equal to their merit. The prints of the Harlot's Progress had sold much better than those of the Rake's, yet the paintings of the former produced only fourteen guineas each, while those of the latter were sold for twenty-two. That admirable picture, Morning, brought twenty guineas, and Night, in every respect inferior to almost any of his works, six-and-twenty." Such was the reward, then, to which the patrons of genius thought these works entitled. More has been since given, over and over again, for a single painting, than Hogarth obtained for all his paintings put together.

The coldness of the town and the reserve of wealthy purchasers, however, may have arisen, in part at least, from another cause than the singularity of the mode of sale. The wit and humour of Hogarth were ever ready to flow out; and here, unfortunately for his profit, he sent forth his satire in the shape of a card of admission to his sale. This production-which, among the lovers of art, has obtained the name of the "Battle of the Pictures"-is still more singular than his plan of auction; he seemed resolved never to do an ordinary thing in a common way. As he had not spared his speech in ridicule of those who thought all beauty and excellence were contained in the old religious paintings, so neither did he feel disposed to spare them when the subject came fairly before his pencil.

It is no easy matter to describe with accuracy this curious card. On the ground are placed three rows of paintings from the foreign school-one row of the Bull and Europa-another of Apollo flaying Marsyas and a third, of St. Andrew on the Cross. There are hundreds of each to denote the system of copyism and imposture which had filled the country with imitations and caricatures. Above them is an unfurled flag, emblazoned with an auctioneer's hammer, while a cock, on the summit of a sale room, with the motto p-u-f-s, represents Cocks, the auc

tioneer, and the mode by which he disposed of those similated productions. On the right hand, in the open air, are exposed to sale the principal pictures of Hogarth, and against them, as if moved by some miraculous wind, the pictures of the old school are driven into direct collision. The foreign works seem the aggressors-the havoc is mutual and equal. A Saint Francis has penetrated in a very ludicrous way into Hogarth's Morning-a Mary Magdalene has successfully intruded herself into the third scene of the Harlot's Progress, and the splendid saloon scene in Marriage-à-la-Mode suffers severely by the Aldobrandine Marriage. "Thus far," as Ireland observes, "the battle is in favour of the ancients; but the aerial combat has a different termination ;-for by the riotous scene in the Rake's Progress, a hole is made in Titian's Feast of Olympus, and a Bacchanalian, by Rubens, shares the same fate from Modern Midnight Conversation."

Having sold his nineteen favourite pictures at a price which must have stung his proud spirit, he imagined and executed a new series of moral, instructive, and satiric paintings. These are the six scenes of Marriage-à-la-Mode. That he thought very well of this new series, is countenanced by the circumstance of his making the saloon scene one of the combatants in the Battle of the Pictures, though it had not been exposed to sale at the time, nor even engraved. They show the same command of character, the same knowledge of human life, the same skill in grouping, the same art of uniting many different parts into one clear consistent story -the same satiric force and dramatic detail which characterize his best productions. They also show the same undaunted spirit in grappling with human depravity. The victim is higher-the sacrificing weapon is the same..

Of this work Dr. Shebbeare formed a novel, called The Marriage Act, and the author of the Clandestine

Marriage found the story of his drama in its scenes. Our artist gave the following intimation of its appearance in the London Daily Post of April 7th, 1743. "Mr. Hogarth intends to publish by subscription six plates, from copperplates engraved by the best masters in Paris, after his own paintings -the heads, for the better preservation of the characters and expressions, to be done by the authorrepresenting a variety of modern occurrences in high-life, and called Marriage-à-la-Mode. Particular care is taken that the whole shall not be liable to any exception on account of indecency or inelegancy; and that none of the characters represented shall be personal." Hogarth seldom sought to conceal either his pleasure or his vexation-his feelings flowed into his advertisements as well as into his conversation. He alludes to the charges which his enemies were ever ready to bring against him, of grossness and personality-and it is evident that he cares very little for their censures.

