every one possessing a single spark of taste, when viewing that inestimable series of pictures entitled the Marriage à la Mode, in our National Gallery.

"The prints by this artist, in freedom of etching and vigour of tooling, display his powers to the highest advantage. The plates of Southwark Fair and the Cockpit are unrivalled in this or any other country. The former displays most conspicuously the four classes of composition in art; namely, the diverging, the S-like or line of beauty, (see pp. 57-58 ante,) the festoon, and the triangle or pyramidal."

Mr. Leslie considered there to be many hints of French fashions in Hogarth's works. He says: "The bridegroom in the first picture of Marriage à la Mode is evidently dressed on the model of a Paris beau; the boy beating a drum in the Enraged Musician has been metamorphosed, as far as dress could do it, into a little Frenchman; the two gallants in the boxes in the Laughing Audience are as French as possible, while the pit is filled with plain English folk, who are not too fine to take an interest in the performance; and in Taste in High Life, the antiquated beau, dressed in the extreme of the Parisian fashion, has succeeded in making himself look very like a monkey."

Fuseli made a false estimate of Hogarth's genius when, in his Lecture, he said: "The characteristic discrimination and humourous exuberance which we admire in Hogarth, but which, like the fleeting passion of a day, every hour contributes something to obliterate, will soon be unintelligible by time, or degenerate into caricature: the chronicle of scandal, and the history-book of the vulgar."

When Reynolds was blamed for his slight mention of Hogarth in his Letters and Discourses; a distinguished member of the Royal Academy remarked publicly-that Sir Joshua might as well be censured for not naming Fielding and Richardson, as Hogarth was no painter !

Charles Lamb's Essay on Hogarth (says Leslie) is the best written; though it is much to be regretted that, in praising Hogarth, he thought fit to disparage Reynolds.

HISTORICAL VALUE OF HOGARTH'S WORKS.

To the student of History, these admirable works must be invaluable, as they give us the most complete and truthful pictures of the manners, and even the thoughts, of the past

century. We look, and see pass before us the England of a hundred years ago-the peer in his drawing-room, the lady of fashion in her apartment, foreign singers surrounding her, and the chamber filled with gew-gaws in the mode of that day; the church with its quaint florid architecture and singing congregation; the parson with his great wig, and the beadle with his cane: all these are represented before us, and we are sure of the truth of the portrait. We see how the Lord Mayor dines in State; how the prodigal drinks and sports at the bagnio; how the poor girl beats hemp in Bridewell; how the thief divides his booty and drinks his punch at the nightcellar, and how he finishes his career at the gibbet. We may depend upon the perfect accuracy of these strange and varied portraits of the by-gone generation we see one of Walpole's members of Parliament chaired after his election, and the lieges celebrating the event, and drinking confusion to the Pretender; we see the grenadiers and train bands of the City marching out to meet the enemy; and have before us, with sword and firelock, and white Hanoverian horse embroidered on the cap, the very figure of the men who ran away with Johnny Cope, and who conquered at Culloden. The Yorkshire waggon rolls into the inn-yard; the country parson, in his jack-boots, and his bands and short cassock, comes trotting into town, and we fancy it is Parson Adams with his sermons in his pocket. The Salisbury Fly sets forth from the old Angel-you see the passengers entering the great heavy vehicle, up the wooden steps, their hats tied down with their handkerchiefs over their faces, and under their arms, sword, hanger, and case-bottle; the landlady,apoplectic with the liquors in her own bar-is tugging at the bell; the hunchbacked postilion-he may have ridden the leaders to Humphrey Clinker,-is begging a gratuity; the miser is grumbling at the bill; Jack of the Centurion lies on the top of the clumsy vehicle, with a soldier by his side-it may be Smollett's Jack Hatchway-it has a likeness to Lismahago. You see the suburban fair and the strolling company of actors; the pretty milkmaid singing under the window of the enraged French musician. You see noblemen and blacklegs bawling and betting in the Cockpit; you see Garrick as he was arrayed in King Richard; Macheath and Polly in the dresses which they wore when they charmed our ancestors, and when noblemen in blue ribbons sat on the stage and listened to their delightful music. You see the

ragged French soldiery, in their white coats and cockades, at Calais Gate.* You see the judges on the bench; the audience laughing in the pit; the student in the Oxford theatre; the citizen on his country walk; you see Broughton, the boxer, Sarah Malcolm the murderess, Simon Lovat the traitor; John Wilkes the demagogue, staring at you with that squint which has become historical, and that face which, ugly as it was, he said he could make as captivating to woman as the countenance of the handsomest beau in town. All these sights and people are with you. After looking in the Rake's Progress at Hogarth's picture of St. James's Palace-gates, you may people the street, but little altered within these hundred years, with the gilded carriages and thronging chairmen that bore the courtiers, your ancestors, to Queen Caroline's drawingroom more than a hundred years ago.-Mr. Thackeray's Lectures on the English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century.

HOGARTH'S PRINTS.

How much of the moral effect of Hogarth's works is due to their being engraved, and the prints sold at prices available by all classes, must be evident to every one who has bestowed any thought upon the subject. If we refer to the list of "Prints published by Mr. Hogarth; Genuine Impressions of which are to be had at Mrs. Hogarth's House in Leicester Fields, 1781," we shall find the prices as low as One Shilling, and rarely to exceed One Guinea. Here are a few:

Mr. Leslie, when at Calais, in November, 1855, noted as an object of interest to him "the old gate, painted by Hogarth. (See pp. 54-56 of the present volume.) The draw-bridge, with its chains depending from the projecting beams, is exactly like that in the picture; but the portcullis is gone, and the gate much altered. Whatever remains there may have been of the English arms upon it in Hogarth's time are now wholly removed."-Autobiography, p. 232.

Sufficient margin was left for framing, but glass was comparatively dear; in this respect we have the advantage.

Mr. Leslie has thus admirably illustrated the above views. "Had there been no such art as engraving, there would have been no such patronage as Boydell's, which gave birth to some of the greatest works of the British School; and to this same art of engraving it is scarcely too much to say that we owe the very existence of Hogarth. His patrons were the million. The great people were told by Walpole that he was no painter; and Walpole being one of themselves, they believed him. But for engraving, therefore, Hogarth must have confined himself to portraits, on which he might have starved, for he was never popular as a portrait-painter. But when the prints of the Harlot's Progress appeared, 1,200 copies were immediately subscribed for. This was the beginning of the patronage produced for painting by engraving.”—Autobiography, p. 214.

* Hogarth made the drawing for his print of Lord Lovat the night before he took leave of Major Gardner, under whose escort he was travelling to the Tower, and to whom Lord Lovat presented the original sketch. A Correspondent of Notes and Queries, No. 288, who has seen the drawing, states that Hogarth made it August 14, 1746; the execution of Lord Lovat took place in the following April.