Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 03.djvu/240

Barlow at Lichfield, which in the following year he resigned, on being appointed treasurer of that cathedral body. He afterwards became chaplain to Prince Henry, son of James I, and finally archdeacon of Salisbury (1615). His numerous ecclesiastical preferments are accounted for not only by his being a bishop's son, but by his four sisters having all married bishops. He says, in some introductory verses to 'The Navigator's Supply:'—'

Barlow's tastes were decidedly scientific, though, if his epitaph may be believed, he also 'applied himself for two and fifty years to the edifying of the body of Christ.' Science is indebted to Barlow for some marked improvements in the hanging of compasses at sea, for the discovery of the difference between iron and steel for magnetic purposes, and for the proper way of touching magnetic needles, and of piercing and cementing loadstones. Anthony à Wood endorses Barlow's statement that 'he had knowledge in the magnet twenty years before Dr. William Gilbert published his book of that subject,' and adds that he was 'accounted superior, or at least equal, to that doctor for a happy finder out of many rare and magnetical secrets.' This opinion was not, however, shared by a contemporary, Dr. Mark Ridley, who published a reply to Barlow's 'Magnetical Advertisements,' charging him with plagiarism, not only of Gilbert's famous work, 'De Magnete' (1600), but of his own book, 'Magnetical Bodies and Motions' (1613). This called forth an indignant rejoinder from Barlow in 'A Brief Discovery of the Idle Animadversions of Mark Ridley,' overflowing with personalities, in which he repudiates the accusation of Ridley, and retorts upon him that he had purloined a large portion of the material of his book from a manuscript of Barlow's treatise, surreptitiously obtained before its publication. He says: 'Except this Ridley had ploughed with my Heifor, hee had not knowne my Riddle — sic vos non vobis.' It is only fair to say that Barlow publishes a letter of Gilbert's to him which shows that they were in the habit of freely communicating their ideas to each other, and expressing Gilbert's high sense of Barlow's scientific attainments. Barlow has not, however, any claim to be set on the same level with Gilbert. Barlow died 25 May 1625, and was buried in the chancel of his church at Easton. His works are: 1. 'The Navigator's Supply,' London, 1597. 2. 'Magnetical Advertisements concerning the nature and property of the Loadstone,' London, 1618. 3. 'A Brief Discovery of the Idle Animadversions of Mark Ridley, M.D.,' London, 1618.



BARMBY, JOHN GOODWYN (1820–1881), christian socialist, was born at Yoxford in Suffolk. His father, who was a solicitor, died when Goodwyn — he does not appear to have used the first christian name at all —was fourteen years old. He declined opportunities of entering various professions, and became an ardent radical. When only sixteen he would harangue small audiences of agricultural labourers. At seventeen he went to London, and became associated with a group of revolutionists, and in 1840 he visited Paris, living in the students' quarter, and examining for himself the social organisation of the French capital. Here he claimed to have originated the now famous word ‘communism’ in the course of a conversation with a French celebrity. In 1814 he founded the Communist Propaganda Society, which was afterwards known as the Universal Communitarian Association. He was one of the men grouped around James Pierrepont Greaves at Alcott House, who met periodically, and during 1843–4 published the ‘New Age or Concordian Gazette’ as their organ. He was a practical preacher of christian socialism; and he attempted to realise in his own household the scheme of universal brotherhood. His socialistic home was known as the Morville Communitorium at Hanwell. The form of socialism which Barmby advocated adopted the Church of Jerusalem as its model, but the ‘orthodox’ views of Christianity were largely modified by pantheism. Thomas Frost about this time describes him as ‘a young man of gentlemanly manners and soft persuasive voice, wearing his light brown hair parted in the middle after the fashion of the Concordist brethren, and a collar and necktie à la Byron.’ He combined with Frost to revive the ‘Communist Chronicle,’ for which he translated some of Reybaud's ‘Sketches of French Socialists,’ and wrote a philosophical romance, entitled ‘The Book of Platonopolis.’ The views of Frost and Barmby were divergent, and a separation, if not a rupture, soon followed. In 1848 he revisited Paris as the messenger of the Communistic Church to the friends of freedom in France. He had already been the editor and principal writer of a periodical called ‘The Promethean,’ and he now began to contribute to ‘Howitt's Journal,’ the ‘People's Journal,’ ‘Tait's Magazine,’ ‘Chambers's Journal,’ and other periodicals. He had the friendship of