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Letter from JAMES BARRY to LORD BUCHAN, written 21 February 1805, at Castle Street, London

Source: MS Autograph Letters Collection, National Library of Ireland. Printed: Fryer, Works of Barry, i. 294-95.

Cover: To the
Earl of Buchan
Edinburgh

Buchan has written on the cover, down the side by the address, 'James Barry Esq
to the Earl of B.
How great does
Barry appear in
the midst of dis-
tress & unjustifiable
neglect and per-
secution. how
mean those who
expelled such
a Man from his
situation in the
Royal Academy
how Unfortunate
the King who was
induced to erase
the names of a
Barry & a Fox? 1

Fryer makes a number of minor editorial changes to punctuation and phrasing and changes some paragraph breaks.

The Scottish antiquarian and art collector David Steuart Erskine (1742-1829), earl of Buchan, [img] had been in correspondence with the Society of Arts to set up a fund to assist Barry in his old age.

My dear Lord,

My long esteemed & ingenious freind friend M.^r Cooper 2 kindly assured me two days since that he would immediately write to let your Lordship know the happy effects which were likely to result from your Letters to the Society of Arts in my behalf;3 which letters really appear to have been providentially instrumental in arresting in great part, the outrageous progress of my persecutors4 & their instruments & perhaps may further enable me to give a termination to that interesting Miltonic matter5 which (to the no small comparative honour of the Country) associates so congenially with the sublime, beautiful, exquisitely graceful sensibility of the Homeric characters which enrich Hesiods Hesiod's composition of my Pandora.6 I much envy your Lordship the glory of rescu^eeing from the Claws, fangs & pestilential breath of such a Hydra,7 a very laborious series of efforts, the united object of which (as well in that part which is executed at the Adelphi8, as in that which remains) was to furnish useful entertainment to the publick & perhaps to achieve some little reputation for the Nation, in the only matter which had unfortunately been hitherto neglected - wch which countenanced foreigners in the habit of indulging their sarcastic reflections9 upon the Climate & the capacity of our people.

I have great satisfaction in knowing from one of the Committee (consisting of the subscribers, which has been formed for carrying into execution your Lordship's Plan)10 that, that Plan is to be communicated to the Presidency & the Society at large, & I have too many obligations to the condescension of many of the Noble Characters who form the Presidency, not to wish most earnestly for the continuance of their countenance & good opinion on this occasion.

I am at present, to use a Sea phrase, resting upon my oars, with too much distraction of mind for any actual occupation, except reading. The condition of the house11 & the season of the year, will not allow me even to venture to take off any impressions from the plates12 of the large groups of the work at the Adelphi, some of wch which have been lately called for; & the plate of the Pandora is too large13 to take off any good proof from it in my own Press, so that I cannot even know, that it is finished, until I goego out to see it done at some other press: but for that there will be time enough after, with God's blessing, I shall be enabled to remove from this house14 & to print the written account15 of the picture - which is intended to goego along with the print.

With the most heartfelt recognition
of your Lordships Lordship's great Kindness & most
obliging delicacy I remain your devoted
humble servant

Feb. 21. 1805 -

Show/Hide other notes [why?]

1 ^
Barry & a Fox?] Barry was expelled from the Royal Academy in April 1799 (see Royal Academy to Barry, 24 April 1799); part of the process required that King George III, as patron of the Academy, should strike through Barry's name on the list of Academicians. The allusion to the political figure Charles James Fox (1749-1806) is unclear.

2 ^
Cooper] Possibly Cooper Penrose (1736-1815), an art collector in Co. Cork, to whom Barry had written a long letter in which he mentioned his personal difficulties (see Barry to Penrose, 13 July 1803).

3 ^
my behalf] Buchan showed one of these to Barry before sending it.

4 ^
my persecutors] Barry believed that the break-ins and robbery at his house were the work of enemies, possibly linked to members of the Royal Academy.

5 ^
Miltonic matter] Barry was working on a drawing and then the engraving Milton dictating to Ellwood the Quaker (see Pressly, Life and Art, pp. 196-97). [img] When Buchan saw the work on a visit to London, he wrote, 'I should particularly covet' a copy (Buchan to Barry, 19 April 1805).

6 ^
my Pandora]

Barry's drawing Pandora, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1775 had its genesis in the Greek poet Hesiod, Works and Days, trans. M.L.West (Oxford, World Classics, 1999), p. 39 (Pressly, Life and Art, p. 26). He had recently completed a painting The Birth of Pandora and wanted to give Buchan a print of it. [img]

In Greek mythology Pandora was the first human woman created by the gods; for Barry, 'This story of Pandora is one of the most splendid of the many specimens of the Heathen manner of adumbrating or allegorizing that momentous introduction of evil, or fall of mankind, which is related in Genesis, and which, however difficult to be accounted for, is traceable in the traditions and feelings of all nations' ('Fragment on the Story and Painting of Pandora', Fryer, Works of Barry, ii. 147).

7 ^
Hydra] In Greek mythology, a dangerous monster with many heads known as the Lernean Hydra; the heads grew again as soon as they were cut off. The image came to apply to destructive persons or things that were difficult to combat, in Barry's case his enemies.

8 ^
at the Adelphi] Barry's six paintings, The Progress of Human Culture, that decorated the walls of the Great Room of the Society of Arts at the Adelphi.

9 ^
sarcastic reflections] Barry had long resented the arguments of Continental writers who maintained that the English were incapable of great art because of their climate. His particular targets were the German art critic Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-68), and the French writers Jean Baptiste Du Bos (1670-1742) and Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de la Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755); see Barry to Burke, 8 September 1770.

10 ^
your Lordship's plan] On Buchan's initiative, the Society of Arts had agreed a plan for its members and the public to subscribe to a fund that would be used to assist Barry.

11 ^
condition of the house] Barry had recently told Buchan, 'all the windows in the front of my house are so broken that it is impossible to make any use of the rooms in front, so that I am reduced to live in a small back room on the second floor' (Barry to Buchan, 21 December 1804); the winter further aggravated his discomfort.

12 ^
impressions from the plates] Barry worked on his engravings and printed from them in his house; he had been hoping to print engravings of groups of figures he had taken from his paintings in the Great Room of the Society. [img]

13 ^
Pandora is too large] According to a visitor the painting measured 'eighteen feet long and ten broad' (cited by Michael Phillips, 'James Barry: Artist-Printmaker', James Barry, 1741-1806, 'The Great Historical Painter' (Kinsale, 2005), p.145).

14 ^
this house] Some months later Buchan asked the Society, and Barry, to look for a more comfortable house (Buchan to Barry, 12 July 1805).

15 ^
written account] Fryer gives a note here: 'A Fragment of this account is printed in vol. ii. of this present work'; see Barry, 'Fragment on the Story and Painting of Pandora', Fryer, Works of Barry, ii. 141-66.