RICHARD BARNFIELD BIOGRAPHY

BARNFIELD, RICHARD (1574-1627). —Poet, e.s. of Richard B., gentleman, was born at Norbury, Shropshire, and ed. at Oxford. In 1594 he pub. The Affectionate Shepherd , a collection of variations in graceful verse of the 2nd Eclogue of Virgil. His next work was Cynthia, with certain Sonnets and the Legend of Cassandra in 1595; and in 1598 there appeared a third vol., The Encomion of Lady Pecunia, etc. , in which are two songs ("If music and sweet poetrie agree," and "As it fell upon a day") also included in The Passionate Pilgrim , an unauthorised collection, and which were long attributed to Shakespeare. From this time, 1599, B. produced nothing else, and seems to have retired to the life of a country gentleman at Stone in Staffordshire, in the church of which he was buried in 1627. He was for long neglected; but his poetry is clear, sweet, and musical. His gift indeed is sufficiently attested by work of his having passed for that of Shakespeare.