6E7 



BARLOW, PETER. 



BARNARD, SIR JOHN. 



138 



declined the duties of a parochial minister, and reverted to his original 

 profession of the law. With this view he proceeded to Hartford, and 

 there settled. But hia habits of mind were not favourable to his 

 success at the bar, and he undertook the conduct of a weekly news- 

 paper. He also employed himself in preparing for the press the poem 

 to which we have alluded, 'The Vision of Columbus," which was 

 published by subscription in 1787. It was republished in London a 

 few months after its appearance, and has since gone through a second 

 edition in America and one in Paris. The reputation he had by this 

 time acquired procured him a commission from the clergy of Connec- 

 ticut to adapt Dr. Watts's version of the Psalms to the use of the New 

 England churches, in which his improved version is in use at the 

 present day. In 1788 Barlow gave up his newspaper and law, in 

 order to proceed to Europe aa the agent of a company for the sale of 

 certain extensive tracts of land on the Ohio River. During his stay 

 in London he formed a close connection with the large body of men, 

 who at that time held republican and revolutionary principles, and 

 among whom such a man was well calculated to acquire influence. 

 In 1791 and 1792 he produced some political works which increased 

 his reputation with hia own party ; these were ' Advice to the 

 Privileged Orders ; ' ' The Conspiracy of Kings,' a poem of about four 

 hundred lines, relating to the coalition of the continental sovereigns 

 against France ; ' A letter to the National Convention ; ' and ' Royal 

 Recollections ; ' all indicating rather more zeal than ability or 

 ducrel 



Having been sent to France, with one Frost, to present to the 

 National Convention an address from the association calling itself the 

 ' Constitutional Society,' in London ; the fact was noticed in parlia- 

 ment in such a manner that Barlow did not consider it prudent to 

 return to England. In France, soon after his arrival, the rights of a 

 citizen were conferred upon him. He then accompanied the deputa- 

 tion of the national convention which was sent to Chambery to 

 organise the newly-acquired territory of Savoy as a department of 

 the republic. His stay there during the winter was marked by the 

 publication of a ' A letter to the People of Piedmont on the Advan- 

 tages of the Revolution, and the necessity of adopting its Principles 

 in Italy.' He also wrota at Chambery a mock-heroic poem in three 

 cantos, entitled ' Hasty Pudding,' which is described by some of his 

 own countrymen as the happiest and most popular of his productions. 



In the following three years of his residence at Paris, he made a 

 translation of Volney's 'Ruins.' He next embarked in some com- 

 mercial speculations, which ultimately enabled him to realise a consi- 

 derable fortune, and to live in Paris with some degree of splendour. 

 He was in that city in 1795, when he received from his own country 

 the appointment of consul-general at Algiers, but he soon returned to 

 Paris, where he resumed his commercial operations, and continued to 

 reside till 1805, when, after an absence of seventeen years, he returned 

 to his native country. 



After his return, Barlow appears to have chiefly employed himself 

 in altering hia 'Vision of Columbus' into the form in which, in the 

 year 1808, it finally appeared under the title of ' The Columbiad.' 

 ' The Columbiad ' has not however attained the popularity and circu- 

 lation which the original ' Vision of Columbus ' enjoyed ; and in most 

 respects it is immeasurably inferior to the poem with which it may 

 best be compared ' The Lusiad ' of Camocns. After the publication 

 of this his great work, Barlow employed himself in collecting materials 

 for ' A History of the United States,' a work which he had long 

 contemplated. In the midst of these pursuits, the President Madison, 

 who held him in high esteem, appointed him minister-plenipotentiary 

 to the court of France, and, in the year 1811, Barlow once more 

 embarked for Europe. 



He landed at Cherbourg in September, 1812, and immediately pro- 

 ceeded to Paris, where, in the absence of Napoleon I., he was received 

 by the minister of foreign affairs. His mission was to uegociate a treaty 

 of commerce with France, and to obtain indemnity for former spolia- 

 tions. For this purpose it became necessary to havo a personal 

 conference with the emperor, who had then commenced the Russian 

 campaign of 1812. He therefore set out for Wilna; but fell ill before 

 his arrival there, and died on the 26th of December 1812, at Zarna- 

 wica, a fmall village in the neighbourhood of Cracow, in the fifty-eighth 

 year of his age. 



(Biographic Nouvelle des Cantemporains, &c.) 



' I!A ItLOW, PETER, an eminent mathematician, was born in 1776 

 at Norwich, in which city his father for many years held an engage- 

 ment with a manufacturing firm. Having had no other educational 

 advantages than those afforded by a respectable day school, he is 

 mainly indebted for his subsequent acquirements and position to his 

 own unassisted exertions. 



In 1808 Mr. Barlow was appointed one of the mathematical masters 

 in the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, became subsequently 

 professor, and filled the chair until 1847, when he retired after more 

 than fortv years' service. The works which he published shortly after 

 hit appointment exhibit proofs of his profound mathematical know- 

 ledge. In 1811 appeared his ' Elementary Investigation of the Theory 

 of Numbers, with its Application to the Indeterminate and Diophautine 

 Analysis,' &c. ; and in 1814 his ' New Mathematical Tables,' and ' A 

 Now Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary.' In 1817 the ' Essay 

 on the Strength and Stress of Timbers,' &c., was published, which in 



later editions embodies experiments on the strength of irou acd its 

 application to railways. 



