arms, with the honours of historic art, it might have been expected, that such an individual had some slight claim on her gratitude, and that from the plethoric superabundance of her wealth, she would have dropped a mite, which, however insignificant in itself, would have secured her enthusiastic champion from future indigence and embarrassment. Barry's performance passed before the public vision, with as little observance as the last new pantomime, and was certainly less productive; the profits of the exhibition amounted to 500l to which 200l. were added by a vote of the Society, for whose rooms they had been painted, and this sum comprises nearly the whole produce of Barry's professional career. A man of more constitutional placidity than Barry, might have felt irritated, that after having expended on a public work all the fruits of his study, and the energies of his youth, his labours had left him no chance of independence, unless that independence should be purchased by a sacrifice of all the comforts and conveniences of life. We regret to add what truth extorts from us, that Barry's natural irritability seems to have increased from this period, even to a degree of exasperation; and that his powers of mind, at least in what relates to the exercise of his art, seem to have sunk in a gradual declension. His picture of Pandora, which we gladly refrain from commenting on, is too explicit a proof of this last assertion; and his disputes with the Academy are as strong an evidence of the former. He had been elected professor of painting in 1782, and almost from the period of his instalment, he had been engaged in a perpetual contest with his fellow-academicians: these dissensions became at last so insufferable, that the council preferred against him a formal body of charges, and in a general assembly of the Academics, the offences of the professor were considered of such magnitude, that he was divested of his office, and expelled the Academy.
Soon after this event, the Earl of Buchan set on foot a subscription, which amounted to about 1000l. with which
