Nevertheless, Hogarth, in commemoration of the passing of this Bill for the encouragement of designing and engraving, executed a small print with emblematic devices, and a laudatory inscription. On the top of the plate Hogarth etched a royal crown, shedding rays on mitres and coronets, on the Great Seal, the Speaker's hat, and other symbols of the "Collective Wisdom."

This plate he afterwards made to serve for a receipt for subscriptions to Hogarth's Election Entertainment, and a few other prints.

J. T. Smith states, as a curious fact, that of the print of the Cockpit, by Hogarth, as well as those of the gates of Calais, and Southwark Fair, he had never seen, read, or heard of an etching, nor of any impression whatever with a variation from the state in which they were published. This," continues Smith, "is the more extraordinary, as they are all highly-finished plates, and the artist must have required many proofs of them in their progress before he could have been satisfied with their effect; particularly in that of Southwark Fair, which, in my opinion, is not only the deepest studied as to composition and light and shade, but the most elaborately finished, and perhaps the most innocently entertaining of all his works. For great as Hogarth was in his display of every variety of character, I should never think of exhibiting a portfolio of his prints to the youthful inquirer; nor can I agree that the man who was so accustomed to visit, so fond of delineating, and who gave up so much of his time to the vices of the most abandoned classes, was in truth 'a moral teacher of mankind.' My father knew Hogarth well, and I have often heard him declare, that he (Hogarth) revelled in the company of the drunken and profligate ;-Churchill, Wilkes, Hayman, &c. were among his constant companions. Dr. John Hoadley,* though in my opinion it reflected no credit on him, delighted in his company; but he did not approve of all the prints produced by him, particularly that of the first state of 'Enthusiasm Displayed,' which, had Mr. Garrick or Dr. Johnson ever seen, they could never for a moment have entertained their high esteem of so irreligious a character."

At Strawberry Hill, before the sale in 1842, were 365 prints and drawings, engraved by and after Hogarth, all first impressions, and some original drawings; and stated by Walpole, in his Anecdotes of Painting, to be the most complete and perfect collection of Hogarth's Prints.

HOGARTH'S PALETTE.

The palette used by Hogarth is still preserved in the Royal Academy; it is of very peculiar form, shaped something like an heraldic escutcheon, with a long handle, and a ring at the end for the thumb to pass through.

* Who was Dr. John Hoadley? Does Mr. Smith refer to Dr. Benjamin Hoadley, Bishop of Winchester ?

HOGARTH'S "ORATORIO."

In 1835, the Rev. Bishop Luscombe,* showed to a correspondent of Notes and Queries, at Paris, the original picture of "the Oratorio," a subject well known from Hogarth's etching. Mr. Luscombe had bought it at a broker's shop in the Rue St. Denis: on examination, he found the frame to be English, but as he only gave thirty francs for the picture, he purchased it without supposing it to be more than a copy. Sir William Knighton, on seeing it, told Mr. Luscombe that Hogarth's original had belonged to the Dukes of Richmond, and had been in their residence at Paris until the first Revolution, since which time it had not been heard off; and Sir William had no doubt that Mr. Luscombe had been so fortunate as to obtain it.

THE MISER AND SIR ISAAC SHEARD.

At Rusper, in Sussex, lived Sir Isaac Sheard, so proverbial for his penurious habits, that Hogarth introduced him into a picture which he painted, as a miser trying a mastiff for robbing his kitchen. This circumstance coming to the ears of Sheard's son, a high-spirited young man, he called at the painter's to see the picture, and being informed by the servant that the figure was considered to be like Sir Isaac Sheard, he cut the painting to pieces with his sword.

WALL-PAINTINGS IN FENCHURCH STREET.

In the year 1826, was taken down the old Elephant publichouse, in Fenchurch-street, whereat Hogarth is said to have lodged for some time, when young. The house had been built before the great Fire of London, and narrowly escaped its ravages. Previous to the demolition of the premises, there were removed from the wall of the tap-room, three pictures which Hogarth is said to have painted while a lodger there: one represented a group of the Hudson's Bay Company's porters going to dinner, they at that time frequenting the house; the background was Fenchurch-street, as it appeared nearly a century and a half ago, with the old Magpie and

*The Rev. Bishop Luscombe was, for many years, chaplain to the British Embassy at Paris. His christian name was Bishop, which often led to the error of episcopal rank being attributed to him, in his being referred to as Bishop Luscombe.

Punch-bowl public-house in the distance. The second painting was set down as Hogarth's first idea for his Modern Midnight Conversation, differing from the print in an incident too broad in its humour for the graver: there were one or two figures less in the print, but Orator Henley and the other principal characters occupy the same situation in both performances. The third picture was Harlequin and Pierrot seeming to be laughing at one of the figures in the second picture. There was also on a wall of the first-floor of the Elephant a picture of Harlow Bush Fair, covered over with paint.

