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 very horizon. After surmounting many difficulties, he succeeded in producing a picture on this plan upon paper pasted on linen. This he took up to London and showed to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who deliberately pronounced the scheme impracticable, adding that he would cheerfully leave his bed at any time in the night to inspect such a work of art if it could be produced. Subsequently, when Barker had a panorama ready for exhibition at 28 Castle Street, Leicester Square, Sir Joshua did leave his breakfast-table, and walked in his dressing-gown and slippers to Castle Street to inspect the work, and congratulated the artist. Barker, aided by Lord Elcho, was enabled first to patent his invention, and then to carry out his plans. The first picture was painted in water-colour on a complete circle twenty-five feet in diameter, on a surface of paper pasted on canvas, and the work was carried out in the guard-room of the palace of Holyrood. It was first exhibited to the public in the Archer's Hall at Holyrood, and was subsequently exhibited at Glasgow. In November 1788 Barker came to London, where, in the summer of 1789, the view of Edinburgh was shown at No. 28 in the Haymarket. He then constructed a view of London, taken from the Albion Mills near Blackfriars Bridge, and exhibited this in the spring of 1792 in Castle Street, Leicester Square. This view was painted in distemper, and the drawings made for it were afterwards etched by Henry Aston Barker, aquatinted by Birnie, and published.

In 1793 Barker took the lease of a piece of ground in Leicester Place and Cranbourne Street, where he erected a large building for the exhibition of panoramas. Here he had three rooms, in the largest of which the circle of the picture was 90 feet in diameter. This was opened early in the year 1794 with a view of the grand fleet at Spithead. When this building was first projected, a joint-stock company was formed to enable Barker to carry out his scheme, and in this enterprise Lord Elcho took a prominent part; but the exhibition proved so profitable that Barker was soon enabled to purchase all the shares and make the property his own. He painted several other panoramic views which were exhibited in Leicester Square, and the work was carried on by his younger son, Henry Aston [q. v.] Barker married a daughter of Dr. Aston, an eminent physician of Dublin, and died on 8 April 1806 at his own house in West Square, Southwark, and was buried in Lambeth Church.

There are two portraits of Robert Barker: one engraved in 1802 by J. Singleton, after a picture by G. Ralph, and another engraved by Flight from a picture by Allingham.

[Gent. Mag. 1856; Art Journal, 1857; Lysons's Environs of London, Suppl.]  BARKER, SAMUEL (1686–1759), Hebraist, possessed of property in the vicinity of Lyndon, in the county of Rutland. He married Sarah, only daughter of William Whiston, in whose memoirs he is mentioned. He wrote several learned tracts, which were collected and published in one quarto volume after his death, together with a Hebrew grammar, on which he had long been engaged. He was the author of a letter, dated 7 Nov. 1723, to Mr. Wasse, rector of Aynho, Northamptonshire, concerning a passage in the Sigean inscription, which may be found in Bowyer's ‘Bibl. Liter.’ No. 10 (1724). The full title of the posthumously printed quarto volume referred to is ‘Poesis vetus Hebraica restituta; accedunt quædam de Carminibus Anacreonticis, de accentibus Græcis; de scriptura veteri Ionica, de literis consonantibus et vocalibus, et de pronunciatione linguæ Hebraicæ. Auctore Samuele Barker armigero, nuper de Lyndon, in com. Rotelandiæ,’ 1761, 4to.

[Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. ix. 680.]  BARKER, THOMAS (fl. 1651), is the author of ‘The Art of Angling: wherein are discovered many rare secrets very necessary to be known by all that delight in that recreation. Written by Thomas Barker, an ancient practitioner in the said art’ (1651), 12mo. In the dedicatory address to Lord Montague, the author tells us that he was born at Bracemeol in the liberty of Salop, ‘being a freeman and burgess of the same city.’ For more than sixty years he practised the art of angling, and ‘spent many pounds in the gaining of it.’ At the time of writing his treatise he was living in Westminster, and seems to have gained a livelihood by accompanying gentlemen on fishing expeditions, or giving instruction at home in the use of baits and tackle. The following invitation in the dedicatory address doubtless met a warm response:—‘If any noble or gentle angler, of what degree soever he be, have a mind to discourse of any of these wayes and experiments, I live in Henry the 7th's Gifts, the next door to the gatehouse in Westm.; my name is Barker; where I shall be ready, as long as please God, to satisfie them and maintain my art during life, which is not like to be long.’ Barker's remarks on fly-fishing are quoted in Walton's ‘Compleat Angler’