his genius was given him to copy. In colouring he proved no greater a master: his force lay in expression, not in tints and chi

aro scuro."

Mr. Nichols remarks, that Hogarth's principal employment at first "seems to have been the engraving of arms and shop-bills. The next step was to design and furnish plates for booksellers; and here we are fortunately supplied with dates. Thirteen folio prints, with his name to each, appeared in "Aubry de la Motraye's Travels," in 1728: seven smaller prints for "Apuleius' Golden Ass," in 1724: fifteen head pieces to "Beaver's Military punishments of the Ancients," and five frontispieces for the translation of Cassandra, in five volumes, 12mo. 1725; seventeen cuts for a duodecimo edition of Hudibras (with Butler's head) in 1726; two for "Perseus and Andromeda," in 1730; two for Milton (the date 'uncertain); and a variety of others between 1726 and 1733.

"No symptons of genius," says Mr. Walpole, dawned in those plates. His Hudibras was the first of his works that marked him as a man above the common; yet what made him then noticed, now surprises us to find so little humour in an undertaking so congenial to his talents."!

"On the success, however, of those plates," Mr. Walpole says, "He commenced painter, a painter of portraits; the most illsuited employment imaginable to a man whose turn certainly was not flattery, nor his talent adapted to look on vanity without a sneer. Yet his facility in catching a likeness, and the method he chose of painting families and conversations in small, then a novelty, drew him prodigious business for some time. It did not last, either from his applying to the real bent of his disposition, or from his customers apprehended that a satirist was too formidable a confessor for the devotees of self-love". There are still many family pictures by Mr. Hogarth existing, in the style of serious conversation pieces. He was not however lucky in all his resemblances, and has sometimes failed where many other artists have succeeded,

It was Mr. Hogarth's custom to sketch out on the spot any remarkable face which particularly struck him, and of which he wished to preserve the remembrance.. "A gentleman, still living informs me," says Mr. Nichols, "that being once with our paint

er at the Bedford Coffee house, he observed him to draw something with a pencil on his nail. Enquiring what had been his em ployment, he was shewn the countenance (a whimsical one) of a person who was then at a small distance.

It happened in the early part of Hogarth's life, that a noble man, who was uncommonly ugly and deformed, came to sit to him for his picture. It was executed with a skill that did honor to the artist's abilities: but the likeness was rigidly observed, without even the necessary attention to compliment or flattery. The peer, disgusted at this counterpart of his dear self, never once thought of paying for a reflector that would only insult him with his deformities. Some time was suffered

applied for his money; but afterwards,

flapse before the artist

y applications were

made by him (who had then no need of a banker) for payment, without success. The painter, however, at last hit upon an ex-. pedient, which he knew must alarm the nobleman's pride, and by that means answer his purpose. It was couched in the follow ing card;

"Mr. Hogarth's dutiful respects to Lord; finding that he does not mean to have the picture which was drawn for him, is informed again of Mr. H's necessity for the money; if there fore, his lordship does not send for it in three days, it will be disposed of, with the edition of a tail, and some other little appendages, to Mr. Hare, the famous wild-beast man; Mr. H. having given that gentleman a conditional promise of it for an ex-1 hibition picture, on his lordship's refusal,"

This intimation had he desired effect. The picture was sent home, and committed to the flames.

In 1730, Mr. Hogarth married the only daughter of sir James Thornhill, by whom he had no child. This union indeed, was a stolen one, and consequently without the approbation of sir James, who considering the youth of his daughter, then barely eighteen, and the slender finances of her husband, as yet an obscure artist, was not easily reconciled to the match. Soon after this period, however, he began his Harlot's Progress (the coffin in the last plate is inscribed September 2, 1731); and was advised by lady

Thornhill to have some of the sences in it placed in the way of his father-in-law. Accordingly one morning early, Mrs. Hogarth undertok to convey several of them into his dining-room. When he arose, he enquired from whence they came; and being told by whom they were introduced, he cried out, " Very well ; the man who can furnish representations like these, can also maintain a wife without a portion." He designed this remark as an excuse for keeping his purse-strings close, but soon after, became both reconciled and generous to the young couple.

Soon after his marriage, Hogarth had summer-lodgings at SouthLambeth; and being intimate with Mr. Tyers, contributed to the improvement of the Spring gardens at Vauxhall, by the hint of embellishing them with paintings, some of which were the suggestions of his own truly comic pencil.

Among these were the "Four Parts of the Day," copied by Hayman from the designs of our artist. The scenes of "Evening" and "Night" are still there; and portraits of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn once adorned the old great room on the right hand of the entry into the gardens. For his assistance, Mr. Tyers gratefully presented him with a gold ticket of admission for him? self and his friends, inscribed

IN PERPETUAM BENEFECII MEMORIAM.

