, which had been generally attributed, we believe, to the Rev. Lord Godolphin Osborne.

On January 14th, 1847, the Hon. Colonel Damer, of Came House, offered Mr. Barnes the donative of Whitcombe as a title to orders, and to Whitcombe he was duly licensed by the Right Rev. Edward Denison, Lord Bishop of Salisbury, on the 23rd of February, when he received deacon’s orders. Mr. Barnes proceeded to priest’s orders, and in 1862 he was presented by Captain Damer, the son of Colonel Damer, a former pupil, to the rectory of Came. His life at Came was one of peace and calm, but the old passion still held its sway, and much of the time not employed in parochial duties was spent in the study. He remained, however, for some little time after each meal with his family, and in the evening he generally came down for two hours, chiefly for music, of which he was exceedingly fond. In his long illness one of his greatest pleasures was to listen to old musical and part songs sung by his friends or grandchildren outside his door. In early life he had been a singer himself, and acquired some proficiency on the flute and violin, as well as on the organ, and for a time he officiated as a living at Mere as voluntary organist in Mere Church.

Whilst at Came he received visits from Tennyson, Allingham, the Hon. Mrs. Norton, the Prince Lucien Bonaparte, and others, and corresponded with Professor Max Müller, Sir Henry Taylor, and other celebrities. He was presented by Prince Lucien Bonaparte with a complete set of his philological works, and as the Prince’s request he undertook some literary work for him.

We have not attempted to give a full list of Mr. Barnes’ writings. A list of the books and papers contributed to various magazines, and in MS., would occupy the greater part of one of these columns. The wonder is that any man, even in the long years allotted to him, could have attained such varied knowledge and written so largely on such a variety of subjects. The position Mr. Barnes has gained in the world of literature he has gained through his indomitable perseverance in the pursuit of knowledge under very great difficulties, and for fifty years alike. He never wrote either for fame or for money, and he declined to write to order, especially in poetry; and no one has reason to know that it was a solace to him that he had to feel that he had never written a word by which mankind would be the worse.

Mr. Barnes was a conscientious parish priest. Up to the age of 83 he made a point of visiting each of the parishioners in his scattered parish in his own cottage. He was a whole-hearted visitor in their cottages, and his genial sympathy with them won their hearts.

It was no common man who passed away from among his friends (he can never have had an enemy) last Thursday. No common man indeed, and in nothing more remarkable than in an utter want of pride, jealousy, or boasting, or any other evil quality too often marking the character of a "self-made" scholar. No one could talk ten minutes with the Rev. Mr. Barnes without being astounded at his many-sided knowledge, and at his unaffected free lom from assumption and he was equally free from ill nature. One of his oldest friends once said to us, “I have known Mr. Barnes intimately for many years, but I never once heard him say an unkind word of any living creature.” All his acquaintances, we believe, will fully confirm this.

As the “Dorset Poet” it was that Mr. Barnes was best known in life, and will be best remembered now that he has gone from us. But, perhaps, among the many subjects in which he excelled, for poetry that is the most difficult to write about. It is so entirely original, so wholly and generally that it is very hard to describe its characteristics in the few sentences which alone can be here allotted to the task. His are poems of rural life, and speak of the still, uneventful rural life which surrounded Mr. Barnes in the neighbourhood of his “Blackmore by the Stour.” The rhythm and wording have been, and rightly have not, the number exact of his dialect. Everyone’s rare reasonings in varieties of his dialect. Mr. Barnes’ greatest error as a poet requires, perhaps, a little study before it is fully grasped. But there is a life in it and is to be found only by any one who reads his poems with any reasonable thought, and brings a fair amount of taste to the study. And such a reader must be astonished—to name the minor merits which cannot fail to be astonished at the great variety of metres and at the capital rhyming. This last may seem a trivial thing to mention. But judging by the extreme boldness of many rhymes that are to be pressed in print, the power to make good ones is not to be passed over. It is, perhaps, the pathos that makes the most searching for in the Dorset poems, and that most repays search. It seems to us to be a kind of little Mr. Barnes’ own; and in particular no appears to us always to portray patches which might well enter into the hearts of his rural characters. Several of the pathetic poems, such as “The Voices that be Good” and “Jenny got Vroom House,” are, we hope and think, generally known. But there are numbers more, less familiarly, which are at once “Rural Dorset,” and also full of deep and original pathos. We think, for instance, that the four poems entitled “The Wife a-Lost” would of themselves stamp Mr. Barnes as a poet. The young widower, reminded by all familiar house objects of the lost one, thinks:—

“the lwonesome pleäce,
Where flat-bough’d beech do grow;
Below the beeches’ bough, my love,
Where you did never come,
An’ I don’t look to meet ye now,
As I do look at hwome."

