in truth, some of his portraits are very vigorous performances.

Of his conversation pieces there are many-of his life-size portraits few. Compared with the productions of the great masters of the art of portraiture, those of Hogarth are alike distinguished for their vigorous coarseness and their literal nature. They are less deficient in ease and expression, than in those studied airs and graceful affectations by which so many face-makers have become famous. Ladies, accustomed to come from the hands of men practised in professional flattery, with the airs of goddesses and sometimes with the name, would ill endure such a plain-spoken mirror as Hogarth's. Another circumstance must be mentioned. It was the practice of those days to see genius much more willingly and readily in the works of the dead than in those of the living: and perhaps the fashion is not yet gone out. There is no danger of making a mistake in praising a Raphael or Correggio, but there is some in determining the merits of any new production; and great lords-even now-a-days-are frugal of commendation, till the voice of the people gives confidence to their taste. With such men it was the fortune of our portrait-painter to come frequently in contact; disputes ensued; and he was no picker of pleasant words. None of these circumstances were very likely either to augment the numbers of Hogarth's sitters, or to cheat him into good-humour with an originally uncongenial task.

His portraits of himself are all very clever, and all very like. In one he is accompanied by a bulldog of the true English breed; and in another he is seated in his study with his pencil ready, and his eye fixed and intent on a figure which he is sketching on the canvass. He has a short, good-humoured face, full of health, observation, and sagacity. He treated his own physiognomy as he treated his friends', seized the character strongly, and left

grace and elegance to those who were unable to cope with mind and spirit. On the palette which belongs to the first-named of these two portraits there is drawn a waving line, with the words "Line of beauty”—a hieroglyphic of which no one could at first divine the meaning. The mystery was afterward solved in his " Analysis of Beauty," a volume which gained Hogarth few friends and many ene

mies.

In his family-piece of Mr. and Mrs. Garrick there is more nature and less dignity than was likely to please a pair who, constitutionally vain, had been fed daily and nightly, through a long series of years, with the flatteries of play-writing poets, play-going lords, and player-admiring painters. The great Roscius appeared seated by an ordinary-looking table, with a not very extraordinary-looking wife coming behind him and taking the pen out of his hand. Garrick was dissatisfied with the representation of himself, and said so; the lady said nothing as to herself, but complained that her dear husband looked less noble in art than in nature. Hogarth drew his pencil across David's mouth-and never touched the piece again. The picture was unpaid for at Hogarth's death, and his widow sent it to Mrs. Garrick, unaccompanied by any demand. In Garrick as Richard the Third, he was more fortunate. The tyrant starts from his couch in true terror and natural agony. The figure, however, is too muscular and massy.

Hogarth's portrait of Henry Fielding, executed after death from recollection, is remarkable as being the only likeness extant of the prince of English novelists. It has various histories. According to Murphy, Fielding had made many promises to sit to Hogarth, for whose genius he had a high esteem, but died without fulfilling them; a lady accidentally cut a profile with her scissors, which recalled Fielding's face so completely to Hogarth's memory, that

he took up the outline, corrected and finished it, and made a capital likeness. The world is seldom satisfied with a common account of any thing that in terests it more especially as a marvellous one is easily manufactured. The following, then, is the second history. Garrick, having dressed himself in a suit of Fielding's clothes, presented himself unexpectedly before the artist, mimicking his step, and assuming the look of their deceased friend. Hogarth was much affected at first, but, on recovering, took his pencil, and drew the portrait. For those who love a soberer history, the third edition is ready. Mrs. Hogarth, when questioned concerning it, said, that she remembered the affair well; her husband began the picture, and finished it, one evening, in his own house, and sitting by her side.

Captain Coram, the projector of the Foundling Hospital, sat for his portrait to Hogarth, and it is one of the best he ever painted. There is a natural dignity and great benevolence expressed in a face which, in the original, was rough and forbidding. This worthy man, having laid out his fortune and impaired his health in acts of charity and mercy, was reduced to poverty in his old age. An annuity of a hundred pounds was privately purchased, and when it was presented to him, he said, "I did not waste the wealth which I possessed in self-indulgence or vain expense, and am not ashamed to own that in my old age I am poor."

