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ments; though numberless concurring causes have arisen to the depression and final prevention of considerable attempts. The competency of Britons in these branches has been so often and so ably discussed, that it seems scarcely necessary to descant farther on the fallacious reasonings and vague aspersions of Montesquieu, Dubos, Winckelmann, &c. The labours of Bacon, Locke,and Newton,in science, and those of Milton and Shakspeare in literature, under all the supposed disadvantages of climate and of the nature of our food, are evidences which alone suffice to refute such syllogistic reasonings; and the exertions that have been made in the liberal Arts are facts which render incontrovertible our sufficiency to farther attainments. Instead of wondering that more has not been done, it ought to excite the astonishment of the contemplative that so much has been performed; especially in the higher provinces of the Plastic Arts. Barry's Inquiry should be ever attentively read; and be it remembered that Sir James Thornhill's public works were, as Mr. H. observes, referred to mercantile Commissioners, and estimated by the yard.-The powers of Giles Hussey, who had education and talents equal to the highest undertakings in the historic line of painting, were lost to the world from his native timidity and unassuming deportment; unable or unwilling to contend against faction and vulgar prejudices, his acquirements fell a prey to the bawling ignorance of self-sufficient cabals. Had he painted live Mackerel, or the ribs of roasted. Beef, his works would have been noticed by numerous employers, his reputation have been extolled, and his fortune have been made.-Hogarth's inimitable pictures, tracing the progress of human follies and vices from their source to their despicable or their tragic ends, could meet no adequate sale, until his decease; and it was from the product of inconsiderable prints, that he gained his daily bread.-The noblest effusions of Wilson's classic mind, committed to canvass, in many instances remained on his hands partially noticed; while Dalton's execrable descriptions of antiquities that are miserably represented gained admittance into the library of a Prince.Mortimer's early talents, if sufficiently cultivated, might have. shone conspicuously by the works of Annibal Caracci: but ere they were patronized, he unfortunately fell a prey to dissipation and debauchery. - Revett lived in gloomy yet serene obscurity, amid his studious avocations; and the nature of his retired disposition having led him to but slender employ, he died unrewarded.-On the canvass of Stubbs, we behold the rapid and energetic coursers whirl the Chariot of the Sun through the sublime expause of ther; freed from the restraint of the vain and incompetent Phaeton, and setting fire to

all

all that comes in contact with the wheels. This incomparable production of native genius was, with several others, so far lost to public notice, as to have remained for a very long succession of years unpurchased on the walls of his show-room; works of which, in more propitious times, for the encouragement and the advancement of the Arts, kings would have contended for the possession.

How illustrative of cultivated genius are the writings of Richardson on the Arts! while the discourses of Reynolds, Thos. Sandby, and Barry, add lustre to their practical emi

nence.

Barry has left to the present and to the succeeding generations of British Artists, a legacy of memorable examples, and of the wonderful effects of unremitting perseverance ;-the only means of attaining the rugged heights of Parnassus, to which so many content themselves with looking up, without displaying the fortitude required by the attempts to climb. His paintings, which were executed with the sole view of proving what opportunities had been lost, and what Englishmen were capable of achieving, display the sublimest effusions of the human mind, directed to the inculcation of sound morals, so essential to the elevation and dignity of man: yet, as in the case of Hogarth, they obtained no purchasers, and like Hogarth he supplied his wants by the sale of his own engravings. Barry had his faults, as no man is without; while he had virtues and talents which few can boast. His principal performances were a series of Epic paintings and of Attic conceptions which depict the origin and progress of human culture, through its varied combinations, to the final retribution of beatitude or misery. Placed on the walls of the Adelphi Society for the Encouragement of Arts, &c. they are in every respect appropriate to their situation; and they form a work which, for its unique combination of mental and of manual powers, would have been recognised with unbounded approbation in the best ages of antiquity.

At his death only did Barry receive the honours due to his talents and his disinterested exertions. When the publication before us made its appearance, he reposed from his labours, like another Hercules; and to the credit of that Society to which he had been an uncommon ornament, his remains had been placed in their apartments in all the state of funereal grandeur, surrounded by his immortal productions. The spectacle was of the most impressive nature: the shade of Barry was the very Victor at Olympia, whose works gave interest to the venerable corpse, and whose memory was adorned by the union of the palm and the laurel.

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Such is a brief and imperfect sketch of the merits and the fate of Barry! Yet in Mr. Hoare's book, professing to be an Inquiry into the requisite cultivation and the present state of the arts of design in England,' his paintings, which form so superioran example in illustration of that Inquiry, find no mention! This, surely, is a fact to be equally reprobated and lamented; however grating a due tribute to him might have been to the advocates of that Institution, with which Mr. H. is connected by the important office of Secretary for Foreign Correspondence! The influence of the Arts, and their effect in advancing the holy ordinances of Religion, are thus described:

The pleasure, naturally arising from the contemplation of works of painting and the other imitative arts, a pleasure felt by, and common to, the people in common life, of all nations and characters, will of necessity find its vent in society in some channel or other. How many channels of public depravation are constantly opening, how many artifices of moral pollution are every hour put in practice and every moment kept in play, by profligate dexterity and mercenary cunning, need not be mentioned to any inhabitant of a metropolis. It cannot therefore be considered unworthy of a legislature, seduously watchful of the morals of a great people, to assign a proper province for the gratification of this natural, and naturally innocent, pleasure, by means of such an institution as shall provide a safe and beneficial store of continual public amusement. The activity of desire, if not properly directed, must either idly dissipate itself in trifles and insipid. vanity, or suffer perversion and depravation from the allurements of vice. The open avenues to the heart, if virtue and diligence are once suffered to be driven from their guard, will be quickly, although insensibly, filled with the wildest phantasms of indecent and tumultuous riot. Gross, debasing images of sensuality, rude chimeras of civil disgust, and deformities of political satire, will usurp the place due to the charms of chastened beauty and historic truth.

