Richard Ryan

“ Biography, like all things else, becomes more important as the influence of its subjects has been more extensive; for the future fates of a nation are made by its character, and its character is made by its celebrated men. But the deepest and holiest interest is thrown round Biography, when it is appealed to as the vindicator of an unhappy people; when the fallen are forced to bring in the dead to plead their cause, and find their only trophies in the tomb.
The History of Ireland is the most calamitous moral document since the beginning of society. ”

“ While the knowledge of Right was advancing over the face of Europe, like the sun, from the east, Ireland was still in the darkness, without the quiet of the sepulchre. Every nation, in its turn, made some noble acquisition in freedom, or religion, or science, or dominion. Ireland lay, like the form of the first man, with all the rapid splendours of the new creation rising and glowing round him ”

“ The finest purpose of Biography is to draw back the curtain of the temple, and give their images to our wonder, for the vindication of the past, and the lesson of the future. The darkest periods of Ireland have been rich in evidence of such beings— meteors ascending in her dungeon and mine, as if to remind the obscure dwellers there of the splendour abroad and above them. But it is the distinction of Ireland to have produced more of those eminent existences than almost any other nation in its day of misery. ”

“ Barry was the easiest man in the world to live with as a companion and friend. He had a gift of pleasing in conversation beyond most men, owing more to the manner than the matter. To those who are conversant with the domestic management of actors, it will create no surprise to find that Barry did not confine himself within the limits of his income, which, from the first, was very considerable. One of his greatest pleasures consisted in giving splendid and sumptuous entertainments; and it is recorded of him, that no man did the honours of the table with more gentlemanly ease and politeness. ”

“ There can be no discord where there is no opposition.
We have particularised Barry's defects without compunction, because, giving them their full force, he stands on an eminence which bids defiance to criticism. If Socrates had been a painter instead of a sculptor, and had chosen to illustrate his doctrines by a graphical, rather than a rhetorical exhibition, we may imagine that he would have selected such subjects, and have treated them precisely in the manner which Barry has done. Admitting some trifling derelictions, he was great in every part of his art which is abstractedly intellectual. ”

“ The original government of Ireland was, of all others, the most fatal to civilization; it was the government of tribes, the devotedness of clanship without its compensating and patriarchal affections, the haughty violence of the feudal system without its superb munificence and generous achievement. Ireland was torn in pieces by four sovereignties; the people were kept in chains at home, that they might be let loose on their neighbours with the ferocity of hungry and thwarted strength. ”

“ Again and again, dear Barry, we must be at peace with our species, if not for their sakes, yet very much for our own. Think what my feelings must be, from my unfeigned regard to you, and from my wishes that your talents might be of use, when I see what the inevitable consequences must be, of your persevering in what has hitherto been your course ever since I knew you, and which you will permit me to trace out to you before-hand. ”

“ If any performer was ever born for one particular part, Barry was for Othello. There is a length of periods, and an extravagance of passion in this part, not to be found in any other for so many successive scenes, to which Barry appeared peculiarly suitable: with equal happiness he exhibited the hero, the lover, and the distracted husband. He rose, through all the passions, to the utmost extent of critical imagination, yet still appeared to leave an unexhausted fund of expression behind. ”

“ That you have had just subjects of indignation always, and of anger often, I do no ways doubt; who can live in the world, without some trial of his patience? But believe me, my dear Barry, that the arms with which the ill dispositions of the worldare to be combated, and the qualities by which it is to be reconciled to us, and we reconciled to it, are moderation, gentleness, a little indulgence to others; and a great deal of distrust to ourselves, which are not qualities of a mean spirit, as some may possibly think them ”

“ It will be the same at London as at Rome; and the same in Paris as in London; for the world is pretty nearly alike in all its parts; nay, though it would perhaps be a little inconvenient to me, I had a thousand times rather you should fix your residence in Rome than here, as I should not then have the mortification of seeing with my own eyes, a genius of the first rank, lost to the world, himself, and his friends, as I certainly must, if you do not assume a manner of acting and thinking here, totally different from what your letters from Rome have described to me. ”

“ Genius creates its own opportunities, and Barry, amidst the impediments of poverty and sordid society, distinguished himself in such a degree in his scholastic acquirements, as to excite the admiration of his rivals, and the attention of his superiors.—He was constitutionally ascetic, exhibiting in early youth, a predilection for those hardships and privations in which his subsequent fortunes so bountifully indulged him; he loved to sit up all night, drawing or transcribing from books, and whenever he allowed himself the recreation of sleep, he preferred the boards to his bed. ”

“ BIOGRAPHY is of all narratives the most valuable. The revolutions of empires would be but a fairy tale to us, if they were not capable of supplying additional principles for our knowledge of human nature. ”

“ As soon as he came into the room, the colonel said to him, “My dear Sullivan, as you have known me intimately several years, you know that I never feared the hour that is now come: I find so strange an alteration in myself since yesterday, and have sensations so different from all I ever felt before, that I think it impossible I should live through this night: the only favour I have to beg of you is, that you would acquaint my mother and brothers that I die like an honest man, who always had his duty in view ”

“ A man of more constitutional placidity than Barry, might have felt irritated, that after having expended on a public work all the fruits of his study, and the energies of his youth, his labours had left him no chance of independence, unless that independence should be purchased by a sacrifice of all the comforts and conveniences of life. ”

