MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS ON THE FINE ARTS (continued 4)

With regard to the pecuniary advantages arising from the public 411patronage of the arts;—the plan unfortunately defeats itself; for it multiplies its objects faster than it can satisfy their claims; and raises up a swarm of competitors for the prize of genius from the dregs of idleness and dulness. The real patron is anxious to reward merit, not to encourage gratuitous pretensions to it; to see that the man of genius takes no detriment, that another Wilson is not left to perish for want;—not to propagate the breed of embryo candidates for fame. Offers of public and promiscuous patronage can in general be little better than a species of intellectual seduction, administering provocatives to vanity and avarice, and leading astray the youth of the nation by fallacious hopes, which can scarcely ever be realized. At the same time, the good that might be done by private taste and benevolence, is in a great measure defeated. The moment that a few individuals of discernment and liberal spirit become members of a public body, they are no longer anything more than parts of a machine, which is usually wielded at will by some officious, overweening pretender; their good-sense and good-nature are lost in a mass of ignorance and presumption; their names only serve to reflect credit on proceedings in which they have no share, and which are determined on by a majority of persons who have no interest in the arts but what arises from the importance attached to them by regular organization, and no opinions but what are dictated to them by some self-constituted judge. As far as we have had an opportunity of observing the conduct of such bodies of men, instead of taking the lead of public opinion, of giving a firm, manly, and independent tone to that opinion, they make it their business to watch all its caprices, and follow it in every casual turning. They dare not give their sanction to sterling merit, struggling with difficulties, but take advantage of its success, to reflect credit on their own reputation for sagacity. Their taste is a servile dependant on their vanity, and their patronage has an air of pauperism about it. Perhaps the only public patronage which was ever really useful to the arts, or worthy of them, was that which they received first in Greece, and afterwards in Italy, from the religious institutions of the country; when the artist felt himself, as it were, a servant at the altar; when his hand gave a visible form to Gods or Heroes, Angels or Apostles; and when the enthusiasm of genius was exalted by mingling with the flame of national devotion. The artist was not here degraded, by being made the dependant on the caprice of wealth or fashion, but felt himself at once the servant and the benefactor of the public. He had to embody, by the highest efforts of his art, subjects which were sacred to the imagination and feelings of the spectators; there was a common link, a mutual sympathy between them in their common faith. Every 412other mode of patronage, but that which arises, either from the general institutions and manners of a people, or from the real unaffected taste of individuals, must, we conceive, be illegitimate, corrupted in its source, and either ineffectual or injurious to its professed object.

Lastly, Academies and Institutions may be supposed to assist the progress of the fine arts, by promoting a wider taste for them.

In general, it must happen in the first stages of the arts, that as none but those who had a natural genius for them would attempt to practise them,—so none but those who had a natural taste for them, would pretend to judge of or criticise them. This must be an incalculable advantage to the man of true genius; for it is no other than the privilege of being tried by his peers. In an age when connoisseurship had not become a fashion; when religion, war, and intrigue, occupied the time and thoughts of the great, only those minds of superior refinement would be led to notice the works of art, who had a real sense of their excellence; and, in giving way to the powerful bent of his own genius, the painter was most likely to consult the taste of his judges. He had not to deal with pretenders to taste, through vanity, affectation, and idleness. He had to appeal to the higher faculties of the soul,—to that deep and innate sensibility to truth and beauty, which required only fit objects to have its enthusiasm excited,—and to that independent strength of mind, which, in the midst of ignorance and barbarism, hailed and fostered genius whereever it met with it. Titian was patronised by Charles V. Count Castiglione was the friend of Raphael. These were true patrons and true critics; and, as there were no others (for the world, in general, merely looked on and wondered), there can be little doubt that such a period of dearth of factitious patronage would be most favourable to the full developement of the greatest talents, and to the attainment of the highest excellence.

By means of public institutions, the number of candidates for fame, and pretenders to criticism, is increased beyond all calculation, while the quantity of genius and feeling remain much the same as before; with these disadvantages, that the man of original genius is often lost among the crowd of competitors who would never have become such, but from encouragement and example, and that the voice of the few whom nature intended for judges, is apt to be drowned in the noisy and forward suffrages of shallow smatterers in Taste.

413

JAMES BARRY

Barry (James) an eminent painter, was born in Cork, in Ireland, October 11, 1741. His father had been a builder, and at one time of his life, a coasting trader between the two countries of England and Ireland. To this business of a trader was James destined, and he actually made, when a boy, several voyages; but these voyages being forced upon him, he on one occasion ran away from the ship, and on others discovered such an aversion to the life and habits of a sailor, as to induce his father to quit all hopes of him in this line, and to suffer him to pursue his inclinations, which led him to drawing and study. When on board his father’s vessel, instead of handling sails and ropes, and climbing the mast, he was generally occupied with a piece of black chalk, sketching the coast, or drawing figures, as his fancy directed him. When his father found that the idea of making a sailor of him must be given up, he permitted him to acquire as much instruction as the schools of Cork afforded; but long retained his aversion to the chalk drawings, with which the floors and walls of the house were covered; the boy being always engaged in some attempt at large figures, and early catching at the means of representing action, attitude, and passion. It was at a very early period of his life that some bookseller in Ireland, undertaking to reprint a set of fables or emblems, young Barry offered to furnish the drawings, and, as it is believed, helped to etch the engravings, such as they were. At the schools in Cork, which he was sent to, he was distinguished by his parts and industry above his school-fellows; his habits differed from those of ordinary boys, as he seldom mixed in their games or amusements, but at those times stole off to his own room, where he worked at his pencil, or was studying some book that he had borrowed or bought. He would spend whole nights in this manner at his studies, to the alarm of his mother, who dreaded his injuring his health or setting fire to the house, and who often kept up his sister or the servant to watch him. His allowance of money he spent in buying books or candles to read by; he sometimes locked himself up in his room for days, and seldom slept upon his bed, or else made it so hard as to take away the temptation or luxury of lying long in it. Perhaps the unsocial and ascetic turn of his temper, which thus early manifested itself, might be remarked as the source both of the misfortunes of his life, and the defects of his genius. Common humanity, a sense of pleasure, and a sympathy 414with the feelings of those around us, is not more necessary to success in life, than it probably is to success in the fine arts. Few things can be more fatal to the artist than this sort of indifference to the common pleasures and pursuits of life. If affected, it is bad; if real and constitutional, it is even worse. It stuck to poor Barry to the last. It is not to be understood that, at this period of his life, he led the life of an absolute recluse, for he could and did occasionally join in any feats going on in the neighbourhood, and was not behind other boys in such pastimes and mischief as boys are usually fond of. An adventure which happened to him about this time, and which left a strong impression on his mind, is worth mentioning here. In one of his rambles in the neighbourhood, he entered, one winter’s evening, an old, and, as he thought, an uninhabited house, situate in a narrow bye-lane in the city of Cork. The house was without doors or windows; but curiosity impelled him to enter, and, after mounting a rotten staircase, which conducted to empty rooms on different floors, he arrived at the garret, where he could just discern, by the glimmering light of a few embers, two old and emaciated figures, broken by age, disease, and want, sitting beside each other, in the act, as far as their palsied efforts would permit, of tearing each other’s faces; not a word being uttered by either, but with the most horrible grimaces that malice could invent. They took no notice of his entrance, but went on with their deeds of mutual hate, which made such an impression on the boy that he ran down stairs, making his own reflections, which he afterwards found verified through life, that man and all animals are malicious and cruel in proportion as they are impotent; and that age and poverty, two of the worst evils in human life, almost always add to the calamities inherent in them by arts of their own creating. In general, his great desire to improve his mind led him to seek the society of educated men; who were not averse to receive him, seeing his active and inquisitive disposition, and his seriousness of manner, couched under a garb the plainest and coarsest; for he adopted this kind of attire from his childhood, not from affectation, but from an indifference to all dress. Having a retentive memory, he profited by his own reading, and by the conversation of others, who directed him also in the choice of books. As his finances were too low to make many purchases, he borrowed books from his friends, and was in the practice of making large extracts from such as he particularly liked, and sometimes even of copying out the whole book, of which several specimens were found among his papers, written in a stiff school-boy’s hand. As his industry was excessive, his advances in the acquisition of knowledge were rapid, and he was regarded as a prodigy by his school-fellows. His mother 415being a zealous Catholic, the son could not avoid mixing at times in the company of priests resident at Cork, who pointed out to him books of polemical divinity, of which he became a great reader, and for which he retained a strong bias during his lifetime. He was said at one time to have been destined for the priesthood, but for this report there is no authority. He, however, always continued a Catholic, and in the decline of life manifested rather a bigoted attachment to the religion of his early choice. For a short interval he had a little wavering in his belief of revealed religion in general; but a conversation with Mr. Edmund Burke put an end to this levity. A book which Mr. Burke lent him, and which settled his mind on this subject, was Bishop Butler’s Analogy; and, as a suitable reward, he has placed this Prelate in the group of divines, in his picture of Elysium.

