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JAMES BARRY,
The historical painter, was born in Cork, on October 11th, 1741. His father is reported by different biographers, to have been a victualler, a slop-seller, and a coasting trader, whether all, or either is not very material, the latter however, is most probable, as James is said to have accompanied him, during his early youth, in several voyages across the channel; but the boy had no taste for navigation, and the father it seems, had as little taste for any thing else.—His son's intellectual propensities he regarded with mortal aversion, but at length finding them insurmountable, he submitted to an evil which could not be resisted, and consigned him, with prudential regrets and dreary forebodings, to the sterile pursuits of literature and art. To these pursuits the atmosphere of a trading sea-port was not very congenial; but it was part of Barry's unlucky fatality to subvert the beautiful theories of atmospheric influence. Genius creates its own opportunities, and Barry, amidst the impediments of poverty and sordid society, distinguished himself in such a degree in his scholastic acquirements, as to excite the admiration of his rivals, and the attention of his superiors.—He was constitutionally ascetic, exhibiting in early youth, a predilection for those hardships and privations in which his subsequent fortunes so bountifully indulged him; he loved to sit up all night, drawing or transcribing from books, and whenever he allowed himself the recreation of sleep, he preferred the boards to his bed. Whether he ever condescended to relax from this severity of discipline, it is difficult to guess; the most particular of his biographers, indeed, informs us, that "he was not behind other boys in such pastimes and mischiefs as boys are sometimes given to," but he adds, in the same page, "that his habits never resembled those of ordinary boys, as he seldom mixed in their plays or amusements." From this species of evidence, it would be presumptuous to form a conclusion.
