He crossed over to Italy, passed through Naples, again visiting Pompeii, and arrived at Rome at the end of January, 1820, under very different auspices from those under which he left it. In fact, he was one of the lions of the day, especially in the English society of Rome; and his letters show that he heartily enjoyed his condition, and entered with great zest into the occupations and amusements which it afforded. It was not his nature to do things by halves; his spirits were naturally high and sanguine; and he could not but feel proud in the thought, that his position had been fairly won by his own talent and exertion. But, as usual, he did not allow all this to interfere for a moment with his main object. All dissipation was kept for the evening: the day was sacred to work, and that work was now entered into with matured taste and new powers, both of origination and criticism. In this work he found an unexpected coadjutor. In a letter (dated Feb. 24th, 1820) he says,--“A Mr. Wolfe, an architect and pupil of Mr. Gwilt, has just arrived, and I have made his acquaintance with great pleasure. He is an enthusiastic admirer of art.” The acquaintance went on apace. At Easter, 1820, he continues--“In my first interview with him, I saw immediately that he was a man with whom I could coalesce and become intimate; and the result is that I now reckon him among the few sincere friends that one can hope to obtain in the world.” Never were anticipations more fully realized. The friendship, there begun, continued till the day of his death, with a rare warmth and perfectness of sympathy. The very dissimilarities of the two friends (as is usually the case when there is identity of principle and feeling) only strengthened their union, by giving each power to help the other. Art was the one thought of both; but it was pursued in very different ways. Mr. Wolfe’s mind was more educated, was naturally more scientific and philosophical, and pre-eminently distinguished by cool and well-balanced judgment. It was exactly the mind to influence Mr. Barry’s at this stage of his professional career, and to induce him to study, systematically and with a view to first principles, the treasures of Italian architecture which were before his eyes, find the rich variety of ideas and objects, with which his travels and his sketches had stored his mind. He was often oppressed by the idea (apparently a very groundless one) that he had wasted much of his time by the discursiveness of his occupations, and especially by his preference of the artistic to the scientific element of study. The truth probably was, that the materials were gathered, and that the task of arrangement and organization now alone remained. In that task the two friends resolved to work in common; and each altered his arrangements that they might be together in their study of Rome, Florence, Vicenza, Venice, and Verona.[19]