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tioned your name to Lord Kenmare as a near relation of mine, for whom I had the greatest affection; and without desiring his future protection in direct terms, I thanked him for what he had already done for you; which I thought the best way of asking it at that time; but I have the honour of writing to him this day, and will not fail to refresh his memory concerning you. If some circumstances in my family had not prevented it, I should certainly, with some other friends whom you have not seen, of a long time, have surprised you among your woods, waters, and mountains. All here desire to be most affectionately remembered to you and yours. am ever, my dear Garret, your most affectionate kinsman, and faithful humble servant,

EDM. BURKE.

I

The papers but too fully inform you of our bad accounts from ****. They are indeed very little different from those which I always expected.

EDMUND BURKE TO MR. BARRY.

MY DEAR BARRY,

London [1765 or 1766].

I AM greatly in arrear to you on account of correspondence; but not, I assure you, on account of regard, esteem, and most sincere good wishes. My mind followed you to Paris, through your Alpine journey, and to Rome; you are an admirable painter with your pen as well as with your pencil; and every one to whom I showed your

letters felt an interest in your little adventures, as well as a satisfaction in your description; because there is not only a taste, but a feeling in what you observe, something that shows that you have a heart; and I would have you by all means keep it. I thank you for Alexander; Reynolds sets a high esteem on it, he thinks it admirably drawn, and with great spirit, He had it at his house for some time, and returned it in a very fine frame; and it at present makes a capital ornament in our little dining room between the two doors. At Rome you are, I suppose, even still so much agitated by the profusion of fine things on every side of you, that you have hardly had time to sit down to methodical and regular study. When you do, you will certainly select the best parts of the best things, and attach yourself to them wholly. You, whose letter would be the best direction in the world to any other painter, want none yourself from me, who know little of the matter. But, as you were always indulgent enough to bear my humour under the name of advice, you will permit me now, my dear Barry, once more to wish you, in the beginning at least, to contract the circle of your studies. The extent and rapidity of your mind carries you to too great a diversity of things, and to the completion of a whole before you are quite master of the parts, in a degree equal to the dignity of your ideas. This disposition arises from a generous impatience, which is a fault almost characteristic of great genius. But it is a fault nevertheless, and one which I am sure you will correct, when you consider that there is

a great deal of mechanic in your profession, in which, however, the distinctive part of the art consists, and without which the first ideas can only make a good critic, not a painter. I confess I am not much desirous of your composing many pieces, for some time at least. Composition (though by some people placed foremost in the list of the ingredients of an art) I do not value near so highly. I know none, who attempts, that does not succeed tolerably in that part: but that exquisite masterly drawing, which is the glory of the great school where you are, has fallen to the lot of very few, perhaps to none of the present age, in its highest perfection. If I were to indulge a conjecture, I should attribute all that is called greatness of style and manner of drawing to this exact knowledge of the parts of the human body, of anatomy and perspective. For by knowing exactly and habitually, without the labour of particular and occasional thinking, what was to be done in every figure they designed, they naturally attained a freedom and spirit of outline; because they could be daring without being absurd: whereas ignorance, if it be cautious, is poor and timid; if bold, it is only blindly presumptuous. This minute and thorough knowledge of anatomy, and practical as well as theoretical perspective, by which I mean to include foreshortening, is all the effect of labour and use in particular studies, and not in general compositions. Notwithstanding your natural repugnance to handling of carcasses, you ought to make the knife go with the pencil, and study anatomy in real, and, if you can, in frequent dissections.

You know that a man who despises as you do the minutiae of the art, is bound to be quite perfect in the noblest part of all; or he is nothing. Mediocrity is tolerable in middling things, but not at all in the great. In the course of the studies I speak of, it would not be amiss to paint portraits often and diligently. This I do not say as wishing you to turn your studies to portrait painting, quite otherwise; but because many things in the human face will certainly escape you without some intermixture of that kind of study. Well, I think I have said enough to try your humility on the subject. But I am thus troublesome from a sincere anxiety for your success. I think you a man of honour and of genius, and I would not have your talents lost to yourself, your friends, or your country by any means. You will then attribute my freedom to my solicitude about you, and my solicitude to my friendship. Be so good to continue your observations as usual. They are exceedingly grateful to us all, and we keep them by us.

EDMUND BURKE TO MR. BARRY.

*** 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. Until very lately, I had never heard of any thing of your proceedings from others: and

VOL. VI.

M M

when I did, it was much less than I had known from yourself, that you had been upon ill terms with the artists and virtuosi in Rome, without much mention of cause or consequence. If you have improved these unfortunate quarrels to your advancement in your art, you have turned a very disagreeable circumstance to a very capital advantage. However you may have succeeded in this uncommon attempt, permit me to suggest, with that friendly liberty which you have always had the goodness to bear from me, that you cannot possibly have always the same success, either with regard to your fortune or your reputation. Depend upon it, that you will find the same competitions, the same jealousies, the same arts and cabals, the same emulations of interest and of fame, and the same agitations and passions here, that you have experienced in Italy; and if they have the same effect on your temper, they will have just the same effect on your interest; and be your merit what it will, you will never be employed to paint a picture. It will be the same at London as at Rome; and the same at 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 would 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. That you

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