Hotel. The house was distinguished in the painter's time by the sign of "The Golden Head," cut by Hogarth himself from pieces of cork glued and painted together. "I well remember," says Smith, "that it was placed over the streetdoor, which bore the name of Hogarth on a brass plate.” The house, with its sign, is shown in a good contemporary engraving of the Square by Parr. It is related that Hogarth usually took his evening walk within the inclosure, in a scarlet roquelaire and cocked hat.

HOGARTH'S FIRST PAINTING.

The first piece in which Hogarth distinguished himself as a painter, is said by Nichols to have been a representation of Wanstead Assembly. The figures in it, we are told, were drawn from the life, and without a touch of burlesque. The faces are said to have been extremely like, and the colouring somewhat better than in some of Hogarth's more finished pictures. There seems to be a reference to it in "A Poetical Epistle to Mr. Hogarth, an eminent History and Conversation Painter, written in June, 1730, and published by the author, Mr. Mitchell, in 1731," &c.: in it are these lines:

Savage families obey your hand;

Assemblies rise at your command.

Wanstead was a neighbourhood of some note in the last century, when the tenants of its numerous villas supported the public assemblies then in fashion, although but six miles from the metropolis itself.

The Wanstead Assembly was painted for Lord Castlemaine, and at once brought Hogarth into notice. It was exhibited at the British Gallery in 1814, and was then the property of William Long Wellesley, Esq., of Wanstead House; and at the sale of the effects in 1822, it was bought in by the family.

Among Hogarth's early but penurious patrons was Mr. Bowles, at the Black Horse, in Cornhill; and Nichols had been told that he bought many a plate from Hogarth by the weight of the copper; but Nichols is certain that such a bargain was made in one instance, when the elder Mr. Bowles, of St. Paul's Churchyard, (the predecessor of the Bowles and Carver of our day,) offered, over a bottle, half-a-crown a pound for a plate which Hogarth had just then completed. His next friend of this class was Mr. Philip Overton, who, however, paid the young engraver a somewhat better price.

Walpole speaks of these early performances as not above the labours of the people who are generally employed by booksellers; but Nichols, lest the reader should apply this designation to artists employed in his time in book illustration, states that Walpole's account of Hogarth, &c. was printed off above ten years previously, (1772,) "before the names of Cipriani, Angelica, Bartolozzi, Sherwin, and Mortimer, were found at the bottom of any plates designed for the ornament of poems or dramatic pieces."

HOGARTH, KENT THE ARCHITECT, AND THE POET POPE.

William Kent, a man of moderate ability as a painter and sculptor, but of considerable influence as an architect and landscape-gardener, was the first artist who felt the touch of Hogarth's satiric hand. Originally a coach-painter, he had the good fortune to persuade some gentlemen to raise funds to enable him to go and study in Italy, where he became acquainted with the Earl of Burlington, who brought him home as his protégé. Kent painted as an altar-piece for St. Clement's church, in the Strand, an absurd picture of St. Cecilia, which, from its being supposed to contain portraits of the Pretender's wife and children, created much ferment in the parish. This strange picture Hogarth burlesqued in a print which raised an universal laugh. Gibson, bishop of London, on his visitation to St. Clement's, ordered the churchwardens to remove the original; it was then taken to the Crown and Anchor tavern, in the Strand, whence, after several years, it was removed to the vestry-room, over the old almshouses, in the churchyard; and when this building was taken down in 1803, the altar-picture was conveyed to the new vestry-hall in Pickett-street, where it remains to this day. The ridicule which Hogarth had thus thrown on Kent was very acceptable to Sir James Thornhill, who was jealous of the fourfold reputation of the latter, as painter, sculptor, architect, and ornamental gardener. Hogarth carried his attack on Kent still further in satirizing his friend, Pope, who in his poem of "False Taste" severely criticised the magnificent Duke of Chandos as Timon, on his display of great wealth and little taste at Canons. To Pope was added Kent's other great patron, the Earl of Burlington, and Hogarth burlesqued the trio as follows. He represented Burlington gate in Piccadilly, with Kent on the summit flourishing his pallet and pencils over his astonished sup

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porters Michael Angelo and Raphael. On a scaffold, somewhat lower down, stands Pope, with a tie-wig on; he is washing the front, and bespattering the Duke of Chandos, who is passing by in his coach; while Lord Burlington serves the poet as a plasterer's labourer.

This print (entitled "The Man of Taste;" containing a View of Burlington Gate; 1731,) has conferred a celebrity upon the archway, which it might not otherwise have obtained. Pope took no notice of the attack. "Either Hogarth's obscurity," says Nichols, "was his protection from the lash of Pope, or perhaps the bard was too prudent to exasperate a painter who had already given such proofs of his ability in satire." This opinion is very illogical; for, proofs of ability are inconsistent with obscurity. Pope remained silent: he either feared the painter's retaliation, or he regarded him as a vulgar caricaturist, beneath notice.

Hogarth said of Kent: "Neither England nor Italy ever produced a more contemptible dauber than the late Mr. Kent -and yet he gained the prize at Rome, in England had the first people for his patrons, and to crown the whole, was appointed painter to the King. But in this country such men meet with the greatest encouragement, and sooner work their way into noblemen's houses and palaces."

