We will give here the testimony of a dear friend of the poet's, as to his character, at this time. "My first acquaintance with Mr. Barham," writes the Rev. John Hughes, "dated from his election into the body of Minor Canons of St. Paul's, of which Cathedral my late father was then a Residentiary. Mr. Barham had married early in life, and in every respect enviably. His previous career as a graduate of Brasennose College had thrown him much into contact with several gifted and accomplished men, upon whom a shred of Reginald Heber's mantle, and a smack and savour of the 'Whippiad,' had descended in the way of corporate inheritance, and his quick talents had mended the lesson. It was soon evident to the Dean and Chapter, and to my father in particular, that their new subordinate combined superior powers of conversation with most decorous and gentlemanly tact and attention to all points connected with his duties." In 1824, Mr. Barham was appointed a priest in ordinary of the King's Chapel Royal, and was shortly afterwards presented with the incumbency of St. Mary Magdalene and St. Gregory-by-St. Paul. Mr. Barham was not an eloquent preacher, because he disapproved of all oratorical display in the pulpit, but he was an excellent parish priest, ever watchful over his flock, and delighting in doing good. In 1825 a series of domestic sorrows fell on the Minor Canon. His dearly-loved eldest daughter died; her loss was followed at intervals by that of four of his other children, to all of whom he was devotedly attached. How deeply the gentle-hearted clergyman felt these severe afflictions, some touching lines in _Blackwood's Magazine_ of that date testify, though he bore them with Christian resignation. "The best substitute for stoicism which a man of keen and sensitive feelings finds it possible to adopt, is to think a little less of his own sorrows, and more of those of others; and this," writes Mr. Hughes, "I believe to have been Barham's secret for bearing with equanimity the loss of more than one Who ne'er gave him pain till they died. He strove to be happy in making others so, especially those more congenial spirits who more directly shared in his affections .... Here it may not be amiss to notice one trait of character connected with the appointment which he held as chaplain to the Vintners' Company. Part of his duty in this capacity was to perform divine service at an almshouse in the vicinity of town, tenanted by certain widows of decayed members of the corporation. The old ladies quarrelled sadly, and Barham was in the habit of devoting one extra morning a week to a pastoral visitation of these poor isolated old women, for charity and decency's sake, and acted as arbiter and referee in their ridiculous feuds, with as much gravity as it was in his nature to assume on such an occasion." There was surely no small degree of self-denial in a man of such talent devoting his valuable time to such an office.