Barker, EDMUND HENRY

Barker, EDMUND HENRY, classical scholar, was born in 1788 at Hollym, Yorkshire, and studied at Cambridge. He prepared editions of several Latin classics, a translation of Buttmann's Greek Grammar, and numerous contributions to periodicals, particularly to the Classical Journal; and during a five years' residence with Dr Parr, he was led to undertake a revision of Stephens' Thesaurus Linguae Graecæ (12 vols. folio, 1826). This gigantic work was violently assailed in the Quarterly Review by Blomfield, against whom Barker wrote his Aristarchus Anti-Blomfieldianus (1818). Barker's Parriana (2 vols. 1828-29), and his posthumous Reminiscences of Professor Porson (2 vols. 1852), give much information about those two famous scholars, but are ill-digested and not entirely reliable. He lost all that he had in a lawsuit, was obliged to sell his fine library, and was thrown into a debtors' prison. He died in London, March 21, 1839, in extreme poverty.