actually happened after Barry's return home: "By degrees you will produce some of your own works; they will be variously criticised. You will defend them; you will abuse those that have attacked you; expostulations, discussions, letters, possibly challenges, will go forward; you will shun your brethren; they will shun you. In the meantime, gentlemen will avoid your friendship for fear of being engaged in your quarrels: you will be obliged for maintenance to do anything for anybody; your very talents will depart for want of hope and encouragement, and you will go out of the world fretted, disappointed, and ruined. Nothing but my real regard for you could induce me to set these considerations in this light before you. Remember we are born to serve and to adorn our country, and not to contend with our fellowcitizens; and that, in particular, your business is to paint and not to dispute."

Barry brought home from his long residence on the Continent an inclination to Deism, which Burke immediately assailed with the most powerful arguments, and a few good books, particularly Bishop Butler's Analogy; and by these means succeeded in fixing the eccentric painter's belief in revealed religion. Yet, long afterwards, among the slanderous accusations raised against Burke for his opposition to revolutionary France was that of having been given to deistical raillery!

Barry returned to England destitute of all but art, but justly confident in his acquirements; he rose to eminence; became a member of the Royal Academy, and its Professor of Painting, but led a troubled life, in altercation with that body, and worse, with his friend Burke, which, however, he long endured. However, here is a more pleasant picture of their friendship.

Barry lived for nearly twenty years at No. 36, in Castlestreet, Oxford Market, in a house almost proverbial for its dirty and ruinous state. He dwelt alone, and scarcely ever admitted any visitor; and his painting-room had been a carpenter's-shop, with scarcely any special accommodation for the change to a studio. Burke hinted a visit, and says: "To

my very apparent intimation, Barry cheerfully responded. Sir,' said Barry, you know I live alone; but if you will come and help me to eat a steak, I shall have it tender and hot from the most classic market in London-that of Ox

ford.' The day and hour came. I was punctual, and found Barry ready to receive me. He conducted me into his painting-room, on one of the walls of which I saw hung his large and beautiful picture of Pandora. Around were placed the studies for his six pictures for the Society of Arts in the Adelphi. There were also rickety straining-frames, old statues, and a printing-press in which he printed his plates with his own hand. Over and about all remarked the too visible marks of some laborious spiders; their webs rivalled in extent and colour pieces of ancient tapestry. I say I saw this; yet I wisely seemed to see it not. I observed, moreover, that most of the windows were in a broken or cracked condition, and that the roof had tiles but no ceiling: the light came in through many crevices above. A couple of old chairs and a deal table composed the whole furniture. Yet two things were bright, the painter was in good humour, and the fire was burning brilliantly. The steaks were put on to broil, Barry spread a clean cloth on the table, and then put a pair of tongs into my hand, saying, 'Be useful, my dear friend, and look to the steaks till I fetch the porter.' I acted according to his desire. The painter soon returned with the porter in his hand, exclaiming, What a misfortune! The wind carried away the fine foaming top of froth as I crossed Titchfield-street!' We sat down together, and commenced the feast. The steak was tender, and done to a moment, which are matters of essential consequence in such a repast. The host was lively and full of anecdote; and I can safely declare I have seldom spent a happier evening in my life."

Barry subsequently became discontented with Burke, and was even impertinent to him, because he would not withdraw his friendship from Sir Joshua Reynolds, who, courtly in himself, had strongly expressed his dislike of Barry. In this humour the latter, who was painting a portrait of Burke for

Dr. Brocklesby, made the statesman repeat his visit again and again for sittings: he being then (in 1774) incessantly engaged, Barry coolly said that Burke must send a day's notice of his sitting; to which Edmund replied in a letter of clever irony. But the painter was inflexible: he complained of Burke's sarcasm; this produced a rejoinder, which awakened the painter to apologize for his rudeness. Burke relented, and the picture was painted. But the friendship cooled; Burke became more distant, but still continued to take an interest in Barry, and to serve him. Burke died some eight years before the painter, who, wayward as he was to his patron while living, did him due honour and justice when dead. He was heard to say, "The peace of God be ever with Edmund Burke; he was my first, my best, and my wisest friend, and I behaved, indeed, too harshly to him."

