BARNES, WILLIAM

born Feb. 22, 1801, Bagber, near Sturminster Newton, Dorsetshire, Eng. died Oct. 7, 1886, Winterbourne Came, Dorsetshire English dialect poet whose work gave a simple and sincere picture of the life and labour of rural southwestern England. A gifted philologist, his linguistic theories as well as his poetry influenced two major writers, Thomas Hardy and Gerard Manley Hopkins. After leaving school at 15, Barnes worked for a solicitor, studied classics with local clergymen, opened a school in 1823, and was ordained a priest in 1848. His first Dorset dialect poems were published in the Dorset County Chronicle (183334). His many books include an Anglo-Saxon primer, An Outline of English Speech-Craft (1878), Poems of Rural Life in Common English (1868), Poems of Rural Life (two series: 1844, 1862), and Hwomely Rhymes (1859).