There is another group of poems, scattered here and there, full also of a certain pathos, but whose main scope is description. They tell of the old state of things in Blackmore, now changed, and they are full of quaint, simple, but never trivial. For Mr. Barnes’ mind is ever full of the thoughts, that is the centre of the “Hollowed Pleäces.”

There, on the pworches bench o' stwone,
Hallow'd by times o' youthvul fun,
We laugh'd an' sigh'd to think o' neämes
That rung there woonce, in evenèn geämes;

“The Common at Took In,” “The Girt Wold House,” “Mossy Stwones,” “The Settle",” and a number more of this class are brim full of this feeling of halo round all that is of the old, still, country-side life. These, lastly, there is the “Forsaken,” the quietly but most truly humorous pieces—painting queues of labour, rural life and fun. Some of these again are pretty well known—we would mention one of the, overlooked—“Hay Meäken” (p. 189), as wonderfully natural and delightful.

But this notice of the poet, slight and bald as it is, must close if we are to say anything at all of the antiquary, the philologist, the parish clergyman, lost to Dorset by Mr. Barnes’ death.

His interest in antiquities was, we believe, lifelong, and never flagged to the last. The very same may be said of his philology. We ourselves remember hearing of his knowledge of both these subjects fully 50 years ago; and only the other day, lying on what he turned out to be about them as ever. About them both, we say, for with him they ever went hand in hand. His knowledge of Keltic and Saxon writings greatly influenced him in all that they ever went hand in hand. His knowledge of Keltic and Saxon writings greatly influenced him in all archaeological deductions. He—more than most antiquaries—was as familiar with the importance and frequent mention of Keltic Curc-y-Gorsedd and Saxon Burh that his bias was to see the relics of the Hill of Council and the old English fastness in this and that outcroft by others not down to Roman, Dane, or Norman. It is very likely that he was, however, in many cases right. It is much to be regretted that he did not—in no belief be did not—write some sort treatise in a systematic form on the definite bearings of his Welsh and Saxon reading on our remaining archæology, barrows, and trackways. We believe that it would have been a remarkable and valuable work. In philology, again, there is perhaps a similar ground for regret. Our own philological acquaintance is scarcely too small to admit of our appreciating that of Mr. Barnes properly. But it enables us to look back on his conversation on the subject with wonder. He was incapable of boasting, but his talk revealed quite unconsciously a knowledge of a really long list of Keltic, Teutonic, and Oriental languages, not to mention Greek, Latin, and modern European tongues. Only a few months ago he was telling us his thoughts about the origin of letters in a manner that was incomprehensibly interesting and full of cleverness. It is needless here to his use and knowledge of the Dorset speech—a knowledge drawn upon by the great student of dialect, Prince Louis Bonaparte. To turn for one moment to Mr. Barnes as rector of Winterborne Came, we can but say that until very recent years did not prevent him from daily visiting every family in the small parish, but very scattered, population of his parish. As to his religion, it lasted out simply as of many of his poems. Between the writer of “Words-Rule” and his God there could be no separation. - Requiescit.

Geology, drawing, music—he studied these all—and more than these. But we cannot add to what has been written of his various studies. It has been written on the very day of his death—under the weight of sorrow that seems not like that for a neighbour, or honoured friend—but for a near kinsman. A full heart makes a blundering quill. Let us end not with our words, but his. “The Praise o’ Dorset” rings through the very spirit of every true son of the old county, but more than ever, now that we think of what a man we have lost—what a man was born here, has lived here and died here, proud of his birth place, more heartily than ever we say—

“We Dorset though we mid be homely,
But ashamed to woone our pleace.”

