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Mary Barber

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Mary Barber (?1685-1757) was an Irish poet, who was a member of Swift's circle.

Mary barber poems

Mary Barber (?1685-1757), Poems on Several Occasions (1734). Forgotten Books. Courtesy Goodreads.

Life[]

Barber was born about 1690, probably in Ireland.[1] Her parents are unknown.[2]

In or around 1705 she married Rupert Barber (died 1777?), a Dublin woollen draper,[2] or tailor, living in Capel Street, Dublin. The couple had several children,[1] (4 of whom survived to adulthood).[2]

Mrs. Barber, being "poetically given, and, for a woman, having a sort of genius that way,"[3], began writing poetry for the purpose of enlivening her children's lessons. She iniitially taught them herself, as they sat round her tiled fireplace (her own Poems on Several Occasions, 8); and at the same time "no woman was ever more useful to her husband in the way of his business."[4] [1]

About 1724, while poet Thomas Tickell was secretary to the lords justices of Ireland, Mrs. Barber wrote a poem to excite charity on behalf of an officer's widow left penniless and with a blind child ("The Widow Gordon's Petition"), and she sent the composition to Tickell anonymously, with a request that he would call the attention of Lord Carteret, then viceroy, to it. Tickell succeeded; Lady Carteret succoured the widow and sought out her benefactress, Mrs. Barber.[1]

Barber was thus brought under Jonathan Swift's notice, and a friendship sprang up between them. Swift visited her at her shop;[5] presented her to Lady Suffolk at Marble Hil;[6] received her at the deanery, and for a while took charge of a son of hers, eccentrically sent him as a birthday present, together with some of his mother's verses echoing the current enthusiasm roused by Wood's Halfpence and others of Swift's Irish patriotic pamphlets. Sapphira was the poetic name given to Mrs. Barber at the deanery; and there her poems were read, and canvassed, and corrected. "Mighty Thomas, a solemn Senatus I call, To consult for Sapphira; so come, one and all," are the opening lines of "An Invitation by Dr. Delany, in the Name of Dr. Swift," and they indicate the friendly and sympathetic treatment she enjoyed at the hands of Swift and his friends.[1]

In 1730 Swift provided Mrs. Barber with introductions to his most influential friends on her initial visit to England in an attempt to publish her poems by subscription. Her husband took indiscreet advantage of his wife's position, and when Lady Betty Germaine had coaxed the duke of Dorset to order liveries from him, he asked "a greater price than anybody else".[7] [1]

At the same time the gout attacked her incessantly, and she was a patient of Dr. Mead; but, in response, mainly, to Swift's recommendations, John Arbuthnot, John Gay, Mrs. Cæsar, Barber the printer (then lord mayor), the Boyles, the Temples, Pope, Ambrose Philips, Walpole, Tonson, Banks, and a host of the nobility, either visited her or became subscribers for her book; and after passing to and fro between Tunbridge Wells, Bath, and Dublin, for a long period, she finally abandoned her Irish home, and settled in England.[1]

In June 1731, when Mrs. Barber was busily seeking subscribers, the Three Letters to the Queen on the Distresses of Ireland were published, with Swift's forged signature; they called express attention to Barber as "the best female poet of this or perhaps of any age," and it was rumored that they had been concocted by her to injure her patron and to serve her personal advantage. All evidence goes against this supposition, and Swift himself never entertained it. His opinion of Barber, on the contrary, was as high as ever, and Lady Suffolk bantered him on the "violent passion" he had for her (ibid. xvii. 415); in 1733 he wrote to Alderman Barber that he had 'not known a more bashful, modest person than she, nor one less likely to ply her friends, patrons, and protectors".[8] [1]

In 1734, her Poems on Several Occasions (4to, Rivingtons) were at last published, and were prefaced by a letter from Swift to Lord Orrery. But many troubles now befell their authoress; a few severe critics said that the work was not poetic, and a few fine ladies complained that it was dull (ibid. xviii. 310). At the time Mrs. Barber was a victim to a 3 months' attack of gout; and she fell "under the hands of the law," in company with Motte, the printer, although she was discharged the same day with him (Hawkesworth, xiii. 105). Her condition excited pity in very many quarters, and the duchess of Queensberry told Swift: "Mrs. Barber has met with a good deal of trouble … we shall leave our guineas for her with Mr. Pope."[9]. In 1735 appeared a 2nd edition of Mrs. Barber's Poems (8vo), and in 1736 there followed a 3rd.[10]

