games, and who is now borne on the shoulders of his sons, one of whom has been this day the victor at the Cestus; the multitude are filling the air with their acclamations, and strewing flowers upon his head as the victorious father of victorious children; whilst a friend on the left grasps his hand, and tells him in the well-known recorded words, "Now, Diagoras, die, for thou canst not be made a god." Of the two other victors on the right, both foot racers, one has already received the branch of palm, and is being crowned, while the scribe at the table records his name, family, and country. If the reader will look in the extreme corner of the picture on the left hand, he will see an interesting practical evidence of Barry's own opinion of the work; that low figure seated on the base of the statue of Hercules represents the painter in the character of Timanthes. As to the opinions of others, Canova's is a memorable case in point. When on his visit here, he said he would have come purposely to England from Rome to see it, without any other motive, had he known of the existence of such a picture.

Of the fourth and fifth pictures of the series little can be said in the way of praise. The artist felt the necessity of showing a something still better than

Grecian civilization, as preparatory to the Elysium into which he proposed to lead men at last, and, of course, if that were any where to be found it was in the history of commerce and the greatest of commercial countries, his own; he felt also, no doubt, that in other respects the British nation had influenced and was still influencing most potently the progress of civilization; but the pictures in which he has embodied these views are failures, nor do we see how they could be otherwise. Grecian history and civilization present a tolerably consistent whole, because the chief details were consistent with the religion, morals, and manners, the theory and the practice, of the Grecian people. Our history and civilization present but too many evidences of inconsistency; we have ascended higher, but sunk lower; have made our religion, morals, and manners too often at war with each other, our theory a frequent satire on our practice. In the mean time we have the Thames, in the shape of a venerable figure, in a triumphal car, borne along by Drake, Raleigh, Cabot, and Cook, accompanied by Mercury as Commerce, with Nereids carrying articles of manufacture and industry, among whom Dr. Burney is somewhat ludicrously introduced as the personified idea of Music. The most pertinent criticism we have seen on this picture was the unintentional one on the part of a dowager, who, putting her fan before her face, expressed her regret to see good Dr. Burney with a parcel of naked girls dabbling in a horse-pond." The other picture referred to is the meeting of the members of the Society of Arts for the annual distribution of the premiums, and who appear to be debating how they may best forward the objects of the Society; a work in itself of considerable merit, and interesting in the locality, but too restricted in its nature for the series. Opposite the Victors at Olympia, and over the door of entrance, is the last of these pictorial essays on moral culture, the view of Elysium, certainly one of the boldest flights of imagination to which painter ever ventured to give a local habitation and a name, and, though not as a whole to be compared with the Olympia,' which seems to us all but perfect, presents perhaps a still loftier view of the artist's genius. Michael Angelo might have been proud of that wonderful figure of the Archangel Gabriel, who keeps watch and ward between the confines of Elysium and Tartarus; and, indeed, the amazing character of the whole conception is not unworthy of that sublime painter. Barry was quite aware of the objections to which Elysium, or the State of Final Retribution' was exposed. "Although," he says, "it is indisputably true that it exceeds the highest reach of human comprehension to form an adequate conception of the nature and degree of that beatitude which hereafter will be the final reward of virtue; yet it is also true that the arts which depend on the imagination, though short and imperfect, may nevertheless be very innocently and very usefully employed on the subject, from which the fear of erring ought not to deter us from the desire of being serviceable." "It was my wish," he continues, "to bring together in Elysium those great and good men of all ages and nations who were cultivators and benefactors of mankind. The picture forms a kind of apotheosis, or more properly a beatification, of those useful qualities which were pursued throughout the series." The truly admirable manner in which he has done this is remarkable; he has utterly sunk all consciousness of self, of the man Barry's religious, moral, political, philosophical,