Burke's prediction proved almost literally true. Barry died the victim of his own ill-temper, in locking himself up for 40 hours without medical assistance, which would probably have saved him. He left but few results of his great genius; the principal being the allegorical pictures upon the walls of the great room of the Society of Arts.

Barry is known to have consulted Burke on the designs for these paintings, and from his reply to the application there is reason to think that some portion of the merit belongs to the latter.

In 1783, the painter received from an unknown hand a free yet friendly criticism upon these pictures, which so interested Barry, that he eagerly returned an answer, as directed, to the bar of the Cocoa-tree, in Pall Mall, soliciting personal acquaintance or further correspondence. No rejoinder was ever made, or the author positively known; but the paper has always been attributed, with ample reason, to Burke, and the painter was of this opinion.

Barry was not the only instance of Burke's benevolence to an artist. Barrett, also an Irishman, and one of the best landscape-painters of his day, and a Royal Academician, having fallen into difficulties, and the fact coming to Mr.

Burke's ears, in 1782, during his short tenure of power, he bestowed upon him a place in Chelsea Hospital, which he enjoyed for the remainder of his life.

BURKE STUDIES IRISH HISTORY.

Burke, in 1766, devoted a portion of his leisure to the antiquities and native language of Ireland. Of the latter he knew a little, and about five years afterwards, communicated to his old college acquaintance, Dr. Leland, who was then writing the History of Ireland, two volumes of old Irish manuscripts, containing several of the ancient written laws of that country in an early idiom of the language, which he had accidentally discovered in London, on a bookstall. In allusion to the tongue of his native country, he observed in conversation with Johnson: "The Irish language is not primitive; it is Teutonic; a mixture of the northern tongues; it has much English in it." When the similarity of English and Dutch was mentioned, he added: "I remember having seen a Dutch sonnet, in which I found this word, roesnopie. Nobody could at first think this was English; but when we inquire, we find roes, rose, and nopie, nob. So we have the origin of our word rosebuds." His acquaintance with the filiation of languages, (says Mr. Prior,) was pronounced by. several competent judges to be extensive.

BURKE IN PARLIAMENT.

In the Preface to the Observations on the Conduct of the Minority it is stated that Burke "declined taking any salary for his employment under Lord Rockingham, as Secretary to the First Lord of the Treasury, and at his cost he obtained a seat in Parliament." He was returned for Wendover, and on the day of taking his seat, Jan. 14, 1766, when he is, by biographers and historians, said to have taken part in the debate on the Address of Thanks; but, as this is not mentioned n the only account of the debate, which was furnished by

Burke's friend, Lord Charlemont, the above statement is discredited.

The only allusion to Burke's speeches in this year is in the Memoirs of George III., by Walpole, who founded his narrative of the debate on the private notes of members taken at the time, and to be regarded as correct.

It was on Jan. 27, 1766, when, according to Walpole, there appeared in the debate on the North-American petition in 1766, a new speaker, whose fame for eloquence soon rose high above the ordinary pitch. His name was Edmund Burke, an Irishman of a Roman Catholic family, and actually married to one of that persuasion. He had been known to the public for a few years by his Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, and other ingenious works; but the narrowness of his fortune kept him down, and his best revenue had arisen from writing for booksellers. Lord Rockingham, on being raised to the head of the Treasury, had taken Burke for his private secretary. He immediately proved a bitter scourge to George Grenville, whose tedious harangues he ridiculed with infinite wit, and answered with equal argument. Grenville himself was not more copious; but with unexhausted fertility, Burke had an imagination that poured out new ideas, metaphors, and allusions, which came forth ready dressed in the most ornamental, and yet the most correct language. In truth, he was so fond of flowers, that he snatched them, if they presented themselves, even from Ovid's Metamorphoses. His wit, though prepared, seldom failed him; his judgment often. Aiming always at the brilliant, and rarely concise, it appeared that he felt nothing really but the lust of applause. His knowledge was infinite, but vanity had the only key to it; and though, no doubt, he aspired highly, he seemed content when he had satisfied the glory of the day, whatever proved the event of the debate. This kind of eloquence contented himself, and often his party; but the House grew weary at length of so many essays. Having come too late into public life, and being too conceited to study men whom he thought his inferiors in ability, he proved a very indifferent politician