The Manchester Guardian, commenting on the sad event, says:—

“The death of the Rev. William Barnes, the ‘Dorset Poet,’ is an event not to be passed unnoticed. Those who knew him in the active work of a ‘Country Parson’—no mean successor of George Herbert—in the venerable decline of a long and well-spent life, will testify of the man. But Barnes was the symbol of a particular type of literature, and his name was as closely identified with the use of dialect as a vehicle of poetry as is that of Edwin Waugh—nay, more so, for the homely muse of Dorset had uplifted her voice before our ‘Lancashire ballad’ began to sing. It is still a fallacy of certain half-trained critics that provincial dialects are essentially vulgar and beneath the attention of educated men. It is curious commentary on this theory that Mr. Barnes was a man of wide erudition, whose early training was for the law, who became a schoolmaster and clergyman, whose philological excursions extended to many languages, who learned Hindustani to help pupils who wanted to enter the Indian Civil Service, and who acquired a knowledge of Persian in order that he might enjoy its rich school of poetry. His scholastic gifts never dimmed his love of nature or his sympathy with the daily life of the people. Like Waugh, he has written excellent verse in book English, but, like him also, is at his best as an ‘opponent’ speaker of the dialect. His desire was that ‘his verse should entertain without corrupting the happy mind of the milkmaid with her cow or the dairy-farmer’s son in the hayfield, promote the innocent evening cheerfulness of the family circle on the stone floor, or teach his rustic brothers to draw pure gratification from the rich but frequently overlooked sources of nature within their own sphere of being.’ All this he did. He painted the rural scenes they knew so well, and brought to the beholder’s conscientious beauty unnoticed before in the folds and hedgerows. The incidents of country life, talk of allotments, bits of air courting, having fortunes told, the manner in which Polly revenges herself for Tom’s practical jokes, the swarming of bees, the harvest-home, the Christmas observances, and many other pictures of Dorset manners and customs are to be found in his verse, drawn with the sympathy of an artist and the sober fidelity of the photographer. And he helped, if not to create a sympathy between city and country, a mutual respect based on better knowledge. His rustics are real, but they are not boors. There are charming figures, such as ‘The Farmer’s Woldest Daeter’ and ‘Jean o’ Grinley Hill’; whilst, for the pathos and the tragedy of common life, what can be finer than ‘The Ruose that Deck’d her Breast’ and ‘Mary Ann’s Child’? The last we are inclined to think his masterpiece. Barnes was a poet, and in the strong homely dialect of Dorsetshire he found a fitting instrument.

Homely phrase, but each letter
Full of hope and yet of heart-break,
Full of all the tender pathos
Of the bone and the hereafter.

The following extract is from the World:—On Thursday, at Winterborne-Came Rectory, the Rev. W. Barnes, the Dorset poet and philologist, died, full of years and widely honoured. Born in the first year of this century, at a hamlet in the Blackmore Vale, of a stock of dairymen who were landowners in the time of the Tudors, but two centuries later had lost their lands and were farmers at East Stower, he was almost entirely indebted to his own courage and adventurous—common characteristics of the Dorset folk he so faithfully portrayed—for his profound and varied knowledge of languages and lore. His “Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect” are known and admired throughout the English-speaking world. In these simple idylls of rural life he gave to the outside world tender and faithfully-drawn exquisite delineations of Dorset scenes and people, and crystallised Dorset folk-speech into a written tongue.

“As accomplished archæologist and linguist, he contributed papers of great value and interest to various societies and magazines, and wrote, among other books, a ‘Philological Grammar,’ grounded upon English, and formed from a comparison of more than sixty languages, being an introduction to the science of grammar of all languages, especially English, Latin, and Greek; also ‘Notes on Ancient Britain and the Britons,’ and ‘Early England and the Saxon English.’ A faithful parish priest and a courageous Churchman, he was entirely in sympathy with, and beloved by, his people, and he earned the remonstrance against the Puritan judgment at a time when the distinctive principles of the more advanced section of the clergy—even more scant favour in the county of Dorset—seemed little likely to ever attain the popularity they now largely enjoy elsewhere. Clad in long smock-like coat, knee breeches, black silk stockings, and buckle-shoes, he was still within the last twelve months familiar in the streets of the county town and throughout the country-side, where Dorset folk will long keep his memory green.

“Sit sibi, terra, levis!”

IN MEMORIAM.
(The Rev. W. Barnes died October 7th, 1886.)

