Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 03.djvu/316

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Barry
310
Barry

of 1774 saw the Barrys at Covent Garden. On 10 Jan. 1777 Spranger Barry died, leaving her again a widow. During that and the following year she remained at Covent Garden, playing in 1778–9 as Mrs. Crawford. Her third marriage, to a man much younger than herself, whom, however, she survived, was detrimental to her career. She made occasional appearances at the Haymarket, Drury Lane, and Covent Garden, and played during the seasons of 1781–2 and 1782–3 in Dublin. She is last heard of on the stage at Covent Garden in 1797–8. Her farewell is said to have taken place in 1798 at Covent Garden, as Lady Randolph; this date is, however, doubtful. She died 29 Nov. 1801, and was buried near Barry in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey.

Mrs. Barry's place in the galaxy of bright actors that distinguished the latter half of the eighteenth century cannot be contested. The equal of Mrs. Woffington and Mrs. Cibber in tragedy, she surpassed both in comedy. She is described by Francis Gentleman (Dramatic Censor) as ‘graceful, genteel, spirited, and feeling.’ Her complexion was fair, her hair auburn, her shape good, and her stature just above the middle height. She had, however, a slight defect, due apparently to shortness of vision, in her eyes. In Monimia, which was then a test character, she was said by Gentleman to be the best in his recollection. Cooke says she had, during her whole life, no competitor as Desdemona, and her Lady Randolph, her great character, was held superior to that of Mrs. Siddons. Mrs. Siddons owned her fear of Mrs. Barry, saying, in a letter to Dr. Whalley: ‘I should suppose she has a very good fortune, and I should be vastly obliged if she would go and live very comfortably upon it. … Let her retire as soon as she pleases.’ Boaden, in his life of Mrs. Siddons, speaks of the storm of passion by which Mrs. Crawford had surprised and subdued a long succession of audiences (ii. 64). In another passage in his life of Mrs. Barry's great rival, Boaden says of the utterance by Mrs. Barry of one phrase assigned to Lady Randolph: ‘It checked your breathing, perhaps pulsation; it was so bold as to be even hazardous, but too piercing not to be triumphant,’ &c. (ii. 51). Campbell, in his life of Siddons, says Bannister told him her delivery of this passage ‘made rows of spectators start from their seats.’

[Genest's Account of the English Stage; Dramatic Censor, 1770; Boaden's Memoirs of Mrs. Siddons; Thespian Dictionary; Hitchcock's Irish Stage; Gilliland's Dramatic Mirror; Dibdin's Complete History of the Stage.]

J. K.

BARRY, Sir CHARLES (1795–1860), architect, was born on 23 May 1795, in Bridge Street, Westminster. He was the fourth son of Walter Edward Barry, a well-to-do stationer, who died in 1805. Charles Barry showed from his childhood a taste for drawing, and, after getting the usual mercantile education at private schools, was articled in 1810 to Messrs. Middleton & Bailey, surveyors, of Paradise Row, Lambeth, with whom he stayed for six years. After the first two years of his articles he regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy. With a few hundred pounds, the residue of the money left him by his father, he determined to travel, and left England on 28 June 1817. He travelled alone through France and Italy, and in Greece and Turkey with Sir C. Eastlake, Mr. Kinnaird (editor of a volume of Stuart's ‘Athens’), and Mr. Johnstone.

Barry was on the point of returning to England when Mr. D. Baillie, who had met him in Athens and admired his drawings, made him an offer to go with him to Egypt and Palestine at a salary of 200l. per annum and his expenses. Barry was for this to make him sketches of the scenery and buildings, with permission to keep copies for himself. This offer was eagerly embraced, as Egypt had not been visited by English architects. They left on 12 Sept. 1818, and travelled in Egypt with Mr. Godfrey and Sir T. Wyse, going up the Nile beyond Philæ and visiting the ruins of the temples. On 12 March 1819 they left for Palestine, and, after seeing Jerusalem, they went to Syria, visiting Damascus, and getting as far as Baalbec. Barry parted with Mr. Baillie on 18 June 1819. Some of the sketches in Palestine were published by Finden in his illustrations of the Bible; the notes of Baalbec were published by Sir Charles in his latter years in the ‘Architectural Publication Society's Dictionary.’ After Mr. Baillie's death the whole of these eastern sketches were bought by Mr. John Wolfe Barry, C.E., Sir Charles's son, and are now in his possession. Barry then visited Cyprus, Rhodes, Halicarnassus, Malta, and Sicily. In Sicily he met Mr. John Lewis Wolfe, and the acquaintance so made ripened into a lifelong friendship. Mr. Wolfe was then studying architecture, which he eventually gave up, but his judgment on architecture was always appealed to by Barry until the last. They travelled through Italy together, and Barry returned alone through France, reaching London in August 1820, and at once became celebrated amongst the architects for his beautiful sketches. Barry, Cockerell, Gandy-Deering, and Blore were contemporaries who