Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 1.djvu/78

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BARRY.
67

incessant, and a pulse quick and feeble. Succeeding remedies proved of little avail. With exacerbations and remissions of fever, he lingered to the 22nd of February, when he expired." His remains, after lying in state in the great room of the Society of Arts, Adelphi, were interred in St, Paul's Cathedral, with due solemnity, and the attendance of many of his friends and admirers, among whom was not one artist.

When we consider Barry's style, in comparison with other works of art, it is difficult to assign it a specific place or degree. He is the proselyte of no particular master, the disciple of no particular school. That stamp of originality which marked every feature of his character, is strongly conspicuous in his works. His works, indeed, are but an amplification of his character, for he did not possess that protean faculty of genius which can assume the form and colour of the object it creates; that faculty by which Shakspeare identified himself with Falstaff, Hamlet, and Hotspur: Barry's genius, in this particular, bore a nearer resemblance to that of Dante and Milton. The artist is perpetually present in his work; but this species of obstinate personality has an interest of its own, and is never insipid, though it wants the charm of versatility.

Barry, with the mind of a philosopher, had little of the feelings of a painter. He delighted to construct magnificent systems of ethics; and he employed his pencil to illustrate those systems, sometimes with as little reference to the natural and intrinsic capabilities of art, as the herald painter, when arranging his quarterings, gives to the harmony of colours. The picture of "Final Retribution" is a sufficient evidence of this: that composition, in whatever relates to the philosophy of it, is undoubtedly admirable. Infinite judgment, and a most prolific invention, are displayed in the selection, association, and employment of its multitudinous groups; but, surely, nothing in painting was ever so utterly unpicturesque as