The Humourous Poetry of the English Language

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tutor for his continued absence from morning prayer, Barham replied,
"The fact is, sir, you are too LATE for me."
"Too late?" exclaimed the astonished tutor.
"Yes, sir," rejoined the student, "I can not 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, I am fit for nothing the next day."
The tutor took this jovial reply seriously, and Barham perceiving that
he was really wounded, offered a sincere apology, and afterward
attended prayers more regularly.
Entering the church, he devoted himself to his clerical duties with
exemplary assiduity, and obtained valuable preferment, rising at length
to be one of the Canons of St. Paul's Cathedral. This office brought
him into relations with Sydney Smith, with whom, though Barham was a
Tory, he had much convivial intercourse.
Very early in life Mr. Barham became an occasional contributor to
Blackwood's Magazine, then in the prime of its vigorous youth. The
series of contributions called "Family Poetry," which appear in the
volumes for 1823, and subsequent years, were by him. Most of those
humorous effusions have been transferred to this volume. In 1837 Mr.
Bentley established his "Miscellany," and secured the services of his
friend Barham, who, up to this time was unknown to the general public,
though he had been for nearly twenty years a successful writer. The
"Ingoldsby Legends" now appeared in rapid succession, and proved so
popular that their author soon became one of the recognized wits of the
day. A large number of these unique and excellent productions enrich
the present collection, "Asrespects these poems," says Mr. Barham's
biographer, "remarkable as they have been pronounced for the wit and
humor which they display, their distinguishing attractions lies in the
almost unparalleled flow and felicity of the versification. Popular
phrases, sentences the most prosaic, even the cramped technicalities of
legal diction, and snatches from well-nigh every language, are wrought
in with an apparent absence of all art and effort that surprises,
pleases, and convulses the reader at every turn. The author triumphs
with a master hand over every variety of stanza, however complicated or
exacting; not a word seems out of place, not an expression forced;