James Henry

James Henry (13 December 1798 - 14 July 1876) was an Irish classical scholar and poet. He was born in Dublin the elder son of a woollen draper, Robert Henry, and his wife Kathleen Elder. He was educated by Unitarian minister Joseph Hutton, and then at Trinity College, Dublin. At age 11 he fell in love with the poetry of Virgil and got into the habit of always carrying a copy of the Aeneid in his left breast-pocket. In Trinity he graduated with the gold medal for Classics. He then turned to medicine and until 1845 he practised as a physician in Dublin city. In spite of his unconventionality and unorthodox views on religion and his own profession, he was very successful. He married Anne Jane Patton, from Donegal, and had three daughters, only one of whom, Katherine, born 1830, survived infancy. His accession to a large fortune in 1845 enabled him to devote himself entirely to the absorbing occupation of his life: the study of Virgil. Accompanied by his wife and daughter, he visited all those parts of Europe where he was likely to find rare editions or manuscripts of the poet. When his wife died in Tyrol he continued his work with his daughter, who became quite a Virgil expert in her own right, and crossed the Alps seventeen times. After the death of his daughter in 1872 he returned to Dublin and continued his research at Trinity College, Dublin. He died at Dalkey, County Dublin.