About the age of seventeen he first attempted oil paintings; and between that and the age of twenty-two, when he first went to Dublin, he produced several large ones, which decorated his father’s house, and represented subjects not often handled by young men; such as Æneas escaping with his family from the flames of Troy; Susanna and the Elders; Daniel in the Lion’s Den, &c. At this period, he also produced the picture which first drew him into public notice, launched him on an ampler theatre than his native town of Cork afforded, and, above all, gained him the acquaintance and patronage of Mr. Burke. This picture was founded on an old tradition of the landing of St. Patrick on the sea-coast of Cashel, and of the conversion and baptism of the king of that district by the patron saint of Ireland. The priest, in the act of baptizing his new convert, inadvertently strikes the spear of the crosier in the foot of the monarch. The holy father, absorbed in the duties of his office, does not perceive what he has done, and the king, without interrupting the ceremony, bears the pain with immoveable fortitude. This incident, together with the gestures and expressions of the attendants, certainly formed a good subject for an historical picture; and Mr. Barry’s manner of treating it was such as to insure him the applause and admiration of the connoisseurs of the metropolis of the sister kingdom, where it was exhibited in 1762 or 1763. Mr. Barry took this picture with him to Dublin; and afterwards going to the exhibition room, being delighted with the encomiums it received from the spectators, he could not refrain from making himself known as the painter. His pretensions were treated with great contempt by the company, and Barry burst into tears of anger and vexation. But the incredulity of his hearers was a compliment paid to the real or supposed excellence of his painting. It appears that a Dr. Sleigh, a 416physician of Cork, and a sensible and amiable man, was first instrumental in introducing young Barry to the notice of Mr. Burke. During their early acquaintance, having fallen into a dispute on the subject of taste, Barry quoted a passage in support of his opinion from the Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, which had been just then published anonymously, and which Barry, in his youthful admiration of it, had, it seems, transcribed entire. Burke affected to treat this work as a theoretical romance, of no authority whatever, which threw Barry into such a rage in its defence, that Mr. Burke thought it necessary to appease him by owning himself to be the author. The scene ended in Barry’s running to embrace him, and showing him the copy of the work which he had been at the pains to transcribe. He passed his time in Dublin in reading, drawing, and society. While he resided here, an anecdote is preserved of him, which marks the character of the man. He had been enticed by his companions several times to carousings at a tavern, and one night, as he wandered home by himself, a thought struck him of the frivolity and viciousness of thus mis-spending his time: the fault, he imagined, lay in his money, and, therefore, without more ado, in order to avoid the morrow’s temptation, he threw the whole of his wealth, which perhaps amounted to no great sum, into the Liffey, and locked himself up at his favourite pursuits. 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 some time in the year 1764, when he was twenty-three years of age, and with one of those advantages which do not always fall to the lot of young artists on their arrival in the British capital, that of being recommended to the acquaintance of the most eminent men in the profession by the persuasive eloquence of a man who, to genius in himself, added the rare and noble quality of encouraging it in others; this was Mr. Burke, who lost no time, not merely in making Barry known, but in procuring for him the first of all objects to an inexperienced and destitute young artist, employment. This employment was chiefly that of copying in oil drawings by Mr. Stewart, better known by the name of Athenian Stewart; and whether it suited the ambition of Barry or not, to be at this kind of labour, yet there can be no doubt that he profited by his connection with such a man as Stewart, and had full leisure to cast his eye about, and to improve by the general aspect of art and artists that occupied the period.

