BARNES, EDWARD (fl. c. 1760-1795), poet and translator of religious books;
b. at S. Asaph, where he served as a schoolmaster. According to J.T.J., he became a Methodist and lived for many years in Montgomeryshire, where he welcomed itinerant preachers to his house. Two of his carols, a song against drunkenness and another against worldly desires, are printed in Cyfaill i'r Cymro, collected by William Hope of Mostyn, and published in Chester in 1765. N.L.W. MS. 843, which was copied c. 1761, contains his sequence of englynion to the Deity. In 1784 appeared his translation of de Courcy's Letter of Advice …, in 1785 his translation of James Hervey's Meditations, and in 1792 of Theophilus Priestley's sermon on the death of Selina, countess of Huntingdon. In 1795 (?), at Chester, was printed A specimen of select pieces of the poems of Rees Prichard … Dictionary — like in Welch and English …, by Edward Barnes, Schoolmaster at Caerwys. The copy of this publication scheduled as N.L.W. MS. 1477 has the date altered in ink to 1797, and ‘Caerwys’ changed to ‘St. Asaph.’
Bibliography:
- [J.T.J., i, 19;
- Llyfr. y Cym.];
- Blackwell.
Author:
David Myrddin Lloyd, M.A., (1909-81), Aberystwyth / Scotland