The last which I shall notice of this class of productions, is the portrait of the celebrated demagogue John Wilkes. This singular performance originated in a quarrel with that witty libertine and his associate Churchill the poet: it immediately fol lowed an article, from the pen of Wilkes, in the North Britain, which insulted Hogarth as a man and traduced him as an artist. It is so little of a caricature, that Wilkes good-humouredly observes somewhere in his correspondence, “I am growing every

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day more and more like my portrait by Hogarth." The terrible scourge of the satirist fell bitterly upon the personal and moral deformities of the man. Compared with his chastisement, the hangman's whip is but a proverb, and the pillory a post of honour. He might hope oblivion from the infamy of both; but from Hogarth there was no escape. It was little indeed that the artist had to do, to brand and emblazon him with the vices of his nature-but with how much discrimination that little is done! He took up the correct portrait, which Walpole upbraids him with skulking into a court of law to obtain, and in a few touches the man sunk, and the demon of hypocrisy and sensuality sat in his stead. It is a fiend, and yet it is Wilkes still. It is said that when he had finished this remarkable portrait, the former friendship of Wilkes overcame him, and he threw it into the fire, from which it was saved by the interposition of his wife.

To describe his portraits, or even barely to enumerate them, would take more space than can be spared; but the reader will be pleased to know the extent of his employment and the nature of his engagements. I transcribe the following account from a manuscript list, written by the artist, and entitled, "Account taken January 1st, 1731, of all the pictures that remain unfinished-half-payment re ceived." He had been then married about a year.

"A family-piece, consisting of four figures, for Mr. Rich, begun in 1728. An assembly of twentyfive figures, for lord Castlemain, begun Aug. 28, 1729. Family of four figures, for Mr. Wood, 1728. A conversation of six figures, for Mr. Cork, Nov. 1728. A family of five figures, for Mr. Jones, March, 1730. The Committee of the House of Commons, for Sir Arch. Grant, Nov. 5, 1729: the Beggars' Opera, for ditto. A single figure, for Mr. Kirkman, April 18, 1730. A family of nine, for Mr. Vernon, Feb.

27, 1730. Another of two, for Mr. Cooper. Another of five, for the duke of Montague. Two little pictures, for ditto. Single figure, for Sir Robert Pye, Nov. 18, 1730. Two little pictures, called Before and After, for Mr. Thomson, Dec. 7, 1730. A head, for Mr.. Sarmond, Jan. 12, 1730-Pictures bespoke for the present year." Here the memorandum concludes. There is nothing said of the amount of price, and it has been observed that Hogarth has nowhere acknowledged what money he received for his family-pieces and portraits. For his Garrick as Richard the Third he had £200; but that was later in life, when his fame justified the demand. It is believed that, at the period we are now treating, his prices were extremely low.

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I have already mentioned some of the reasons which Hogarth assigned for relinquishing portraitpainting there were other reasons behind; and these he expressed, in a manner sufficiently bitter, when near the close of his career he looked back on early days, and thought of the impediments which rivalry and affectation had thrown in his way to riches and fame. "For the portrait of Garrick as Richard (says he) I received more than any English artist ever before received for a single portrait, and that too by the sanction of several painters who were consulted about the price. Notwithstanding all this, the current remark was, that portraits were not my province; and I was tempted to abandon the only lucrative branch of the art; for the practice brought the whole nest of phyzmongers on my back, where they buzzed like so many hornets. All those people had their friends, whom they incessantly taught to call my women harlots—my Essay on Beauty borrowed-and my engraving contemptible. This so much disgusted me that I sometimes declared I would never paint another portrait, and frequently refused when applied to; for I found, by mortifying experience, that whoever will succeed in this branch