Mr. Burke and his other friends thinking it important that he should be introduced to a wider and nobler school of art than this country afforded, now came forward with the means necessary to accomplish this object; and in the latter end of 1765 Mr. Barry proceeded 417to the Continent, where he remained till the beginning of 1771, studying his art with an enthusiasm which seemed to augur the highest success, and making observations on the different chef d’œuvres of Italy with equal independence of judgment and nicety of discrimination. He was supported during this period by the friendly liberality of the Burke family (Edmund, William, and Richard), who allowed him forty pounds a-year for his necessary expenditure, besides occasional remittances for particular purposes. He proceeded first to Paris, then to Rome, where he remained upwards of three years, from thence to Florence and Bologna, and home through Venice. His letters to the Burkes, giving an account of Michael Angelo, Raphael, Titian, and Leonardo da Vinci, show a complete insight into the characteristic merits of their works, and would make us wonder (if the case were at all singular) how he could enter with such force, delicacy, and feeling, into excellencies of which he never transplanted an atom into his own works. He saw, felt, and wrote; his impressions were profound and refined, but the expression of them must be instantaneous, such as gave the results of them with a stroke of the pen, as they were received by a glance of the eye, and he could not wait for the slow process of the pencil for embodying his conceptions in the necessary details of his own art. It was his desire to make the ideas and language of painting co-instantaneous,—to express abstract results by abstract mechanical means (a thing impossible),—to stamp the idea in his mind at once upon the canvass, without knowledge of its parts, without labour, without patience, without a moment’s time or thought intervening between what he wished to do and its being done, that was perhaps the principal obstacle to his ever attaining a degree of excellence in his profession at all proportioned either to his ambition or his genius. It is probable, that, as his hand had not the patience to give the details of objects, his eye, from the same habit of mind, had not the power to analyze them. It is possible, however, to see the results without the same laborious process that is necessary to convey them; for the eye sees faster than the hand can move.

We suspect Mr. Barry did not succeed very well in copying the pictures he so well describes; because he appears to have copied but few, only one of Raphael, as far as we can find, and three from Titian, whom he justly considered as the model of colouring, and as more perfect in that department of the art than either Raphael or Michael Angelo were in theirs, expression and form, the highest excellence in which he conceives to have been possessed only by the ancients. In copying from the antique, however, he manifested the same aversion to labour, or to that kind of labour which, by showing 418us our defects, compels us to make exertions to remedy them. He made all his drawings from the antique, by means of a delineator, that is, a mechanical instrument, to save the trouble of acquiring a knowledge both of form and proportion. In this manner, equally gratifying to his indolence and his self-love, he is stated to have made numberless sketches of the antique statues, of all sizes, and in all directions, carefully noting down on his sketch-paper their several measurements and proportions.

The consequences are before us in his pictures; namely, that all those of his figures which he took from these memorandums are deficient in every thing but form, and that all the others are equally deficient in form and every thing else. If he did not employ his pencil properly, or enough, in copying from the models he saw, he employed his thoughts and his pen about them with indefatigable zeal and spirit. He talked well about them; he wrote well about them; he made researches into all the collateral branches of art and knowledge, sculpture, architecture, cameos, seals, and intaglios. There is a long letter of his, addressed to Mr. Burke, on the origin of the Gothic style of architecture, written, as it should seem, to convince his friend and patron of his industry in neglecting his proper business. Soon after his arrival at Rome, he became embroiled with the whole tribe of connoisseurs, painters, and patrons there, whether native or foreign, on subjects of virtù; and he continued in this state of hostility with those around him while he staid there, and, indeed, to the end of his life. One might be tempted to suppose that Barry chiefly studied his art as a subject to employ his dialectics upon. On this unfortunate disposition of his to wrangling and controversy, as it was likely to affect his progress in his art and his progress in life, he received some most judicious advice from Sir Joshua Reynolds and Mr. Burke, his answers to which show an admirable self-ignorance. On his irritable denunciations of the practices and tricks of the Italian picture-dealers, Mr. Burke makes a reflection well deserving of attention. ‘In particular, you may be assured that the traffic in antiquity, and all the enthusiasm, folly, and fraud, which may be in it, never did, nor never can, hurt the merit of living artists. Quite the contrary, in my opinion: for I have ever observed, that, whatever it be that turns the minds of men to anything relative to the arts, even the most remotely so, brings artists more and more into credit and repute; and though, now and then, the mere broker and dealer in such things runs away with a great deal of profit, yet, in the end, ingenious men will find themselves gainers by the dispositions which are nourished and diffused in the world by such pursuits.’ Mr. Barry painted two pictures while abroad, his Adam and Eve and his 419Philoctetes. The first of these he sent home as a specimen of his progress in the art. It does not appear to have given much satisfaction. His Philoctetes he brought home with him. It is a most wretched, coarse, unclassical performance, the direct opposite of all that he thought it to be. During his stay at Rome, he made an excursion to Naples, and was highly delighted with the collections of art there. All the time he was abroad, Mr. Burke and his brothers not only were punctual in their remittances to him, but kept up a most friendly and cordial correspondence. On one occasion, owing to the delay of a letter, a bill which Barry had presented to a banker was dishonoured. This detained Barry for some time at the place where he was in very awkward circumstances, and he had thoughts of getting rid of his chagrin and of his prospects in life at once, by running away and turning friar. For some time previous to his return to England, Mr. Hamilton (afterwards Sir William) appears to have been almost the only person with whom he kept up any intimacy. It was on his return home through Milan that he witnessed, and has recorded with due reprobation, the destruction of Leonardo’s Last Supper, which two bungling artists were employed to paint over by order of one Count de Firmian, the secretary of state.

