me on the principle of utility’ (Works, x. 54). Barrington was the friend of Bishop Percy, of Johnson (see Malone's edition of Boswell, vii. 164), of Boswell, and of many other men of letters of his time. His name appears in the list of members of the Essex Head Club. In his later years he lived in his chambers in King's Bench Walk, spending much of his time in the Temple gardens. Lamb, who refers to him in the ‘Old Benchers’ as ‘another oddity,’ has a curious incident to tell of Gilbert White's friend: ‘When the account of his year's treasurership came to be audited, the following singular charge was unanimously disallowed by the bench: “Item, disbursed Mr. Allen, the gardener, twenty shillings for stuff to poison the sparrows, by my orders.”’ Barrington died on 14 March 1800, and was buried in the Temple church. An engraving from his portrait by Slater (1770) will be found prefixed to the fifth edition of his ‘Observations on the Statutes,’ and also in Nichols's ‘Illustrations,’ v. 582. The Barringtonia, a tropical tree, was named in his honour by Forster.
The following is a list of his works:
- ‘Observations on the More Ancient Statutes from Magna Charta to the Twenty-first of James I, cap. xxvii. With an Appendix, being a Proposal for New Modelling the Statutes,’ 1766. Subsequent editions in 1767, 1769, 1775, and 1796.
- The ‘Naturalist's Calendar,’ 1767. Reprinted in 1818 (Agassiz's Bibliog. Zool. et Géol. and Watt's Bibliog. Brit.)
- The ‘Anglo-Saxon Version, from the Historian Orosius. By Ælfred the Great. Together with an English Translation from the Anglo-Saxon,’ 1773. With a map, tracing the voyage of Ohthere and Wulfstan, and geographical notes by Forster, which Bosworth considers of great value.
- ‘Miscellanies,’ 1781. Containing ‘Tracts on the Possibility of reaching the North Pole’ (which first appeared in 1775 and 1776); essays in natural history; an account of musical prodigies; ‘Ohthere's Voyage, and the Geography of the Ninth Century illustrated’ (from his ‘Orosius’); and other papers, mostly reprints.
- A list of his papers to the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries will be found in the respective indexes to the ‘Transactions’ of the societies; also in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ lxx. (part 1) 291, and in Nichols's ‘Literary Anecdotes,’ iii. 4–7.
Some of his papers have been reprinted in other works, e.g. the ‘Language of Birds’ in Pennant's ‘British Zoology,’ vol. iii., and a treatise on ‘Archery’ in ‘European Magazine,’ viii. 177, 257.
[Gent. Mag. lxx. 291; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. ii. 553, iii. 3, viii. 424; Nichols's Illustrations, v. 582, vii. 4; Archæologia; Phil. Trans. of Royal Society; Penny Cyclop.; Lodge's Peerage of Ireland; Nat. Hist. of Selborne; Notes and Queries, 5th ser. ix. 304, 331; Barrett's Bristol; Ormerod's Cheshire.]
BARRINGTON, GEORGE (b. 1755), pickpocket and author, was born at Maynooth, county Kildare, Ireland, on 14 May 1755. His father, Henry Waldron, was a working silversmith, and his mother, whose maiden name was Naish, was a mantua maker. At the age of seven young Waldron was sent to a school, kept by one John Donelly at Maynooth, and afterwards a medical man named Driscol took him under his roof for the purpose of educating him. Afterwards Dr. Westropp, a dignitary of the Irish church, placed him at a free grammar school in Dublin, with a view to his entering the university. A quarrel with a schoolfellow, whom he stabbed with a penknife, led to his being flogged, and he immediately afterwards ran away from the school (May 1771), having first stolen some money from the master, and joined a company of strolling players at Drogheda under the assumed name of Barrington. John Price, the manager of the company, prevailed on Barrington to join with him in picking pockets at the Limerick races. Price was detected and sentenced to transportation, and Barrington, in alarm, fled to England. Here he assumed the clerical habit, and pursued his career as a ‘genteel pickpocket’ with varying success. He went to court, and at a levée on the queen's birthday succeeded in robbing a nobleman of a diamond order. At Covent Garden theatre he robbed the Russian prince Orloff of a gold snuffbox set with brilliants, generally supposed to be worth no less than 30,000l. On the latter occasion, however, he was detected and brought before Sir John Fielding at Bow Street; but as Prince Orloff declined to prosecute he was dismissed. At length he was detected in picking the pocket of a low woman at Drury Lane theatre, for which, being indicted and convicted at the Old Bailey, he was sentenced to ballast-heaving, or, in other words, to three years' hard labour on the river Thames on board the hulks at Woolwich (1777). In consequence of his good behaviour he was set at liberty at the end of twelve months, but he was again detected picking pockets almost immediately afterwards, and this time was sentenced to five years' hard labour on the Thames (1778). An influential gentleman, who happened to visit the hulks, obtained Barrington's release, on the condition that he should leave the kingdom. He accordingly repaired to Dublin, where he re-
