and, at the sight of silk stockings with holes in them, he burst out into very imprudent language. In vain his friends warned him to be more cautious in his remarks; for as Calais swarmed with Scotch and Irish, he was not to imagine that his sarcasms were concealed in his foreign language. He mocked their fears, and ridiculed his companions as the un worthy sons of a free country. This certainly was unadvised and arrogant; but it was John Bull all

over.

Hogarth sought to avenge the affront he had received, by a design called "The Roast Beef of Old England.' It was recommended to national prejudice by the tempting name, but it cannot be considered as one of his happy works. The scene is laid at the gate of Calais. A French cook appears staggering under an immense piece of roasted beef; a well-fed monk stays him to gaze on it, and seems anxious to bless and cut-and a half-starved meagre community of soldiers surround the reeking wonder with looks ludicrously wistful. Hogarth is seated busily sketching the scene, and the hand of a Frenchman is laid on his shoulder, denoting his arrest. There is not much venom in this; such a 1 satire could be manufactured without much outlay of invention. A man is not necessarily famishing, because he eats little roast beef; nor are abstemiousness and cheerfulness under privation very happy subjects of ridicule. I have not heard that any Frenchman was hurt bv this national satire. An Englishman felt it mo e acutely. Pine the painter sat for the portrait of the friar, and hence acquired the name of Father Pine, which he disliked so much that he requested the likeness might be altered. Of his tour in France, Hogarth, it is said, loved not to speak. He scarcely counted that man his friend who alluded to it. He, who had made so many men appear ridiculous, had no wish to seem so himself.

A painting of a serious character escaped from his hand during the pressure of more engrossing engagements-the presentation of young Moses to the daughter of Pharaoh. It appeared in 1751. There is an air of serene and simple dignity about it, which is some relief to the scenes of boisterous humour and moral reproof of his other performances. The original was presented to the Foundling Hospital. The receipt for the print of this work was nearly as valuable as the print itself. It is a St. Paul before Felix, designed in the Dutch style; nothing can surpass it for broad humour. The saint stands and harangues on a three-footed stool, and such is the power of his eloquence, that the Roman more than trembles-witness the gestures of his companions;-a Jew, with flashing eyes and a ready knife, surveys his expected victim, while a little sooty devil, with a malicious eye and white teeth, saws away one of the feet from the Apostle's stool. Sir Robert Strange, in his inquiry into the rise and establishment of the Royal Academy, says, that the donations made by painters of their works to the Foundling Hospital led to the idea of those exhibitions which now prove so lucrative at Somerset House. Hogarth was the first and most extensive of all these benefactors.

The Four Stages of Cruelty was his next work— and I wish it never had been painted. There is indeed great skill in the grouping and profound knowledge of character; but the whole effect is gross, brutal, and revolting. A savage boy grows into a savage man, and concludes a career of cruelty and outrage by an atrocious murder, for which he is hanged and dissected. The commencement is painful and the conclusion can scarcely be looked upon save by men practised in surgery or the shambles.

The March of the Guards to Finchley is a performance of a different character; it is steeped in

> humour, and strown over with delightful absurdities. The approach of Prince Charles, in the fatal Forty-five, is supposed by Hogarth to summon the heroes of London to the field; and the very nature of the important contest is expressed in the central group of the composition, where a grenadier stands, a ludicrous picture of indecision, between his Catholic and Protestant doxies. The scene is laid in Tottenham Court Road. In the distance, the more orderly and obedient portion of the soldiery are seen marching northward; but, if discipline conducts the front, confusion brings up the rear. A baggage-wagon moves lumbering along in the middle of the way, with its burden of women, babies, knapsacks, and camp-kettles-and around it is poured a reeling and disorderly torrent of soi diers, inflamed or stupified with liquor, and stunned and distracted by the clamour of wives, children, and concubines. There is such staggering and swaggering such carousing and caressing-such neglect of all discipline--and obedience to nothing save the caprice of the moment-as probably never was witnessed; and yet all is natural, consistent, characteristic.

It was inscribed before publication to George the Second, and a print was sent to the palace for royal examination and approval. The king, himself a keen soldier, had naturally expected to see a more serious and orderly work-one more in honour of those favourite Guards who had marched so readily against the rebels. "The first question," says Ireland, "was to a nobleman in waiting'Pray, who is this Hogarth? A painter, my liege.' 'Painter-I hate painting, and poetry too! neither the one nor the other ever did any good. Does the fellow mean to laugh at my Guards? "The picture, an' please your majesty, must undoubtedly be considered as a burlesque.' 'What, a painter burlesque a soldier!—he deserves to be picketed for

his insolence. Take his trumpery out of my sight.'" Such is the story: it is easier to transcribe than to believe it literally. The painter, however, by all accounts, was mortified by the reception which his work received from his majesty. He certainly dedicated it in a pet to the king of Prussia, as an encourager of art, and received a handsome acknowledgment from Frederick.

Hogarth meant no more by this work than a piece of humorous and good-natured satire. The freedom which an Englishman enjoys allows him to laugh at the failings and the follies of high and low; the ministers of the crown, the ministers of the church, judges, courtiers, sailors, and soldiers, all are alike liable to be satirized and lampooned. No one can walk along our streets without observing in almost every printseller's window the most audacious caricatures and representations of the highest as well as the humblest of the land; the toleration of such works is only a proof of the liberty of the people, and the good sense and good nature of their rulers.

When, however, Wilkes quarrelled with Hogarth, he discovered on a sudden the malice of the March of the Guards to Finchley, and rated the artist roundly. These are the words of honest conscientious John:-"In the year 1746, when the Guards were ordered to march to Finchley, on the most important service they could be employed in-the extinguishing a Scottish rebellion, which threatened the entire ruin of the illustrious family on the throne, and, in consequence, of our liberties-Mr. Hogarth came out with a print to make them ridiculous to their countrymen and to all Europe; or perhaps it was rather to tell the Scots, in his way, how little the Guards were to be feared, and that they might safely advance. That the ridicule might not stop here, and that it might be as offensive as possible to his own sovereign, he dedicated

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the print to the king of Prussia, as an encourager of the arts. Is this patriotism? In old Rome, or in any of the Grecian states, he would have been punished as a profligate citizen, totally devoid of all principle. In England he is rewarded, and made sergeant-painter to that very king's grandson."

How little all this bitterness of Wilkes was called for or deserved, a few dates will show. The battle of Culloden, which extinguished the rebellion and the hopes of the House of Stuart for ever, was fought and won in 1746—and the print of which Wilkes complains was published in 1750. What a hardened hater of his country Hogarth must have been-and what indomitable rebels those Scotchmen who, after rotting four years on the Moor of Drummossie, were ready to profit by the information of the painter that the Guards were not to be feared, and that they had nothing to do but advance boldly on London! There is nothing so blind as anger. The very heads of their chiefs were blackening in the sun and wind on Temple Bar three years before this horrid print made its appearance; and Mr. Wilkes had published many numbers of his North Briton, and eaten many a good dinner in company with Mr. Hogarth, before he discovered that treason had been committed in the March to Finchley.

The original painting was, on the publication of the print, disposed of by a kind of lottery, established on a surer principle of remuneration thar that adopted in the case of Marriage-à-la-Mode Seven shillings and sixpence were fixed as the price of a print; and every purchaser of a print was entitled to a chance in the lottery for the picture. Eighteen hundred and forty-three chances were subscribed for; a hundred and sixty-seven tickets, which remained, were presented to the Foundling Hospital. One of the hospital's tickets drew the desired prize; and on the same night Hogarth