nefit by it. Hogarth immediately after the passing the act, pub lished a small print, with emblematical devices, and the following inscription, expressing his gratitude to the three branches of the legislature :

"In humble and grateful acknowledgment.

Of the grace and goodness of the LEGISLATURE,

Manifested

In the act of parliament for the Encouragement
Of the Arts of Designing, Engraving, &c,
Obtained

By the endeavours, and almost at the sole Expense
Of the Designer of this print in the year 1735
By which

Not only the Professors of those Arts were rescued
From the Tyranny, Frauds, and Piracies

Of Monopolizing Dealers and

Legally intitled to the Fruits of their own labours;
But Genius and Industry were also prompted by
The most noble and generous Inducement to exert
Themselves; emulation was excited,
Ornamental compositions were better understood:
And every Manafacture, where fancy has any
Concern, was gradually raised to a pitch of
Perfection before unknown; Insomuch,
That those of GREAT-BRITAIN

Are at present the most elegant

And the most in Esteem of any in EUROPE."

This plate he afterwards made to serve for a receipt for subscrip tions; first, to a print of an " Election Entertainment; and afterwards for three prints mere, representing the "polling for members for parliament, canvassing for votes, and chairing the members." The royal crown at the top of this receipt is darting its rays on mitres, coronets, the chancellor's great seal, the speaker's hat, &c. &c. and on a scroll is written, "An Act for the encouragement of the Arts of Designing, Engraving and Etching, by vesting the properties thereof in the Inventors and Engravers, during the time therein mentioned." It was " Designed, etched and published as the act directs, by W. Hogarth, March 20, 1734." After Hogarth's death, the legislature, by Stat. 7 Geo.

III. chap. 38. granted to his widow, a further exclusive term of twenty years in the property of her husband's works.

In the year 1736, Dean Swift introduced Hogarth into one of his poems, called, "A Description of the Legion Club;" in which, after a satrical representation of many characters, are the following lines:

"How I want thee, humourous Hogarth!
Thou, I hear, a pleasant rogue art!
Were but you and I acquainted,
Every monster should be painted:
You should try your graving tools
On this odious group of fools;
Draw the beasts as I describe them;
Form their features, while I gibe them;
Draw them like, for I assure ye,
You will need no caricatura.

Draw them so, that we may trace
All the soul in every face.

In 1745, Hogarth sold about twenty of his capital pictures by auction; and in the same year, acquired additional reputation by the six prints of Marriage a-la-Mode;" which may be regarded as the ground work of a novel called "The Marriage Act," by Dr. Shebbeare, and of "The Clandestine Marriage." In the prologue to that excellent comedy, Mr. Garrick thus handsomely expressed his regard for the memory of his friend :

"Poets and painters, who from nature draw
Their best and richest stores, have made this law;
That each should neighbourly assist his brother,
And steal with decency from one another.

To-night, your matchless Hogarth gives the thought;
Which from his canvas to the stage is brought:
And who so fit to warm the poets mind,
As he who pictur'd morals and mankind?
But not the same their characters and scenes;
Both labour for one end, by different means:
Each, as it suits him, takes a separate road,
Their one great object, Marriage a-la-mode!
Where titles deign with cits to have and hold,

Soon after the peace of Aix la Chappelle, Hogarth went over to France, and was taken into custody at Calais, while he was drawing the gate of that town, a circumstance which he has recorded in his picture, entitled, "O the Roast Beef of Old England!" published March 26, 1749. He was actually carried before the governor as a spy, and after a very strict examination, committed a prisoner to Gransire, his landlord, on his promising that Hogarth should not go out of his house, till it was to embark for England.

Soon after this period, he purchased a little house at Chiswick; where he usually passed the greatest part of the summer season, yet not without occasional visits to his house in LeicesterFields.

In 1753, he appeared to the world in the character of an au thor, and published a 4to. volume, entitled, "The Analysis of Beauty, written with a View of fixing the fluctuating Ideas of Taste." In this performance, he shews by a variety of examples, that a curve is the line of beauty, and round swelling figures are most pleasing to the eye; and the truth of his opinion has been countenanced by subsequent writers on the subject.