In the spring of 1771, Mr. Barry arrived in England, after an absence of five years. He soon after produced his picture of Venus, which has been compared to the Galatea of Raphael, the Venus of Titian, and the Venus of Medicis, without reason. Mr. Barry flattered himself that he had surpassed the famous statue of that name, by avoiding the appearance of maternity in it. There is an engraving of it by Mr. Valentine Green. In 1773, he exhibited his Jupiter and Juno on Mount Ida, which was much praised by some critics of that day. His Death of General Wolfe was considered as a falling off from his great style of art, which consisted in painting Greek subjects, and it accordingly is said to ‘have obtained no praise.’ His fondness for Greek costume was assigned by his admirers as the cause of his reluctance to paint portraits; as if the coat was of more importance than the face. His fastidiousness, in this respect, and his frequent excuses, or blunt refusals, to go on with a portrait of Mr. Burke, which he had begun, caused a misunderstanding with that gentleman, which does not appear to have been ever entirely made up. The difference between them is said to have been widened by Burke’s growing intimacy with Sir Joshua, and by Barry’s feeling some little jealousy of the fame and fortune of his rival in an humbler walk of the art. He, about the same time, painted a pair of classical subjects, Mercury inventing the Lyre, and Narcissus looking at himself in the water, the last suggested to him by Mr. 420Burke. He also painted an historical picture of Chiron and Achilles, and another of the story of Stratonice, for which last the Duke of Richmond gave him a hundred guineas. In 1773, there was a plan in contemplation for our artists to decorate the inside of St. Paul’s with historical and sacred subjects; but this plan fell to the ground, from its not meeting with the concurrence of the Bishop of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury, to the no small mortification of Barry, who had fixed upon the subject he was to paint,—the rejection of Christ by the Jews when Pilate proposes his release. In 1775, he published An Inquiry into the real and imaginary Obstructions to the Acquisition of the Arts in England, vindicating the capacity of the English for the fine arts, and tracing their slow progress hitherto to the Reformation; to political and civil dissensions; and, lastly, to the general turn of the public mind to mechanics, manufactures, and commerce. In the year 1774, shortly after the failure of the scheme of decorating St. Paul’s, a proposal was made, through Mr. Valentine Green, to the same artists, Reynolds, West, Cipriani, Barry, &c. for ornamenting the great room of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, in the Adelphi, with historical and allegorical paintings. This proposal was at the time rejected by the artists themselves; but, in 1777, Mr. Barry made an offer to paint the whole himself, on condition of being allowed the choice of his subjects, and being paid the expense of canvass, paints, and models, by the Society. This offer was accepted, and he finished the series of pictures at the end of seven years, instead of two, which he had proposed to himself, but with entire satisfaction to the members of the Society, for whom it was intended, and who conducted themselves to him with liberality throughout. They granted him two exhibitions, and at different periods voted him 50 guineas, their gold medal, and again 200 guineas, and a seat among them. Dr. Johnson remarked, when he saw the pictures, that, ‘whatever the hand had done, the head had done its part.’ There was an excellent anonymous criticism, supposed to be by Mr. Burke, published on them, in answer to some remarks put forth by Barry, in his descriptive catalogue, on the ideal style of art, and the necessity of size to grandeur. His notions on both these subjects are very ably controverted, and, indeed, they are the rock on which Barry’s genius split. It would be curious if Mr. Burke were the author of these strictures; for it is not improbable that Barry was led into the last error, here deprecated, by that author’s Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful. The series consists of six pictures, showing the progress of human culture. The first represents Orpheus taming the savages by his lyre. The figure of Orpheus himself is more like a drunken bacchanal than an inspired poet or lawgiver. The 421only part of this picture which is valuable is the background, in one part of which a lion is seen ready to dart upon a family group milking near a cave, and, in another, a tyger is pursuing a horse. There is certainly a scope of thought and picturesque invention, in thus showing indirectly the protection which civilization extends, as it were, over both man and animals. The second picture is a Grecian harvest, which has nothing Grecian in it. But we cannot apply this censure to the third picture of the Olympic Games, some of the figures in which, and the principal group, are exceedingly graceful, classical, and finely conceived. This picture is the only proof Mr. Barry has left upon canvass that he was not utterly insensible to the beauties of the art. The figure of the young man on horseback really reminds the spectator of some of the Elgin marbles; and the outlines of the two youthful victors at the games, supporting their father on their shoulders, are excellent. The colouring is, however, as bald and wretched in this picture as the rest, and there is a great want of expression. The fourth picture is the triumph of commerce, with Dr. Burney swimming in the Thames, with his hair powdered, among naked sea-nymphs. The fifth, the Society of Arts, distributing their annual prizes. And the sixth represents Elysium. This last picture is a collection of caricatured portraits of celebrated individuals of all ages and nations, strangely jumbled together, with a huge allegorical figure of Retribution driving Heresy, Vice, and Atheism, into the infernal regions. The moral design of all these pictures is much better explained in the catalogue than on the canvass; and the artist has added none of the graces of the pencil to it in any of them, with the exception above made. Mr. Barry appears, however, to have rested his pretensions to fame as an artist on this work, for he did little afterwards but paltry engravings from himself, and the enormous and totally worthless picture of Pandora in the assembly of the gods. His self-denial, frugality, and fortitude, in the prosecution of his work at the Adelphi, cannot be too much applauded. He has been heard to say, that at the time of his undertaking it, he had only 16s. in his pocket; and that he had often been obliged, after painting all day, to sit up at night to sketch or engrave some design for the printsellers, which was to supply him with his next day’s subsistence. In this manner he did his prints of Job, dedicated to Mr. Burke, of the birth of Venus, Polemon, Head of Chatham, King Lear, from the picture painted for the Shakespear gallery, &c. His prints are caricatures even of his pictures: they seem engraved on rotten wood.

Soon after Mr. Barry’s return from the Continent, he was chosen a member of the Royal Academy; and in 1782, was appointed 422professor of painting, in the room of Mr. Penny, with a salary of £30 a-year. The lectures which he delivered from the chair were full of strong sense, and strong advice, both to the students and academicians. Among other things, he insisted much on the necessity of purchasing a collection of pictures by the best masters as models for the students, and proposed several of those in the Orleans collection. This recommendation was not relished by the academicians, who, perhaps, thought their own pictures the best models for their several pupils. Bickerings, jealousies, and quarrels arose, and at length reached such a height, that, in 1799, Mr. Barry was expelled from the academy, soon after the appearance of his Letter to the Dilettanti Society; a very amusing, but eccentric publication, full of the highest enthusiasm for his art, and the lowest contempt for the living professors of it. In 1800, he undertook a design or drawing to celebrate the union of the two kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland. The profits of the two exhibitions of the Adelphi pictures are said to have amounted to above £500. Lord Romney presented him with 100 guineas for his portrait, which had been copied into one of the pictures, and he had twenty guineas for a head of Mr. Hooper. He probably received other sums for portraits introduced into the work. By extreme frugality he contrived, not only to live, but to save money. His house was twice robbed of sums which he kept by him; one of the times (in 1794) of upwards of £100; a loss which was made up by the munificence of Lord Radnor, and by that of his friends, the Hollis’s. After the loss of his salary, a subscription was set on foot by the Earl of Buchan to relieve him from his difficulties, and to settle him in a larger house to finish his picture of Pandora. The subscription amounted to £1000, with which an annuity was bought; but of this he was prevented from enjoying the benefit; for, on the 6th of February 1806, he was seized with a pleuritic fever, and as he neglected medical assistance at first, it was afterwards of no use. After lingering on for a fortnight in considerable pain, but without losing his fortitude of mind, he died on the 22d of the same month. On the 13th of March, the body was taken to the great room of the Society of Arts, and was thence attended, the following day, by a numerous and respectable train of his friends to the cathedral of St. Paul’s, where it was deposited.

