Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, then published without the author's name. Burke. refused to bow to the authority of a performance which he called slight and unsubstantial, and the fiery Barry exclaimed, "Do you call that a slight and unsubstantial work which is conceived in the spirit of nature and truth-is written with such elegance, and strewn all over with the richness of poetic fancy? I could not afford to buy the work, sir, and transcribed it every word with my own hand." Burke smiled, and acknowledged himself the author. "Are you by God!" exclaimed Barry, embracing him, and holding out the copy which he had made of the work. Such is the story. Burke was well known to be the author, and enjoyed the reputation of the Essay, before his name was attached to it; and if Barry had taken the trouble to transcribe the work, it does not seem likely that he should have carried the copy in his pocket. Still, we must not too rashly apply to such a person the rules by which we are entitled to judge in matters concerning the ordinary brethren of the race.

He continued to reside for some time in Dublin. The way to fame, and perhaps fortune, lay open before him. Burke had praised his works, and assured him of his protection, and he had only to walk circumspectly, and act with prudence, to be come an honour to his native land. Dr. Sleigh, of Cork, an early and benevolent friend, congratulating him on having met with that countenance in Dublin which he had sought and merited in vain in his native city, counselled a journey to Rome, and the study of Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton. This was not lost on Barry. "To Dr. Sleigh," he used to say, "I am indebted for whatever education and fortune and fame I may have in the world." Sudden success unsettled him for a time; the fame of his work brought a crowd of those unsafe companions who clap their hands at the sight of a new favourite

of fortune, and flutter about the prodigy like moths round a candle. In their company he sometimes forgot himself; he was sensible of the folly, and on his way home from a deep carouse, determined on immediate amendment. This fit of repentance found him at the side of the Liffy; he stood and upbraided his own easiness of temper, and cursed the money in his pocket as a fiend that had tempted him to the tavern. He threw his purse into the river, ran home, and resumed his interrupted studies. He afterward related this to an outspoken friend. Ah, Barry! man," said he, "you threw away your luck-you never had either gold or good temper to spare afterward."

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In his twenty-third year he went to London, on the invitation of Burke, who introduced him to Athenian Stuart, whose talk confirmed him in his love of the ancients, and to Sir Joshua Reynolds, in whose works he studied delicacy of style, propriety of character, and force of light and shade. "If I should chance to have genius, or any thing else," he observes, in a letter to Dr. Sleigh, "it is so much the better; but my hopes are grounded upon an unwearied intense application, of which I am not sparing. At present, I have little to show that I value; my work is all under ground, digging and laying foundations, which, with God's assistance, I may hereafter find the use of. I every day centre more and more upon the art; I give myself totally to it: and, except honour and conscience, am determined to renounce every thing else. Though this may appear enthusiastic, or rather extravagant, it is really the state of my mind." Nothing great can ever be accomplished without enthusiasm; but it requires to be a little better regulated than poor Barry's. For the most part his notions of other men's talents were at this early period equally decided and just. "The colouring of Wilson is very masterly," he observes, in one of his letters, "his VOL. II.-F

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style of design is more grand, more consistent, and more poetical than any other person's among us. His admiration, however, was not always so well placed; he praised the Achilles and Patroclus of Hamilton, for which he was rebuked by some of the elder brethren of the brush. He gave them a tasting of his spirit in two or three sarcastic sentences, in which he vindicated his right to freedom of opinion. They shrugged their shoulders, looked to one another, were irritated, and were silenced.

Barry pursued his studies in London for a year. The presence and the society of Burke awed down the natural sharpness of his temper, and in his company he began to practise the courtesies of polished life, and appeared in a dress becoming the station to which he aspired. He had already determined to be an historical painter. The true nature of that style could never, in the opinion of Reynolds, be ascertained, without a visit to the Sistine Chapel; but such a pilgrimage could not be accomplished by one so poor as Barry, and he was in despair-when Burke generously interposed, fitted him out for his journey, and settled an annual pension upon him during the period of probationary study.

On his way through France, he admired and copied the Alexander drinking the Potion, by La Sueur, and visited the Academy of St. Luke, on which he remarks to Burke, "I don't like an academy; it is a thing, which, wherever it is founded, will, I think, bring the arts into contempt, and, consequently, to destruction. We have two of them here; there are such mobs of blackguards go every night to acquire a trade there, as is enough to shock any one who has the least regard for the art. People send their children to make them painters and statuaries, without learning or genius, or indeed any thing else, only because it is less expensive than making them peruquiers or shoemakers." With better sense, he continues, "drawing and

modelling in the academy, with the assistance of a master, is not likely to mislead any one, and must be useful to men of real genius." He was so much charmed with the people and the scenery of Bur gundy, that he stopped at an inn and wrote to Burke "We may talk as much as we please about cultivation and plenty; but I must honestly confess, I never before saw any thing but the faint glimmerings of it, compared with this land, where nature seems ambitious of doing every thing for herself. The people, who are extremely numerous, are, for the most part, amply employed in the gathering and storing of fruits. Methinks, without any great poetic license, it is somewhat probable, when Bacchus made his rounds of the earth, that his head-quarters must have been in one of the valleys of Burgundy, where, on every side, mountain peeps over mountain, and appears clothed in the varied hues of the vine, interspersed with sheep and corn. This, and the crowds of busy contented people, who cover the whole face of the country, make a strong but melancholy contrast to a miserable isle which I cannot help thinking of sometimes-you will not be at a loss to know that I mean Ireland."

At Rome Barry found letters awaiting him, containing the agreeable assurance that his Alexander and the Potion, which he had presented to Burke, was pronounced by Reynolds correct in drawing, and in expression just and noble. In the lustre of colouring Barry never excelled, and the President was silent concerning that matter; he counselled, however, the constant study of Michael Angelo; to the Sistine Chapel the young painter hastened ac cordingly; and the following are some of his observations. “The deep knowledge of the ancients in anatomy is, I think, as observable in the Apollo and the Antinous, as it is in the Laocoon and the Torso, whose flesh is of a more rigid texture; and the dis appearing of the muscles as the figure approaches

the delicate, is the consequence of as certain observations and principles as their introduction would be in a figure of a different character. The knowledge, freedom and greatness of style in drawing, are, I think, the only part of the character of Michael Angelo which has been well understood. It has been, and is every day observed, that notwithstanding the number of figures in the Last Judgment, there is but one character of body placed in a vast diversity of attitudes, the model of which is said to have been his porter. It is not so literally the case, though I believe he might have intended it, in conformity to a prevailing opinion that at the resurrection all bodies will be of the same age and character. I do not think the expressions of countenance, either in him or in Raphael, indicate in a very clear and particular manner, the intentions and state of mind of the persons to whom this countenance is given."

His letters, his conversation, his skill in drawing, his enthusiasm and poetic imagination, had raised high expectations in the minds of English friends, They thought with satisfaction of the rich oppor tunities now before him, and of the use such a man must make of them-but unfortunately controversy was his chief delight; and of this he soon found enough to satisfy a whole academy. It happened that Rome, at this period, was visited by one of those gentlemen who, with a little income, a little learning, a little knowledge of art and a full capacity for speech, wander from gallery to gallery, delivering opinions upon works of genius with a confidence which passes with the world for the offspring of refined taste and profound knowledge. Against this person the Irish impetuosity of Barry precipitated him at once. "As he is a man of great civility," thus he writes to Burke, "I never would have thought of contradicting him, had I not seen clearly into the drift and tendency of his frequent hints of