or artistical biases, in order to look over the field of human history as a superior being might be supposed to look over it, who had nothing in common with humanity, and, thus looking, true intellectual eminence is not difficult to be distinguished. The very case that has been adduced to prove the contrary is one of the strongest of evidences of this, Hogarth's; against whom Barry is said to have had a grudge, and of whose merit he has certainly spoken disrespectfully-but Hogarth is there. A more important evidence of the largeness and philosophical grasp of the painter's mind is the way in which he has grouped his characters, making light of the accidents of time, country, or costume, to impress with the more striking force the essentials of biographical history. Thus we have Roger Bacon, Archimedes, Descartes, and Thales, in one combination; Homer, Milton, Shakspere, Spenser, Chaucer, and Sappho, in another; Alfred the Great, Penn, and Lycurgus, in a third. Other portraits will be readily recognised in our engravings. Two features of the picture exhibit Barry's judgment as conspicuously in what he has avoided, as the whole shows his lofty courage in what he has grappled with. Near the top of the picture, on the left, cherubim are seen indistinctly through the blaze of light and glory that streams down-from whence

we need not ask; at the opposite corner of the picture, at the bottom, we have an indication equally slight, but equally sufficient, of Tartarus and the torments of the damned. As an evidence of the spirit in which, as we have said, Barry introduced or kept out the persons who fell under his consideration when selecting for this picture, a little anecdote in reference to the Tartarean part of it may be read with interest. In the emaciated limb which belongs to the garter of one of the falling wicked, it was said that the leg of a nobleman who had offended Barry was noticeable. When the remark reached the latter, he defended himself with an earnestness and propriety that speak the truth of his words: “ What I particularly valued in my work," said he, "was a dignity, seriousness, and gravity, infinitely removed from all personality." Still the temptation, it must be owned, was great, and many no doubt wondered why they did not find there the whole Academy. With another anecdote from the same source,* which we give in the relator's words, we conclude this notice of the pictures :"A young lady from the north, of great beauty and wit, went to take a look at the painter's Elysium. She looked earnestly for a while, and said to Mr. Barry, 'The ladies have not yet arrived in this Paradise of yours.' O, but they have, madam,' said the painter with a smile, they reached Elysium some time ago; but I could find no place so fit for creatures so bright and beautiful as behind yon very luminous cloud. They are there, and very happy, I assure you.'

And, referring once more to the painter's anticipated difficulties at the commencement of his career, how did he subsist during the six long years this work was in progress? Why, by working at night for the bread that was to keep him alive the next day, or week; making hasty drawings, or such engravings as the Job, Birth of Venus, and Lear; and when these failed, and he applied to the Society for assistance by a small subscription, and was refused, why then-God knows what he did then; for he was too proud to borrow, too honest to run in debt. However, he struggled on, bating no jot of heart or hope, until the Society gave him a donation of fifty guineas, and after that another of similar amount; and so the goal was reached at last. The paintings, begun in 1777, were completed in 1783. Something like reward now followed. The Society allowed the work to be exhibited for his benefit; Johnson came, and pronounced his decision in his usual weighty words, "There is a grasp of mind there which you will find no where else;" Burke, estranged as he was from his once "dear Barry" (and, it must be owned, not through his fault), looked upon the walls with an honest exultation as he felt how he had contributed to the success of the author; whilst good Jonas Hanway had scarcely paid his shilling and looked over the noble works around him, before he hurried back to demand its return from the astonished doorkeeper; and, on receiving it, put down a guinea in its place. By this exhibition Barry gained 500l.; by the etchings of the pictures which he made with his own hands, 2001. more; 1007. he received from Lord Romney, the President of the Society, whose portrait was introduced; 100l. was bequeathed to him by Timothy Hollis as "the painter of the work on Human Culture," and Lord Radnor presented him, in a delicate way, with 50%.

*Cunningham's Lives of the Painters,' &c.

The use Barry made

of this money gives the finishing touch to the character of this noble artist :-he placed his money in the funds, and secured to himself an income of 60l. a-year; and that sum may be said to be the money value of Barry, as an artist, to the age he lived in, and which he has so greatly adorned by these imperishable works.