pute with you. I have ever looked up with reverence to merit of all kinds; and have learned to yield submission even to the caprices of men of great parts. I shall certainly obey your commands; and send you a regular notice whenever I am able. I have done so at times; but having been, with great mortification to myself, obliged once or twice to disappoint you, and having been as often disappointed by your engagements, it was to prevent this, that I have offered you (I may freely say) every leisure hour that I have had sure and in my own possession, for near two years past. I think a person possessed of the indulgent weakness of a friend, would have given credit to the irregularity of the calls of my little occupations, on my assuring him so frequently of the fact.

"There are expressions in your letter of so very extraordinary a nature, with regard to your being free from any misfortune, that I think it better to pass them over in silence. I do not mean to quarrel with you, Mr. Barry; I do not quarrel with my friends. You say a picture is a miserable subject for it; and you say right. But if any one should have a difference with a painter, some conduct relative to a picture is as probable a matter for it as any other. Your demanding an explanation of a letter, which was itself an explanation, has given you the trouble of this long letter. I am always ready to give an account of my conduct. I am sorry the former account I gave should have offended. If this should not be more successful let the business' end there. I could only repeat again my admiration of your talents, my wishes for your success, my sorrow for any misfortune that should befal you, and my shame, if ever so trifling a thing as a business of mine should break in upon any order you have established in an employment to which your parts give a high degree of importance. I am, with the greatest truth and respect, sir,

"Your most obedient,

"And most humble servant,

"Beaconsfield, July 13, 1774."

"EDMUND BURKE."

The consequence of all this was, that the portrait was painted. We have now some correspondence on a design of decorating St. Paul's Cathedral with the works of our most eminent painters and sculptors. How this scheme failed is well known, as far as painting was concerned. According to the plan then exhibited, Barry was to have been employed with Angelica Kauffman, Cipriani, Dance, Reynolds, and West; his subject was the 'Jews rejecting Christ, when Pilate entreats his release.'

In 1775, he published his Inquiry into the Real and Imaginary Obstructions to the acquisition of the Arts in England,' in answer to Winckleman. In this treatise, there are some fanciful opinions, but upon the whole it is the best and most dispassionate of the productions of his pen, and a masterly defence of the capabilities of English artists under proper encouragement; and

it affords many just remarks on that state of public taste which is favourable to the perfection of art. Mr. Burke pointed out its principal defects in an able letter addressed to the author, and printed in these memoirs.

After the scheme of decorating St. Paul's had been given up, it was proposed to employ the same artists in decorating the great room of the society of arts, but this was refused by the artists themselves, for reasons not assigned here, but probably the principal objection was, that they were to be remunerated only by an exhibition of the pictures. It is easy to conceive that such a mode would lead to delicate perplexities.' Either the artists must have shared alike, or if their shares were to be different, who was to determine? Three years after, however, in 1777, Mr. Barry undertook the whole, and his offer was accepted. It would have been strange indeed if such an offer had been rejected, as his labour was to be gratuitous.

"He has been heard to say, that at the time of his undertaking this work, he had only sixteen shillings in his pocket; and that in the prosecution of his labour he had often, after painting all day, to sketch or engrave at night some design for the printsellers, which was to supply him with the means of his frugal subsistence. He has recorded some of his prints as done at this time, such as his Job, dedicated to Mr. Burke, birth of Venus, Polemon, head of Lord Chatham, king Lear. Many slighter things were done at the pressure of the moment, and perhaps never owned: it would be vain, therefore, to make inquiries after them.”

Of his terms we only know that the choice of subjects was allowed him, and the society was to defray the expense of canvas, colours, and models. During his labours, however, he found that he had been somewhat too disinterested, and wrote a letter to Sir George Saville, soliciting such a subscription among the friends of the society as might amount to 100%. a-year. He computed that he should finish the whole in two years, and pay back the 2001. to the subscribers from an exhibition, but he very candidly added, that if the exhibition should produce nothing, the subscribers would lose their money. This subscription did not take effect, and it is well known the work employed him seven years:

"But," adds his biographer, "he brought it to an end with perfect satisfaction to the members of the society, for whom it was intended; and who conducted themselves towards him throughout with every liberality and gratification within their power to fulfil they granted him two exhibitions, and at different periods voted him fifty guineas, their gold medal, and again two hundred guineas, and a seat among them."

Of this great undertaking it would be unnecessary to offer a minute criticism. Perhaps we may say with the author of a long anonymous letter printed in this volume, and improperly, we think, attributed to Burke, that

"It surpasses any work which has been executed within these two centuries, and considering the difficulties with which the artist had to struggle, any that is now extant."

As the production of one man, it is undoubtedly entitled to high praise, but it has all Barry's defects in drawing and colours, defects the more remarkable, because of his correspondence and lectures, his theory on these subjects is accurate and unexceptionable.

"Of the profits arising from the two exhibitions, they are stated at 5031. 128. and Lord Romney nobly presented him with a hundred guineas for the portrait which he had copied into one of the pictures, and he had twenty guineas for the head of Mr. Hooper. Perhaps he received other sums for portraits employed in the work, but of this there are no documents to speak from."

We have already noticed Barry's dislike to portrait-painting, but he certainly departed widely from his own principles when he introduced so many of these pictures. We need only notice the fifth picture, The Distribution of the Premiums,' in which the principal characters give way to the portraits of some ladies of distinction.

