John Codrington Warwick Bampfylde or Bampfield (27 August 1754[1] - 21 December 1797[2]) was an English poet.
George Huddesford (l; 1749-1809) and John Codrington Warwick Bampfylde (1754-1797). Portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), 1788-1789. Courtesy The Akademician.
Life[]
Youth and education[]
Bampfylde came from a prominent Devon family. He was the 2nd son of Sir Richard Bampfylde and younger brother of Sir Charles Bampfylde, who between them represented Exeter or Devon in Parliament almost continuously between 1743 and 1812.[3]
John Bampfylde was educated by private tutors at the family home at Poltimore near Exeter, and later at Winchester College.[3]
In 1771 he entered Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he stayed for less than 2 years. He seems to have travelled for about a year on the Continent before returning to qualify as a barrister at Lincoln’s Inn.[3]
Career[]
In the mid-1770s Bampfylde decided to reject the legal career planned for him by his family and went to live in humble seclusion on a farm near Chudleigh, and began a series of sonnets.[3] William Jackson, a well-known musician of Exeter, told Robert Southey that Bampfylde, then living at Chudleigh, used to walk over to show Jackson his poetical compositions.[1]
Pressured by his brother, Charles, after their father died in 1776,[3] John Bampfylde moved to London to pursue a career as a lawyer,[2] but fell into dissipation.[1]
In 1778 Bampfylde published his only book, Sixteen Sonnets.[1]
He and his mother had portraits painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Bampfylde fell in love with and proposed to Reynolds's niece, Mary Palmer (afterwards Marchioness Thomond). However, Reynolds disapproved of the engagement and barred his home from Bampfylde, who broke the painter's windows and was imprisoned at Newgate.[1]
Jackson coming to town soon after found that Bampfylde's mother had got him out of prison, but that he was living in the utmost squalor in a disreputable house. Jackson induced his family to help him, but he soon had to be confined in a private madhouse, from which he emerged many years later, only to die of tuberculosis about 1796.[1]
Writing[]
Bampfylde's poems consist of his Sixteen Sonnets, plus 2 short poems added by Robert Southey and another by Thomas Park. Southey called them "some of the most original in our language." They give, at any rate, fresh natural descriptions.[1]
Publications[]
- Sixteen Sonnets. London: J. Millidge, for D. Prince, Oxford, et al, 1778.
- Poetical Works. London: J. Sharpe, 1808.
- Poetical Works of James Thomson, James Beattie, Gilbert West, and John Bampfylde (edited by Myles Birket Foster). London: Routledge, Warne, and Routledge, 1853.
- The Poems of John Bampfylde (edited by Roger H. Lonsdale). Oxford, UK: Perpetua, 1988.
Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[4]
See also[]
References[]
Stephen, Leslie (1885) "Bampfylde, John Codrington" in Stephen, Leslie Dictionary of National Biography 3 London: Smith, Elder, p. 103 Wikisource, Web, Apr. 23, 2016.
Notes[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Stephen, 103.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 John Bampfylde (1754-1797), English Poetry, 1579-1830, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Web, Apr. 23, 2016.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Roger Lonsdale, "The Strange Case of John Bampfylde," London Review of Books 10:5 (March 1988). Web, Feb. 18, 2020.
- ↑ Search results = au:John Bampfylde, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Apr. 23, 2016.
External links[]
- Poems
- John Codrington Bampfylde at PoemHunter (16 poems)
- John Codrington Bampfylde at Poetry Nook (32 poems)
- Audio / video
- John Bampfylde public domain audiobooks from LibriVox
- About
- John Bampfylde (1754-1797) at English Poetry, 1579-1830
- "The Strange Case of John Bampfylde," London Review of Books
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: "Bampfylde, John Codrington (1764-1796)"
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