James Henry

Life
1798-1876 [Henry James MD]; b. Dublin, son of draper; became physician and classicist; Gold Medal, TCD, MA 1822; MD, 1832; practiced till 1845, after which he travelled through Europe making Virgilian researches; published verse trans. of Aeneid I and II (1845), and poems; his Aeneidea appeared 1873-79; predecessed by wife and three dgs.; an obituary was written by J. P. Mahaffy; anthologised by by Ricks in New Oxford Book of Victorian Verse (1987). ODNB

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Works
Notes of a Twelve Years Voyage of Discovery in the First six Books of the Eneis (1853); then a massive volume of his Aeneidea, or Remarks Critical, Exegetical and Aesthetical on the Aeneis (1873). Rep., Christopher Ricks, ed., Selected Poems of James Henry (Dublin: Lilliput Press 2002), 192pp.

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Criticism
J. P. Mahaffy, obituary, in The Academy, 12 Aug. 1876, p.162-63; R. D. Williams, ‘James Henry’s Aeneidea’, in Hermathena, CXVI (TCD 1973), PP.27-43; J. S. Starkey, ‘James Henry and “The Aeneidea”, in Hermathena LXIV (1944), pp.19-31 [contains bibl. of his publications]; J. B. Lyons, Career of James Henry MD 1798-1976 (Glendale 1985).

Commentary
Books Ireland (October 2003), notice of Christopher Ricks, ed., Selected Poems of James Henry (Lilliput), 180pp.; b. Dublin, son of draper, 1798; d. 1876; Fellow of Coll. Of Physicians; quit medicine and set out to walk through Europe; wife d. at Lake Garda; cremated in tile-maker’s kiln and brought back to Ireland; suffered death of two children in infancy and later a dg. In 1872; settled and d. in Dalkey Lodge; obit. by J. P. Mahaffy acc. to whom he wrote in Remarks on the Autobiography of Dr. Cheyne ‘a sarcastic and bitter exposition of the worldly advantage of Christianity’; placed by Ricks in New Oxford Book of Victorian Verse (1987).

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Quotations
Progress”: ‘Here I am ready to believe in Progress / First time I hear your little girls cry “Shame! / A coward's shame!” upon the wretch that hunts, / With horse, and hound, and cries of savage joy, / For sport, mere sport, and not to appease his hung / The poor, weak, timid, quivering hare to death ... / “That you are making progress I’ll believe The first time Iperceive your conscience twinge ye […]”.’ (See Books Ireland, Oct. 2003.)

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References
W. B. Stanford, Ireland and the Classical Tradition (1984); James Henry, a practicing physician, devoted himself to Virgilian studies on receiving a large legacy in 1845. A stilted translation of 2 books of the Aeneid (1851); articles and books, including Notes of a Twelve Years Voyage of Discovery in the First six Books of the Eneis (1853); then a massive volume of his Aeneidea, or Remarks Critical, Exegetical and Aesthetical on the Aeneis (1873). Subsequent vols. edited by J. F. Davies, Arthur Palmer and L. C. Purser, containing over 2,000pp., 1876; recently reprinted in Holland. Bibl. as in Criticism, supra.

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