Mr. Barry, as an artist, a writer, and a man, was distinguished by great inequality of powers and extreme contradictions in character. He was gross and refined at the same time; violent and urbane; sociable and sullen; inflammable and inert; ardent and phlegmatic; relapsing from enthusiasm into indolence; irritable, headstrong, impatient of restraint; captious in his intercourse with his friends, 423wavering and desultory in his profession. In his personal habits he was careless of appearances or decency, penurious, slovenly, and squalid. He regarded nothing but his immediate impulses, confirmed into incorrigible habits. His pencil was under no control. His eye and his hand seemed to receive a first rude impulse, to which it gave itself up, and paid no regard to any thing else. The strength of the original impetus only drove him farther from his object. His genius constantly flew off in tangents, and came in contact with nature only at salient points. There are two drawings of his from statues of a lion and a lioness at Rome; the nose of the lioness is two straight lines; the ears of the lion two curves, which might be mistaken for horns; as if, after it had taken its first direction, he lost the use of his hand, and his tools worked mechanically and monotonously without his will. His enthusiasm and vigour were exhausted in the conception; the execution was crude and abortive. His writings are a greater acquisition to the art than his paintings. The powers of conversation were what he most excelled in; and the influence which he exercised in this way over all companies where he came, in spite of the coarseness of his dress, and the frequent rudeness of his manner, was great. Take him for all in all, he was a man of whose memory it is impossible to think without admiration as well as regret.

ORIGINALITY

Originality is any conception of things, taken immediately from nature, and neither borrowed from, nor common to, others. To deserve this appellation, the copy must be both true and new. But herein lies the difficulty of reconciling a seeming contradiction in the terms of the explanation. For as any thing to be natural must be referable to a consistent principle, and as the face of things is open and familiar to all, how can any imitation be new and striking, without being liable to the charge of extravagance, distortion, and singularity? And, on the other hand, if it has no such peculiar and distinguishing characteristic to set it off, it cannot possibly rise above the level of the trite and common-place. This objection would indeed hold good and be unanswerable, if nature were one thing, or if the eye or mind comprehended the whole of it at a single glance; in which case, if an object had been once seen and copied in the most cursory and mechanical way, there could be no farther addition to, or variation from, this idea, without obliquity and affectation; but nature presents an endless 424variety of aspects, of which the mind seldom takes in more than a part or than one view at a time; and it is in seizing on this unexplored variety, and giving some one of these new but easily recognised features, in its characteristic essence, and according to the peculiar bent and force of the artist’s genius, that true originality consists. Romney, when he was first introduced into Sir Joshua’s gallery, said, ‘there was something in his portraits which had been never seen in the art before, but which every one must be struck with as true and natural the moment he saw it.’ This could not happen if the human face did not admit of being contemplated in several points of view, or if the hand were necessarily faithful to the suggestions of sense. Two things serve to perplex this question; first, the construction of language, from which, as one object is represented by one word, we imagine that it is one thing, and that we can no more conceive differently of the same object than we can pronounce the same word in different ways, without being wrong in all but one of them; secondly, the very nature of our individual impressions puts a deception upon us; for, as we know no more of any given object than we see, we very pardonably conclude that we see the whole of it, and have exhausted inquiry at the first view, since we can never suspect the existence of that which, from our ignorance and incapacity, gives us no intimation of itself. Thus, if we are shown an exact likeness of a face, we give the artist credit chiefly for dexterity of hand; we think that any one who has eyes can see a face; that one person sees it just like another, that there can be no mistake about it (as the object and the image are in our notion the same)—and that if there is any departure from our version of it, it must be purely fantastical and arbitrary. Multum abludit imago. We do not look beyond the surface; or rather we do not see into the surface, which contains a labyrinth of difficulties and distinctions, that not all the effects of art, of time, patience, and study, can master and unfold. But let us take this self-evident proposition, the human face, and examine it a little; and we shall soon be convinced what a Proteus, what an inexplicable riddle it is! Ask any one who thinks he has a perfect idea of the face of his friend, what the shape of his nose or any other feature is, and he will presently find his mistake;—ask a lover to draw his ‘mistress’ eyebrow,’ it is not merely that his hand will fail him, but his memory is at fault both for the form and colour; he may, indeed, dream, and tell you with the poet, that

‘Grace is in all her steps, heaven in her eye,

In every gesture, dignity and love’:—

but if he wishes to embody his favourite conceit, and to convince any 425one else of all this by proof positive, he must borrow the painter’s aid. When a young artist first begins to make a study from a head, it is well known that he has soon done, because after he has got in a certain general outline and rude masses, as the forehead, the nose, the mouth, the eyes in a general way, he sees no farther, and is obliged to stop; he feels in truth that he has made a very indifferent copy, but is quite at a loss how to supply the defect—after a few months’ or a year or two’s practice, if he has a real eye for nature and a turn for his art, he can spend whole days in working up the smallest details, in correcting the proportions, in softening the gradations; and does not know when to leave off, till night closes in upon him, and then he sits musing and gazing in the twilight at what remains for his next day’s work. Sir Joshua Reynolds used to say, that if he did not finish any one of his pictures till he saw nothing more to be done to it, he should never leave off. Titian wrote on his pictures, faciebat—as much as to say that he was about them, but that it was an endless task. As the mind advances in the knowledge of nature, the horizon of art enlarges and the air refines. Then, in addition to an infinity of details, even in the most common object, there is the variety of form and colour, of light and shade, of character and expression, of the voluptuous, the thoughtful, the grand, the graceful, the grave, the gay, the I know not what; which are all to be found (separate or combined) in nature, which sufficiently account for the diversity of art, and to detect and carry off the spolia opima of any one of which is the highest praise of human genius and skill—

‘Whate’er Lorrain light-touch’d with softening hue,

Or savage Rosa dash’d, or learned Poussin drew.’

