Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/339

 Clarke, he discoursed from the pulpit at the City Road Chapel. After a year he returned to his native county. He separated from the methodists about this time through resentment at his associates in calling him to account for writing a patriotic song which was sung at a meeting in a public-house. In 1813 he started business on his own account at Eyam as a currier, but trade was neglected for music, poetry, and mathematics, and his prospects were not improved when in 1816 he ran away with and married Frances Ibbotson of Hathersage. In 1821 he entered on the duties of schoolmaster in the free school of the small village of Dore, Derbyshire. He also acted as vestry and parish clerk, but showed his independence of mind and action by invariably closing his book and resuming his seat at the recitation of the Athanasian Creed. He likewise practised medicine and surgery, and when the ancient chapel of Dore was pulled down, his plans for a new one were adopted, and he not only superintended the erection of the building, but carved the ornamented figures which adorn the structure. On a change of incumbent at Dore he retired from his office of schoolmaster on a pension of 15l. The only duties he had now to perform were those of district registrar, which yielded him 12l. a year. In no year of his life did his income exceed 80l.

His first publication was a satirical poem entitled the ‘Rag Bag,’ 1832. His next was ‘Medicus-Magus, a poem, in three cantos,’ Sheffield, 1836, 12mo, in which he depicted the manners, habits, and limited intelligence, in the more remote parts of Derbyshire, the local terms being elucidated by a glossary. The title was afterwards altered to ‘The Astrologer.’ Many of his miscellaneous poems were printed in the ‘Sheffield Iris.’ After his death a collected edition of his ‘Poetical Works,’ with a sketch of his life by Dr. G. Calvert Holland, was published (Sheffield, 1858, 8vo). His verse is antiquated but forcible. One of his short pieces, the ‘Old Year's Funeral,’ was thought by James Montgomery to be worthy of comparison with Coleridge's ode ‘On the Departing Year.’

His wife died in 1844, and in 1850 he took as a second wife, Mary, widow of John Lunn of Staveley, Derbyshire. He died on 13 Dec. 1857, and was buried at Eyam church.

[Holland's Sketch; Hall's Biog. Sketches, 1873, p. 334; Holland and Everett's Memoir of James Montgomery, vi. 232.]  FURSA, (d. 650), of Peronne in France, was an Irishman of noble birth. Two pedigrees of him are given in the ‘Book of Leinster,’ and also in the ‘Lebor Brecc.’ One traces his descent from Rudraidhe Mac Sitri, ancestor of the Clanna Rudraidhe, of the race of Ir; the other from Lugaidh Laga, brother of Olioll Olum of the race of Heber; but they evidently refer to different persons, and Colgan has shown that there were two saints named Fursa, the first of whom flourished about 550. The ‘Martyrology of Donegal,’ as well as the ‘Lebor Brecc’ notes to the ‘Calendar of Œngus,’ clearly regards the first pedigree as that of Fursa of Peronne, but Colgan with Keating regards the Fursa of the second as the saint of Peronne, and this is clearly right, as Sigebert, king of East Anglia, received him in 637. His father was Fintan, son of Finlogh, a chieftain of South Munster; his mother, Gelges, was daughter of Aedh Finn of the Hui Briuin of Connaught. He was probably born somewhere among the Hui Briuin, and baptised by St. Brendan. His parents having returned to Munster, the child was brought up there, and from his boyhood he ‘gave his attention to the reading of the Holy Scriptures and monastic discipline.’ He retired to study in the island of Inisquin in Lough Corrib, under the abbot St. Meldan, called his ‘soul-friend.’ He afterwards built a monastery for himself at a place called Rathmat, which appears to be Killursa (Fursa's Church), in the north-west of the county of Clare.

After this he set out for Munster to visit his relatives. After his arrival he had the first of several remarkable cataleptic seizures, during which he had visions of bright angels, who raised him on their wings, and soothed him by hymns. In one trance famine and plagues were foretold. This evidently refers to the second visitation of the plague known as the Buidhe Connaill, ‘the yellow or straw-coloured plague,’ which visited Ireland about fourteen years after Fursa's death. The chief visions appear to have taken place in 627. Deeply impressed by them, Fursa travelled through Ireland, proclaiming what he had heard. At Cork he had a vision of a golden ladder set up at the tomb of St. Finn Barr [q. v.] and reaching to heaven, by which souls were ascending.

For ten years, in accordance with angelic directions, he continued ‘to preach the word of God without respect of persons.’ In the notes on the ‘Calendar of Œngus’ a strange story is told of his exchanging diseases with St. Maignen of Kilmainham. To avoid admiring crowds and jealousy, Fursa went away with a few brethren to a small island in the sea, and shortly after, with his brothers Foillan and Ultan, he passed through Britain (Wales), and arrived at East Anglia, where he was hospitably received by King Sigebert. After