He was
then advanced to the Permanent Secretaryship of Her Majesty's
Office of Works and Public Buildings; a position which he filled
with perfect competence, but with an extreme of modesty; and on his
retirement, in 1868, he was made a Companion of the Bath. While
apprentice to a Norwich attorney, Alfred Austin was a frequent
visitor in the house of Mr. Barron, a rallying place in those days
of intellectual society. Edward Barron, the son of a rich saddler
or leather merchant in the Borough, was a man typical of the time.
When he was a child, he had once been patted on the head in his
father's shop by no less a man than Samuel Johnson, as the Doctor
went round the Borough canvassing for Mr. Thrale; and the child was
true to this early consecration. 'A life of lettered ease spent in
provincial retirement,' it is thus that the biographer of that
remarkable man, William Taylor, announces his subject; and the
phrase is equally descriptive of the life of Edward Barron.
Pages:
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113