In 1759, appeared "A Practical Description" of these pictures, in four Cantos, written under Mr. Hogarth's sanction and inspiration." The public were so impatient for this set of prints, that Hogarth had several disagreements with his tardy coadjutors in producing them. Garrick gave Hogarth for these four paintings some 2007. : they remained in the possession of his widow, after whose death, in 1823, they were purchased at the Garrick sale for 17327. 10s. When the hammer fell, Mr. Christie said: "I am the returning officer on this occasion, and declare Sir John Soane duly elected to become the possessor of these pictures." They are now in the Soanean Museum. The above are not the only scenes from an Election which Hogarth painted; for in 1747, he designed and engraved a Stage-coach, with an Election Procession in the inn-yard: the principal figure being a man whipping an infant child, in allusion to the Hon. John Child Tylney, a candidate in an Essex county election: the infant carries a horn-book and rattle, and the whipper exclaims, "What, you little Child, must you be a member?" These Election humours, as well as the Stage-coach, belong to an almost bygone age. The engraving of these pictures was very successful. In the first, the Entertainment, Hogarth experimentally finished the engraving without taking a proof to ascertain how he was succeeding: he had nearly spoiled the plate, and despairingly exclaimed, “I am ruined." He soon, however, repaired the damage, and with such good fortune that the print in question is one of the clearest and cleverest of all his productions. At Baker's sale, in 1825, the Entertainment print, before any inscription, sold for 317. 10s. "SIGISMUNDA." When, in 1758, Sir Thomas Sebright purchased for 4007. a Sigismunda imputed to Correggio,-loud was the ire of Hogarth at this reverence for the great Italian master. Walpole maintains that Hogarth had seen few good Italian pictures, and hence he persuaded himself that the praises bestowed on these glorious works were nothing but the effects of ignorance. He talked this language till he believed it; and he went so far as to aver that age did not mellow the colours and improve pictures, but only made them grow black and worse. He went further, and resolved to rival the ancients, and chose for the test the celebrated Sigismunda, said to be painted by Correggio, probably by Furini,* but no matter by whom. It is impossible to see the picture or read Dryden's inimitable tale, and not feel that the same soul animated both. After many essays, Hogarth produced his Sigismunda, but with "none of the sober grief, no dignity of suppressed anguish, no involuntary tear, no settled meditation on the fate she meant to meet, no amorous warmth termed holy by despair; in short, all is wanting that should have been there, all is there that such a story should have banished from a mind capable of conceiving real complicated woe; woe so sternly felt, and yet so tenderly." Walpole's criticism is very severe : he describes Hogarth's Sigismunda as no more like Sigismunda than he to Hercules: he compares her to a maudlin fallen virago, her eyes red with rage and usquebaugh, and her fingers bloodied with just having torn out her lover's heart. The latter is untrue. It was said that the picture resembled Mrs. Hogarth, whò was a very handsome woman; .to which circumstance Wilkes maliciously alludes in his vile attack on her husband. "If (says Wilkes,) the Sigismunda had a resemblance of anything ever seen on earth, or had the least pretence to either meaning or expression, it was what he had seen, or perhaps made, in real life— his own wife in an agony of passion; but of what passion no connoisseur could guess." Both Wilkes and Walpole knew that Mrs. Hogarth had sat for Sigismunda; and after her husband's death, Horace strove to heal the poor widow's heart by sending her a copy of his Anecdotes, but she took no notice of the present. The Sigismunda, we learn from Hogarth's own memorandum-book, was painted by him for Sir Richard Grosvenor, who was as dissatisfied with it as Walpole himself. Hogarth had agreed that Sir Richard might refuse the picture if he should not be thoroughly satisfied with it; and the painter asked 4007. for his work; to which Sir Richard Grosvenor replied: "I understand that you have a commission from Mr. Hoare for a picture. If he should have taken a fancy to the Sigismunda, I have no sort of objection to your letting him have it; for I really think the performance so striking and inimitable, that the constantly having it before one's eyes * The Sigismunda, now at the Duke of Newcastle's, at Clumber, (really by Furini,) was Sir Luke Schaub's; Lady Schaub is immortalised in the long story of Gray.-Cunningham; note to Walpole. would be too often occasioning melancholy ideas to arise in one's mind, which a curtain's being drawn before it would not diminish the least." This refusal, and the ridicule of the artists of the day, deeply affected Hogarth. He sought relief in writing a versified epistle to a friend on this picture, and consoles himself as follows: "When other connoisseurs may arise, Hogarth, who now felt age and infirmities coming upon him, enjoined his wife not to sell Sigismunda for less than 5007. This injunction was obeyed; and the picture was not sold till after the death of Mrs. Hogarth, when it was bought by Alderman Boydell for 50 guineas. It formed one of the prizes in the Shakspeare Gallery; was sold in 1807 by Christie, for 400 guineas. It was engraved in 1792. The subject was parodied in a vulgar print entitled "A harlot blubbering over a bullock's heart; by William Hogart." Sigismunda was announced for engraving by Hogarth, but the print was never published, and the subscriptions were returned in the account-book of the painter, a strong line is passed through the subscribers' names, and opposite each is written "Returned," except one name, which has "Refused." Hogarth's several subscription-books for his prints contain the autographs of many distinguished persons. HOGARTH AND HORACE WALPOLE. Walpole writes to George Montagu, Esq., May 5, 1761: "The true frantic Estus resides at present with Mr. Hogarth; I went t'other morning to see a portrait he is painting of Mr. Fox. Hogarth told me he had promised, if Mr. Fox would sit as he liked, to make as good a picture as Vandyke or Rubens could. I was silent. Why now,' said he, 'you think this very vain, but why should not one speak the truth?' This truth was uttered in the face of his own Sigismunda. . . . She has her father's picture in a bracelet on her arm, and her fingers are bloody with the heart, as if she had just bought a sheep's pluck in St. James's-market. As I was going, Hogarth put on a very grave face, and said, 'Mr. Walpole, I want to speak to you.' I sat down, and said I was ready to receive his commands. For shortness, I will make this wonderful dialogue by initial letters. H. I am told you are going to entertain the town with something in our way. W. Very soon, Mr. Hogarth. H. I wish you would let me have it to correct; I should be very sorry to have you expose yourself to censure; we painters must know more of these things than other peeple. W. Do you think nobody understands painting but painters ? H. Oh! so far from it, there's Reynolds, who certainly has genius; why, but t'other day he offered a hundred pounds for a picture that I would not hang in my cellar; indeed, to say truth, I have generally found that persons who had studied painting least were the best judges of it; but what I particularly wished to say to you was about Sir James Thornhill (you know he married Sir James's daughter); I would not have you say anything against him; there was a book published some time ago, abusing him, and it gave great offence. He was the first that attempted history in England, and assure you, some Germans have said that he was a very great painter. W. My work will go no lower than the year one thousand seven hundred, and I really have not considered whether Sir J. Thornhill will come within my plan or not; if he does, I fear you and I shall not agree upon his merits. H. I wish you would let me correct it; besides, I am writing something of the kind myself; I should be sorry we should clash. W. I believe it is not much known what my work is, very few persons have seen it. H. Why, it is a critical history of painting, is not it? W. No, it is an antiquarian history of it in England; I bought Mr. Vertue's MSS., and, I believe, the work will not give much offence; besides, if it does, I cannot help it; when I publish anything I give it to the world to think of it as they please. H. Oh! if it is an antiquarian work, we shall not clash; mine is a critical work; I don't know whether I shall ever publish it. It is rather an apology for painters. I think it is owing to the good sense of the English that they have not painted better. W. My dear Mr. Hogarth, I must take my leave of you, you now grow too wild. And I left him. If I had stayed, there remained nothing but for him to bite me. I give you my honour this conversation is literal, and, perhaps, as long as you have known Englishmen and painters, you never met with anything so distracted. I had consecrated a line to his genius (I mean, for wit) in my Preface; I shall not erase it; but I hope nobody will ask me if he is not mad. Adieu ! HOGARTH AND WILKES. It appears that in this intimacy the demagogue took or affected to take great pains to dissuade the painter from political satire. Wilkes, in 1755, was the especial friend of Hogarth-actively kind towards him, admired and praised his genius, and even when they quarrelled (in 1762) their quarrel was political, not personal; and, as Wilkes said, "for several years they had lived on terms of friendship and intimacy." Hogarth, in 1762, as he admitted, to "stop a gap in his income," determined to turn his pencil to political uses; and the King's serjeant-painter resolved to attack those who were considered hostile to the King-Chatham and Temple. Wilkes, in a private and friendly letter, pointed out the folly of giving up "to party what was meant for mankind"-of dipping his pencil "in the dirt of faction"-warned him of the certain consequences, and told him that "he never would take notice of reflections on himself; but when his friends were attacked, he found himself wounded in the most sensible part, and would, as well as he could, revenge their cause." Hogarth persevered, published his caricature, and Wilkes his comment and criticism. Even, after this, Hogarth acknowledged that Wilkes had been his "friend and flatterer," was a good-tempered fellow, but now "Pitt-bitten-Pitt-mad.". Notes and Queries, 2d S. No. 81. PORTRAIT OF FIELDING. Fielding, the novelist, went to the grave without ever having sat for his portrait; but Hogarth painted him from recollection. Arthur Murphy relates that after Hogarth had tried to bring out a likeness of Fielding "from images existing in his own fancy," and had failed, a lady, with a pair of scissors, cut a profile, which gave the distances and proportions of his face sufficiently to restore Hogarth's lost ideas of Fielding: "he caught at this outline with pleasure, and worked, with all the attachment of friendship, till he had finished the portrait," which is prefixed to the great novelist's works. Nichols, nevertheless, was assured that Hogarth began and finished the head in the presence of his wife and another lady, and that he had no assistance but from his own tenacious memory. To this sketch the engraver did such justice, that Hogarth declared he did not know his own drawing from a proof of the plate before the ornaments were added. The story is likewise told as follows. Hogarth and Garrick, sitting together after dinner, Hogarth was lamenting there was no portrait of Fielding, when Garrick said, “I think I can make his face."-"Pray try, my dear Davy," said the other. Garrick then made the attempt, and so well F |