HOGARTH'S SOUTHWARK FAIR.

This great metropolitan fair, which was held on St. Margaret's Hill, on the day after Bartholomew Fair, has now been abolished for nearly a century; but a few of its humours have been preserved by the pencil of Hogarth. It was first painted by him in 1733: this picture was destroyed by fire at Mr. Johnes's seat, at Hafod, in 1807; but it has been more than once engraved. It represents several notabilities of the Fair as to attract people from all parts of the kingdom; the booth-keepers used to collect money at their stalls for prisoners in the Marshalea. It is a rare scene of

"Startling players, fire-eaters, jugglers—

-Katterfelto, with his hair on end,

At his own wonders wondering for his bread."

Simple-faced countrymen, nimble pickpockets, and ladies with roguish eyes, are the actors who fill this stage. One of the most successful characters is that of an Amazon in a hat and feather, the sole heroine in a gang of hedge comedians

beating up for an audience. The notabilities portrayed are -Signor Violante vaulting; Cadman flying down a rope-he was afterwards killed at Shrewsbury; Walker, afterwards the famous Macheath; Figg, the prize-fighter, on a blind horse; Miller, a native of Saxony, eight feet high; two jugglers in senatorial wigs, Fawkes and Neve; Cibber,* with laurelled brow; the show-cloth etched by Laguerre, &c. The wonders and drolleries of Southwark Fair are described by Pepys and Evelyn.

JOURNEY INTO KENT.

Among the records of the lively incidents of our painter's career is a queer account of a holiday jaunt of five days taken by land and water, in May, 1732. The parties were Hogarth; John Thornhill; Scott, the landscape-painter; Tothall, a member of the Club at the Bedford Coffee-house; and Forrest. They set out at midnight from the Bedford, each with a shirt in his pocket; and their excursion extended to Gravesend, Rochester, Sheerness, and adjacent places. They had particular duties: Hogarth and Scott made the drawings; Thornhill the map; Tothall was treasurer and caterer; and Forrest wrote the journal. The tourists left the Bedford with a song, and took water to Billingsgate, exchanging compliments with the bargemen as they went down the river. At Billingsgate, Hogarth made a caricature of a facetious porter called the Duke of Puddledock, who entertained the party with the humours of the place. Here they took to the boat for themselves; had straw to lie upon, and went down the river at night, by turns sleeping and singing jolly choruses. Mr. Thackeray has thus grouped the incidents of this humorous excursion : 66 They arrived at Gravesend at six, when they washed their faces and hands, and had their wigs powdered. Then they sallied forth for Rochester on foot, and drank by the way three pots of ale. At one o'clock they went to dinner with excellent port, and a quantity more beer, and afterwards Hogarth and Scott played at hopscotch in the town-hall. It would appear that they slept most of them in one room, and the chronicler of the party describes them all as waking at seven o'clock, and telling each other their dreams. You have rough sketches by Hogarth of the incidents of this * Cibber acted the part of ancient Pistol, in the tragedy of Tamerlane the Great, in a booth in Bartholomew Fair, 1733.

John Thornhill was a natural son of Sir James Thornhill: he survived Hogarth twenty-five years.

holiday excursion. The sturdy little painter is seen sprawling over a plank to a boat at Gravesend; the whole company are represented in one design, in a fisherman's room where they had passed the night. One gentleman in a nightcap is shaving himself; another is being shaved by the fisherman; a third, with a handkerchief over his bald pate, is taking his breakfast; and Hogarth is sketching the whole scene. They describe at night how they returned to their quarters, drank to their friends, as usual, emptied several cans of good flip, all singing merrily."

On the second night after their return, Forrest produced his journal, bound, gilt, and lettered, and read the same to the members of the Club then present at the Bedford. At the same time Tothall produced the account of the Disbursements on the journey, which amounted to 67. 6s.

A copy of the journal was left in the hands of the Rev. Mr. Gostling, at Canterbury; and he wrote an imitation of it in Hudibrastic verse, (965 lines,) of which twenty copies were printed as a literary curiosity in 1781: it is reprinted in Nichols's third edition. In the previous year, 1781, Hogarth published a Tour of nine pages, illustrated with drawings. The frontispiece, (Mr. Somebody,) was designed by Hogarth, as emblematical of the journey, viz., that it was a short tour by land and water, backwards and forwards, without head or tail. The ninth is the tail-piece, (Mr. Nobody,) the whole being intended as a burlesque on historical writers renovating a series of insignificant events entirely uninteresting to the reader.

PORTRAITS OF SARAH MALCOLM, MISS BLANDY, AND ELIZABETH CANNING.

Hogarth appears to have had a strong penchant for painting the portraits of criminals, and other notorieties in infamy. Among them was Sarah Malcolm, the laundress in the Temple, who was executed opposite Mitre-court, Fleet-street, on the 17th of March, 1733, for the murder of Mrs. Elizabeth Duncan, Elizabeth Harrison, and Ann Price. Hogarth drew Malcolm's portrait when she was in the condemned cell in Newgate, on the day before her execution; and to Sir James Thornhill, who accompanied him, he observed: "I see by this woman's features that she is capable of any wickedness.' Upon this, Ireland remarks: "Of his (Hogarth's) skill in physiognomy I entertain a very high opinion; but as Sarah sat for her