Time has for all one stern, relentless doom;
At last the greatest like the strongest dies,
Yet shall the bard’s name perish in his tomb,
Nor men with mournful pride say “Here he lies”
Tears cannot dim the lustre of his fame,
Nor time the work destroy he leaves behind.
A stranger here would reverence write his name,
Who’d met him heart to heart and mind to mind.

Whose came by his gay theme were oft beguiled,
Whose meeting mind was soothed to calm delight,
But pain, alas! comes now to us who’ve smiled;
The gleams of joy that flashed are sunk in night!

Yet oft, as still each wondrous page we read,
His form, unthinking, we’ll substantial deem;
And many a heart at fate’s dread stroke will bleed,
And sigh anew o’er life’s deceitful dream!

The solemn knell still sounds in fancy’s ear—
That called him from us to the silent tomb—
To him how jocund rolled the sprightly year!
How smiled the nymph in innocency’s bloom!

The Syrens of the wise for some may steal
The Aonian song, and, lo! in Virtue’s name,
Woo them from “worthless earth” to make them feel
That selfish peace alone is worth their aim.

Not him! His stronger spirit still called forth
His greatest powers for every noble end;
And learning, art, and universal worth,
Lament a patron lost, a judge, a friend.

Immortal shade! if aught from earth can rise
To thee where harmony unbidden flows
Forgive these lowly lines. Could heart disguise
The gratitude and reverent love it owes?

Thou mad’st the living better think of life;
Oppressive loads were lightened by thy lays,
The sons of justice and the sons of strife,
The good, and e’en the bad, will swell thy praise.

Dorchester.                                     T. M. Dron.

________

The moon is hid behind yon driving cloud;
The roughing wind sweeps down the misty glade;
And in mysterious accents, soft and loud,
The thicket’s dark recesses doth invade.

Mourn! Dorset, mourn! For he whose verse has made
Thy lovely woodland haunts far lovelier still,
At rest within thy bosom now is laid;
How canst thou sing, O bird! or flow, thou rill,
When he who sang so sweet of thee lies cold and still.

And though, perchance, by man unhonoured, unswept,
Nature forgets not whose melodious lays
Have pointed where her hidden beauties slept,
And oft have sounded forth her glowing praise.

The sunbeams gild his tomb with their bright rays,
And gild the autumn leaves that round it lave,
While the wild mourning wind a moment stays,
To whisper ’mid the trees that o’er it wave;
And Nature’s dewy tear shines fair upon his grave.

H. P.

Blandford Weekly News 06 November 1886

THE DORSET POET.

The Athenœum of October 16th gave the following eketch reminiscence of the Rev. W. Barnes, B.D., from the pen of Mr. Thomas. Hardy the Dorset Novelist :-

"THE REV, WILLIAM BARNES, B.D."

Until within the last year or two there wete few figures more familiar to the eye in the county town of Dorset on a market day than an aged clergythan, quaintly attired in a caped cloak, knee-breeches. and buckled shoes, with a leather satchel slung over his shoulders, and a stout staff in his hand. He seemed usually to prefer the middle of the street to the pavement. and to be thinking of matters which had nothing to do with the scene before him. He plodded along with a broad, firm tread, notwithstanding the slight stoop occasioned by his years. Every Saturday morning he might have been seen thus trudging up the narrow South-street, his shoes coated with mud or dust according to the state of the roads between his rural home and Dorchester, and a little grey dog at his heels, till he reached the four cross ways in the centre of the town. Halting here, opposite the public clock, he would pull his old fashioned watch from its deep fob, and set it with great precision to London time. This, the invariable first act of his market visit, having been completed to his satisfaction, he turned round and methodically proceeded about his other business.

This venerable and well-characterised man was William Barnes, the Dorsetshire poet and philologer, by whose death last week, at the ripe age of eighty-six, the world has lost not only a lyric writer of a high order of genius, but probably the most interesting link between present and past forms of rural life that England possessed. The date of his birth at the very beginning of the century is less explanatory of his almost unique position in this respect than the remoteness, even from contemporary provincial civilization, of the pastoral recesses in which his earlier years were passed-places with whose now obsolete customs and beliefs his mind was naturally imbued. To give one instance of the former tardiness of events in that part of the country: it was a day almost within his remembrance when, amidst the great excitement and applause of the natives, who swept the street with brooms, in honour of his arrival, a stage coach made Its first entry into Sturminster Newton, the little market town, rearest to the hamlet of Bagber, the home of his parents. And there used to come to a little bride, close to his father's door, till quite recently, a conjuror or "White wizard," who cured . afflicted persons by means of the toad-hag-a small piece of linen having a limb from a living toad sewn up inside, to be worn round the sufferer's neck next his skin, the twitching movements of which the limb gave, so it was said, " a turn" to the blood of the wearer, and, effected a radical change in his constitution.

