Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Barnard, Edward William
BARNARD, EDWARD WILLIAM (1791–1828), divine, poet and scholar, was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, owing to his distaste for mathematics. In 1817 he published anonymously, 'Poems, founded upon the Poems of Meleager,' which were re-edited in 1818 under the title of 'Trifles, imitative of the Chaster Style of Meleager.' The latter volume was dedicated to Thomas Moore, who tells us in his journal that he had the manuscript to look over, and describes the poems as 'done with much elegance.' Barnard was presented to the living of Brantingthorp, Yorkshire, from which is dated his next publication, 'The Protestant Beadsman' (1822), This is described by a writer in 'Notes and Queries' as a 'delightful little volume on the saints and martyrs commemorated by the English church, containing biographical notices of them, and hymns upon each of them.’ Barnard died prematurely on 10 Jan. 1828. He was at that time collecting materials for an elaborate life of the Italian poet Marc-Antonio Flaminio, born at the end of the fifteenth century, and had got together ‘numerous extracts, memoranda, and references from a wide range of contemporary and succeeding authors.’ The life was to accompany a translation of Flaminio's best pieces, but unfortunately the work was only partially completed at the author's death. Such translations as were ready for publication were edited for private circulation, along with some of Barnard's original poems, by Archdeacon Wrangham, the editor of Langhorne's ‘Plutarch.’ The title of this volume, published in 1829, is ‘Fifty Select Poems of Marc-Antonio Flaminio, imitated by the late Rev. Edw. Will. Barnard, M.A. of Trinity College, Cambridge,’ and a short memoir by Archdeacon Wrangham is prefixed. Mr. Barnard had also projected a ‘History of the English Church,’ and collected many valuable materials for the work. He married the daughter of Archdeacon Wrangham, and is said to have made a ‘most exemplary parish priest.’
[Notes and Queries, 2nd series, vols. iv., ix., x.; Moore's Memoirs and Journal; Lowndes's Bibliog. Manual; Gent. Mag. xcviii. p. 187; Brit. Mus. Cat.]