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THE DWELLING OF JAMES BARRY.

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HERE are few pleasures so cheering or so invigorating as that which, when wearied of daily anxiety or labour, we derive from our memories of pictures. When the volume, designed to be read, is thrust aside, because fatigue forbids its attentive perusal ; when the exhausted mind cannot its thoughts call home;' when ordinary amusements offer no refreshing relaxation; when conversation wearies; and even affectionate zeal becomes troublesome, instead of relieving-(and what worker out of the intellect has not felt all this, often?)-then come such memories as anodynes to the soul; memories of pictures beheld, perhaps, in childhood, or in youth, or in wiser, though not happier, years, recalled from the gulf of time, brought in their full force before us, claiming and obtaining a blessing upon

"the Art that can immortalise."

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Blessings be with them-these unforgotten pictures-the old familiar ' friends, who are ever present with us when we need them; hanging upon these paper'd walls; crowding every vacant space. One by one, we summon them, and talk with them of gone-by things; they come at times together, but more often singly. Some particular memory is lord of the ascendant; some mighty one fixed in its place by a sort of mental Daguerrotypesuddenly fixed, and indelibly; a thousand matters may cover and conceal it, but it will be erased alone by Death.

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To what vast uses we may turn these shadows of the past. A little child looks upon the storied canvas, or framed print; or cons over the contents of her picture book;' each 'picture' giving her a new idea, an incident, or a story-a lesson without the aid of words. She has gained something, which, if worthy, will remain with her through life-elevating her nature-teaching her to think, observe, and compare; the education of the eye has progressed, and intellect become expanded through it. This is, indeed, a mighty power by which to teach, and until lately, when pictures (such as they are) have been adopted into the system of infant school education, almost an unused one. We hope, humbly and earnestly, it may be worked out to some great end, so that every public and private schoolroom may be illustrated by PICTURES, tending to promote noble thoughts and noble actions. Let any one, who has observed the effect produced on the minds of the merest children by pictures, think upon this subject, and we are sure they will agree with us in seeing a wide and elevating field of useful and rapid culture, by pure and legitimate means, thrown open to our youths, who usually remember what they see far better than what they hear; and who, if trained to observe, through the medium of high Art as well as through that of books, would grow up with more just appreciations of the sublime and beautiful in life and character, than have yet been taught to those into whose hands the great FUTURE must be, in a few brief years, resigned.

But even admitting that no greater good were to result from pictures than filling the mind with pleasant memories, would it not be wise to add another delight to those which Letters bestow, so that there shall be no lack in the hours of fatigue, solitude, or sickness, of an additional balmin the memories of pictures?

In that old rambling house, on the wild Irish coast, where, in our childhood, our winter's lullaby was the sound of dashing waves against the dark and pointed rocks, and our summer's music the ripple of the waters on the rugged beach ;-in that dear old house-every stone of whose mouldering walls is dearer to our heart at this moment than most precious gems-in that, our lonely childhood's home, there was an old-fashioned little parlour,' in which we learned our lessons out of old French books, and thrummed a narrow lean piano; the great charms of that small chamber, with its

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mottled chimney-piece of Kilkenny marble, and its queer painted cornices, were the pictures. The family canvas,' gentlemen in brown bob-wigs, and one very lovely quiet lady in blue satin, with a huge bouquet in her bosom, ornamented the cold blue walls of the grim dining-room. But the little parlour was 'coated' with pictures.

We can recal them each and all; nay, so strongly have they left their impress, and so vivid are their memories, that we think we could trace every leaf upon every tree, and compare tint with tint, that composed the colours of every one of them. But beyond all the rest in our estimation, and the one now most strongly remembered, was a copy from a picture by our countryman Barry-the picture which we were told made Edmund Burke his friend. To have been the friend of the noble and eloquent senator, whose name is hallowed in every Irish heart, was enough to render me enamoured of it; but, besides, it was one calculated to interest a child in the legendary lore of her country.

The legend illustrated by Barry, who had embraced at an early period of life his mother's Romish faith, is to be found in 'Keating's History of Ireland.' Aongus, king of Cashel, was converted to Christianity by the preaching of St. Patrick, and consented to be baptised. The Saint was drawn leaning upon his crozier, the spiked point of which had transfixed the monarch's foot. The royal guards, inclined to avenge their master, are arrested in mute wonder, by seeing that Aongus is unconscious of the wound, as he stands absorbed in the regenerating sacrament of the Christian faith. The subject allowed ample scope for the expression of the highest species of heroism—the religious; and it was one of the favourite themes in our house -how that the baptism of the King of Cashel was painted by a young man, almost a boy, at Cork, a lad of humble parentage; for his uncouth father commanded a sort of half hooker, half fishing-boat, that coasted from Cork to Kinsale, or loitered about the exquisite scenery of the harbour and river of the beautiful city.' Commanded,' is a high-sounding word applied to one who worked the craft with his rough hands, sometimes assisted by a man and a couple of boys-one of them his own son, in after times the most self-sacrificing and devoted painter of whom the kingdom boasts.

