340 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[MARCH, 



too frequently in the same cadence, and 

 read like a chant. 



"West's story is materially defective with 

 respect to his dismissal from court, and his 

 breach and reunion with the academy. His 

 piety and quakerism conciliated the favour 

 of the late king, who kept him employed, 

 almost exclusively, from 1769 to 1801. 

 The king settled with him personally on 

 subjects and prices paid him regularly a 

 thousand a year, and the balance, if any 

 were due, at certain intervals. In 1801, his 

 Majesty, though his illness was not ac- 

 knowledged, was unwell, and West was 

 abruptly informed by Wyatt that the paint- 

 ings for Windsor Chapel were suspended. 

 Surprised at this intelligence, West dis- 

 patched a sort of remonstrance; but the 

 letter, it seems, was never presented, nor 

 had the king known anything of the order 

 of suspension. On his recovery, West so- 

 licited an audience, but no explanation fol- 

 lowed the king shook him by the hand, 

 and bade him go on with the pictures, and 

 he would take care of him. This was 

 West's last interview he could never ob- 

 tain another, though, before this illness, he 

 had been admitted freely at all times. He 

 continued, however, to work at the paint- 

 ings, and received his 1,000 a year ; but 

 on the appointment of the regency, a new 

 order was forthwith issued for the suspen- 

 sion of both paintings and payments, with- 

 out the least explanation being given, or 

 the opportunity of obtaining one. Papers 

 were officiously circulated relative to the 

 immense sums West had had of the king 

 34,187, without the addition that this 

 was for thirty-three years labour. Wyatt 

 seems to have been at the bottom of this 

 unworthy treatment, and certainly he was 

 conspicuous in West's expulsion from the 

 president's chair ; but what is perhaps more 

 worthy of remark it shews that through 

 the ten years, from 1801 to 1811, the king 

 was under more controul than the nation 

 knew of. 



Of Barry's irascibility and violence, his 

 failures and his poverty, the world has 

 heard abundantly. Mr. Cunningham, as 

 indeed was indispensable, repeats much of 

 it, but he carefully reduces facts ,to the 

 standard of common sense. Though far 

 from being his best performances, Barry's 

 name is now almost exclusively coupled with 

 the Adelphi paintings. On these he chiefly 

 plumed himself, and seemed content to rest 

 his claim to celebrity. In them, however, 

 he shewed how thoroughly he had lost him- 

 self in the study of the mythological. He 

 had formed for himself an arbitrary system, 

 and left nature far behind him. To him all 

 the extravagancies thus heaped together ap- 

 peared noble specimens of the grand style 

 forgetting, as Mr. Cunningham observes, 

 this grand style is often the simplest of all, 

 and can be comprehended without comment. 

 Barry's performance may bid defiance to all 

 Comprehension, and even his own written 



descriptions but littk help the matter. The 

 Society of Arts, though any thing but ge- 

 nerous in their treatment of Barry, ad- 

 mitted the public for the benefit of the ar- 

 tist. Jonas Hanway left a guinea, in token 

 of his admiration, instead of a shilling ; 

 Johnson observed in them a grasp of mind 

 which he could find nowhere else ; Towpley 

 declared they were composed in the true 

 principles of the best paintings ; and Lord 

 Aldborough's praise Mr. C. is half-afraid 

 to transcribe, and well he may, for the lord 

 discovered in them all the properties com- 

 bined, not only of Raphael, Titian, and 

 Guido, but of all the most celebrated ar- 

 tists of Greece and Rome ; and in conse- 

 quence, offered Barry his house and pro- 

 perty till his fortunes equalled his merits. 

 Most persons will recollect with a smile the 

 river Thames borne by Tritons, and Dr. 

 Burney, in the costume of 1778, playing a 

 tune to Drake and Raleigh. " I do not," 

 said a dowager, putting her fan before her 

 face, " like to see good Dr. Burney with a 

 parcel of naked girls dabbling in a horse- 

 pond." 



Barry, it has been repeated a thousand 

 times, refused to paint portraits, and a 

 story is even told of his replying to an ap- 

 plicant, " There is a man in Leicester- 

 square who does it" (meaning Reynolds.) 

 But Mr. Cunningham tells us also, on Mr. 

 Southey's authority, that this was not the 

 fact, for that he would at any time have 

 painted them, and gladly. The truth is, 

 probably, Barry was never in favour or in 

 fashion ; he had a bad name for caprice and 

 rudeness, and sitters were afraid of him. 



In his account of Opie, Mr. C., we ob- 

 serve, does not, like Opie's widow, attribute 

 his death to his exertions in preparing the 

 few lectures he read, nor is his respect for 

 the said lectures very considerable they 

 seem to him to want vigour, a defect, he 

 adds, little to have been expected. The 

 censure we think not very just. Opie had 

 defects of another quality : he wanted 

 poetry, and some feeling of the grand and 

 heroic ; his virtues were good sterling sense 

 and independence, conspicuous alike in the 

 pen and the pencil. 



The Bristol people, years ago, were sa- 

 tirized for their sordid propensities by both 

 Savage and Robert Lovell. On poor Bird's 

 death, three hundred gentlemen of the 

 town got up a public funeral at considerable 

 expence, and then sent in the bills to the 

 unfortunate widow. " If this be true," 

 says Mr. C., " the sarcasms of Savage and 

 Lovell are merciful aud kind but I believe 

 it rests on no sufficient authority ?" Then 

 why is it repeated ? 



Mr. Cunningham is a little too fond of 

 dinner-table stories. This is particularly 

 conspicuous in the life of Fuseli, most of 

 whose good things are not merely coarse 

 things, but their very merit consists in their 

 rudeness. His repartees are manifestly 

 prompted by contrast, the easiest kind of 



