He had a very strong sway in this
town. He greatly forwarded the migration to the Massachusetts Bay
Colony, where his name lives in unfading remembrance.
[Illustration: STATUE OF WILLIAM BARNES.]
Another clergyman, named William Barnes, who was still living, had
become famous by writing articles for the _Gentleman's Magazine_ and
poems for the _Dorset County Chronicle_, and had published a book in
1844 entitled _Poems of Rural Life in Dorset Dialect_, some of which
were of a high order. They were a little difficult for us to understand
readily, for these southern dialects did not appeal to us. After he died
a statue was erected to his memory, showing him as an aged clergyman
quaintly attired in caped cloak, knee-breeches, and buckled shoes, with
a leather satchel strung over his shoulder and a stout staff in his
hand. One of his poems referred to a departed friend of his, and a verse
in it was thought so applicable to himself that it was inscribed on his
monument:
Zoo now I hope this kindly feaece
Is gone to find a better pleaece;
But still wi vo'k a-left behind
He'll always be a-kept in mind.
Thomas Hardy, the founder of Rochester Grammar School in 1569, was the
ancestor of Admiral Hardy, Nelson's flag-captain, who received the great
hero in his arms when the fatal shot was fired at Trafalgar, and whose
monument we could see on Blackdown Hill in the distance.
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