From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Bryan Procter
Bryan Procter
Cornwall)
Bryan Waller Procter (pseud. Barry Cornwall (21 Novem- 1823, or at latest 1832. His daughter, Adelaide Anne, was
ber 1787 – 5 October 1874) was an English poet. also a poet.
His principal poetical works were: Dramatic Scenes and
other Poems (1819), A Sicilian Story (1820), Marcian Colonna
(1820), Mirandola, a tragedy performed at Covent Garden
with Macready, Charles Kemble and Miss Foote in the
leading parts (1821), The Flood of Thessaly (1823). and Eng-
lish Songs (1832). He was also the author of Effigies poetica
(1824), Life of Edmund Kean (1835), Essays and Tales in Prose
(1851), Charles Lamb; a Memoir (1866), and of memoirs of
Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare for editions of their
works. A posthumous autobiographical fragment with
notes of his literary friends, of whom he had a wide range
from William Lisle Bowles to Robert Browning, was pub-
lished in 1877, with some additions by Coventry Patmore.
Charles Lamb gave the highest possible praise to his
friend’s Dramatic Sketches when he said that had he found
them as anonymous manuscript in the Garrick Collection
he would have had no hesitation about including them in
his Dramatic Specimens. He was perhaps not an impartial
critic. "Barry Cornwall’s" songs have caught some notes
from the Elizabethan and Cavalier lyrics, and blended
them with others from the leading poets of his own time;
and his dramatic fragments show a similar infusion of the
early Victorian spirit into pre-Restoration forms and ca-
dences. The results are varied, and lack unity, but they
abound in pleasant touches, with here and there the flash
Bryan Waller Procter in an 1830 portrait by William Brockedon. of a higher, though casual, inspiration.
Rather unknown outside Britain in his times and
Born at Leeds, Yorkshire, he was educated at Harrow largely considered to be imitator of greater romantic au-
School, where he had for contemporaries Lord Byron and thors, Barry Cornwall however inspired Alexander
Robert Peel. On leaving school he was placed in the office Pushkin to some translations and imitations in 1830. Just
of a solicitor at Calne, Wiltshire, remaining there until hours before his last duel in 1837 Pushkin sent a collec-
about 1807, when he returned to London to study law. tion by Cornwall to a fellow author, Mrs. Ishimova, sug-
By the death of his father in 1816 he became possessed gesting that she should translate some poems selected by
of a small property, and soon after entered into partner- him.
ship with a solicitor; but in 1820 the partnership was dis- William Makepeace Thackeray dedicated Vanity Fair
solved, and he began to write under the pseudonym of to B.W. Procter.
Barry Cornwall".
"Barry Cornwall
After his marriage in 1824 to Miss Skepper, daughter References
of Mrs Basil Montague, he returned to his profession as
[1] Richard Marggraf Turley (2009). Bright stars: John
a conveyancer, and was called to the bar in 1831. In the
Keats, Barry Cornwall and Romantic literary culture.
following year he was appointed, metropolitan commis-
57.
Liverpool English texts and studies. 57 Liverpool
sioner of lunacy -- an appointment annually renewed un-
University Press. p. 60. ISBN 1846312116.
til his election as one of the Commissioners in Lunacy
• This article incorporates text from a publication
constituted by the Lunacy Act 1845. He resigned in
now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed
1861.[1] Most of his verse was composed between 1815,
(1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge
when he began to contribute to the Literary Gazette, and
University Press.
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Bryan Procter
External links Name Procter, Bryan
Alternative names
• Works by Bryan Procter at Project Gutenberg
• "Marcian Colonna: An Italian Tale; with Three Short description
Dramatic Scenes, and Other Poems", 1821, at Google Date of birth 1787
Books. Place of birth
• "Second only to Byron": an essay on "Barry
Date of death 1874
Cornwall" and Keats from TLS, September 3 2008.
Persondata Place of death
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bryan_Procter&oldid=465878708"
Categories:
• 1787 births
• 1874 deaths
• People from Leeds
• English poets
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