“ Barry took the lead as the principal performer of that house, and here it was that Mr. Garrick and he frequently appeared in the same characters, and divided the applause of admiring audiences; however, Barry, after a short period, feeling an inferiority arising from the joint power exerted against him as actor and manager, quitted Drury Lane, and headed the forces of Covent Garden. Here his gigantic powers had full play, and here he entered the lists of competition against a man, who, till now, had thrown all his competitors at an immeasurable distance. ”

“ Nor is it to be inferred that he was deficient in all the essentials of manual performance: though not a great painter, he was certainly a great designer. He was scientifically acquainted with the human figure, and his drawing, if not always graceful, is invariably bold and energetic. In composition, whenever the subject was well chosen, he takes a still higher ground. The picture of "The Victors at Olympia," (his finest production,) is at once, a personification of history, and the vision of a poet. ”

“ In a country like England, when an individual was found who had devoted himself to a protracted martyrdom, in an attempt to add the last gem to her diadem, to crown her pre-eminence in literature and arms, with the honours of historic art, it might have been expected, that such an individual had some slight claim on her gratitude, and that from the plethoric superabundance of her wealth, she would have dropped a mite, which, however insignificant in itself, would have secured her enthusiastic champion from future indigence and embarrassment. ”

“ Whatever may be its deficiencies in colour and execution, it exhibits a mastery of design, a grasp of thought, and a sublimity of conception; with such an appropriation of those powers to the purposes of ethical utility, as secures to the Author a triple wreath of immortality as an artist, a philanthropist, and a philosopher. ”

“ The countenance of the angel who holds the balance of good and evil is pregnant with divine intelligence; and his, who leans over the brink of Tartarus, commiserating the condemned, has always struck us as an image of exquisite pathos and beauty.
Barry's deficiency in executive skill is more extraordinary, since he seems to have had a strong relish, and a keen perception of it, in the works of the old masters. ”

“ Thus was obscured for ever one of the brightest planets in the theatric hemisphere; and thus died a woman who united talent with virtue, and the most shining abilities to the most extensive goodness of heart. ”

“ His friends, the Burkes, indeed, seem to have been suspicious, that Barry, even without the spur of provocation, had a pre-disposition to this species of contest, and Edmund Burke addressed to him at this time, a letter on the subject, which we subjoin, as an invaluable admonition to all persons subjected to similar infirmities:—
"As to any reports concerning your conduct and behaviour, you may be very sure they could have no kind of influence here; for none of us are of such a make, as to trust to any one's report, for the character of a person, whom we ourselves know. ”

“ Barry's genius, in this particular, bore a nearer resemblance to that of Dante and Milton. The artist is perpetually present in his work; but this species of obstinate personality has an interest of its own, and is never insipid, though it wants the charm of versatility.
Barry, with the mind of a philosopher, had little of the feelings of a painter. He delighted to construct magnificent systems of ethics ”

“ Alexander was no less an object of admiration to his acquaintance for the intenseness of his application, than for the native strength of his mind; by the united force of which he made those advances in knowledge and literature, which are very rarely attained by persons at so early an age. ”

“ His literary and studious disposition, conjoined with his taste for the fine arts, always occupied every leisure hour, as he patronised liberally all those who excelled in any of the various branches of art.
He had made architecture the chief object of his study, and about the year 1770, published anonymously, some very judicious “Observations on the Public Buildings of Dublin,” and on some edifices which at that period were about to be erected in that city, at the expense of the state. ”

“ Mervyn Archdall, like numberless ingenious men, wanted but the enlivening and maturing warmth of patronage, not only to be highly useful in the different departments of learning, but even to attain eminence in them. The excellent bishop, his patron, whose virtues reflected honour on his exalted station in the church, quitted this transitory life in 1765. Mr. Archdall had, at that period, been so indefatigable in his researches that his collections amounted to nearly two folio volumes, and these on a subject interesting to every man of property in Ireland ”

“ Thirdly, that to call upon men to make declarations concerning their faith, upon the threat of cutting them off from communion if they should refuse it, and this merely upon suspicions and jealousies, while the persons required to purge themselves by such declarations cannot be fairly convicted upon evidence of any error or heresy, is to exercise an exorbitant and arbitrary power, and is really an inquisition. ”

“ In 1680, the Earl of Castlehaven wrote Memoirs concerning the affairs of Ireland, wherein he represented the general rebellion in Ireland in the lightest colours possible, as if it had been at the commencement far from being universal, and at last was rendered so by the measures pursued by those whose duty it was to suppress the insurrection. ”

“ It was with this intent that young Alexander was put under his care; and so delighted was that amiable man with his pupil's literary acquirements, with his constant and eager desire for improvement, and the prudence and modesty of his personal behaviour, that he gave him his board, and introduced him, with paternal affection, to all his particular acquaintance, expressing the highest regard for him on every occasion. ”

“ Barry's inadequacy, in the peculiar qualifications of a painter, is still more evident in his colouring and execution. His works at the Adelphi are stained designs rather than pictures. In a work of such extent, the artist may, perhaps, be excused for a deficiency in some qualities which are indispensable in smaller performances but, if the absence of tone and surface be permitted on the score of magnitude, that extenuation cannot apply to the want of clear and characteristic colouring. ”

“ The conception of the work on "Human Culture" could only have originated in a mind of gigantic order; nor is the general grandeur of the design more extraordinary than the skill with which so large a mass of components has been bent to the illustration of one particular idea. ”