Life
1798-1876; b. Dublin, son of draper; became Fellow of Coll. of Physicians;
quit medicine and set out to walk through Europe after death of two children
in infancy; his wife d. at Lake Garda; cremated her in tile-maker’s
kiln and brought ashes back to Ireland; suffered death of a dg., 1872;
d. in Dalkey Lodge; obit. J. P. Mahaffy calls Remarks on the Autobiography
of Dr. Cheyne ‘a sarcastic and bitter exposition of the worldly
advantage of Christianity’; included by Christopher Ricks in New
Oxford Book of Victorian Verse (1987); Selected Poems, ed.
Ricks (2003).
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Works
Christopher Ricks, ed., Selected Poems of James Henry (Dublin:
Lilliput Press 2003), 180pp.
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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 1 perceive your conscience
twinge ye […]’
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