These pictures were afterwards engraven, but what they produced is not known. In 1792, however, he deposited 7007. in the funds, and to this wealth he never afterwards made any great addition, for he never possessed more than sixty pounds a-year from the funds, a sum barely sufficient to pay the rent and other charges of his house.' Those who remember his domestic arrangements will not be surprised that this sum should be sufficient.

In 1782 he was elected professor of painting in room of Mr. Penny, but did not lecture until 1784. His lectures, which are here printed for the first time, are unquestionably among the best of his writings, but the appointment was unfortunate, as we shall have occasion to notice.

He had long meditated an extensive design, that of painting the progress of theology, or to delineate the growth of that state of mind which connects man with his creator, and to represent the misty medium of connexion which the Pagan world had with their false gods, and the union of Jews and Christians with their true God, by means of revelation. At the time of his death he was employed on etchings or designs for this purpose, but made

no great progress. We much doubt whether such a subject could have been successfully illustrated by painting, and we recollect that one great defect in his paintings in the society's rooms was that the subjects wanted more explanation than the spectator could discover. With a very high opinion of Barry's talents, we suspect that if he had attempted the progress of theology, he must have often been reduced to the necessity of explaining his meaning.

In the mean time he published his Letter to the Dilettanti,' a work which his biographer justly characterizes as 'not quite so tranquil or praiseworthy.' We are not so certain that the academy was to blame for expelling him. It was plain he could not be permitted to lecture any more, and the middle course of permitting him to retain his seat would not have probably been very satisfactory. It ought not to be forgot that his expulsion was sanctioned by the highest authority; but we own we look at the whole transaction with regret.

Soon after this event, the earl of Buchan set on foot a subscription, which amounted to about 1000/. with which the committee of Barry's friends judged proper to buy an annuity for his life of Sir Robert Peel, Bart. but his death prevented his reaping any benefit from this design.

"On the evening of Thursday, the 6th of February, 1806, he was seized, as he entered the house where he usually dined, with the cold fit of a pleuritic fever, of so intense a degree, that, according to the information of his friend Mr. Clinch, who found him in this state, all his faculties were suspended; and he himself unable to articulate or move; which probably gave rise to the reports in the public papers that he was seized with a palsy. Some cordial was administered to him, and on his coming a little to himself, he was taken in a coach to the door of his own house, which, the key-hole being plugged with dirt and pebbles, as had been often done before by the malice, or perhaps the roguery of boys in the neighbourhood, it was impossible to open. The night being dark, and he himself shivering under his disease, his friend thought it adviseable to drive away without loss of time to the hospitable mansion of Mr. Bonomi. By the kindness of that good family, a bed was procured in a neighbouring house, to which he was immediately conveyed. Here he desired to be left, and locked himself up, unfortunately, for forty hours, without the least medical assistance. What took place in the mean time, he himself could give but little account of, as he represented himself to be delirious, and only recollected his being tortured with a burning pain in the side, and with difficulty of breathing. In this short time was the death-blow given; which by the prompt and timely aid of copious bleedings, might have been averted; but without this aid, such had been the reaction of the hot fit succeeding the rigors, and the violence of the inflammation on the pleura, that an effusion of lymph had taken place, as appeared afterwards upon dissection. In the afternoon of Saturday the 8th, he rose

and crawled forth to relate his complaint to the writer of this account. He was pale, breathless, and tottering, as he entered the room-with a dull pain in his side, a cough short and incessant, and a pulse quick and feeble. He related that his friend Bonomi had caused an arrangement to be made for receiving him in his house, and stated with great emotion, the satisfaction he expected from the kind attention of Mrs. Bonomi, who would supply him with those necessary aids which sickness required, and of which he must have been deprived, had he been under his own roof-destitute as he was of a servant, and the common conveniences of bed-linen. He was recommended to return immediately to those friends, as being more fit for his bed than for making visits.

"In the situation he was in, succeeding remedies proved of little avail; his danger was obvious; by the advice of his learned friend Dr. Combe, and of the writer of this account, he was once bled, but it afforded him little or no relief. With exacerbations and remissions of fever, symptomatic of effusion, and organic lesion, he lingered to the 22d of February, when he expired."- p. 300.

The character his biographer gives of him from p. 303 to 338 is very elaborate, including disquisitions on his art, and comparisons with the talents of some of the great masters. In this prolix essay, the friendship of his biographer is sometimes apparent, but upon the whole we know not that many deductions are to be made on this account. To us it appears that with unquestionable talents, original genius, and strong enthusiasm for his art, he was never able to accomplish what he projected, or to practice all that he professed. Few men appear to have had more correct notions of the principles of art, nor to have departed more frequently from them. His lectures we have already mentioned as the most valuable of his publications, yet we know not that it would be possible to exemplify his rules by his practice. We shall instance only in one subject, that of colouring; let his lecture on that subject be perused with a reference to his great pictures in the society's rooms, and the difference will be obvious. His ambition during life was to excel no less as a literary theorist, than as a practical artist, and it must be allowed that in both characters he has left specimens sufficient to rank him very high in the English school. Where he has failed in either, we should, as already hinted, be inclined to attribute it to the peculiar frame of his mind, which in his early, as well as mature years, appears to have been deficient in soundness; alternately agitated by conceit or flattery, and irritated by contradiction, however gentle, and suspicion however groundless. This was still more striking to every one conversant in mental derangement, when he exhibited at last that most common of all symptoms, a dread of plots and conspiracies. This went so far at one time that, when robbed of a sum of money, he exculpated common thieves and housebreakers, and attributed the theft to his brother artists jealous of his reputation.