Mr. Nichol's informs us, that Hogarth was always on terms of the strictest friendship with Dr. Hoadly, chancellor of Winchester, and frequently visited him at Winchester, St. Cross, and Alres-ford. It is well known, that Dr. Hoadly's fondness for theatri cal exhibitions was so great, that few visitors were ever long in his house, before they were solicited to accept a part in some interlude or other. He himself, with Garrick and Hogarth, once per-` formed a laughable paradoy on the scene in Julius Cæsar, where the Ghost appears to Brutus. Hogarth personated the spectre;

but so irretentive was his memory, that although his speech consisted only of two lines, he was unable to get them by heart. At last, they hit on the following expedient in his favor: The verses he was to deliver, were written in such large letters on the outside of an illuminated paper lantern, that he could read them when he entered with it in his hand on the stage. Hogarth painted a scene on this occasion, representing a sutling booth, with the duke of Cumberland's head by way of sign. He also prepared the play-bills, with characteristic ornaments.

Hogarth was likewise remarkable for his absence of mind. At table he would sometimes turn round his chair as if he had finished: eating, and as suddenly would return it, and fall to his meal again. He once directed a letter to Dr. Fioadly, thus-" To the Doctor at Chelsea." This epistle however, by good luck, did not miscarry; and was preserved by the late chancellor of Winchester, as a pleasant memorial of his friend's extraordinary inattention.

He was let out of

The following instance of Hogarth's absence of mind is likewise related: Soon after he set up his carriage, he had occasion to pay a visit to the lord-mayor, who is supposed to have been Mr. Backford. When he went, the weather was fine; but business detained him till a violent shower of rain came on. the mansion-house by a different door from that at which he entered; and seeing the rain, began immediately to call out for a hackney-coach. Not one was to be met with on any of the neighbouring-stands, and our artist sallied forth to brave the storm, and actually reached Leicester-fields without bestowing a thought on his own carriage, till Mrs, Hogarth (surprized to see him so wet. and splashed) asked where he had left it?

"The last memorable event in our artist's life," as Mr. Walpole observes," was his quarrel with Mr. Wilkes, in which, if Mr. Hogarth did not commence direct hostilities on the latter, he at least obliquely gave the first offence, by an attack on the friends and party of that gentleman. This conduct was the more surpris ing, as he had all his life avoided dipping his pencil in political contests, and had early refused a very lucrative offer that was made to engage him in a set of prints against the head of a court party, Without entering into the merits of the cause, I shall only state

the fact: In September, 1762, Mr. Hogarth published his print of "The Times." It was answered by Mr. Wilkes in a severe "North Briton." On this, the painter exhibited the caricature of the writer. Mr. Churchill, the poet, then engaged in the war; and wrote his epistle to Hogarth, not the brightest of his works, and in which the severest strokes fell on a defect, that the painter had neither caused nor could amend his age; and which however, was neither remarkable nor decrepit; much less had it impaired his talents, as appeared by his having composed but six months before one of his most capital works, the "Satire on the Methodists.” In revenge for this epistle, Hogarth caricatured Churchhill, under the form of a canonical bear, with a club and a pot of porter et vitulă tu dignus hic never did two angry men of

their abilities, throw mud with less dexterity."

Hogarth died at his house in Leicester-fields, on the 26th of October, 1764, aged 67 years, and was interred in the churchyard at Chiswick; where a monument is erected to his memory, Among other eminent writers who have celebrated the merits of Hogarth, Mr. Haley, in his "Epistle to Mr. Romney, has the following lines;

"Nor, if her favor'd hand may hope to shed
The flowers of glory o'er the skilful dead,
Thy talents, Hogarth! will she leave unsung;
Charm of all eyes, and theme of every tongue!
A separate province 'twas thy praise to rule;
Self form'd thy pencil! yet thy works a school,
Where strongly painted, in gradations nice,
The pomp of folly, and the shame of vice,
Reach'd thro' the laughing eye the mended mind,
And moral humour sportive art refined.
While fleeting manners, as minutely shown,
As the clear prospect on the mirror thrown;
While truth of character, exactly hit;

And drest in all the dyes of comic wit;
While these, in Fielding's page, delight supply,
So long thy pencil with his pen shall vie.
Science with grief beheld thy drooping age
Fall the sad victim of a poet's rage;

But wit's vindicitive spleen, that mocks controul,