James Henry (13 December 1798 – 14 July 1876) was an

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

classical scholar Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

and

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

Life

He was born in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

the elder son of a woollen draper, Robert Henry, and his wife Kathleen Elder. He was educated by Unitarian minister Joseph Hutton, and then at Trinity College, Dublin. At age 11 he fell in love with the poetry of

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...

and got into the habit of always carrying a copy of the ''

Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of th ...

'' in his left breast-pocket. In Trinity he graduated with the gold medal for Classics. He then turned to

medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...

and until 1845 he practised as a physician in Dublin city. In spite of his unconventionality and unorthodox views on religion and his own profession, he was very successful. He married Anne Jane Patton, from Donegal, and had three daughters, only one of whom, Katherine, born 1830, survived infancy. His accession to a large fortune in 1845 enabled him to devote himself entirely to the absorbing occupation of his life: the study of Virgil. Accompanied by his wife and daughter, he visited all those parts of Europe where he was likely to find rare editions or manuscripts of the poet. When his wife died in

Tyrol Tyrol (; historically the Tyrole; de-AT, Tirol ; it, Tirolo) is a historical region in the Alps - in Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Emp ...

he continued his work with his daughter, who became quite a Virgil expert in her own right, and crossed the Alps seventeen times. After the death of his daughter in 1872 he returned to Dublin and continued his research at Trinity College, Dublin. He died at

Dalkey Dalkey ( ; ) is an affluent suburb of Dublin, and a seaside resort southeast of the city, and the town of Dún Laoghaire, in the county of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown in the historic County Dublin, Ireland. It was founded as a Viking settlement ...

, County Dublin.

Literary commentary

As a commentator on Virgil's ''

'', Henry will always deserve to be remembered, notwithstanding the occasional eccentricity of his notes and remarks. The first fruits of his researches were published in 1853 under the quaint title ''Notes of a Twelve Years' Voyage of Discovery in the First Six Books of the Eneis''. These ''Notes'' were followed by Henry's four-volume ''Aeneidea, or Critical, Exegetical, and Aesthetical Remarks on the Aeneis''; Henry described his ''Aeneidea'' as "an amplification, correction, and completion" of his ''Notes''. Only the first volume of the ''Aeneidea'', containing his ''Notes'' on the first book of the ''Aeneid'', was published before he died; the work was subsequently published by the trustees of his estate, under the editorial guidance of John Fletcher Davies. After the death of Davies, editorial work was completed by Arthur Palmer and

Louis Claude Purser Louis Claude Purser, FBA (28 September 1854 in Abbeyside – 20 March 1932 in Dublin) was an Irish classical scholar. Purser was educated at Midleton College, County Cork,''The New International Encyclopædia'', Volume 19 (Dodd, Mead, 192 ...

. As a textual critic Henry was exceedingly conservative. His notes, written in a lively and interesting style, are especially valuable for their wealth of illustration and references to lesser-known classical authors.

Poetry

Henry was also the author of five collections of verse plus two long narrative poems describing his travels, and various pamphlets of a satirical nature. At its best his

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

has something of the flavour of Robert Browning and Arthur Hugh Clough while at its worst it resembles the doggerel of

William McGonagall William Topaz McGonagall (March 1825 – 29 September 1902) was a Scottish poet of Irish descent. He gained notoriety as an extremely bad poet who exhibited no recognition of, or concern for, his peers' opinions of his work. He wrote about 2 ...

. His five volumes of verse were all published at his own expense and received no critical attention either during or after his lifetime.

Rediscovery

Henry was rediscovered by

Christopher Ricks Sir Christopher Bruce Ricks (born 18 September 1933) is a British literary critic and scholar. He is the William M. and Sara B. Warren Professor of the Humanities at Boston University (US), co-director of the Editorial Institute at Boston Un ...

who included eight of his poems in the '' New Oxford Book of Victorian Verse'' (1987). Then there was silence for ten years until the '' Penguin Book of Victorian Verse'' included four of his poems. Valentine Cunningham included five of Henry's poems in ''The Victorians: an Anthology of Poetry and Poetics'', published by Blackwell in 2000. In the 21st century, Henry was featured (with "Old Man," a poem from 1856) as one of the 90 poets included in ''My Own Land's Sins: An Anthology of Victorian Poetry'', published by the Canadian-based publisher Universitas Press.

Posthumous publication

In 2002 Christopher Ricks edited with an introduction the ''Selected Poems of James Henry'', published by The Lilliput Press (reviewed in ''The New York Review of Books'', ''The Times Literary Supplement'' and ''The Sunday Telegraph'').

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Henry, James Irish male poets 19th-century Irish medical doctors 1798 births 1876 deaths Writers from Dublin (city) 19th-century poets Irish Latinists Medical doctors from Dublin (city)