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The firm-hearted child drew inspiration from the beauties of the southern coasts, and copied the passing scenes with charred stick upon the deck of

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his father's vessel. An idle young dog,' he was called, and an obstinate,’ for he would either do nothing, or do what he liked; and his only liking was to lie along the deck, sketching, as we have said, with burnt stick, the groups or effects which struck his fancy.

It is you who have ruined him,' exclaimed the rough sailor Barry to his wife. 'As you brew so you may bake. Keep him at home and make a scholar of him; he 's fit for nothing else.'

And so to school the boy was sent, where, if he did not learn the purestsounding English, he acquired, as Irish boys do, even at hedge-schools, a knowledge and a deep love of classic poetry; while his love of Art, drawn in with the air he breathed upon his native shores, assumed daily a more tangible form, and he pictured forth, upon the doors and walls, rude sketches of Æneas escaping with his family from the sack of Troy, and other illustrations of classic subjects, which, according to the vague memoirs that remain of his childish days, elicited the admiration of his schoolmates and the reproofs of his master. His mother's ambition, however, was the ambition of many of her class; she desired to devote the boy who had such genius to the service of the God who gave it. If she could only once see him serve Mass,' she had been often heard to declare, she would die a happy woman. But, though the imposing forms and ceremonies, its strict fasts and rigid observances, caught firm hold of the youth's imagination, and there can be little doubt but the ascetic denials to which in his first youth and in his latter days he subjected himself grew out of his belief in the necessity for religious discipline, yet his soul was Art, and to its highest calling he devoted himself, with as much zeal as could be contained in one human heart. And a great strong-beating heart it was-impatient of control-impatient of repose-disdaining the cravings of animal existencechoosing the coarsest of the homely food of an Irish cottage-choosing the floor as his bed, hardening his nerves into iron, so that, casting off the coil of human wants as much as a human being can, he might be able to take his own path, a pilgrim without scrip or staff, trusting to the majesty and dignity of his CAUSE to reach the goal, to win the immortality—which he did win; but at great cost! His course is a glorious one to contemplate, but a most unsafe one to follow; for a heedlessness as regards the opinions of others, a disregard for the common proprieties of life, are what no one

has a right to practise or to affect. But, though Barry looked upon the delicacies and elegancies of life as inconveniences instead of comforts—if, indeed, he ever thought of them-he did so without affectation; his carelessness and coarseness were the growth of early habit, the result of hard, stern, iron discipline, such as a Spartan would exult in. And his unfortunate disregard for the feelings and prejudices of his friends, upon which, in after time, Burke so wisely and eloquently descanted, was the overboiling of a rash, natural, and most honest heart, zealous for truth in Art, and truth in all things, but rushing madly forward, and thinking that madness duty. Those who have attributed mean motives to this child of nature—and Irish nature also, the wildest of all natures-have done him wrong; he was as much above all meanness as those who would mimic his eccentricities are below him. People can overlook crimes in their associates rather than those ebullitions of temper which needlessly insult self-love and outrage received habits and opinions. This is sad to think of, but observation will

attest the accuracy of the remark.

There are plenty who imagine that adopting a singularity is a proof of genius; but the style of affectation is not that of self-denial; on the contrary, it is display-the vanity of a girl. An open collar, a shock of lean, lank, dank hair, and an untrimmed moustache, because they are seen in some finely-painted portrait, must create a painter! Out upon such baby follies. Do great men this? Do the masters of Art, the few mighty ones we have, so walk abroad that boys may point at them and say, • There goes an artist!' Barry's eccentricities, painful as they were to those who loved him, were not assumed for the sake of notoriety, but were, be well assured, the growth of circumstances; ascetic feelings, that sought to out-brave poverty; a native dignity, rugged and strange to those who would wish to find poor talent humble and glove-like, to suit the whims of patronage. Necessity gave him habits; and habits, with such unyielding natures, become parts of the person; his active and unwearied mind maintained a perpetual war with circumstances, and became stronger in the contest. His father opposed him. His mother, from anxiety for his health or dread of fire, stole away his candle, so that he could neither read nor draw at night, and annoyed him with misplaced fears and foolish wishes. Parching for information, he had no money to buy books, and actually transcribed such

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