The first effort towards the regular employment of the arts on great moral purposes, was made by the artists of the Royal Academy, and others, in an offer to contribute their gratuitous labours to the farther decoration of St. Paul's Cathedral, by presenting, each, a picture or sculpture of a religious description. The pious prelate, then bishop of the diocese, actuated no doubt by the most consientious motives, esteemed it his duty to discourage such a design, and the proposal was accordingly dismissed.

It was objected by the bishop, that the charms of painting were of a nature too seductive for his congregation, and that the forms and varied tints of beauty might divert their thoughts from heavenly to earthly objects, and excite emotions inconsistent with religion •.'

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I cannot wholly divest myself of surprise, that in a cultivated mind, whose professional studies had necessarily been so abstracted from all seductive objects of a sensual nature, the idea of painting

should

Of the powerful effects of Painting on the mind, Horace re

marks:

Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem,

Quam que sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, et que
Ipse sibi tradit spectator."--

In the decoration of St. Paul's Cathedral with pictured representations of Gospel instruction, and typical calls to morality and to religion, veiled in the emphatic parables delivered by our Saviour, what a field is presented for a fair display of the exertions of the painter! It is said to have been the wish and at one time the hope of Sir Christopher Wren, that an appropriate monumental statue of himself, combined with decorative accompaniments, should rise from the centre of the pavement immediately under the Dome. The four principal pannels of the piers which give it support were, as Mr. H. observes, proposed to have been painted gratuitously: but the metropolitan bishop Terrick, like another Spratt, refused admittance to the arts: and though the polished, the refined, the learned, and the philanthropic Lowth shortly afterward adorned the same ecclesiastical station, farther application ceased from Sir Joshua Reynolds, N.Dance, Mortimer, and others. Barry, when deserted and defeated in his efforts to serve his country, by adorning the church with the display of national talents in art worthy of its other high considerations, formed the resolution of making a similar gratuitous application to the members of the laudable institution for the promotion of Arts, &c.; of the result of which we have already spoken.

In the second part of his Inquiry, Mr. H. proceeds to inform us of the benefits which the arts have derived from public exhibitions, and gives his opinion of the invigorating effect of the Royal Academy since its establishment:

In England, they have greatly contributed to ripen the public judgment on all points of art, and appear to have had one very salutary consequence, that of diffusing a general desire (now first beginning to assume form and substance, and mixing with the wishes of the artists) to see the arts employed in a manner more worthy of their capacity and extensive powers. For it must be observed, that unless the objects exhibited be found adequate to the previous state of mind and consequent expectation of the beholder, little else than discontent can be the result; instead of pleasure smiling in the eye, and pride mantling to the heart, the weapons of critical animadver

should have been wholly confined to images of the kind just mentioned, and the art regarded only in the faculty which it possesses in common with all other attainments (whether of art or science), of contributing, when improperly used, to the corruption of mind."

sion will soon sparkle in the hands of many who are bidden to the feast.

This statement will probably suggest the cause of that fastidious sentiment so frequently displaying itself in the Exhibition-room of Somerset-House. Since the commencement of those Exhibitions, an awakened public has formed higher conceptions of art, to which the class of works generally exhibited is not found to correspond.'

It will be conceded that Annual Exhibitions of the state of the Arts are not only partially salutary, but that the best effects connected with general improvement may be derived from them. We are told that similar customs prevailed in Greece, as occasions presented themselves, by exhibiting in the Portico: but in Greece the Arts were unshackled by established Institutions, which in modern times have so often proved only the nurseries of baneful influence. On this seemingly paradoxical point, we cannot better satisfy the curiosity of our readers, than by presenting to them the efficient causes in the words of a well-informed reporter:

"Si le bien des arts nécessitait la déstruction des Académies, si vicieuses par leur organisation, leur progrès demandait aussi un moyen d'enseignement clair et facile, qui procurát à tous les Citoyens sans bourse les facilités de consulter les grand maitres; ces moyens d'étudé se trouvent à faire dans un Musée.” LENOIR.

In our own country, we admit that the number of Artists has increased since the establishment of a Royal Academy, but here we must stop; since it cannot be granted that improvement has kept proportionable pace. We refer our readers to a comparison between the past and the present catalogues, and to the productions of the past and the present exhibitors. We cannot forget that, at its commencement, it displayed the works of Hogarth in his peculiar style, of Reynolds and Gainsborough in portrait, and in history of Mortimer, Penny, Dance, and Joseph Wright (of Derby);-of Wilson, the Seasons dancing their round to the lyre of Apollo, the Storm and distresses of Niobe and her unhappy offspring, and the villa of Cicero at Arpinum, where, in the shades of classic retirement amid torrents and romantic scenery, he points out to Atticus the oak planted by Marius Barry's Adam beguiled by the temptation of Eve, Venus rising from the Sea, and Jupiter deluded by the charms of Juno, who had purposely visited Mount Ida ;-the Phaeton of Stubbs; the captivating landscapes of Barrett and Gainsborough ;-Marlow's studies in Italy, with Tull's rural scenery and a long list of others, of minor abilities. For productions of similar excellence, we have latterly sought in vain; and we see not, therefore, that annual improvement which should exemplify the advantages stated to exist in the Academy

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