of popular feeling in favour of one who had braved martyrdom in the cause of honesty in picture-dealing. He acknowledged, meantime, the influence of his enemies, in that sensitive part, the pocket, and said they had made his profession unprofitable— which he lamented, not on his own account, but for the sake of his benevolent friend, Burke. "It has

been a real grief to me," he writes to his patron "that I could not contribute to lighten the expenses your good nature and generosity have led you inte for me. I have nothing to say on my own behalf but that I shall carry myself so, both as a man and an artist, as never to bring a blush on your face on my account." He imagines, however, that the incivility of his opponents had done him some service, by confirming him in the resolution of playing a high game in art, and he even attributes to their malice the great progress he is making in his studies. "I saw from the beginning that I was hated, and hated for the very dispositions that I relied on to recommend me. I saw every avenue shut up from me by their power and industry, except the glorious one of my profession, so I went seriously to work and left to them the cavaliers and the wasting away of their time, in dressing up phantoms and distorted macaronies in my name."

It must be confessed that Barry looked upon life with strange eyes. "Out of the nettle danger he loved to pluck the flower safety." By living at dagger's drawing with his brethren, he avoided the expense, he said, of treats and taverns; and to their satiric comments upon his colouring, he owed, he declared, his knowledge of the merits of Titian! Having unconsciously done him these favours, his enemies commenced an attack upon him personally "This," he says with a smile, "was more in their power, for though the body and the soul of a picture will discover themselves on the slightest glance, yet you know it could not be the same with such a

pock-fritted hard-featured little fellow as I am; so that I shall be surprised if you have not been frightened with the terrible accounts given of me. The answer of Mr. Burke to all this is marked by his uncommon qualities of head and heart-it shows intimate knowledge of the world and its ways, and a perfect appreciation of the failings and excellences of the singular person to whom it is addressed. The date is London, 16th September, 1769.

"As to reports, my dear Barry, concerning your conduct and behaviour, you may be very sure they would have no kind of influence here; for none of us are of such a make as to trust to any one's report for the character of a person whom we ourselves know. Until very lately I have never heard any thing of your proceedings from others; and when I did, it was much less than I had known from myself -that you had been upon ill terms with the artists and virtuosi of Rome, without much mention of cause or consequence. If you have improved these unfortunate quarrels to your advancement in your art, you have turned a very disagreeable circumstance to a very capital advantage. However you may have succeeded in this uncommon attempt, permit me to suggest to you with that friendly liberty which you have always had the goodness to bear from me, that you cannot possibly always have the same success, either with regard to your fortune or your reputation. Depend upon it that you will find the same competitions, the same jealousies, the same arts and cabals, the emulations of interest and of fame, and the same agitations and passions here that you have experienced in Italy; and if they have the same effect on your temper, they will have just the same effects on your interest; and be your merit what it will, you will never be allowed to paint a picture. It will be the same at London as at Rome, and the same in Paris as in London for the world is pretty nearly alike in all its parts: nay, though

perhaps it would be a little inconvenient to me. 1 had a thousand times rather you should fix your residence in Rome than here, as I should not then have the mortification of seeing with my own eyes, a genius of the first rank, lost to the world, himself and his friends, as I certainly must if you do not assume a manner of acting and thinking here totally different from what your letters from Rome have described to me. That you had just subjects of indignation always, and of anger often, I do noways doubt; who can live in the world without some trial of his patience? But believe me, my dear Barry, that the arms with which the ill-dispositions of the world are to be combated, and the qualities by which it is to be reconciled to us, and we reconciled to it, are moderation, gentleness, a little indulgence to others, and a great deal of distrust of ourselves; which are not qualities of a mean spirit, as some may possibly think them, but virtues of a great and noble kind, and such as dignify our nature as much as they contribute to our repose and fortune; for nothing can be so unworthy of a well-composed soul as to pass away life in bickerings and litigations; in snarling and scuffling with every one about us. Again and again, my dear Barry, we must be at peace with our species, if not for their sakes, yet very much for own."

The conclusion of this memorable letter seems dictated by a species of inspiration, which, looking mournfully and prophetically forwards, expressed in a few, clear, and eloquent words, the disastrous career of the object of all this solicitude.

"Think what my feelings must be, from my un feigned regard for you, and from my wishes that your talents might be of use, when I see what the inevitable consequences must be of your persevering in what has hitherto been your course ever since I knew you, and which you will permit me to trace out to you beforehand. You will come here: you

will observe what the artists are doing: and you will sometimes speak disapprobation in plain words, and sometimes in no less expressive silence: by degrees you will produce some of your own works. They will be variously criticised: you will deferd them: you will abuse those who have attacked you: expostulations, discussions, letters, possibly challenges, will go forward-you will shun your brethren-they will shun you. In the mean time gentlemen will avoid your friendship, for fear of being engaged in your quarreis: you will fall into distress, which will only aggravate your disposition for farther quarrels: you will be obliged, for maintenance, to do any thing for any body: your very talents will depart for want of hope and encouragement, and you will go out of the world fretted, disappointed, and ruined. Nothing but my real regard for you could induce me to set these considerations in this light before you. Remember, we are born to serve and to adorn our country, and not to contend with our fellow-citizens-and that in particular, your business is to paint and not to dispute.'

It really appears that Barry imagined himself all this while one of the meekest beings that ever studied the antique. The fear of some and the hatred of others he imputed to any cause save his own headlong impetuosity of temper; nay, he actually seems to have supposed that his scornful sallies and sarcastic criticisms would be received with thankfulness, since they sprung from nothing but zeal for the benefit of art. From the first day of his appearance in Rome, he took the station of a judge, and delivered opinions with the intrepidity of one grown gray in study and in fame. All this in a young man of three or four and twenty, who could not as yet appeal to the excellence of his own works as his warrant, was not likely to be received with gratitude, particularly by a proverbially thin skinned and irritable tribe. Yet he never conVOL. II.-G

ceived he was to blame, and wrote down art as largely his debtor for candour and boldness. He defied the world, but he defended himself to Burke. "Your friendship is, I think, as visible in the warm picture you have drawn of my contentious disposition, as in any other part of your generous conduct towards me; but then shall I assure you that I am not that censorious inspector and publisher of the defects of other artists? No; you know me better, notwithstanding what you have said, and I know, whether from my vanity or my virtue, if I have any, you will never meet with an artist more warm and just to the merit of his brethren, or more inclined to overlook their deficiencies than I am."

A charge of a graver nature than infirmity of temper, after having long been whispered about in professional coteries, has lately been set forth in Mr. Smith's Life of Nollekens. "Barry, the historical painter," says this writer, "who was extremely intimate with Nollekens at Rome, took the liberty one night, when they were about to leave the English Coffee-house, to exchange hats with him. Barry's hat was edged with lace, and Nollekens' was a very shabby plain one. Upon his returning the hat next morning, he was requested by Nollekens to let him know why he left him his goldlaced hat. Why, to tell you the truth, my dear Joey,' answered Barry, 'I fully expected assassination last night, and I was to have been known by my gold laced hat.' This villanous transaction, which might have proved fatal to Nollekens, I have often heard him relate, and he generally added, 'It's what the Old Bailly people would call a true bill against Jem.'"

Such is Smith's story; and it is well known to many that Nollekens often related it—but nevertheless we must receive it with distrust and suspicion. Barry was fierce, sullen, and sarcastic, but

cannot believe him capable of an atrocity. At