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annotations, and a life of Giraldus." In this life, an elegant and elaborate composition, although the facts are not materially different from the preceding, yet the colouring is more highly favourable, and we refer with pleasure to it as a memoir in which the curiosity of the antiquary will be amply gratified. Sir Richard thus briefly sums up the character of Girald: "Noble in his birth, and comely in his person; mild in his manners, and affable in his conversation; zealous, active, and undaunted in maintaining the rights and dignities of his church; moral in his character, and orthodox in his principles; charitable and disinterested, though ambitious; learned, though superstitious. Such was Giraldus. And in whatever point of view we examine the character of this extraordinary man, whether as a scholar, a patriot, or a divine, we may justly consider him as one of the brightest luminaries that adorned the annals of the twelfth century."

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BARRY (JAMES), lord Santry, descended from a Welch family, was the son of a merchant in Dublin, and educated in the profession of the law. When admitted at the bar, he practised for some years with great reputation and success. In 1629, the king conferred upon him the office of his majesty's serjeant at law, for the kingdom of Ireland, at a yearly fee of twenty pounds ten shillings sterling, and in as full a manner as the same office was granted before to sir John Brereton, knt.; and lord Wentworth, afterwards earl of Strafford and lord deputy of Ireland, soon discovered his abilities, took him under his protection, and laid hold of the first opportunity he had to promote him. Accordingly, on the 5th of August 1634, he obtained a grant of the office of second baron of the exchequer of Ireland, to hold during pleasure, with such fees, rewards, and profits, as sir Robert Oglethorpe, sir Lawrence Parsons, sir Gerard Lowther, or any other second baron, did or ought to receive; and he soon after received the honour of knighthood. He obtained this favour, notwithstanding a powerful recommendation from England in behalf of another; and it was merely the fruit of the lord Wentworth's friendship, of which he had occasion, soon after, of making a public acknowledgement. After the year 1640, when the parliament of Ireland were

Leland.-Tanner and Bale.-Biog. Brit.-Henry's Hist. of Great Britain, vol. VI.-Nicolson's Historical Library.-Cave, vol. II.-Saxii Onomasticon.

about to send over a committee of their body to England, to impeach the earl of Strafford, he joined all his weight and interest with sir James Ware, and other members of the house of commons, to oppose those measures; though the torrent was so violent, that it was fruitless, nor do we hear much of our baron during the long course of the rebellion, till a little before the restoration of king Charles II. in the year 1660, when he was appointed chairman of the convention, which voted his majesty's restoration without any previous conditions, in which resolution, no doubt, he was instrumental, since we find his majesty took his merit into consideration a very short time after. For on the 17th of November that year, the king issued a privy seal for advancing him to the office of chief-justice in the king's bench in Ireland, and another on the 18th of December following, in consideration of his eminent fidelity and zeal shewn in his majesty's service, for creating him lord baron of Santry, in the kingdom of Ireland, to him and the heirs male of his body; and he was soon after called to the privy council. He died in March 1672, and was buried in Christ church, Dublin. His only publication was, "The case of Tenures upon the commission of defective titles, argued by all the judges of Ireland, with the resolution, and reasons of their resolution," Dublin, 1637, fol.; and 1725, 12mo, dedicated to his patron, lord Strafford.1

BARRY (JAMES), an English artist of considerable fame, was the eldest son of John Barry and Julian Roerden, and was born in Cork, Oct. 11, 1741. His father was a builder, and in the latter part of his life a coasting trader between England and Ireland. James was at first destined to this last business, but as he disliked it, his father suffered him to pursue his inclination, which led him to drawing and reading. His early education he received in the schools at Cork, where he betrayed some symptoms of that peculiar frame of mind which became more conspicuous in his maturer years. His studies were desultory, directed by no regular plan, yet he accumu-. lated a considerable stock of knowledge. As his mother was a zealous Roman Catholic, he fell into the company of some priests, who recommended the study of polemical divinity, and probably all of one class, for this ended in his becoming a staunch Roman Catholic.

Biog. Brit.

