Richard Harris Barham

Richard Harris Barham (6 December 1788 – 17 June 1845) was an English novelist, humorous poet, and priest in the Church of England. He was known generally by his pseudonym Thomas Ingoldsby and as the author of The Ingoldsby Legends.

• Next morning I was up betimes — I sent the Crier round,
  All with his bell and gold-laced hat, to say I'd give a pound
  To find that little vulgar Boy, who'd gone and used me so;
  But when the Crier cried, "O Yes!" the people cried, "O No!"
  • "Misadventures at Margate", st. 16

• Though I 've always consider'd Sir Christopher Wren,
  As an architect, one of the greatest of men;
  And, — talking of Epitaphs, — much I admire his
  "Circumspice, si Monumentum requiris;"
  Which an erudite Verger translated to me,
  " If you ask for his Monument, Sir-come-spy-see!"
  • "Cœlebs in Search of a Cenotaph"

• What was to be done? — 'twas perfectly plain
  That they could not well hang the man over again: —
  What was to be done? — The man was dead! —
  Nought could be done — nought could be said;
  So — my Lord Tomnoddy went home to bed!
  • "Hon. Mr. Sucklethumbkin's Story"

• Here's a corpse in the case with a sad swell'd face,
  And a 'Crowner's Quest' is a queer sort of thing!
  • "A Lay of St. Genulphus"
  • Variant (The World's Classics, 1901): Here’s a corpse in the case with a sad swell’d face, / And a Medical Crowner’s a queer sort of thing!

• Now haste ye, my handmaidens, haste and see
  How he sits there and glow'rs with his head on his knee!
  • "The Legend of Hamilton Tighe"
  • Cf. H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon's Mines (1885) ch. 16

• But wherever they live, or whenever they die,
  They'll never get quit of young Hamilton Tighe.
  • "The Legend of Hamilton Tighe"

Text: E. C. Stedman (ed.) A Victorian Anthology (1895)

• The jackdaw sat on the Cardinal’s chair!
  Bishop and abbot and prior were there;
  Many a monk, and many a friar,
  Many a knight, and many a squire,
  With a great many more of lesser degree,—
  In sooth, a goodly company;
  And they serv’d the Lord Primate on bended knee.

• And the priests, with awe,
  As such freaks they saw,
  Said, “The Devil must be in that little Jackdaw!”

• And six little Singing-boys,—dear little souls!
  In nice clean faces, and nice white stoles,
  Came in order due,
  Two by two,
  Marching that grand refectory through.

• The Cardinal rose with a dignified look,
  He call’d for his candle, his bell, and his book:
  In holy anger, and pious grief,
  He solemnly curs’d that rascally thief!
  He curs’d him at board, he curs’d him in bed,
  From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head!
  He curs’d him in sleeping, that every night
  He should dream of the devil, and wake in a fright;
  He curs’d him in eating, he curs’d him in drinking,
  He curs’d him in coughing, in sneezing, in winking;
  He curs’d him in sitting, in standing, in lying;
  He curs’d him in walking, in riding, in flying;
  He curs’d him in living, he curs’d him in dying!
  Never was heard such a terrible curse!
  But what gave rise
  To no little surprise,
  Nobody seem’d one penny the worse!

• His eye so dim,
  So wasted each limb,
  That, heedless of grammar, they all cried, “That’s him!
  That’s the scamp that has done this scandalous thing!
  That’s the thief that has got my Lord Cardinal’s Ring!”

• A servant's too often a negligent elf;
  If it's business of consequence, Do it yourself!
  • "The Ingoldsby Penance" (Moral)