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racter, has described him as a man whose whole powers of pleasing were confined to his pencilwhose manners were gross and uncultivated-whose social ambition aspired no higher than to shine in a club of mechanics, and who was rarely admitted into polite circles. Much of this cannot be true. The society into which his profession threw him was often of a high order; he had painted portraits and family conversation pieces for many years; he had corresponded with, and kept the company of, men eminent for rank and talent, and his letters to Lord Charlemont and Richard Lord Grosvenor, are distinguished for their courtesy and forbearance. He had sat too, with Gray the poet, at the table of Walpole; and Walpole himself, the biographer of the artist, and one unlikely to forget a breach of decorum or signal grossness in conversation, since it would have embellished the portraiture he was soon to draw, has been silent. The account which West gave of his being a little, bustling, and important man-his love of dress and good order-the state which he affected, for he kept his carriage-and his very love of speaking of early hardships in contrast to his present condition-all these circumstances seem to contradict the testimony of Nichols.

Nor is the opinion of this person entitled to much more consideration, when, upon the subject of the indelicacy of the works of Hogarth, he opposes the decision of Walpole. "When the Flemish painters attempt humour," says the latter, "it is by making a drunkard vomit; they take evacuations for jokes; and when they make us sick, they think they make us laugh. A boor hugging a frightful frow is a frequent incident even in the works of Teniers. The views of Hogarth were more generous and extensive -mirth coloured his pictures, but benevolence designed them-he smiled like Socrates, that men might not be offended at his lectures, and might learn. to laugh at their own follies." This sensible and

accurate estimate displeased Nichols, who proceeded to examine into the grossnesses and indelicacies, real and imaginary, of a man whom he sought to dissect rather than criticise; and in this impure pursuit he is gratified with the detection of open, even of dawn ing delinquencies. The account of his discoveries may be very briefly dismissed; they are few and inconsiderable in regard to so voluminous an artist, and they are such as naturally presented themselves in works which had a higher aim, as a picture of vice mingles with the sermon which brands and crushes it. Indeed it is wonderful that these blemishes are so few and so trivial. In grappling with folly, and in combating with crimes, he was compelled to reveal the nature of that which he proposed to satirize; he was obliged to set up sin in its high place, before he could crown it with infamy. He shows depravity for the sake of amending it; the Flemings exhibited indecency for our amusement; and it was Mr. Nichols's own fault that he could not see the distinction.

Of Hogarth many anecdotes are related-some are trivial and unimportant, others refer to his character and habits and modes of study; I shall select a few of the latter, as the reader may be desirous to see the first eminent artist whom our country produced, as others saw him, and to know how he looked among his brethren of the pencil and the graver.

Hogarth treated those who set for their portraits with a courtesy which is not always practised now. "When I sat to Hogarth," said Mr. Cole," the custom of giving vails to servants was not discontinued. On taking leave of the painter at the door, I offered his servant a small gratuity, but the man very politely refused it, telling me it would be as much as the loss of his place if his master knew it. This was so uncommon and so liberal in a man of Hogarth's profession at that time of day, that it much struck me, as nothing of the kind had hap

pened to me before." Nor is it likely that such a thing would happen again-Sir Joshua Reynolds gave his servant £6 annually of wages, and offered him £100 a-year for the door!

It was Hogarth's custom to sketch out on the spot any remarkable face which struck him, and of which he wished to preserve an accurate remembrance. He was once observed in the Bedford coffee-house drawing something with a pencil on the nail of his left thumb-he held it up to a friend who accompanied him-it was the face, and a very singular one, of a person in the same room-the likeness was excellent. He had dined with some friends at a tavern, and as he threw his cloak about him to be gone, he observed his friend Ben Read sound asleep and presenting a most ridiculous physiognomy: Hogarth eyed him for a moment, and saying, softly, “Heavens, what a character!" called for pen and ink, and drew his portrait without sitting down;-a curious and clever likeness and still existing.