A paper by Mr. Barlow, ' On the Effects Produced in the Rates of 

 Chronometers by the proximity of Masses of Iron,' waa printed in the 

 ' Philosophical Transactions' for 1821, and followed by others, during 

 fifteen years, on various magnetic phenomena, on fluid lenses for tele- 

 scopes, on important questions in optics and navigation, all of which 

 have contributed materially to the advancement of science. In 1823 

 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and sat in the council 

 at different periods from 1829 to 18S9. In 1825 the society marked 

 their sense of his scientific and philosophical merits by the award of 

 their Copley Medal, for, to quote the official phrase, " various com- 

 munications on the subjects of magnetism." 



Mr. Barlow's name will long be remembered for his method of com- 

 pensating compass-errors in ships, whereby the difficulty and danger 

 of navigation are in a great measure overcome. In his 'Essay on 

 Magnetic Attractions,' published in 1820, he was the first to reduce 

 these apparently anomalous phenomena to strictly mathematical prin- 

 ciples, and to show their application. For this valuable work the 

 then existing Board of Longitude gave him the Parliamentary reward 

 for useful discoveries in navigation. 



In 1836, King William IV. appointed Mr. Barlow a member of the 

 Royal Commission for fixing on the most advisable lines of railway in 

 Ireland; and in 1839 he was chosen one of the commissioners for 

 deciding on the preference to be given to any one line, among the 

 several railways then projected for connecting the metropolis with the 

 manufacturing districts of England and Scotland. Again in 1845, ho 

 was named by the royal authority on the Commission to inquire into 

 and determine the long-vexed question of the broad and narrow gauge. 

 Reports on these subjects have been printed. 



Mr. Barlow was elected a Fellow of the Astronomical Society in 1829. 

 He is a member of the Academies of St. Petersburg and Boston (U.S.), 

 and a Corresponding Member of the Academies of Brussels and Paris. 



BARNABAS, ST., though not of the number of the twelve chosen 

 by our Saviour, is nevertheless styled an apostle by the primitive 

 fathers, as well as by St. Luke, to whom that portion of the Scriptures 

 called the Acts of the Apostles is ascribed. (Acts xiv. 14.) Barnabas's 

 divine vocation, and the share he took in the apostolic labours, 

 obtained him this title. From St. Luke also we learn (Acts iv. 36) 

 that he was by descent a Levite of the country of Cyprus, then largely 

 inhabited by Jews, and that his first uama was Joses, or Joseph. He 

 received that of Barnabas (meaning ' the son of consolation') from the 

 apostles, as appropriate to his character for pre-eminence in works of 

 charity. The ' Laudatio S. Barnabse Apostoli,' by Alexander, a monk 

 of Cyprus, says that his parents brought him in his youth to Jeru- 

 salem, to Gamaliel, by whom he was instructed in the law and prophets 

 with St. PauL (See also ' Baronii Aunal.' ad ann. xxxiv.) There is at 

 least probability in this, as he waa the person to whom St. Paul 

 applied, shortly after his conversion, to introduce him to the society 

 of the apostles. The first mention of Barnabas in Scripture is in one 

 of the passages already quoted, where (Acts iv. 34) it is related that 

 the primitive converts at Jerusalem lived in common, and that as 

 many as were owners of lands or houses sold them, and brought the 

 price, and laid it at the apostles' feet ; on which occasion, with tho 

 exception of Ananias (in the next chapter), no one is particularly 

 mentioned but Barnabas. Barnabas afterwards preached the gospel in 

 different parts, together with St. Paul (Acts xv. 36) ; but upon a 

 dissension about the person who was to accompany them in a journey 

 which they proposed to the churches of Asia, which they had planted, 

 they separated from each other: Barnabas went with Mark (the 

 person about whom the dispute originated) to Cyprus; and Paul went 

 with Silas to Cilicia. What became of Barnabas after this, or whither 

 he went, is uncertain. The manner of hia death is also uncertain. 

 His festival is kept by the Church of England on June 11. 



There is still extant an epistle ascribed to St. Barnabas consisting 

 of two parts. The first is an exhortation and argument to constancy 

 in the belief and profession of the Christian doctrine ; particularly the 

 simplicity of it, without the rites of the Jewish law. The second part 

 contains moral instructions. This epistle was written in Greek ; but 

 Lardner says that the first four chapters, or sections, and a part of 

 the fifth, are wanting in the Greek copies. It is however entire in an 

 ancient version. Archbishop Wake has printed a translation of it. In 

 this epistle thera is no express mention of any book of the New 

 Testament ; but there is a text or two of the New Testament in it, 

 with a mark of quotation prefixed ; and the words of several other 

 texts are applied. From one passage it seema evident that the Temple 

 of Jerusalem was destroyed at the time of writing it. Larduer thinks 

 that this epistle is probably by Barnabas, and certainly ancient, and 

 written about A.D. 71 or 72. 



BARNARD, SIR JOHN, a merchant of considerable eminence in 

 the city of London, waa born at Reading in Berkshire in 1 685. His 

 parents being of the sect called Quakers, he was educated in a school 

 at Wandsworth in Surrey, under a teacher of that persuasion. In 

 his nineteenth year however he conformed to the Church of England, 

 and was baptised at Fulham by Dr. Compton, then bishop of London. 

 Previously to the event just mentioned, and when only fifteen years 

 of age, young Barnard was taken into the counting-house of his father, 

 a wine-merchant in London. While engaged in this business the wine- 