All that we meet with in the master-pieces of taste and genius is to be found in the previous capacity of nature; and man, instead of adding to the store, or creating any thing either as to matter or manner, can only draw out a feeble and imperfect transcript, bit by bit, and one appearance after another, according to the peculiar aptitude and affinity that subsists between his mind and some one part. The mind resembles a prism, which untwists the various rays of truth, and displays them by different modes and in several parcels. Enough has been said to vindicate both conditions of originality, which distinguish it from singularity on the one hand and from vulgarity on the other; or to show how a thing may at the same time be both true and new. This novel truth is brought out when it meets with a strong congenial mind—that is, with a mind in the highest degree susceptible of a certain class of impressions, or of a certain kind of beauty or power; and this peculiar strength, congeniality, truth of imagination, or command 426over a certain part of nature, is, in other words, what is meant by genius. This will serve to show why original inventors have in general (and except in what is mechanical), left so little for their followers to improve upon; for as the original invention implies the utmost stretch and felicity of thought, or the greatest strength and sagacity to discover and dig the ore from the mine of truth, so it is hardly to be expected that a greater degree of capacity should ever arise (than the highest), that a greater mastery should be afterwards obtained in shaping and fashioning the precious materials, than in the first heat and eagerness of discovery; or that, if the capacity were equal, the same scope and opportunity would be left for its exercise in the same field. If the genius were different, it would then seek different objects and a different vent, and open new paths to fame and excellence, instead of treading in old ones. Hence the well-known observation, that in each particular style or class of art, the greatest works of genius are the earliest. Hence, also, the first productions of men of genius are often their best. What was that something that Romney spoke of in Reynolds’s pictures that the world had never seen before, but with which they were enchanted the moment they beheld it, and which both Hoppner and Jackson, with all their merit, have but faintly imitated since? It was a reflection of the artist’s mind—an emanation from his character, transferred to the canvass. It was an ease, an amenity, an indolent but anxious satisfaction, a graceful playfulness, belonging to his disposition, and spreading its charm on all around it, attracting what harmonized with, and softening and moulding what repelled it, avoiding every thing hard, stiff, and formal, shrinking from details, reposing on effect, imparting motion to still life, viewing all things in their ‘gayest, happiest attitudes,’ and infusing his own spirit into nature as the leaven is kneaded into the dough; but, though the original bias existed in himself, and was thence stamped upon his works, yet the character could neither have been formed without the constant recurrence and pursuit of proper nourishment, nor could it have expressed itself without a reference to those objects, looks, and attitudes in nature, which soothed and assimilated with it. What made Hogarth original and inimitable, but the wonderful redundance, and, as it were, supererogation of his genius, which poured the oil of humanity into the wounds and bruises of human nature, redeemed, while it exposed, vice and folly, made deformity pleasing, and turned misfortune into a jest? But could he have done so if there were no enjoyment or wit in a night-cellar, or if the cripple could not dance and sing? No, the moral was in nature; but let no one dare to insist upon it after him, in the same language and with the same pretensions! There was 427Rembrandt—did he invent the extremes of light and shade, or was he only the first that embodied them? He was so only because his eye drank in light and shade more deeply than any one before or since; and, therefore, the sunshine hung in liquid drops from his pencil, and the dungeon’s gloom hovered over his canvass. Who can think of Correggio without a swimming of the head—the undulating line, the melting grace, the objects advancing and retiring as in a measured dance or solemn harmony! But all this fulness, roundness, and delicacy, existed before in nature, and only found a fit sanctuary in his mind. The breadth and masses of Michael Angelo were studies from nature, which he selected and cast in the mould of his own manly and comprehensive genius. The landscapes of Claude are in a fixed repose, as if nothing could be moved from its place without a violence to harmony and just proportion: in those of Rubens every thing is fluttering and in motion, light and indifferent, as the winds blow where they list. All this is characteristic, original, a different mode of nature, which the artist had the happiness to find out and carry to the utmost point of perfection. It has been laid down that no one paints any thing but his own character, and almost features; and the workman is always to be traced in the work. Mr. Fuseli’s figures, if they were like nothing else, were like himself, or resembled the contortions of a dream; Wilkie’s have a parochial air; Haydon’s are heroical; Sir Thomas’s genteel. What Englishman could bear to sit to a French artist? What English artist could hope to succeed in a French coquet? There is not only an individual but a national bias, which is observable in the different schools and productions of art. Mannerism is the bane (though it is the occasional vice) of genius, and is the worst kind of imitation, for it is a man’s imitating himself. Many artists go on repeating and caricaturing themselves, till they complain that nature puts them out. Gross plagiarism may consist with great originality. Sterne was a notorious plagiarist, but a true genius. His Corporal Trim, his Uncle Toby, and Mr. Shandy, are to be found no where else. If Raphael had done nothing but borrow the two figures from Masaccio, it would have been impossible to say a word in his defence: no one has a right to steal, who is not rich enough to be robbed by others. So Milton has borrowed more than almost any other writer; but he has uniformly stamped a character of his own upon it. In what relates to the immediate imitation of nature, people find it difficult to conceive of an opening for originality, inasmuch as they think that they themselves see the whole of nature, and that every other view of it is wrong:—in what relates to the productions of imagination or the discoveries of science, as they themselves are totally in the dark, 428they fancy the whole to be a fabrication, and give the inventor credit for a sort of dealing with the Devil, or some preternatural kind of talent. Poets lay a popular and prescriptive claim to inspiration: the astronomer of old was thought able to conjure with the stars; and the skilful leech, who performed unexpected cures was condemned for a sorcerer. This is as great an error the other way. The vulgar think there is nothing in what lies on the surface; though the learned only see beyond it by stripping off incumbrances and coming to another surface beneath the first. The difference between art and science is only the difference between the clothed and naked figure: but the veil of truth must be drawn aside before we can distinctly see the face. The physician is qualified to prescribe remedies because he is acquainted with the internal structure of the body, and has studied the symptoms of disorders: the mathematician arrives at his most surprising conclusions by slow and sure steps; and where he can add discovery to discovery by the very certainty of the hold he has of all the previous links. There is no witchcraft in either case. The invention of the poet is little more than the fertility of a teeming brain—that is, than the number and quantity of associations present to his mind, and the various shapes in which he can turn them without being distracted or losing a ‘semblable coherence’ of the parts; as the man of observation and reflection strikes out just and unforeseen remarks by taking off the mask of custom and appearances; or by judging for himself of men and things, without taking it for granted that they are what he has hitherto supposed them, or waiting to be told by others what they are. If there were no foundation for an unusual remark in our own consciousness or experience, it would not strike us as a discovery: it would sound like a jeu-d’esprit, a whim or oddity, or as flat nonsense. The mere mob, ‘the great vulgar and the small,’ are not therefore capable of distinguishing between originality and singularity, for they have no idea beyond the commonplace of fashion or custom. Prejudice has no ears either for or against itself; it is alike averse to objections and proofs, for both equally disturb its blind implicit notions of things. Originality is, then, ‘the strong conception’ of truth and nature ‘that the mind groans withal,’ and of which it cannot stay to be delivered by authority or example. It is feeling the ground sufficiently firm under one’s feet to be able to go alone. Truth is its essence; it is the strongest possible feeling of truth; for it is a secret and instinctive yearning after, and approximation towards it, before it is acknowledged by others, and almost before the mind itself knows what it is. Paradox and eccentricity, on the other hand, show a dearth of originality, as bombast and hyperbole show a dearth of imagination; they are the desperate resources of 429affectation and want of power. Originality is necessary to genius; for when that which, in the first instance, conferred the character, is afterwards done by rule and routine, it ceases to be genius. To conclude, the value of any work of art or science depends chiefly on the quantity of originality contained in it, and which constitutes either the charm of works of fiction or the improvement to be derived from those of progressive information. But it is not so in matters of opinion, where every individual thinks he can judge for himself, and does not wish to be set right. There is, consequently, nothing that the world like better than originality of invention, and nothing that they hate worse than originality of thought. Advances in science were formerly regarded with like jealousy, and stigmatised as dangerous by the friends of religion and the state: Galileo was imprisoned in the same town of Florence, where they now preserve his finger pointing to the skies!

