BARRINGTON, THE HON. DAINES, fourth son of Lord Viscount Barrington, a distinguished antiquary and naturalist, born about the year 1730. He was educated for the profession of the law, and, after filling various posts, was appointed a Welsh judge in 1757, and afterwards second justice of Chester. He never rose to much eminence at the bar, but he showed his knowledge of the law as a subject of liberal study by a valuable publication entitled Observations on the Statutes, chiefly the more ancient, from Magna Charta to 21st James I. cap. 27, with an Appendix, being a
proposal for new-modelling the Statutes, 1766, 4to; a work which has been quoted with merited commendation by many of our historians and constitutional antiquaries. In 1773 he published an edition of Orosius, with Alfred's Saxon version, and an English translation with notes of his own, which was severely animadverted on by the critics. His Tracts on the Probability of reaching the North Pole, 1775, 4to, were written in consequence of the northern voyage of discovery undertaken by Captain Phipps, afterwards Lord Mulgrave. In these he has accumulated a variety of evidence favourable to his own opinion of the practicability of attaining the object in which that voyage had failed; and it is not improbable that his views and arguments had some effect in determining the government at a later period to renew the attempt. Mr Barrington's other writings are chiefly to be found in the publications of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies, of both of which he was long an assiduous member, and of the latter vice-president. Many of these were collected by him in a quarto volume entitled Miscellanies on various Subjects, 1781. Among the most curious and ingenious of his papers, are his Experiments and Observations on the Singing of Birds, and his Essay on the Language of Birds. He died on the 14th March 1800, and was buried in the Temple church.