In 1736 Swift invited her back to Ireland, promising to contribute to her support.[11] In his ‘List of Friends Grateful, Ungrateful, Indifferent, and Doubtful,’ he describes her with the best as ‘G,’ i.e. ‘grateful;’ and in his will, dated 1740, 9 years after the Letters, he makes a bequest to her of "the medal of Queen Anne and Prince George which she formerly gave me."[12] The false suspicion as to her authorship of the unfortunate Letters did Mrs. Barber little injury with others of her friends.[10]

In November 1736, at Bath, again laid up with gout, and having her husband and daughters to support, Mrs. Barber entertained a scheme for selling Irish linens. She could not let lodgings because of her ill-health (ibid. xix. 5); and, to support her meanwhile, she begged Swift to give her his Polite Conversations, still in manuscript, though written 30 years before. Everybody, she said, would subscribe for a work of his, and the sale of it would put her in easy circumstances. In 1737 the manuscript was hers, conveyed to her by Lord Orrery;[13] in 1738 it was published, and it met with so much acclaim that it was presented as a play at the theatre in Aungier Street, Dublin, with great applause.[14] It thus secured for Mrs. Barber all the benefits that Swift, in his continuous kindness to her, desired.[10]

Of her 2 sons, Rupert Barber became a well-known miniature painter and engraver,[10] and Constantine Barber a professor at Trinity College, Dublin, 3 times president of the College of Physicians at Dublin.[2]

In 1741, her health failing, Barber returned to Ireland to live with her son Constantine.[15]

She died in 1757.[10]

Recognition[]

In 1755 a selection from her Poems was published in Poems by Eminent Ladies (a multi-volume work including poems by Aphra Behn, Elizabeth Carter, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and others), and Mrs. Barber's verse was given the 1st place.[10]

Publications[]

Poetry[]

  • Apollo's Edict. Dublin: 1725.
  • A Tale Being an Addition to Mr. Gay's Fables. Dublin: S. Powell, for George Ewing, 1728.
  • Poems on Several Occasions. London: C. Rivington, 1734, 1735, 1736.
  • "True Poetical Genius': A selection. Dublin: Closet Press, 1987.
  • The Poetry of Mary Barber (edited by Bernard Tucker). Lewiston, NY: Edward Mellen Press, 1992.

Anthologized[]

  • Poems by Eminent Ladies (contributor). London: Baldwin, 1755.


Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[16]

See also[]

References[]

  • Coleborne, Bryan. “Barber, Mary (c.1685–1755).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. 1 Apr. 2007.
  • Fanning, Christopher. "The Voices of the Dependent Poet: the case of Mary Barber." Women's Writing 8.1 (2001): 81-97.
  •  Humphreys, Jennett (1885) "Barber, Mary" in Stephen, Leslie Dictionary of National Biography 3 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 148-149  . Wikisource, Web, Mar. 30, 2020.
  • Lonsdale, Roger ed. "Mary Barber." Eighteenth-Century Women Poets. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. 118-129.

Notes[]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Humphreys, 148.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Biographical Note, Mary Barber, Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive. Web, Mar. 30, 2020.
  3. ↑ Swift to Pope, Scott's Swift, xvii. 388.
  4. ↑ Swift to Lord Orrery, Scott's Swift, xviii. 162.
  5. ↑ Swift to Pope, supra
  6. ↑ Scott's Swift, xvii. 430.
  7. ↑ ibid. xvii. 410.
  8. ↑ ibid. xviii. 154
  9. ↑ Scott's Swift, xviii. 198.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 Humphreys, 149.
  11. ↑ Scott's Swift, xix. 5.
  12. ↑ Sheridan, Swift, 566.
  13. ↑ Scott's Swift, xix. 93.
  14. ↑ Hawkesworth, xiv. 692.
  15. ↑ Mary Barber, AllPoetry. Web, Mar. 30, 2020.
  16. ↑ Search results = au:Mary Barber, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Mar. 30, 2020.

External links[]

Poems
Books
About

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: Barber, Mary

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