BARROW, JOHN (fl. 1756), geographical compiler, died at the end of last century. His first work was a geographical dictionary, which was published in London anonymously, as was also (in 1756) the first edition of his principal work, ‘A Chronological Abridgment or History of the Discoveries made by Europeans in the different parts of the world.’ The second edition of the latter compilation appeared in 1765, and was so successful that in the year following a French translation, by Targe, was published at Paris, in twelve volumes. In his introduction Barrow shows a considerable acquaintance with astronomical geography, so far as relates to the finding of latitude and longitude by the stars. The French translation seems to have had more repute than the original work, but even in France Barrow's ‘History of Discoveries’ was in a few years superseded by that of the Abbé Prévost. The voyages selected by Barrow are those of Columbus, V. de Gama, Cabral, Sir F. Drake, Sir W. Raleigh, Sir T. Cavendish, Van Noort, Spelbergen, Tasman, Dampier, Wafer, Rogers, Ulloa, Lord Anson, Ellis, and others.
[Barrow's Works.]
BARROW, Sir JOHN (1764–1848), secretary of the admiralty, was born at Dragley Beck, a village in the parish of Ulverston, in a small cottage, still standing, which had been in his mother's family nearly two hundred years. It faces seawards, is of one story, and may be identified by the motto, ‘Parum sufficit,’ over the door. Almost as the visitor leaves this humble dwelling, he sees before him, to the north-east of Ulverston, on a bold gorse-and-bracken-covered bluff, 417 feet above the sea, called Hoad, a round tower 100 feet high, conspicuous from the Leven estuary, and commanding a view of the chief heights of the lake district and Yorkshire. The cottage testifies to Sir John Barrow's lowly origin, the monument to the honour in which he was held by his countrymen when he died. Educated at the Town Bank Grammar School at Ulverston, the master of which was ‘an old gouty gentleman named Ferdinand Hodgson, usually called Fardy by the boys,’ who had the good sense to discern his pupil's merits, he was taught mathematics by ‘a sort of perambulating preceptor, who used to pay an annual visit of about three months.’ A son of the Robert Walker whom Wordsworth immortalised succeeded to the mastership, and helped young Barrow to his first step in life by recommending him to assist in the survey of Conishead Priory. The knowlege thus gained he utilised some years later in his first contribution to the press, in which he explained the practical use of a case of mathematical instruments. Five or six of the upper boys of the school subscribed to purchase a celestial globe and a map of the heavens, and he never let a starlight night pass without observing the constellations. In return for instruction given in mathematics he was taught navigation by a midshipman. He fell in with an account of Benjamin Franklin's electrical kite, and, by means of a schoolboy's kite, obtained abundance of sparks, and gave a shock to an old woman who came to see what he was about. She spread a report that he was no better than he should be, for he was bringing fire down from heaven. The alarm ran through the village, and at his mother's request he laid aside the kite. By an old farmer named Gibson—a ‘wise man’ and ‘self-taught mathematician and almanack maker’—he was helped in his mathematical difficulties, of which he tells a curious story. For two days and nights he had been puzzling over a problem in Simson's ‘Conic Sections.’ Another night he fell asleep with his brain still at work on the problem. In his dreams he went on with it, so that next morning he easily sketched with pencil and slate the correct solution. His parents wished him to enter the church; but when he was fourteen he accepted an offer of a three years' engagement as timekeeper in a Liverpool ironfoundry, and in the last year of his engagement was offered a partnership by his employer, who, however, immediately afterwards died. While in Liverpool he saw Mrs. Siddons act in a farce, and displayed his instinctive love of adventure by begging for a place in a balloon, which Leonardi, the proprietor, said was the first to ascend in England with a human freight. Captain Potts, his late employer's friend, now offered to take him a voyage in a Greenland whaler, where he took part in the chase, and brought home a couple of jawbones, which were set up as gateposts close to his parents' cottage. In this voyage he learned what it was to be
