Antoine-Louis Barye

“ Probably the best works are to be found among those pieces representing members of the feline race, which were always the subject of Barye’s most thorough study. The sculptures of horses are also very numerous, and it strikes one at first as curious that, after all the rebuffs he received from the academic faction, who recognized no animals but the horse and lion as worthy of representation in sculpture, he should have modelled so many of these very creatures. ”

“ He studied in New York, and later in Paris, where he was impressed by the style of Barye, although in no sense an imitator. His works show powerful conception and individuality and a keen perception of animal traits of character. He has made a specialty of the wild animals of the American continent. ”

“ In the latter case the strong man is engaged in combat with a living animal, but he carries his strength with the same assurance and absence of effort in its exercise. Barye, however, does not always give this happy impression when he seeks to represent the human figure. If we compare, for example, the bronze made in 1840 for the Duke of Montpensier (Roger Bearing off Angelica on the Hippogriff) with any of the animal groups of that decade or earlier, we can hardly fail to be amazed at the lack of unity in the composition and the distracting multiplicity of the details. ”

“ De Kay has referred to this work as an example of Barye's power to reproduce the horrible and to make one's blood run cold with the ferocity of the destroying beast. It seems to me, however, that it is one of the pieces in which Barye's power to represent the horrible without destroying the [Pg 14] peace of mind to be found in all true art, is most obvious. With his capacity for emphasizing that which he wishes to be predominant in his composition he has brought out to the extreme limit of expression the strength of the lion and its savage interest in its prey. ”

“ On 27th November the king was hesitating very much about removing Colonel Barré, who did not get his final dismissal till 7th December — the step being taken entirely in deference to the advice of Rt. Hon. George Grenville, who urged that it would be an additional blow to Lord Shelburne.) Barré’s subsequent career as an opposition member was honourable, serviceable, and magnificent.
In 1765, when the American Stamp Act was passed, he (as was afterwards admitted) alone foresaw its direful consequences. ”

“ They have nobly taken up arms in your defence, &c, &c.”
Barré’s career of opposition was interrupted by his receiving office, as one of Lord Shelburne’s train, under the Earl of Chatham. This is thought by some writers to be a blot on his career, Barré in his first speech in Parliament having attacked Pitt, and having used even such violent phraseology as “There he would stand, turning up his eyes to heaven that witnessed his perjuries, and laying his hand in a solemn manner upon the table — that sacrilegious hand that had been employed in tearing out the bowels of his mother country.” ”

“ As the tree burned away it was pushed further into the fireplace, and a roaring fire could always be got by kicking pieces of the smouldering wood and blowing them into flame with the bellows. When Rob saw the minister he groaned relief and left his loom. He had been weaving, his teeth clenched, his eyes on fire, for seven hours.
"I wasna fleid," little Micah said to the neighbours afterwards, "to gang in wi' the minister. He's a fine man that. He didna ca' my father names. Na, he said, 'You're a brave fellow, Rob,' and he took my father's hand, he did. ”

“ Barrie has accomplished has not been due to the repression of himself to meet the measure of English classical tradition, on the one hand; nor, on the other, has he extended himself in order to catch the popular fancy—and he has got them both. He is pronounced literature by those who know it when they see it, and he would be pronounced a successful man even by those to whom money is the measure of success. ”

“ Walpole writes to the Earl of Hertford from Arlington Street, 12th February 1765, “There has been nothing of, note in Parliament, but one slight day on the American Taxes, which Charles Townshend supporting received a pretty heavy thump from Barré, who is the present Pitt, and the dread of all the vociferous Norths and Rigbies, on whose lungs depended so much of Mr. Grenville’s power.” One eloquent passage in Colonel Barré’s speech has never been forgotten in Britain or America, “Children planted by your care? No! your oppression planted them in America ”

“ For my present purpose—which is to examine the progress of Barrès, and especially his influence on recent literature, it is enough to say that these first volumes were the work of a man for whom the inner world alone exists. He, who was to become the voice of his province and his race, makes his first appearance as a being released from all ties and all traditions. The hero of Sous l’œil des Barbares has no country, no profession, no family, no local habitation, and no name. The one existence and the one reality are, in his eyes, the Ego,—in other words, his own mind. ”

“ In 1774 he opposed the establishment of the Roman Catholic religion in any part of America.
Barré is known by his powerful opposition to the American War; but it was remarked upon as surprising, that he hesitated at first. But human nature will betray an occasional weakness ”

“ All these tendencies seem to mark the reappearance of a fusion of thought and action, of intelligence and feeling, which is the characteristic charm of the French genius. In the midst of what seems like reaction, this new spirit is searching for a national self-consciousness which shall clearly see, strongly feel, and sanely act. In the search for the naiionalisme integrale of Barres, the youth of to-day, one feels, are seeking the nourishing qualities of the traditional trait, the richness of a common culture which, has a right to make traditionalism seem seductive and beautiful. ”

“ It is possible that our inclinations may bias our judgment; but we think that we do not flatter ourselves when we say that Barère’s aversion to our 536country was a sentiment as deep and constant as his mind was capable of entertaining. ”

“ He then mounted his mule, and with some of his officers rode out to view Mariam Barea’s disposition. The king, anxious about the fortune of the day, and terrified at some reports that had been made him, by timid, or unskilful people, of the warlike countenance of Mariam Barea’s army, sent to the Ras, whom he saw reconnoitring, to know his opinion of what was likely to happen. “Tell the king,” says the veteran, “that a young man like him, fighting with a subject so infinitely below him, with an army double his number, should give him fair play for his life and reputation. ”