Although the rude beginnings of his art cannot be traced, there is reason to think that at the age of seventeen he had attempted oil-painting, and between the ages of seventeen and twenty-two be executed a picture, the subject "St. Patrick landing on the sea-coast of Cashell," which he exhibited in Dublin. This procured him some reputation, and, what was afterwards of much importance, the acquaintance of the illustrious Edmund Burke. During his stay in Dublin, he probably continued to cultivate his art, but no particular work can now be discovered. After a residence of seven or eight months in Dublin, an opportunity offered of accompanying some part of Mr. Burke's family to London, which he eagerly embraced. This took place in 1764, and on his arrival, Mr. Burke recommended him to his friends, and procured for him his first employ-. ment, that of copying in oil drawings by the Athenian Stuart. In 1765, Mr. Burke and his other friends furnished him with the means of visiting Italy, where he surveyed the noble monuments of art then in that country, with the eye of an acute, and often very just critic, but where, at the same time, his residence was rendered uncomfortable by those unhappy irregularities of temper, which, more or less, obscured all his prospects in life.

After an absence of five years, mostly spent at Rome, he arrived in England in 1771, and claimed the admiration of the public, not unsuccessfully, by his "Venus" and his "Jupiter and Juno," the former one of his best pictures. In his "Death of Wolfe," he failed, principally from his introducing naked figures, and he was obliged to yield, somewhat reluctantly, to the more popular picture of Mr. West. This "Death of Wolfe," which he painted in 1776, was the last he exhibited at the royal academy. About 1774, he conceived an aversion to portrait-painting, from a dread of being confined to the modern costume of dress, which certainly at that time was far less graceful, and less correspondent with the human figure, than at present. It is well known, however, that he violated his own principles in some of the figures introduced in his great work in the society's rooms in the Adelphi, when he was under no kind of constraint; but this difference between theory and practice was in many instances remarkable in Barry.

When a design was formed of decorating St. Paul's cathedral with the works of our most eminent painters and

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sculptors, Barry was to have been employed, and his subject was "The Jews rejecting Christ, when Pilate entreats his release," but the scheme was discouraged, and its probable success can now be only a subject of speculation. In 1775, he appeared as an author, in a publication entitled, an "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 all the productions of his pen, and a masterly defence of the capabilities of English artists under proper encouragement; and it contains many just remarks on that state of public taste which is favourable to the perfection of the art. The same train of ideas has been since pursued by Mr. Shee, in his poetical works; an artist, whose productions of the pencil, great and superior as they are, suggest a doubt whether if he had been a writer, and only a writer, he would not have been the first man of his age, in the philosophy of the art, in exquisite fancy and taste, and that. variety of imagery and illustration which belongs only to poets of the higher class.

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 in the Adelphi, belonging to the society of arts, but this was refused by the artists themselves, probably because they were to be remunerated in equal shares, by an exhibition of the pictures. We cannot much wonder at their declining a scheme, which promised to reduce them to this kind of level, and would indeed imply an equality in every other respect. Three years afterwards, however, in 1777, Mr. Barry undertook the whole, and his offer was accepted. It would have been singular, 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 was often after painting all day obliged to sketch or engrave at night some design for the print-sellers, 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, &c.

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Of his terms with the society, we know only that the choice of subjects was allowed him, and the society was to defray the expence of canvas, colours, and models. In the course of 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 100l. a year. He computed that he should finish the whole in two years, and pay back the 200l. to the subscribers by means of 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 the work employed him seven years; at the end of which, the society granted him two exhibitions, and at different periods voted him fifty guineas, their gold medal, and again 200 guineas, and a seat among them. Of this great undertaking, a series of six pictures, representing the progress of society, and civilization among mankind, it has been said "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 colouring, defects the more remarkable, because in his printed correspondence and lectures, his theory on these subjects is accurate and unexceptionable. These pictures were afterwards engraved, but what they produced is not known. In 1792, however, he deposited 700l. in the funds, and to this wealth he never afterwards made any great addition, for he never possessed more than 60l. a year from the funds, a sum barely sufficient to pay the rent and other charges of his house, but as his domestic œconomy was of the meanest kind, this sum was probably not insufficient.

In 1782, he was elected professor of painting, in room of Mr. Penny, but did not lecture until 1784. His lectures, now printed, are unquestionably among the best of his writings. 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 connection which the Pagan world had with their false Gods, and the union of Jews and Christians with their

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