Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/362

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

342 BARRY unfinished by him. Among his works are the new Covent Garden theatre, the Charing Cross, the Star and Garter at Richmond, and other hotels, the opera house at Malta, the grammar school at Leeds, and other famous structures. In 18CT he became architect of the new na- tional gallery. In 1870 he was made a royal academician. HUSKY. Gerald, or Gtraldns Cambrensls (Gerald of Wales), a British ecclesiastic and historian, born about 1146, died about 1220. His father was a Norman baron, his mother a descendant of princes of South Wales, and his uncle, David Fitz-Gerald, was bishop of St. David's. He completed his education in the university of Paris, and returned to that city in 1176, after the king's rejection of his appointment as his uncle's successor in the see of St. David's. He declined in 1179 a professorship of canon law in the university of Paris and went back to England, where for four years he was ad- ministrator of the see of St. David's during a vacancy of the bishopric, and afterward chap- lain of the king, and secretary and privy coun- cillor of Prince (afterward King) John during the letter's visit to Ireland. With Archbishop Baldwin he preached in 1188 in Wales in be- half of the crusaders. He was again elected to the see of St. David's in 1199, and accord- ing to some authorities finally obtained pos- session and resigned in 1203 ; but according to the commonly received account his nomination was not confirmed. He spent the last years of his life in literary pursuits, and wrote To- pographia ffiliernice, in three books; Expug- natio Hibernim, an account of the Korman conquest of Ireland ; Itinerarium Cambria, or account of the itinerary of Archbishop Bald- win through Wales, an English translation of which has been published by Sir Richard Colt Hoare, with annotations and a life of Giraldus (" The Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales," 2 vols. 4to, London, 1806) ; De Principis Instruetione ; and many other works, of which the Speculum Ecclesitisticum and De Gestis Giraldi laboriosis are the most remarkable. Most of his works have been printed, either separately or in collections. BAKRY, James, an Irish painter, born in Cork, Oct. 11, 1741, died in London, Feb. 22, 1806. He studied in Dublin, and in Italy under the patronage of Burke. After his return to England in 1770 he painted for the society of arts in London a series of allegorical pictures of human progress, the best of which is that of the "Victors at Olympia." His charges against the administration of the royal acad- emy led in 1797 to his expulsion from that body, and to his removal from the professorship of painting, which he had held for ten years, after which he received a public subscrip- tion of 1,000, and a year before his death, through Sir Robert Peel, the father of the premier, a government annuity of the same amount. He was irritable and quarrelsome, and lived most of his life in penury ; but he had noble conceptions of art, though his execu- tion and coloring were generally defective. He wrote in 1775 "An Inquiry into the Real and Imaginary Obstructions to Art in England," in which he refuted Winckelmann's theory in re- spect to the unaasthetie influence of the Eng- lish climate. His various works were pub- lished in 1809 in 2 vols., with his biography. BARKY, John, an American naval officer, born at Tacumshane, county Wexford, Ireland, in 1745, died in Philadelphia, Sept. 13, 1803. Ik- settled in Philadelphia about 1760, and acquired wealth as master of a sailing vessel. At the commencement of the revolution he offered his services to congress, and in February, 1776, was appointed to the command of the Lexing- ton, 14 guns, and after a sharp action took the tender Edward, the first war vessel captured by a commissioned officer of the American navy. He was transferred to the Effingham frigate, and in 1777, in the Delaware, at the head of four boats, captured an English schoo- ner. Finding naval operations interrupted by the ice, he served for a short time as aide-de- camp to Gen. Cadwalader at Trenton. In 1781, while returning from France in the Al- liance, he captured the Atalanta and the Tre- passy, and was severely wounded. After the establishment of the present navy in 1794, he was named as the senior officer with the rank of commodore. BARRY, Marie Jeanne Gomard de Tanbernler, countess du, mistress of Louis XV., born at Vau- couleurs, in Champagne, Aug. 19, 1746, guillo- tined in Paris, Dec. 6, 1793. She was the daughter of a seamstress, and was employed in a milliner's shop in Paris, where she led a dis- solute life. One of her lovers, Count Jean du Barry, brought her through his valet to the notice of Louis XV., who made her marry the count's brother, after which she was intro- duced at court. By her beauty and wit she retained the king's affection until his death. She cost France over 35,000,000 francs, out of which she provided for her relatives and friends, and also to some extent for charitable works. She persuaded the king to banish his prime minister, the duke de Choiseul, her un- relenting enemy, and to dismiss and exile the parliament of 1771. On the king's death Louis XVI. banished her from court, but after a year she was permitted to return to the wing of the royal palace which had been built for her use at Lucienne, near Versailles, and lived there with her lover, the duke de Brissac, in shameful luxury. After a journey to England she was arrested in July, 1793, upon a charge of having squandered public funds, conspired against the republic, and worn mourning in London for the royal family. Sentenced to death Dec. 6, she bore herself with fortitude during the trial, but her courage deserted her on the way to the scaffold, and to the last mo- ment she continued her piteous appeals for mercy. She was an illiterate woman, though j she patronized some small poets.