Note 41 — V

Lucy, daughter of that curious Quaker banker's clerk Bernard Barton, whose poetry is negligible, but who must have had some strong personal attraction. For he was a favourite correspondent of two of the greatest of contemporary letter-writers, Lamb and FitzGerald, though he constantly misunderstood their letters; he received from Byron—on an occasion likely to provoke one of the "noble poet's" outbursts of pseudo-aristocratic insolence—a singularly wise and kindly answer; and having as a perfect stranger lectured Sir Robert Peel he was—invited to dinner!