fame, admired by the expert in Art, and by the learned in Science, courted by the great, caressed by sovereign powers, and celebrated by distinguished poets, his native humility, modesty, and candour never forsook him, even on surprise or provocation; nor was the least degree of arrogance or assumption visible to the most scrutinizing eye in any part of his conduct or discourse."

A statue, by Flaxman, is placed in the corridor beneath the dome of St. Paul's. It represents Reynolds in his robes as President, with the volume of his Lectures in his hand. It is an honest statue of an Englishman, by a true artist, who, poetic in the highest sense, could also feel the beauty of simple truth where truth is chiefly valuable.

more truthfully than William Hogarth. The queen in

whose reign he began his career had declared to one of her earliest parliaments that "her heart was entirely English," and her saying was commemorated on a medal. Hogarth's heart was equally English; his works are his medals, and will be as enduring as the medal of his sovereign. As time passes, and criticism expands, he is valued the more as the honest exponent of the manners of his own era, and as an artist who, less than any other, was indebted to foreign influences. His style was

essentially his own, the fruit of his own observation; his works were the transcripts of what he saw around him. He is entirely original; and although his originality was both strongly defined and popular, it was so singularly excellent that he left no imitators who deserve to be remembered. He "founded no school," so to speak, for none but he could be its master. Wilkie made

the nearest approach, but, like Hogarth, he was too much of an original to be a copyist; his works have touches of Hogarthian humour, but they possess the different qualities of a different mind. None but themselves can be their parallel.

The ability of Hogarth as a painter was questioned in his own day there is no question now raised as to his ability as designer,

painter, or engraver. The series of the six pictures of the "Marriage à la Mode" are in the National Gallery, and the other best-known series are "The Rake's Progress," in the Soane Museum, and "The Harlot's Progress." Of the first of these three we furnish a reduced copy of one of the plates. It has been said that the comico-satirical vein of Hogarth, no less than his

tragico-satirical vein, are best exemplified in this series, and it will well repay the trouble of making the entire series a study, by a careful comparison of the pictures themselves with the artist's own engravings from them. Hogarth has written rather than painted with the brush. Look upon this reduced copy of perhaps the most careful picture in the series of "The Rake's Progress." His caricatures have always, more or less, a serious

G

purpose, and every part, no less than every object, is made subservient to the moral to be inculcated.

What strikes the careful observer of Hogarth's works is the utter absence of anything like a borrowed incident in any one of them. Story, character, and treatment are entirely his own. He is as original in his treatment with the brush as De Foe is with the pen. In both there is the same strongly-marked originality; the meaning is never obscure, and, in a satirist, this is no small merit. This is particularly the case in the three series just referred to, as in his "Enraged Musician," his "March to Finchley," in his "Beer Lane" and his "Gin Lane;" "Morning," "Noon," "Evening," and "Night," are no less full of true incident; and, though all are strictly caricatures, the laying bare of the vices and weaknesses of mankind is done with so unsparing a hand that the moral tone of the picture becomes its leading characteristic. As in Juvenal, the occasional coarseness of the treatment is forgotten in contemplating the truth of the satire.

Even in his engravings the originality of his powerful genius is visible; they are painter's engravings, not possessing the mere accurate line of mechanical art, but abounding in vigour and effect. His manly independence of thought accompanied him in all his works; and the nation generally was taught wisdom by his truthtelling histories on canvas and on copper of the follies and vices of the last century :-

:-

"His pictured morals charm the mind,

And thro' the eye correct the heart."

Toward the close of his career he had prospered sufficiently to