The Ingoldsby Legends
By
The Rev. Richard H. Barham.
MEMOIR OF THE REV. RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
(Abridged from the memoir by his son)
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM was born on December 6, 1788, in
Canterbury, were his family had for many generations resided.
His father, dying in 1795, bequeathed a moderate estate to his
only son, then about five or six years of age. A portion of
this property consisted of the manor known as Tappington, or
Tapton Wood, so often alluded to in The Ingoldsby Legends. The
boy was sent to St. Paul's School, of which he was for two
years 'captain.' He then entered at nineteen as a gentleman
commoner at Brazenose College, and was speedily elected a
member of the well-known Phoenix Common Room, at that time one
of the 'crack' university clubs. Here he found a kindred spirit
in the gay and gifted Lord George Grenville (afterwards Lord
Nugent). Here, too, be was again thrown into contact with one
whom he had known in earlier days, Cecil Tattersall, the friend
of Shelley and Lord Byron, and, like most of that misguided
party, but too well known by his abused talents and melancholy
end. And here also his intimacy with Theodore Hook took rise.
College life, more especially at that day, was likely to
present numerous and sore temptations to one who was
overflowing with good-nature and high spirits, and whose early
loss had not only placed a perilous abundance of funds at his
disposal, but also left him utterly unchecked by parental
counsel and authority. His reply to Mr. Hodson, his tutor,
afterwards principal of Brazenose, will convey some notion of
the hours he was wont to keep. This gentleman, on one occasion,
demanded an explanation of his continued absence from morning
chapel.
'The fact is, sir,' urged his pupil, 'you are too late for
me,'
'Too late!' repeated the tutor, in astonishment.
'Yes, sir. I cannot sit up till seven o'clock in the
morning: I am a man of regular habits; and unless I get to bed
by four or five at latest, I am really fit for nothing next
day.'
The habit was one for 'time to strengthen, not efface.' No
one might have quoted the old Scotch ballad with greater
feeling and sincerity:
'Up in the morning's nae for me,
Up in the morning airly:
