In 1841, Messrs. Smith, the eminent print-sellers, of Lislestreet, had the good fortune to discover in the country a duplicate set of the Marriage à la Mode pictures, which appear to have escaped the researches of all the writers on Hogarth's works. They are evidently the finished sketches from which he afterwards. painted the pictures in the National Gallery, which are more highly wrought. The backgrounds of these pictures are very much subdued, which gives a greater importance to the figures. They are now in the collection of the late H. R. Willett, Esq., of Merly House, Dorsetshire. They are painted in an exceedingly free and sketchy manner; and are considered to have been most probably painted at the same time as the four pictures of The Election, now in the Soanean Museum, the execution of which they very much resemble. There is a considerable number of variations between these and the National Gallery pictures; and such differences throw much light upon the painter's technical execution, which is somewhat disputed. "Although in some respects (says a critic) rather sketchily handled, they are not painted feebly; and if they cannot be called highly finished, these productions are worthy to rank as cabinet pictures."

Dr. Waagen says of these masterly works :-"These six pictures are in my opinion the most ingenious and most successful of his series. These pictures are well known by the engravings, and the witty descriptions of Lichtenberg. The old and new history of the lofty but hollow genealogical tree, with the dirty but well filled money-bag, with its consequences, is here represented with a most extraordinary profusion of invention, observation, humour, and dramatic power. But what surprised me is the eminent merit of these works as paintings, since Hogarth's own countryman, Horace Walpole, said he had but little merit as a painter. All the most delicate heads of his humour are here marked with consummate skill and freedom, and every other part executed with the same decision, and for the most part with ease. Though the colouring on the whole, and the pictures, as they are almost wholly painted in dead colours, with hardly any glazing, have more the look of distemper than of oilpaintings, the colouring of the flesh is often powerful; and the others, very broken, are disposed with so much refined feeling for harmonious effect, that in colouring they stand in a far higher rank than numerous productions of the most modern English School, with all glaring, inharmonious colours.

Only the fifth picture, the Death of the Husband, has lost its chiaro-obscuro by turning dark. For these six pictures Hogarth received only the miserable pittance of 110."

SALE OF THE MARRIAGE À LA MODE PICTURES.

In 1750, Hogarth advertised for sale these six noble pictures by a strange plan, the result of which is thus related by Mr. Lane, who unexpectedly became the public purchaser of them.

The sale was to take place by a kind of auction, where each bidder was to write on a ticket the sum he was disposed to give, with his name subscribed to it. These papers were to be received by Hogarth for the space of one month, on the last day of which, at twelve o'clock, the highest bidder was to be the purchaser. The public, however, disliked the plan, and kept aloof indeed, there seemed a combination against Hogarth. Mr. Lane relates that on June 6, 1750, which was to decide the fate of this capital work, when he arrived at the Golden Head, in Leicester-square, instead of finding the study full of noble and great personages-as at the sale of the Harlot's Progress,-he only found Hogarth, and his friend, Dr. Parsons, Secretary to the Royal Society. Hogarth had put on his best wig, strutted away one hour, fumed away two more, and in revenge muttered: "No picture-dealer shall be allowed to bid." Mr. Lane had bid 1107.; no one had arrived; and ten minutes before twelve, Mr. Lane told Hogarth he would make the pounds guineas. The clock struck, and Hogarth wished Lane joy of his purchase. Dr. Parsons was very much disturbed, and attributed the failure of the sale to the early hour, when Lane offered the painter till three o'clock, to find a better bidder. This was accepted, when Parsons proposed to make it public, which Lane forbade. "At one o'clock," Hogarth said: "I shall trespass no longer on your generosity; you are the proprietor, and if you are pleased with the purchase, I am abundantly so with the purchaser." Thus were sold these admirable pictures, in frames worth four guineas each; yet no one felt them to be worth more than 907. 6s. In less than half a century, (in 1797,) Colonel Cawthorne, who inherited the pictures from Lane, sold them to Mr. Angerstein for 1,3817.

Five years previously, on Jan. 25, 1745, Hogarth had offered for sale the six paintings of the Harlot's Progress, the

eight paintings of the Rake's Progress, the Four Times of the Day, and the Strolling Actresses, on condition that on the day of the sale, every bidder, previously entered, should be the purchaser, if. none other appeared within five minutes, and each bidding to be in gold. But, from some cause, the scheme failed; and the painter obtained only 4271. 7s. for his nineteen pictures! "More," says Cunningham, "has been since given, over and over again, for a single painting, than Hogarth obtained for all his paintings put together!"

The strangeness of the plan had much to do with the failure of the sale; and, as if to make assurance doubly sure of this result, the painter's card of admission to his sale was a piece of satire and spleen, entitled "The Battle of the Pictures."

"MARRIAGE À LA MODE," AND "THE CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE."

The publication of the prints of Marriage à la Mode suggested the novel of the Marriage Act, a novel by D. Shebbeare; and of the Clandestine Marriage, the joint production of Garrick and the elder Coleman. In the Prologue to this excellent comedy, Garrick thus expressed his regard for his friend:

Poets and painters, who from nature draw

Their best and richest stores, have made this law :
That each should neighbourly assist his brother,
And steal with decency from one another.

