Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Barrett, Stephen
BARRETT, STEPHEN (1718–1801), a classical teacher who gained some reputation, was born in 1718 at Bent, in the parish of Kildwick in Craven, Yorkshire. He was educated at the grammar school, Skipton, and at University College, Oxford. Having taken the degree of M.A. (1744) and entered the ministry, he became master of the free grammar school at Ashford, Kent, and was made rector of the parishes of Purton and Ickleford, Herts. In 1773 he resigned his mastership on receiving the living of Hothfield, Kent. He continued to hold the living until his death, which occurred at Northiam, Sussex, on 26 Nov. 1801. By his wife Mary, daughter of Edward Jacob, Esq., of Canterbury, he left one daughter.
In 1746 Barrett published a Latin translation, which was admired at the time, of ‘Pope's Pastorals.’ Among his friends in early life were Dr. Johnson, and the founder of the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ Edward Cave. To that magazine Barrett was a frequent contributor. Vol. xxiv. contains a letter, signed with his name, on a new method of modelling the tenses of Latin verbs. In 1759 he published ‘Ovid's Epistles translated into English verse, with critical essays and notes; being part of a poetical and oratorical lecture read to the grammar school of Ashford in the county of Kent, and calculated to initiate youth in the first principles of Taste.’ He was also the author of ‘War, an Epic Satire,’ and other trifles.
[Gent. Mag. lxxi. 1152; Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, ix. 672.]