“ But such individualism in a soul which was searching for the French genius, always incorrigibly social, could only be unstable and ephemeral, and it is because Barres's thought felt the wider appeal of the nation's soul that he is the most eagerly read French writer to-day, while the symbolist contemporaries of his youth have passed like their own fleeting sensations. Already in Le Culte du Moi, with its pictures of his native Lorraine countryside into which he withdraws with his friend to meditate, one feels the suggestion of the larger collective life to which he must soon be sensitive. ”

“ Barrie has the narrowest field of any of the prominent authors in this age of globe-trotting writers. It seems to be a pretty rich one, and he works it for all it is worth; he repeats his crops; but it is quite constricted. If he ever traveled as far east of England as across the Channel to Paris, there is nothing to indicate it in his work. He came to America once, but if he kept a notebook, he has kept it to himself. All the important scenes in his books and most of his plays are Thrums or London. ”

“ Barère,—indeed whose future biographer, President Carnot's father, then lying in his cradle, was destined to dwell on his unwavering enmity to England as the redeeming point in his character—seems to have been lionised by British visitors, as unconscious as himself of his cardinal virtue. ”

“ Barrie, like the rest of them, was apparently smitten with 'the last infirmity of noble mind,' as that infirmity takes shape before the lower type of literary purveyor, and decided to write a full-blown novel. The Little Minister is that full-blown novel, and it is an effort over which any true friend of Mr. Barrie's should weep. What a perfect, what a grotesque mishap it is! The book is an irremediable failure because it is utterly wrong as a whole. What a mere circus caricature is the central personage, that inhuman 'Egyptian woman'! ”

“ But I can’t forgive John Baring. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I can’t work for you. I don’t believe I could stay in the neighborhood. Folks wouldn’t be friendly with me; that is the way it would work out. I know you’re all right, a good, law-abiding citizen, and I’m sorry for you. You see, the folks round here are afraid of the Baring stock, that’s [Pg 84] the sum total of it. I am sorry for you, young lady. Ain’t there any other place that you can live?”
“I’ve talked to people about him,” said Elizabeth. “They all say he was considered to be a good man.” ”

“ If Barere had been able to effect his purpose, it is difficult to estimate the extent of the calamity which he would have brought on the human race. No government, however averse to cruelty, could, in justice to its own subjects, have given quarter to enemies who gave none. ”

“ We are not sure that we have formed, or that we can convey an exact notion of the nature of Barère’s new calling. It is a calling unknown in our country. It has indeed often happened in England that a plot has been revealed to the government by one of the 519conspirators. The informer has sometimes been directed to carry it fair towards his accomplices, and to let the evil design come to full maturity. ”

“ I heard Rob saying, fiercely, 'If what you say about her is true, Highlandman, she's the woman I've been looking for this half year and mair; what is she like?' I guessed, from what I had been told of the piper, that they were speaking of the earl's bride; but Rob saw me and came to an abrupt stop, saying to his companion, 'Dinna say another word about her afore the minister.' Rob would have come away at once in answer to my appeal, but the piper was drunk and would not be silenced. 'I'll tell the minister about her, too,' he began. ”

“ Hastily changing his borrowed clothes Barry then went into his own room and packed his one bag, which he at once carried downstairs. Fortunately he owed the landlord nothing, and though he had but three shillings in the world, his face indicated nothing but a supreme content when he rejoined the old mate and his companions.
The Welsh rarebit and its liquid concomitants having been duly disposed of, Barry rose and told his friends that as he must be on board his new ship by midnight, and then had to write a letter, he must leave them. Then he shook hands all round, each man wishing him luck. ”

“ Nor are Peace-makers wanting; of whom likewise we mention two; one fast on the crown of the Mountain, the other not yet alighted anywhere: Danton and Barrère. Ingenious Barrère, Old-Constituent and Editor from the slopes of the Pyrenees, is one of the usefullest men of this Convention, in his way. Truth may lie on both sides, on either side, or on neither side; my friends, ye must give and take: for the rest, success to the winning side! This is the motto of Barrère. Ingenious, almost genial; quick-sighted, supple, graceful; a man that will prosper. ”

“ Barré himself informs us, “When the matter of general warrants was discussed in the House, my conscience directed me to oppose the measure, which I modestly did by a silent vote.” The very next day he was dismissed from his military employments, and ultimately, by a junior Lieutenant-Colonel being promoted over his head, he received a hint to leave the army, and retired without even his half-pay. ”

“ If Dunning hoped to found a family and transmit his manors and lands and houses and wealth to a long line of descendants, his hope was frustrated. His son, Richard Barré, second Baron Ashburton, married in 1805 Anne Selby, daughter of William Cunninghame, of Lainshaw, co. Ayr, and he died in 1823 without issue, and bequeathed his estates to his wife for life, then to his wife’s nephews for life, and then to his wife’s nieces, Margaret, Elizabeth, Anna Maria Isabella Macleod, in succession for life, the survivor having the estates in fee simple. ”

“ For certain private reasons the king, with whom sided most of the [Pg 494] other chiefs, had decided to break down the Barboy house, which had been a very powerful house in days anterior to the present king’s father, and tradition says that the Barboys had some right to be the reigning house. Will Braid, the head of the house at this time, had by his industry and honourable conduct raised the position of the house to very near its former influence. This was one of the private reasons that caused the king to look on him with disfavour. ”

“ But it is no more to be described than the face of Tinker Bell, the fairy in the piece who appears only as a ray of dancing light. You can't put your finger down on any one quality, such as whimsicality, humor, satire, or fancy, and say that here is the most characteristic Barrie, for just when you think you've got him, he's off and laughing at you, dancing and playing around you and your idea, as Tinker Bell flashed about the Darling's nursery.
There are some things about Barrie that one could wish were otherwise. His art is at times too persistently artless. ”