THE IDEAL

The ideal is the abstraction of any thing from all the circumstances that weaken its effect, or lessen our admiration of it. Or it is filling up the outline of truth or beauty existing in the mind, so as to leave nothing wanting or to desire farther. The principle of the ideal is the satisfaction we have in the contemplation of any quality or object, which makes us seek to heighten, to prolong, or extend that satisfaction to the utmost; and beyond this we cannot go, for we cannot get beyond the highest conceivable degree of any quality or excellence diffused over the whole of an object. Any notion of perfection beyond is is a word without meaning—a thing in the clouds. Another name for the ideal is the divine; for, what we imagine of the Gods is pleasure without pain—power without effort. The ideal is the impassive and immortal: it is that which exists in and for itself; or is begot by the intense idea and innate love of it. Hence it has been argued by some, as if it were brought from another sphere, as Raphael was said to have fetched his Galatea from the skies; but it was the Gods, ‘the children of Homer,’ who peopled ‘the cloud-capt Olympus.’ The statue of Venus was not beautiful because it represented a goddess; but it was supposed to represent a goddess, because it was in the highest degree (that the art or wit of man could make it so) and in every part beautiful. Goddesses also walk the earth in the shape of women; the height of nature surpasses the utmost stretch of the imagination; the human form is alone the image of the divinity. 430It has been usual to represent the ideal as an abstraction of general nature, or as a mean or average proportion between different qualities and faculties, which, instead of carrying any one to the highest point of perfection or satisfaction, would only neutralise and damp the impression. We take our notions on this subject chiefly from the antique; but what higher conception do we form of the Jupiter of Phidias than that of power frowning in awful majesty? or of the Minerva of the same hand, than that of wisdom, ‘severe in youthful beauty?’ We shall do well not to refine in our theories beyond these examples, that have been left us—

‘Inimitable on earth by model,

Or by shading pencil shown.’

What is the Venus, the Apollo, the Hercules, but the personification of beauty, grace, and strength, or the displaying these several properties in every part of the attitude, face, and figure, and in the utmost conceivable degree, but without confounding the particular kinds of form or expression in an intermediate something, pretended to be more perfect than either? A thing is not more perfect by becoming something else, but by being more itself. If the face of the Venus had been soft and feminine, but the figure had not corresponded, then this would have been a defect of the ideal, which subdues the discordances of Nature in the mould of passion, and so far from destroying character, imparts the same character to all, according to a certain established idea or preconception in the mind. The following up the contrary principle would lead to the inevitable result, that the most perfect, that is, the most abstract, representation of the human form could contain neither age nor sex, neither character nor expression, neither the attributes of motion nor rest, but a mere unmeaning negation or doubtful balance of all positive qualities—in fact, to propose to embody an abstraction is a contradiction in terms. The attempt to carry such a scheme into execution would not merely supersede all the varieties and accidents of nature, but would effectually put a stop to the productions of art, or reduce them to one vague and undefined abstraction, answering to the word man. That amalgamation, then, of a number of different impressions into one, which in some sense is felt to constitute the ideal, is not to be sought in the dry and desert spaces or the endless void of metaphysical abstraction, or by taking a number of things and muddling them all together, but by singling out some one thing or leading quality of an object, and making it the pervading and regulating principle of all the rest, so as to produce the greatest strength and harmony of effect. This is the natural progress of 431things, and accords with the ceaseless tendency of the human mind from the Finite to the Infinite. If I see beauty, I do not want to change it for power; if I am struck with power, I am no longer in love with beauty; but I wish to make beauty still more beautiful, power still more powerful, and to pamper and exalt the prevailing impression, whatever it be, till it ends in a dream and a vision of glory. This view of the subject has been often dwelt upon: I shall endeavour to supply some inferences from it. The ideal, it appears then by this account of it, is the enhancing and expanding an idea from the satisfaction we take in it; or it is taking away whatever divides, and adding whatever increases our sympathy with pleasure and power ‘till our content is absolute,’ or at the height. Hence that repose which has been remarked as one striking condition of the ideal; for as it is nothing but the continued approximation of the mind to the great and the good, so in the attainment of this object it rejects as much as possible not only the petty, the mean, and disagreeable, but also the agony and violence of passion, the force of contrast, and the extravagance of imagination. It is a law to itself. It relies on its own aspirations after pure enjoyment and lofty contemplation alone, self-moved and self-sustained, without the grosser stimulus of the irritation of the will, privation, or suffering—unless when it is inured and reconciled to the last (as an element of its being) by heroic fortitude, and when ‘strong patience conquers deep despair.’ In this sense, Milton’s Satan is ideal, though tragic: for it is permanent tragedy, or one fixed idea without vicissitude or frailty, and where all the pride of intellect and power is brought to bear in confronting and enduring pain. Mr. Wordsworth has expressed this feeling of stoical indifference (proof against outward impressions) admirably in the poem of Laodamia:—

‘Know, virtue were not virtue, if the joys

Of sense were able to return as fast

And surely as they vanish. Earth destroys

Those raptures duly: Erebus disdains—

Calm pleasures there abide, majestic pains.’