It was in a temporary summer residence at Isleworth that he painted the Rake's Progress. The crowd of visiters to his study was immense. He often asked them if they knew for whom one or another figure in the picture was designed, and when they guessed wrong he set them right. It was generally believed that the heads were chiefly portraits of low characters well known in town. In the Miser's Feast he introduced Sir Isaac Shard, a person proverbially avaricious; his son, a young man of spirit, heard of this, and calling at the painter's requested to see the picture. The young man asked the servant whether that old figure was intended for any particular person, who answered it was thought to be very like one Sir Isaac Shard; whereupon he drew his sword and slashed the canvass. Hogarth heard the bustle, and was very angry. Young Shard said, "You have taken an unwarrantable license-I am the injured party's

son, and ready to defend my conduct at law." He went away, and was never afterward molested.

With a dissatisfied sitter the artist was more fortunate. A nobleman of ungainly looks and a little deformed sat for his picture; Hogarth made a faithful tikeness according to the receipt of Oliver Cromwell; the peer was offended with this want of courtesy in a man by profession a flatterer, and refused to pay for the picture, or to take it home. Hogarth was nettled, and informed his lordship, that unless he sent for it within three days, he should dispose of it with the addition of a tail to Hare the wild-beast man. The picture was instantly paid for, removed, and destroyed. A similar story is related of Sir Peter Lely.

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Concerning Hogarth's vanity some one told the following story to Nichols, whose ear was ever open to any thing that confirmed his own theory of the artist's ignorance and want of delicacy. Hogarth, being at dinner with Dr. Cheselden and some other company, was informed that John Freke, surgeon of St. Bartholomew's hospital, had asserted in Dick's coffee-house that Greene was as eminent in composition as Handel. "That fellow, Freke," cried Hogarth," is always shooting his bolt absurdly one way or another. Handel is a giant in music, Greene only a light Florimel kind of composer." Ay, but," said the other, "Freke declared you were as good a portrait painter as Vandyke.” "There he was in the right," quoth Hogarth, " and so I am, give me but my time and let me choose my subject."

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With Dr. Hoadley, who corrected the manuscript of the Analysis of Beauty for the press, Hogarth was on such friendly terms that he was admitted into one of the private theatrical exhibitions which the doctor loved, and was appointed to perform along with Garrick and his entertainer, a parody on that scene in Julius Cæsar where the ghost appears to Brutus Hogarth personated the spectre, but so

unretentive-(we are told)—was his memory, that though the speech consisted only of two lines, he was unable to get them by heart; and his facetious associates wrote them on an illuminated lantern, that he might read them when he came upon the stage. Such is the way in which anecdotes are manufactured, and conclusions of absence or imbecility drawn. The speech of the ghost written on the paper lantern formed part of the humour of the burlesque. Men, dull in comprehending the eccentricities of genius, set down what passes their own understanding to the account of the other's stupidity.

His thoughts were so much employed on scenes which he had just witnessed or on works which he contemplated, that he sometimes had neither eyes nor ears for any thing else; this has subjected him to the charge of utter absence of mind." At table," says Nichols, "he would sometimes turn his chair round as if he had finished eating, and as suddenly would return it and fall to his meal again." According to this writer--soon after our artist set up his carriage, he went to visit Beckford, who was then Lord Mayor; the day became stormy during the interview; and when Hogarth took his leave, he went out at a wrong door-forgot that he had a carriage--could not find a hackney-coach, and came home wet to the skin, to the astonishment of his wife. This is a good story-and it may be true When Fonthill (Beckford's residence) was burned, the fourteen original paintings of the Harlot's and Rake's Progress were consumed.

Accompanying the prints of Hogarth's favourite works appeared explanations in verse, sometimes with the names of the authors, but oftener without, and all alike distinguished by weakness and want of that graphic accuracy which marked the engravings. London was at that time infested with swarms of wandering verse-makers, who wrote rhymes on

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