mason; but some authorities state that he had been also a victualler. At the time of Barry's birth, he was the master of a small coasting vessel in which he traded between England and Ireland.

Barry is understood to have received a good education in the ordinary branches of scholarship. At an early age, however, his father took him with him to sea, and made him do duty as a ship-boy. This occupation he detested. The love of painting had already taken possession of him, and his greatest pleasure was to cover the deck with sketches of objects made with chalk or ochre. His father, at last, finding all his efforts to make him a sailor of no avail, allowed him to remain at home, and to pursue his studies in literature and art. He now returned to school, and distinguished himself by an ardour and diligence which left all his class-fellows behind him. Even his play-hours were generally given to hard study. Instead of associating with the other boys in their amusements, his practice was to retire to his room, and there to employ himself in reading or painting. Whatever money he got, he spent in purchasing books, or candles to enable him to read during the night. His enthusiasm was at this time (and indeed throughout his life) partly sustained also by certain notions of the virtue of ascetic observances, which he had derived from his mother, who was a Catholic, and had great influence over him. In conformity with these opinions he was wont to sleep, when he did take rest, upon the hardest bed, and to wear the coarsest clothes he could procure. These theological prejudices were not calculated to have a salutary effect upon the growth of a character like that of Barry, whose morose and atrabilious temperament rather required an education calculated to bring the gentler affections of his nature more into play.

His ardour in study, however, both at this and every other part of his life, was admirable. He had as yet but few books of his own, but he borrowed from all who had any to lend, and sometimes learned the passages which he liked by heart, (a practice of which he soon found the advantage, in the growing strength of his memory), and sometimes transcribed them. It is said that transcripts of several entire volumes, which he had made at this period, were found after his death among his papers. Among the works which he especially delighted to study, it is recorded, were many on controversial divinityunfortunately not the most wholesome sustenance for an intellectual and moral organization like his.

He was in his seventeenth year when he first attempted to paint in oil; and for some years he wrought with no one to encourage or to notice him. Among the first performances which he produced, were compositions on the escape of Eneas from Troy, the story of Susannah and the Elders, and that of Daniel in the Lion's Den. These pictures he hung up on the walls of his father's house, and there they remained long after the painter's fame had spread over Europe. At last, in his twentieth or twenty-first year, he produced a work which appeared to himself such as he might exhibit in a more public place. This was a picture on the fine subject of the baptism by St. Patrick of one of the kings of Cashel, who stands unmoved while the ceremony is performed, amidst a circle of wondering and horrorstruck spectators, although the saint, in setting down. his crozier, has, without perceiving it, struck its iron point through the royal foot. With this work he set out for Dublin, and placed it in the exhibition room of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts. It was universally admired. But no one knew the artist, or fancied that he was a native of the country; and

when Barry, who used frequently to come to the room to observe the impression it made, dressed in the same coarse attire which he wore in the country, one day, overcome by emotions which he could no longer conceal, announced himself the painter of the picture, his avowal was received with an incredulous laugh. He burst into tears and left the room. The patriotism of his countrymen, however, amply recompensed him for this when they found that he, an Irishman, was really the person who had produced this admired performance. The young ascetic soon found himself the favourite of the gayest society of his native metropolis. But perceiving that this new course of life interrupted his studies, and seduced him occasionally into worse follies, he became alarmed, and determined to withdraw himself from it before it should have become a habit. These feelings came over him with so much force one night when he was returning from a tavern where he had spent the evening with a bacchanalian party, that he actually threw what money he had in his pocket into the river, cursing it as having betrayed him into the excesses of which he had been guilty, and from that day returned to his books and his easel.

Meantime, however, he had also acquired some worthier friends; and, among others, had been introduced to the illustrious Edmund Burke, then commencing his splendid political career as assistant to the secretary of the Lord Lieutenant. A story has been told respecting Barry's first interview with Burke, which would be interesting if it could be received as true. Having got into an argument with each other, Barry is said to have quoted a passage from the " Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful" in support of his opinion; on which Burke expressed himself slightingly of that anonymous performance. This insensibility to the merits of a work

which was one of his especial favourites, fired Barry, and, after vehemently eulogizing the book, he concluded by declaring, that not having been able to purchase it when it first came into his hands, he had actually transcribed the whole of it. His surprise and delight were extreme, when, in reply to this appeal, his friend told him that he was himself the author of the work. "And here," exclaimed Barry, taking a bundle of papers from his pocket, "is the very copy I made of it with my own hand." All the truth that there probably is in this story is merely that Barry quoted Burke's own essay in reply to some of that gentleman's arguments. He could hardly have been ignorant that Burke was the author of the work, which had been published so far back as 1757, at least five or six years before the interview in question is stated to have occurred.

But Burke did not satisfy himself with merely bestowing upon his young countryman the patronage of his favourable regard. Although, at this time, his income was an extremely limited one, he most generously undertook to provide the means of sending Barry to Italy, and supporting him there while he nourished and matured his genius by the study of the works of the great masters. Accordingly, after he had been seven or eight months in Dublin, the young artist proceeded, at Burke's invitation, to London, where the latter now resided. For a short time he was occupied in making copies of some paintings in oil for James Stuart, the author of the "Antiquities of Athens;" an employment which Burke procured for him, and which was well calculated to improve him in his art. In the end of the year 1765 he left London for the continent, and, passing through France, proceeded to Rome. He remained absent from England about six years in all, during the whole of which time Burke, assisted by

his two brothers, supplied the funds necessary for his support. During his residence at Rome Barry was not idle-that, with all his faults, he never was at any time of his life-but his studies were not always directed so wisely as they might have been to the object which he ought to have had principally in view; and his unfortunate temper involved him in continual quarrels with his brother students. He received from Burke the best advice, administered in the kindest manner; but all failed to have much effect.

He made his re-appearance in London in the beginning of the year 1771, and immediately proceeded to give proof of his improved powers by painting some pictures, which he exhibited. But it was not his fortune to meet with much applause. All his performances were characterized by certain obvious defects of execution, which struck every body, while their merits were frequently not of a kind to be appreciated by the multitude. Among other pictures he painted one, in 1776, on the death of Wolfe, in which, as had been usual in such pieces, the combatants were represented naked, it being in those days held impossible to preserve any heroic effect where modern costume was introduced. But just at this time West produced his noble picture on the same subject, in which all the figures were painted dressed as they had actually been; and the force of nature and truth carried it over the scruples of criticism. Barry's performance was found quite unequal to sustain any competition, in point of attraction, with its rival. This and many other disappointments he had to bear; nor were those the least of his vexations which he brought upon himself by his own absurd and ungovernable temper. He had been before this time chosen an Associate of the Royal Academy, but he had already quarrelled with