These lines are a noble description and example of the ideal in poetry. But the ideal is not in general the stronghold of poetry. For description in words (to produce any vivid impression) requires a translation of the object into some other form, which is the language of metaphor and imagination; as narrative can only interest by a succession of events and a conflict of hopes and fears. Therefore, the sphere of the ideal is in a manner limited to 432Sculpture and Painting, where the object itself is given entire without any possible change of circumstances, and where, though the impression is momentary, it lasts for ever. Hence we may see the failure in Sir Charles Grandison, which is an attempt to embody this perfect or ideal character in a succession of actions without passion, and in a variety of situations where he is still the same everlasting coxcomb, and where we are tired to death of the monotony, affectation, and self-conceit. The story of ‘Patient Grizzle,’ however fine the sentiment, is far from dramatic: for the ideal character, which is the self-sufficient, the immovable, and the one, precludes change, or at least all motive for, or interest in, the alternation of events, to which it constantly rises superior. Shakspeare’s characters are interesting and dramatic, in proportion as they are not above passion and outward circumstances, that is, as they are men and not angels. The Greek tragedies may serve to explain how far the ideal and the dramatic are consistent; for the characters there are almost as ideal as their statues, and almost as impassive; and perhaps their extreme decorum and self-possession is only rendered palatable to us by the story which nearly always represents a conflict between Gods and men. The ideal part is, however, necessary at all times to the grandeur of tragedy, since it is the superiority of character to fortune and circumstances, or the larger scope of thought and feeling thrown into it, that redeems it from the charge of vulgar grossness or physical horrors. Mrs. Siddons’s acting had this character; that is to say, she kept her state in the midst of the tempest of passion, and her eye surveyed, not merely the present suffering, but the causes and consequences; there was inherent power and dignity of manner. In a word, as there is a sanguine temperament, and a health of body and mind which floats us over daily annoyances and hindrances (instead of fastening upon petty and disagreeable details), and turns every thing to advantage, so it is in art and works of the imagination, the principle of the ideal being neither more nor less than that fulness of satisfaction and enlargement of comprehension in the mind itself that assists and expands all that accords with it, and throws aside and triumphs over whatever is adverse. Grace in movement is either that which is continuous and consistent, from having no obstacles opposed to it, or that which perseveres in this continuous and equable movement from a delight in it, in spite of interruption or uneven ground; this last is the ideal, or a persisting in, and giving effect to, our choice of the good, notwithstanding the unfavourableness of the actual or outward circumstances. We may in like manner trace the origin of dancing, music, and poetry, which is the march of words. Self-possession is 433the ideal in ordinary behaviour. A low or vulgar character seizes on every trifling or painful circumstance that occurs, from irritability and want of imagination to look beyond the moment; while a person of more refinement and capacity, or with a stronger predisposition of the mind to good, and a greater fund of good sense and pleasurable feeling to second it, despises these idle provocations, and preserves an unruffled composure and serenity of temper. This internal character, being permanent, communicates itself to the outward expression in proportionable sweetness, delicacy, and unity of effect, which it requires all the same characteristics of the mind to feel and convey to others; and hence the superiority of Raphael’s Madonnas over Hogarth’s faces. Keeping is not the ideal, for there may be keeping in the little, the mean, and the disjointed, without strength, softness or expansion. The Fauns and Satyrs of antiquity belong (like other fabulous creations) rather to the grotesque than the ideal. They may be considered, however, as a bastard species of the ideal, for they stamp one prominent character of vice and deformity on the whole face, instead of going into the minute, uncertain, and shuffling details. As to the rest, the ideal abhors monsters and incongruity. If the horses in the Elgin marbles, or the boar of Meleager, are ranked with the human figures, it is from their being perfect representations of the forms and actions of the animals designed, not caricatures half-way between the human and the brute.

The ideal, then, is the highest point of purity and perfection to which we can carry the idea of any object or quality. The natural differs from the ideal style, inasmuch as what anything is differs from what we wish and can conceive it to be. Many people would substitute the phrase, from what it ought to be, to express the latter part of the alternative, and would explain what a thing ought to be by that which is best. But for myself, I do not understand, or at least it does not appear to me, a self-evident proposition, either what a thing ought to be, or what it is best that it should be; it is only shifting the difficulty a remove farther, and begging the question a second time. I may know what is good; I can tell what is better: but that which is best is beyond me—it is a thing in the clouds. There is perhaps also a species of cant—the making up for a want of clearness of ideas by insinuating a pleasing moral inference—in the words purity and perfection used above; but I would be understood as meaning by purity nothing more than a freedom from alloy or any incongruous mixture in a given quality or character of an object, and by perfection completeness, or the extending that quality to all the parts and circumstances of an object, so that it shall be as nearly as possible of a piece. The imagination does not ordinarily bestow any pains on 434that which is mean and indifferent in itself, but having conceived an interest in any thing, and the passions being once excited, we endeavour to give them food and scope by making that which is beautiful still more beautiful, that which is striking still more grand, that which is hateful still more deformed, through the positive, comparative, and superlative degrees, till the mind can go no farther in this progression of fancy and passion without losing the original idea, or quitting its hold of nature, which is the ground on which it still rests with fluttering pinions. The ideal does not transform any object into something else, or neutralize its character, but, by removing what is irrelevant and supplying what was defective, makes it more itself than it was before. I have included above the Fauns and Satyrs, as well as the Heroes and Deities of antique art, or the perfection of deformity as well as of beauty and strength, but any one who pleases may draw the line, and leave out the exceptionable part; it will make no difference in the principle.

Venus is painted fair, with golden locks, but she must not be fair beyond the fairness of woman—for the beauty we desire is that of woman—nor must the hair be actually of the colour of gold, but only approaching to it, for then it would no longer look like hair, but like something else, and in striving to enhance the effect we should weaken it. Habit, as well as passion, knowledge as well as desire, is one part of the human mind; nor, in aiming at imaginary perfection, are we to confound the understood boundaries and distinct classes of things, or ‘to o’erstep the modesty of nature.’ We may rise the superstructure of fancy as high as we please; the basis is custom. We talk in words of an ivory skin, of golden tresses; but these are but figures of speech, and a poetical licence. Richardson acknowledges that Clarissa’s neck was not so white as the lace on it, whatever the poets might say if they had been called upon to describe it.

ROYAL ACADEMY

The choice of a President for this Society is one of some nicety. Where there is not any individual taking a decided and indisputable lead in art, it requires a combination and balance of qualities not always easily to be met with. The President of the great body of art in this country ought not merely to be eminent in his profession, but a man of gentlemanly manners, of good person, of respectable character, and standing well in the opinion of his brother artists. He should be a person free from peculiarity of temper, from party spirit, and able to represent the elegant arts (of which he stands at the head) as the last 435ostensible link connecting scientific pursuit with the enlightened taste and aristocratic refinements of their immediate patrons. The choice has fallen upon Mr. Shee, and his honours will sit well upon him. This artist has been long a favourite with the public in the most popular branch of his art, and is scarcely less distinguished by his occasional brilliant effusions as a poet and his accomplishments as a man. The characteristics of Mr. Shee’s style of portrait painting are vivacity of expression, facility of execution, and clearness of colouring. He has attempted history with some success. Perhaps if he had done more in this way, it might have been to his own detriment; and the habits and studies of the historical painter, immersed in a world of retirement and abstraction, are such as hardly serve for an introduction to situations of ornament and distinction in social life. Mr. Wilkie’s merits as a painter of familiar subjects have procured him the deserved honour of being appointed ‘historical painter to the King’—the admirable busts of Mr. Chantrey might also have been thrown into the opposite scale; but, upon the whole, the judgment of the public will not take the laurel from the head where the hands of the Academy have placed it. If we might hint a fault where so much praise is due, it would be by expressing a wish that Mr. Shee could more boldly say with Rembrandt, ‘Je suis peintre, non pas teinturier.’ His tones are too pure, approaching too nearly to virgin tints. For one department of his office the new President is happily qualified—we mean the delivery of lectures from the Chair of the Royal Academy. The art of painting is dumb but Mr. Shee can borrow the aid of a sister muse.

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