The first scene of this series represents the preparations for marriage between the daughter of a rich citizen and the son and heir of a proud old peer. The bride's father, a prudent, sordid man, cares little for the bridegroom's ancient pedigree, which is satirically exhibited as issuing out of the mailed loins of the bastard of Normandy-but he respects the ample securities which the aged nobleman lays before him. The young lord, a fop in his dress and something of a fool in his looks, gazes at his person in the glass, and practises with his snuff box infinitely more to his own satisfaction than to that of his intended-who turns half from him in scorn-plays with her wedding-ring, and listens, as much as offended pride will allow, to the words of Mr. Silvertongue, a smooth and insinuating lawyer. Beside them there are two spaniels, coupled contrary to their inclinations, and pulling different ways-sym

bolical of the happiness to be expected from the approaching union.

Of the other five pictures of the series, a less particular description may serve their story of domestic misery is neither involved nor mysterious. The peer sought wealth for his son, the citizen rank for his daughter--and so two vain, giddy, and extravagant young persons are united. Dissensions forthwith ensue. My lord runs a career of extravagance and dissipation, neglects his wife, and associates with gamblers, spendthrifts, and courtesans. My lady resents the coldness and neglect of her husband, listens too much to the eloquence of the lawyer, frequents the gaming-tables of people of rank, and impairs, by degrees, her fortune and her reputation. At length, in the midst of a heartless scene, where outlandish fiddlers and singers, and other expensive consumers of time are assembledwhere my lord some-one listens to their music in joy, and my lady-I have forgotten her name-faints with ecstasy-the heroine of Marriage-à-la-Mode consents to a meeting at a masquerade; and we see her no more till she appears kneeling in her night-dress, in a bagnio, before her injured husband, who has just received a mortal thrust from the sword of her seducer. The change is indeed sudden; but from splendour to misery the way is often short enough, and from innocence to guilt there is but a step. The concluding scene is in the house of the lady's father:-her husband had been murdered: the last dying speech of her paramour lies at her feet-she ought not, nor does she seek to live. The unfortunate empties a phial of laudanum and expires-her only child twines its little arms round her neck, and the sordid old father carefully removes a costly ring from her finger. Such is the outline of a dramatic story which it would require a volume to describe ;-so great, so various, and so lavish, is

› its wealth of satire and pathos-with such waste of ornament, such overflowing knowledge of life, nature, and manners, has Hogarth emblazoned this domestic tragedy. The world rewarded these works with immediate approbation; many sets of the engravings were sold: and the artist announced the original paintings for sale in the public papers.

Hogarth had long waged war with tongue, with pen, and with pencil, against the opulent tribe of picture-dealers, and all those who aided in the introduction of copies of foreign masters to the injury of the native school. Such unremitting hostility seems to have suited the temper, as much as it gratified the pride, of the painter; and though he sometimes experienced sharp retorts and suffered a little in the fracas, he had the supreme satisfaction of making his opponents ridiculous. In his advertisement for the sale of the Marriage-à-la-Mode, in 1750, the following characteristic passage occurs :"As according to the standard so righteously and so laudably established by picture-dealers, picturecleaners, picture-frame makers, and other connoisseurs, the works of a painter are to be esteemed more or less valuable as they are more or less scarce, and as the living painter is most of all affected by the inferences resulting from this, and other considerations equally candid and edifying, Mr. Hogarth, by way of precaution, not puff, begs leave to urge, that probably this will be the last sale of pictures he may ever exhibit, because of the difficulty of vending such a number at once to any tolerable advantage, and that the whole number he has already exhibited, of the historical or humorous kind, does not exceed fifty; of which the three sets called the Harlot's Progress, the Rake's Progress, and that now to be sold, make twenty; so that whoever has a taste of his own to rely on, and is not too squeamish, and has courage enough to own i by daring to give them a place in a collection till