To night your matchless Hogarth gives the thought,
Which from his canvas to the stage is brought.
And who so fit to warm the poet's mind,
As he who pictured morals and mankind?
But not the same their characters and scenes;
Both labour for one end, by different means:
Each, as it suits him, takes a separate road,
Their own great object, Marriage à la Mode!
Where titles deign with cits to have and hold,
And change rich blood for more substantial gold!
And honour'd trade from interest turns aside
To hazard happiness for titled pride.
The painter dead, yet still he charms the eye;
While England lives his fame can never die :
But he, "who struts his hour upon the stage,"
Can scarce extend his fame for half an age;
Nor pen nor pencil can the actor save,

The art, and artist, share one common grave.*

*This idea, (says Nichols), originally occurred in Colley Cibber's Apology. From thence it was transplanted by Lloyd into his celebrated

A HAPPY MARRIAGE.

Soon after the appearance of the Marriage à la Mode, Hogarth projected, by way of counterpart, a Happy Marriage, in six plates; but he does not seem to have designed more than the first scene. The time supposed was immediately after the return from church. The scene lay in the hall of an old country mansion: on one side were seated the married couple, and behind them a group of their young friends of both sexes were breaking bride-cake over the heads of the happy pair. In front the father of the bride was drinking with a seeming roar of exultation, to the future happiness of her and her husband. By the father's side was a table covered with refreshments; under the screen of the hall were rustic musicians in grotesque attitudes, together with servants, tenants, &c. Through the arch by which the room was entered, the eye was led along a passage into a kitchen: before the dripping-pan stood a well-fed parson, in his gown and cassock, with his watch in hand, giving directions to a cook, arranged in white, and basting a haunch of vension. This luxurious episode was the most laboured portion of the design the bride was unsuccessful. Nichols says: "The painter found himself out of his element in the parlour, and therefore, hastened in quest of ease and amusement to the kitchen fire. Yet, Hogarth had succeeded so well in the refined beauty of the bride, at least, in his own opinion, that he carried the canvas in triumph to Garrick, who condemned it as showing the painter's ignorance of the graceful, and so the scheme of the series of pictures was given up; the single sketch, in part completed, was given to Mrs. Garrick.”

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HOGARTH'S BENEFACTIONS TO THE FOUNDLING

HOSPITAL.

That Tenterden Steeple was the cause of Goodwin Sands does not appear a whit more strange than that in the Foundling Hospital originated the Royal Academy of Arts. Yet such was the case. The Hospital was established by Royal Charter, granted in 1739, to Thomas Coram, (master of a trading vessel,) "for the reception, maintenance, and edupoem entitled the Actor. Lying thus in the way of Garrick, he took it up for the prologue-already quoted. Lastly, Mr. Sheridan, in his beautiful Monody, condescended to borrow it, only because it spared him the labour of unlocking the richer storehouse of his own imagination.

cation, of exposed and deserted young children." The Governors first opened a house in Hatton Garden, in 1740-1: here the establishment remained until 1754, when it was removed to the present Hospital, built by Jacobson, in Guilford-street facing Lamb's Conduit-street. The expenses of the institution were then more than five times the amount of the income. The Governors next applied to Parliament, who voted them 10,0007. One of the earliest "Governors and Guardians" who assisted Coram in his good work, was Hogarth, who joined with other eminent artists of the day in ornamenting several of the apartments of the new Hospital, which must otherwise, for want of funds, have remained without decoration. Hogarth, by the charter for incorporating the Hospital, appears as one of its constituent members: nor did he hold this appointment to be merely nominal, for we find him subscribing his money, and attending the Courts or General Meetings at the Hospital. The charter authorised the Governors to appoint persons to ask for alms on behalf of the Charity, and to receive subscriptions: and the first artistical work of Hogarth in aid of this object was to prepare a "head piece" to a Power of Attorney drawn up for purpose.

the

The principal figure in the design is that of Captain Coram with the charter under his arm. Before him a Beadle carries an infant, whose mother having dropped a dagger, with which she might have been momentarily tempted to destroy her child, kneels at the feet of Coram, who looks benevolently upon her, as if to assure her that her offspring will be nursed and protected. On the dexter side of the print is a newborn infant, left close to a stream of water, which runs under the arch of a bridge. Near a gate, on a gentle eminence, a woman leaves another child; and in the distance is a village with a church. In the opposite corner are three boys coming out of a door with the King's arms over it, carrying emblems of their future employment; one poises a plummet, a second holds a trowel, and a third bears a card for combing wool. The next group wearing sailors' jackets and trousers, is headed by a lad elevating a mathematical instrument; in the next group is a lad bearing a rake, in the uniform of the school. And in the foreground are three little girls, carrying a spinning-wheel, a sampler, and broom, indicative of female industry. In the distance is the sea, with ships in the offing, &c.

Such was Hogarth's first composition, the copper-plate of which is in possession of the Hospital. In May, 1740, a few weeks after the first opening of the Charity, Hogarth presented the Governors with a full-length portrait which he had painted of Coram. This fine portrait was beautifully