Born so long ago as February 22nd, 1800 (1801 has been given, but I believe incorrectly). amid such surroundings, a thorough son of the soil, and endowed with great retentiveness and powers of observation, it is no wonder that Barnes became a complete repertory of forgotten manners, words, and sentiments, a store which he afterward turned to such good use in his writings on ancient British a id Anglo-Saxon speech, customs, and folk-lore: above all, in the systematic study of his native dialect, as a result of which he has showu the world that far from being, as popularly supposed, a corruption of correct English, it is a distinct branch ot Teutonic speech, regular in declension and conjucation, and richer in many classes of words than any other tongue known to him. As an instance of the latter he used to mention the pronouns with particular pride, there being no fewer than four demonstratives to set against the correct English two. He would also instance any natural object, such as a tree, and show that there were double the number of names for its different parte in the Dorset dialect to those available in the standard tongue.

It was a proud day for young William Barnes when, some time in the year 1814 or 1815, a local solicitor. the late Mr. Dashwood, entored the village school and enquired if there was a boy clever enough with his pen to come and copy deeds in his office in a clerkly hand. The only lad who at all approximated to such a high description was Barnes and the scene of testing him with the long quill pen and paper, and his selection by the lawyer, must h we been one to which Mulready alone could have done justice. The youth thus found himself at a solicitor's desk, and, what was more, in a position to help himself in some degree to the grammars and glossaries his soul desired, and by whose dilligent perusal at odd hours through many laborious years he became familiar with an astonishing number of languages and dialects. A more notable instance of self-help has seldom been recorded, considering the date in the century, the young man's circumstances, and the remote place of his residence. for it appears that he still lived on at the hamlet, walking to and from the town-or rather townlet-every day. In later years academic scholars were sometimes found to remark upon the unsystematic character of his linguistic attainments, but it cannot be gainsaid that he was almost always ready with definite and often exclusive information on whatever slightly known form of human speech might occur to the mind of his questioner, from Persian to Welsh, from the contemporary vernaculars of India to the tongues of the ancient British tribes. Over and above these subjects, his mind was occupied after his removal to Dorchester, to judge from his letters to old local newspapers, with investigations of Roman remains, theories on the origin of Stonehenge, and kindred archæological matters; while among his other hobbies about this time was engraving on wood and in til eighthod tin remaining fo test of plate skill in the art.

Though Barnes' first practical step in life had brought him to the office of a solicitor, his instincts a school. As schoolmaster he was fairly successful from the first, and as time went by and he obtained, as a ten vears' man, his university degree and took orders, the school grew highly popular. It was during this period -from early in the forties onwards -that he wrote at intervals the first, second, and third series of those sweet rustic poems by which his name will be best remembered.

He used to tell an amusing tale of his experience on relinquishing the school at Dorchester to retire to the country rectory of Winterborne Came, in which he has ended his days. About the very week of his translation, so to call it, the name of one of his pupils appeared in the Times and other papers at the head of the Indian examination list, a wide proportion of marks separating it from the name
following. The novelty of these lists lent a keen interest to them in those days, and the next morning Mr. Barnes was deluged with letters from all parts f the country requesting, and produce upon them the same successful effect. "I told them it took two to do it," he would say, adding, "Thus a popularity which I had never known during the working years of my life came at almost the first moment when it was no longer of use to me."

To many readers of these pages the charming idylls known as Barnes' 'Poems in the Dorset Dialect' are too familiar to need description or eulogy. Though locally distinguished on the title page by the name of the county at large, the chief scenes of their inspiration lie more precisely in the limited district to the north and north-west of Dorsetshire, that is to say in the secluded Vale of Blackmoor, whose margin formed the horizon of his boyhood, and was, as he himself sings in one of the poems, the end of the world to him then. This fertile and sheltered tract of country, where the fields are never brown and the springs never dry, is bounded on the south by the bold chalk ridge that embraces the prominences of Hambledon Hill, Bul-barrow, Nettlecombe Tont, Dogbury, and High-Stoy.

