Hogarth to give his ghostly father another face, but in vain. Soon after the picture was finished, it fell down by accident, and a nail ran through the cross on the top of the gate. Hogarth could not mend it with the same colour; and to conceal the blemish, he introduced a starved crow looking down on the roast beef.

The original picture was exhibited at Spring Gardens in 1761; and at the British Gallery in 1814: it is now in the possession of the Earl of Charlemont. It was engraved by C. Morley, in 1749. A copy of the print was likewise engraved at the top of a cantata entitled The Roast Beef of Old England, opening with this Recitative :

'Twas at the gates of Calais, Hogarth tells,
Where sad Despair and Famine always dwells,
A meagre Frenchman, Madam Grandsire's cook,
As home he steer'd his carcase, that way took,
Bending beneath the weight of fam'd Sir Loin,
On whom he often wish'd in vain to dine.
Good Father Dominick by chance came by,
With rosy gills, round paunch, and greedy eye;
Who, when he first beheld the greasy load,
His benediction on it he bestow'd;

And while the solid fat his finger press'd,

He licked his chaps, and thus the Knight address'd, &c.

The figure of the half-starved French sentinel, (says Nichols,) has since been copied at the top of more than one of the printed advertisements for recruits, where it is opposed to the representation of a well-fed British soldier. Thus, the genius of Hogarth still militates in the cause of his country.

At Mr. Woodburn's, in St. Martin's-lane, was exhibited, about 1817, a valuable picture, said to have been painted by Hogarth, whilst he was in France. The subject is the gate of Amiens, with a Mountebank exposing to the people assembled the figure of Christ. Among the spectators is a soldier of the Swiss Guard, who is resting his hand on the shoulder of a simple-looking countryman; and other figures. The whole is painted with spirit and humour; but Nichols thinks it is not by Hogarth, but a French painter, Cappel. The picture was sold at Mr. Yates's sale, in 1817, for 30l. 9s.: it has been engraved, and there is a proof in Mr. Sheepshanks's collection.

PAUL BEFORE FELIX.

On the northern wall of the New Hall of Lincoln's Inn, above the paneling of the dais, hangs the picture of Paul

before-Felix, painted for the Society in 1750, and removed from the Old Hall, where it occupied a similar position. The origin of the Painting is as follows. By the Will of Lord Wyndham, Lord High Chancellor of Ireland, the sum of 2007. was bequeathed to the Society of Lincoln's Inn, to be expended in adorning the Chapel, or Hall, as the Benchers should think fit. At the recommendation of Lord Mansfield, Hogarth was engaged to paint the picture, which was at first designed for the Chapel. Its position was properly changed

to the Hall.

The text of the picture is "As he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled." Mrs. Jameson has well-described this work as curiously characteristic, not of the scene or of the chief personage, but of the painter. St. Paul, loaded with chains, and his accuser Tertullus, stand in front; and Felix, with his wife Drusilla, is seated on a raised tribunal in the background; near Felix is the high-priest, Ananias. The composition is good, the heads are full of vivid expression-wrath, terror, doubt, attention; but the conception of character most ignoble and common-place. Mr. Peter Dupont, a merchant, had, in 1782, a drawing of this Picture, which he purchased for twenty guineas. It was engraved by Hogarth; and secondly, by Luke Sullivan. In the previous year, Hogarth had engraved a burlesque upon this serious scene: it is grotesque and full of broad humour; but in most offensive taste.

"THE ANALYSIS OF BEAUTY."

When Hogarth painted his own Portrait, in 1749, he etched upon the palette a winding-line, with this inscription -"Line of Beauty and Grace." This remained unexplained until 1753, when Hogarth published his short quarto tract, The Analysis of Beauty, written with a view of fixing the fluctuating Ideas of Taste, showing by various examples, that a curve is the line of beauty, and that round swelling figures are most pleasing to the eye. The author received in this work much assistance from his friends. Dr. Hoadly carried on the work to about a third part, and then declined it on account of ill health. Hogarth's neighbour, Mr. Ralph, the architectural critic, then wrote about a sheet, but failing to agree with the author, proceeded no further. Dr. Morell then finished the work; the Rev. Mr. Towneley correcting the Preface. The family of Hogarth rejoiced when the last sheet

of the Analysis was printed off, for they had been sorely troubled by the frequent disputes in its progress.

Walpole observes: "This book had many sensible hints and observations," but it did not convince every reader. As Hogarth treated his contemporaries with scorn, "Many wretched burlesque prints came out to ridicule his system. There was a bitter answer to it in one of the two Prints that he gave to illustrate his hypothesis. In the Ball, (Wanstead Assembly,) had he confined himself to such outlines as compose awkwardness and deformity, he would have proved half his assertion; but he has added two samples of grace in a young lord and lady, who are strikingly stiff and affected. They are a Bath beau and a country beauty." Bishop Warburton congratulated Hogarth on giving, in this work, his "original masterly thoughts" on the great principles of his profession; and in showing up "the worthless crew professing vertù and connoisseurship; to whom all that grovel in the splendid poverty of wealth and taste are the miserable bubbles." Benjamin West, the cautious President of the Royal Academy, told John Thomas Smith, when a lad: the Analysis "is a work of the highest value to every one studying the Art; Hogarth was a strutting, consequential little man, and made himself many enemies by that book; but now that most of them are dead, it is examined by disinterested readers, unbiassed by personal animosities, and will be more and more read and studied, and understood." Hogarth's conclusion in this work is, however, unsound; though his arguments are amusing and ingenious.

HOGARTH'S "LADY'S LAST STAKE."