The circumstances under which these pictures were painted were in 1829, thus related by the landlady of the publichouse, in whose family the business had been for more than a century, and for whom the house was rebuilt in 1826. It appears that it had been customary for the parochial authorities to hold certain entertainments at the Elephant, (she stated,) the celebration of which, however, was, from some cause, removed to Henry the Eighth's Head, opposite. This transfer being mentioned to Hogarth, on his return home one night, when the feast was being held at the opposite house, the painter was much irritated, more especially as he had not been invited, as formerly. He, therefore, went over to the Henry's Head, where some altercation took place between the authorities and the painter, who left, threatening to stick them all up on the walls of the tap-room of the Elephant. This he proposed to the landlord: the picture of jollity and feasting was painted, with the clock at past four in the morning, and it was so profitable an attraction that the landlord of the Elephant wiped out a debt of Hogarth's, as a remuneration; so that, although the house lost the parish dinner party, it gained by persons coming to see the authorities stuck up on the walls. Subsequently, was painted as a companion picture, the Hudson's Bay Company's porters; and the two other pictures are said to have been produced under similar circumstances.

Before the house was taken down, the pictures were removed from the walls at no small risk and trouble by Mr. Lyon, of Walworth, and Mr. H. E. Hall, of Leicestershire; and they were subsequently sold at the gallery of Mr. Penny, in Pall Mall.

The Elephant public-house has been engraved; and at the foot of the print, the information as to Hogarth having executed these paintings is rested upon the evidence of " Mrs.

Hibbert, who has kept the house between thirty and forty years, and received her information relating to Mr. Hogarth from persons at that time well acquainted with him."

Although the evidence is thus circumstantial, Hogarth's biographers do not record his abode in Fenchurch-street; and the particulars of the interval between his apprenticeship and his marriage are few and far between.

HOGARTH PAINTS "GOLDSMITH'S HOSTESS."

The only memorial said to be left of Goldsmith's friendly intercourse with Hogarth, is a portrait in oil, known by the name of "Goldsmith's Hostess," and exhibited in London some years since, as the work of Hogarth's pencil. Still, the evidence is but putative. Mr. Forster says: "it involves no great stretch of fancy to suppose it painted in the Islington lodgings, at some crisis of domestic pressure: Newbery's accounts reveal to us how often it was needful to mitigate Mrs. Flemming's impatience, to moderate her wrath, and, when money was not immediately at hand, to minister to her vanities. It is but to imagine a visit from Hogarth at such a time. Though the copyrights of his prints were a source of certain and not inconsiderable income, his money at command was scanty; and it would better suit his generous good humour, as well as better serve his friend, to bring his easel in his coach some day, and enthrone Mrs. Flemming by the side of it. So the portrait was painted; and much laughter there was in its progress, I do not doubt, at the very different sort of sitters and subjects, whose coronet-coaches were crowding the west side of Leicester-square."

GENIUS OF HOGARTH.

J. T. Smith has ably vindicated the genius of Hogarth, in a sort of appendix to his Nollekens and his Times. "I believe," (says Smith,) "that in no instance has the name of a painter been so freely used as that of Hogarth. His reputation has become public property, and is considered fair game; since, a picture exhibiting a large white wig, a three-cornered Macheath hat, an old apothecary's capeless coat with immense basket buttons on the sleeves and flap-pockets, rolledup stockings and square-toed buckle shoes,-has been, without hesitation, ascribed to Hogarth's pencil, which, if examined, would very soon be proved the contrary. Mercier, Van

Hawkin, Highmore, Pugh, or that drunken pothouse painter Hamskirk, (originally a singer at Sadler's Wells,) are artists now rarely mentioned; though several of their performances have been elevated by second-rate picture-dealers and brokers in old panels, as the works of Hogarth; and even a head from a picture from Rosalba has been engraved and published as the genuine production of Hogarth.

"For myself, I am decidedly of opinion, that several of the copies of Prize-fighting and Playhouse benefit-tickets, published in Samuel Ireland's Graphic Illustrations of Hogarth, are from plates neither designed nor etched by him. They are destitute of wit or talent, both of which Hogarth possessed, in a supereminent degree, even in his youthful days, when he engraved ornaments and coats-of-arms for his master Gamble; and for his wit, where can we find any prints to equal most of the plates for the small set of Hudibras, which were some of his earliest productions? They are full of character, well drawn, spiritedly etched, and most of them possess admirable effect; and I must say, as a supporter of the honour of Hogarth as an artist, that until Mr. Samuel Ireland raked up many of the wretched things which he caused to be copied for a publication unquestionably with a view to raise money,—no collectors admitted the originals into their portfolios as the works of Hogarth.

"I am credibly informed that there is even at this moment (1828) an artist who finds it rather a successful occupation to make spirited drawings from Hogarth's prints, which he most ingeniously deviates from by the omission of some figure or other object, or insertion of an additional one, in order to give his drawing the appearance of a first thought, upon which Hogarth is supposed to have made some alteration in his plate as an improvement. These drawings are discoloured, put into old black frames, and then, after passing through several hands, are finally sold, accompanied by a very long story, to those over-cunning collectors, destitute of sufficient knowledge to enable them to detect the forgery.

Having ventured in a former page to mention my own opinion as to Hogarth's want of morality, I must not, even for a moment, allow the reader to suppose that I am in any degree wanting in my respect for his powerful talents as an artist. His easy and perfectly natural mode of grouping, his sweetness and harmony of colouring, his excellent pencilling and general brilliancy of effect, must be perceived and felt by