In 1733, his genius became conspicuously known. The third scene of his Harlot's Progress" introduced him to the notice of the great. At a board of Treasury, which was held a day or two after the appearance of that print, a copy of it was shewn by one of the lords, as containing, among other excellencies, a striking likeness of sir John Gonson. It gave universal satisfaction; from the treasury, each lord repaired to the print-shop for a copy of it; and Hogarth rose completely into fame.

"The familiarity of the subject," says Mr. Nichols, and the propriety of its execution, made the “Harlot's Progress," tasted by all ranks of people.

Above twelve hundred names were entered in our artist's subscription-book. It was made into a pantomine by Theophilus Cibber; and again represented on the stage, under the title of "The

Jew decoyed, or a Harlot's Progress," in a Ballad Opera. Fanmounts were likewise engraved, containing miniature representatitions of all the six plates. These were usually printed off with red ink, three compartments on one side, and three on the other."

The ingenious Abbé Du Bois has often complained, that no history-painter of his time went through a series of actions, and thus, like an historian, painted the successive fortune of an hero, from the cradle to the grave. What Du Bois wished to see done, Hogarth performed. He launches out his young adventurer, a simple girl upon the town, and conducts her through all the vicissitudes of wretchedness to a premature death. This was paint. ing to the understanding and to the heart; none had ever before made the pencil subservient to the purposes of morality and instruction; a book like this is fitted to every soil, and every observer, and he that runs may read. 'Nor was the success of Ho. garth confined to his persons. One of his excellencies consisted in what may be termed the furniture of his pieces; for as, in sublime and historical representations, the fewer trivial circumstances. are permitted to divide the spectator's attention from the principal figures, the greater is their Force; so in scenes copied from familiar life, a proper variety of little domestic images, contributes to throw a degree of verisimilitude on the whole. «The rake's levee-room," says Mr. Walpole, "the Nobleman's dining-room, the apartments of the husband and wife in Marriage á-la-Mode, the Alderman's parlour, the bed-chamber, and many others, are the history of the manners of the age."

The "Rake's Progress" (published in the same year, and sold at Hogarth's house, the Golden Head in Leicester Fields), though "perhaps superior, had not," as Mr. Walpole observes, "so much success. from want of novelty'; nor is the print of the arrest equal in merit to the others.

"The curtain however," says he, "was now drawn aside, and genius stood displayed in its full lustre. From time to time our artist continued to give those works that should be immortal, if the nature of his art will allow it. Even the receipts for his subscriptions had wit in them. Many of his plates

he engraved himself, and often expunged faces etched by his assis

tants, when they had not done justice to his ideas. Not content with shining in a path untrodden before, he was ambitious of distinguishing himself as a painter of history ;" and in 1736 presented to the hospital of St. Bartholomew, of which he was then appointed a governor, a painting of the Pool of Bethesda, and another of the Good Samaritan. But the genius that had entered so feelingly into the calamities and crimes of familiar life, deserted him in a walk that called for dignity and grace. The burlesque turn of his mind mixed itself with the most serious subjects. In the Pool of Bethesda, a servant of a rich ulcerated lady, beats back a poor man that sought the same celestial remedy;. and in his Danae (for which the duke of Ancaster paid 60 guineas) the old nurse tries a coin of the golden shower with the teeth, to see if it is true gold. Both circumstances are justly thought, but rather too ludicrous. It is a much more capital fault, that Danae herself is a mere nymph of Drury. conceived no higher degree of beauty." Dr. Lectures on Physiognomy, 4to. p. 58, says, "Thus yielded Da, nae to the Golden Shower, and thus was her passion painted by the ingenious Mr. Hogarth."

He seems to have Parsons also, in his

The novelty and excellence of Hogarth's performances soon tempted the needy artist and print-dealer to avail themselves of his designs, and rob him of the advantages which he was intitled to derive from them. This was particularly the case with the "Midnight conversation," the "Harlot's" and the " Rake's Progress?' and others of his early works. To put a stop to depredations like these on the property of himself and others, and to secure the emoluments resulting from his own labours, as Mr. Walpole observes, he applied to the legislature, and obtained an act of par liament. 8 George II. chap. 38, to vest an exclusive right in designers and engravers, and to restrain the multiplying of copies of their works without the consent of the artist. The statute was drawn by his friend Mr. Huggins, who took for his model the eighth of queen Anne, in favor of literary property; but it was not so accurately executed as entirely to remedy the evil; for, in a cause founded on it, which came before lord Harwicke in chancery, that excellent lawyer determined, that no assignee, claiming under an assignment from the original inventor, could take any be