nothing but the free exercise of his own judgment, free admission at all times to his undertaking, and that the necessary models should be provided for him without expense.

ments.

He had now "ample room and verge enough" to exhaust his powers of imagination, and exhibit all his knowledge and skill. The subject which he selected for illustration was Human Improvement -presenting a succession of varied pictures of society. He divided the whole into six compart"We begin," said the artist, describing his own conceptions, "with man in a savage state, full of inconvenience, imperfection, and misery, and we follow him through several gradations of culture and happiness, which, after our probationary state here, are finally attended with beatitude or misery. The first is the story of Orpheus; the second, a Harvest-home or Thanksgiving to Ceres and Bacchus; the third, the Victors at Ölympia; the fourth, Navigation, or the Triumph of the Thames; the fifth, the Distribution of Premiums in the Society of Arts; and the sixth, Elysium, or the State of final Retribution. Three of these subjects are poetical; the others historical." He commenced these works in 1777, and finished them in 1783. A short description may not be unacceptable.

The first picture represents Orpheus as the founder of Grecian civilization, uniting in one character the legislator, divine, philosopher, poet, and musician. He stands in a wild and savage country, surrounded by people as uncultivated as their soil, to whom, as messenger of the gods, he is pouring out his song of instruction, accompanied by the music of the lyre. The hearers of this celestial delegate are armed with clubs, and clad in the skins of wild beasts; they have courage and strength, by which they subdue lions and tigers; but they want wisdom for their own protection and for that of their offspring. In illustration of this, a matron is seen, at

a little distance from the door of her hut, milking a goat, while her children are about to become the prey of a lion; two horses are run down by a tiger; and a damsel, carrying a dead fawn, leans on the shoulder of her male coinpanion. "I wished to glance," said the painter, "at a matter often observed by travellers, which is, that the value and estimation of women increase according to the growth and cultivation of society, and that among savage nations they are in a condition little better than the beasts of burden." In the distance, Ceres descends on the world; and by the side of Orpheus lie paper, an egg, a bound lamb, and materials for sacrifice.

The second piece exhibits a dance of youths and maidens round the terminal figure of Pan. On one side appears the father of the harvest feast, with a white staff or rustic sceptre in his hand, accompanied by his wife; on the other is a group of peasants, carousing amid rakes and ploughs, and fruits and flowers; while behind the whole, two oxen are seen drawing a load of corn to the threshing-floor. Ceres, Bacchus and Pan overlook from the clouds this scene of innocent festivity. A farm-house, with all its in-door and out-door economy is there. Love, too, and marriage mingle in the scene: children abound; rustic games are not forgotten; and aged men repose on the ground, applauding sports in which they can no longer participate.

The third picture, the crowning of the victors in the Olympian games, shows the judges seated on a throne, bearing the likenesses of Solon, Lycurgus and other legislators, and trophies of Salamis, Marathon, and Thermopylæ. Before them pass the victors crowned; people are crowding to look on them. The heroes, poets, sages, and philosophers of Greece are present. Pindar leads the chorus: Hiero, of Syracuse, follows in his chariot : Diagorus, the Rhodian, is borne round the stadium on the

shoulders of his victorious sons: Pericles is seen speaking to Cimon; while Socrates, Anaxagoras, and Euripides listen, and Aristophanes laughs and seoffs.

The fourth piece descends to modern times, and the scene is laid at home. The Thames triumphs in the presence of Drake, Raleigh, Cabot, and Cooke. Mercury, as Commerce, accompanies them; and Nereids are carrying articles of manufacture and industry. Some of these demi-celestial porters are more sportive than laborious, and others still more wanton than sportive. As music is connected closely with all matters of joy and triumph, Burney, the composer, accompanies Drake and Raleigh, and cheers them with his instrument.

The fifth picture is a meeting of the members of the Society of Arts, discoursing on the manufactures, commerce, and liberal pursuits of the country, and distributing the annual premiums. It is an assemblage of the chief promoters of the institution, male and female, with the gratuitous addition of Johnson and Burke.

The sixth picture is a view of Elysium. Mental Culture conducts to Piety and Virtue, and Piety and Virtue are rewarded by Immortal Happiness. In a picture forty-two feet long, the artist had room for the admission of many of the great and the good of all nations. Greece and Rome, France, Italy, and England, supplied him largely; and he has endeavoured to bring together the chief of their distinguished sons in one connected group, over which a splendour is shed from between the wings of angels.

Those who have examined these extraordinary works will hardly dispute that the artist grappled with a subject too varied, complicated, and profound for the pencil. The moral grandeur of the undertaking, and the historical associations which it awakened, together with the room which it afforded VOL. II.-I

for the display of imagination, imposed upon the ardent and indiscriminating Barry, and he probably began

With desperate charcoal round the darken'd walls

of the Adelphi,—in the belief that the subject would unfold and brighten upon him by degrees. But the sunrise of knowledge, and the full day of art and science, involved discoveries and inventions which painting could not well find shape nor colour to express. The fault of the work lies in the subject: he that runs cannot read, and he who reads cannot always understand. The description, by Barry's own pen, opens the secret somewhat: without it these six pictures, instead of presenting one continual story-simple in conception and unembarrassed in detail-would appear like so many splendid riddles. The grand style (which our artist thought to revive in this fashion) is the simplest of all, and can be comprehended without comment.

That Jonas Hanway left a guinea instead of a shilling, for his admission to see the Adelphi pictures-that Johnson beheld "a grasp of mind in them which he could find nowhere else"-and that Townley declared they were "composed upon the true principles of the best paintings," are sayings and doings sufficiently notorious, and which have had and will have their weight with the world. Nay, Lord Aldborough wrote to the artist such praise as I am half afraid to transcribe. "When I return to town, I shall again and again visit these unequalled performances: they will stand the comparison of the past and the test of future ages, for originality of design, instruction, colouring, energy and disposition of figure, and judgment and success in the invention and execution. You have taken in all the perfections, combined all the qualities of Raphael, Titian, Guido, and the most celebrated artists of

the Grecian and Roman schools; and your literary works prove that you possess all the liberal arts as well as painting; and reflect equal honour on the age we live in, as shame on this country for the want of due encouragement. My house and fortune are at your service till your fortune equal your abilities." I know not what answer was returned to this splendid offer.

On those six pictures Barry spent six years-instead of three, which he had originally contemplated—a miscalculation that involved him in many difficulties, out of which he strove to extricate himself by uncommon frugality, self-denial, and labour during the periods he should have reserved for repose. He gave his day to the Adelphi, and much of his night to hurried drawings and hasty engravings, by the profits of which he sustained life. "He has recorded some of his prints," says Dr. Fryer," as done at this time--such as his Job, Birth of Venus, head of Lord Chatham, King Lear. Many lighter things were done at the pressure of the moment, and never owned." During the progress of the work he began to perceive, and perhaps to feel, the approaches of want; and to keep this adversary of genius at bay, he applied to Sir George Savile a leading member of the Society of Arts-to communicate his situation to his brethren, and by a small subscription enable him to exist till he had finished the undertaking. The appeal was in vain. Nay, he experienced some difficulty in obtaining that allowance for models and colours for which he had expressly stipulated, and was subjected to the official insolence of the acting secretary. The Society afterward reflected, that it would be injurious to allow a man to starve whom they might have to bury, and they accordingly kept his soul and body together-first, by two donations of fifty guineas each, and the gift of a gold medal, and, lastly, two hundred guineas at the conclusion of the work.