:

This painting represents a young woman of distinction in the peril of deep play with a gay and youthful man of fashion and intrigue the lady has been unsuccessful, and lost (like Francis I.) all except honour, which the moral artist insinuates, is in danger. Of the origin of the picture, Mrs. Piozzi relates, that when she was a girl of sixteen, about the year 1756, she was an inmate of the house of her uncle, Cotton; that Hogarth paid a visit there, and in the course of the evening, turned to her, then Miss Salusbury, and said, "he hoped she would never waste her hours nor hazard her repose in the pursuit of gaming;" he then made a sketch of her, and informed her she should hear more from him on that point at a future time. Soon after the painter produced and showed her "The Lady's Last Stake;" "in which," said he, "Miss Salusbury, the lady is a likeness of yourself, because I wanted a pretty subject, and wished to give a lesson of wisdom to one who is, I trust, capable of understanding its force." The portrait was considered a good likeness; but when Mrs. Piozzi related the above anecdote, the picture had been sixty years painted; so that age, worldly cares, and much intellectual exertion, had committed their usual ravages on what had assuredly been a

very fine countenance, indicating, as all who knew her must recollect, a lofty, liberal mind, and brilliant genius.

This celebrated picture hangs in a bed-chamber of Charlemont House, Dublin. Hogarth promised Lord Charlemont to write a description of his plates, which he said, the public had ignorantly misunderstood; and it was his intention to have given a breakfast-lecture upon them at Charlemont House.

Lord Charlemont, who possessed a fine collection of Hogarth's prints, remarkably good impressions, selected by the painter himself, consented to "The Lady's Last Stake" being engraved, for which purpose the painter had the picture a year, and even went so far as almost to finish the plate, which, as he told Lord Charlemont, he broke into pieces, upon finding, that after many trials, he could not bring the woman's head to answer his idea, or to resemble the picture.

In July, 1787, Mrs. Hogarth requested of Lord Charlemont, that if he should permit any one to engrave the picture, "he would give the preference to a young gentleman who lodged in her house, as by such preference she should be greatly benefited." To this his Lordship consented.

HOGARTH'S OPINION OF HIS ART.

Bishop Sandford relates that Hogarth was one day drawing in a room, where many of his friends were assembled, and among them was the Bishop's mother. She was then a very young woman. As she stood by Hogarth, she expressed a wish to learn to draw caricature. "Alas! young lady," said Hogarth, "it is not a faculty to be envied. Take my advice and never draw caricature: by the long practice of it I have lost the enjoyment of beauty. I never see a face, but distorted; I never have the satisfaction to behold the human face divine." We may suppose that such language from Hogarth would come with great effect: his manner was very earnest, and the confession is well deserving of remembrance.

THE ELECTION PICTURES.

These celebrated pictures, painted between 1755 and 1758, are among Hogarth's best productions, and present an admirable display of the great Painter's keen satire, and his talents

for delineating character: they are painted with great breadth and agreeable freshness of tone.*

The Election of a Member of Parliament, "madman's holiday" in England, is here depicted in four scenes: the Entertainment, the Canvassing for Voters, the Polling, and the Chairing.

The first scene is laid at an inn, where the Court candidate, Mr. Thomas Potter, is seated at a dinner of electors-barbers, cobblers, and counsellors, rustic wits and politicians and partisans. The parson holding his perriwig is Dr. Cosserat. The woman playing on the violin is Fiddling Nan, of Oxford; the bludgeon man, having gin poured on his head, is an Oxford bruiser, Teague Carter. The person making a representation of a fan round his head is Sir John Parnell, nephew of the poet this portrait was introduced at his own request: "my face (he said) is well known in Ireland, and will help the sale of the engraving." The Canvassing is in the street of the borough, where the candidates and their partisans are busy at corruption; there is a fierce attack on the Crown public-house; and Punch has declared himself a candidate for fun and frolic. Among the insignia is the British Lion-so popular in the present day-swallowing the Lily of France, which the imperial swallow has gulped long ago. The Polling, the third scene, shows how the lame and the blind, the dying and even the dead, were carried to the hust ings in the olden elections. Among the portraits is that of Dr. Shebbeare, who had been pilloried by Lord Mansfield for a libel on the King. A sick voter, borne in a blanket, is a satire on Dr. Barrowby bringing a dying patient in his chariot, to the Westminster hustings, to vote for Sir George Vandeput; the poor fellow voted, aud expired. The nobleman with the riband is "the old Duke of Newcastle." In this plate, a goose flying over his head is said to be designed for a parody on Le Brun's engraving of the battle of the Granicus, in which an eagle is represented hovering over the head of Alexander the Great. The concluding scene is the Chairing of the Member, Bubb Dodington, afterwards Lord Melcombe; the fray of the losing side has already begun; the member's wig rises from his head with fear; one of the living props of the chair has been struck down by a thrasher's flail; and the accessories of confusion thicken.

The carriage of Britannia is overturning, while the coachman and footman are cheating at cards on the box; regardless of a last dying speech, with a ready gibbet and empty noose-held up for sale.

*

Walpole calls Zoffani "the Dutch Hogarth," and Bunbury "the second Hogarth." With less justice the term." Hogarthian" has been applied to some of Haydon's pictures; and the editor of his Autobiography, Mr. Tom Taylor, maintains that the wonderstruck farmer in Haydon's Punch is equal to anything by Hogarth. In composition, arrangement of the figures, the telling of the story, and minuteness, accuracy, and character of detail, Haydon's design will not bear comparison with the masterly productions of Hogarth; since whose time it has become too much the practice to designate as "Hogarthian" many unworthy pictures.