Some sixty years ago, said a writer towards the middle of the last century, there might have been seen daily passing in a direction between Oxford Street and the Adelphi, for years together, and through all kinds of weather, one whose appearance told, to even the most casual observer, he looked upon a remarkable man. Referring to himself, in one of his letters to a friend, Barry had once said, "Though the body and the soul of a picture will discover themselves on the slightest glance, yet you know it could not be the same with such a pock-fretted, hard-featured little fellow as I am also"; but neither these personal characteristics, nor the mean garb in which he usually appeared, could conceal the earnestness stamped upon his grave, saturnine countenance, or the air of entire absorption in some mental pursuit, having little in common with the bustle of the everyday business of the world around him. He was a man to make or to keep few friends, and to shun all acquaintances; it was not often, therefore, that, in these passages to and fro, he had any companion; but the event was noticeable when he had, from the striking change in his demeanour. He became full of animation, and of a kind of sparkling cheerfulness; his conversation was at once frank, weighty, and elevating, and even the oaths, with which he made somewhat free, could not spoil the delight of the most fastidious censor of words, whilst borne along on the full and free current of the painter's thoughts. No one but himself at such times would have called his countenance "hard-featured"; its smile was inexpressibly sweet, its look of scorn or anger, when roused, such as few men could have met unmoved. But what was the employment that thus determined for so long a period his daily movements? The answer will require a brief review of his past career. Whilst a young student at Rome, Barry, annoyed by the absurd taunts of foreigners as to the ungenial character of the British soil for the growth of art, was often seduced into answering them in such a manner as suited rather his fiery temper and indomitable will than the cause which he so impatiently espoused. But a better result was his own quiet determination to devote his life to the disproof of the theory. He began admirably, by a strict analysis of his own powers, and by inquiring how they were best to be developed. Here is the result: "If I should chance to have genius, or anything else," he observes, in a letter to a friend, "it is so much the better; but my hopes are grounded upon an unwearied, intense application, of which I am not sparing. At present I have little to show that I value; my work is all underground digging and laying foundations, which, with God's assistance, I may hereafter find the use of. I every day centre more and more upon the art; I give myself totally to it; and except honour and conscience, am determined to renounce everything else." But the writer was without a shilling in the world to call his own; and