The prospect northwards from each of these heights is one which rivals, and in many points surpasses those much admired views of Surrey and. Bucking-hamshire from Richmond Hill and the Terrace at Windsor Castle, while the portion of the landscape immediately beneath the spectator is the abiding-place of the people whosc daily doings. sayings, and emotions have been chrystallized in the poet's verse.

Occasionally, it is true, we find among the men and women presented in Mr. Barne's volumes some who are housed in hamlets lying nominally beyond the Vale, but to my mind these characters are in a great measure Blackmoor people away from home, bearing with them still the well-marked tralts which distinguish the Vale population from that of the neighbouring uplands. The same may be said of his backgrounds and scenery. Moreover, when moved by the pervading instinct of the nineteenth century, he gives whole poems of still life, unaffected and realistic as a Dutch picture, the slow green river Stour of the same valley, with ita deop pools, whence the trout leaps to the may-fiy undia-turbed by anglers, is found to be the stream dearest to his memory and the inspirer of some of his happiest offusions.

Unlike Burns, Beranger, and other poets of the people, Mr. Barnes never assumed the high conventional style; and he entirely leaves alone ambi-tion, pride, despair, defiance, and other of the grander passions which move mankind great and small. His rustics are, as a rule, happy people, and very seldom feel the sting of the rest of modern mankind-the disproportion between the desire for serenity and the power of obtaining it. One naturally thinks of Crabbe in this connexion; but though they touch at points, Crabbe goes much further than Barnes in questioning the justice of circumstances. Their pathos, after all, is the attribute upon which the poems must depend for their endurance; and the incidents which embody it are those of everyday cottage life, tinged throughout with that " light that never was," which the emotional art of the lyrist can project upon the commonest things, It is impossible to prophesy, but surely much English literature will be forgotten when 'Woak Hill ' is still read for its intense pathos, 'Blackmoor Maidens' for its blithness, and 'In the Spring' for its Arcadian ecstacy.

Notwithstanding the wide appreciation of his verse both here and in America, so largely local were the poet's interests, that it may be questioned if the enthusiasm which accompanied his own readings of his works in the town-halls of the shire was not more grateful to him than the admiration of a public he had never seen. The effect, indeed, of his recitations upon an audience well acquainted with the nuances of the dialect-impossible to impart to outsiders by any kind of translation-can hardly be imagined by readers of his lines acquainted only with English in its customary forn. The poet's own mild smile at the boisterous merriment provoked by his droll delivery of such pieces as 'The Shy Man,' 'A Bit o' Sly Coorten,' and 'Dick and I' returns upon the memory as one of the most characteristic aspecte of a man who was nothing if not genial; albeit that, while the tyranny of his audience demanded these broadly humorous productions, his own preferences were for the finer and more pathetic poems, such as 'Wife a-lost,' 'Woak Hill,' and 'Jaay a-past.'

To those who knew Mr. Barnes in his prime it may have been a matter for conjecture why a man of his energies should not at some point or other of his career have branched off from the quiet byways of his early manhood into the turmoils of the outer world, particularly as bis tastes at that time were somewhat general, and the direction of his labours was dictated in the main by his opportunities. The explanation seems to be that the poetic side of his nature, though not always dominant, was but faintly ruled by the practical at any time, that his place-attachment was strong almost to a fault, and that his cosmopolitan interests, though lively, were always subordinate to those local hobbies and solicitudes whence came alike his special powers and his limitations.

Few young people who have seen him only in latter years, since the pallor and stoop of old age overcame him, can realise the robust, upright fo:m of his middle life, the ruddy cheek, and the bright quick eye. The last, indeed, dimmed but slightly, and even on his death-bed his zest or the subject of speech-form was strong as ever.

In one of his latest conversations he became quite indignant at the word "bicycle" "Why didn't they call it "wheel-saddle' ?" he exclaimed.

Though not averse to social intercourse, his friendships extended over but a small area of society. Put those who like the present writer, knew him well and long, entertained for him a warm affection; while casual visitors from afar were speedily won to kindly regard by the simplicity of his character, his forbearance, and the charming spurts of youthful ardour which would burst out as rays even in his latest hours.

THOMAS HARDY.