worldly-mindedness in some of the faces, a Dodingtonian smoothness which does not promise any superfluous degree of sincerity in the fine gentleman who has been the occasion of calling so much good company together: but is not the general cast of expression in the faces, of the good sort? do they not seem cut out of the good old rock, substantial English honesty? would one fear treachery among charac ters of their expression? or shall we call their honest mirth and seldom-returning relaxation by the hard names of vice and profligacy? That poor country fellow that is grasping his staff (which, from that difficulty of feeling themselves at home which poor men experience at a feast, he has never parted with since he came into the room), and is enjoying with a relish that seems to fill all the capacities of his soul, the slender joke which that facetious wag his neighbour is practising upon the gouty gentleman, whose eyes the effort to suppress pain has made as round as rings-does it shock the "dignity of human nature" to look at that man, and to sympathize with him in the seldom-heard joke which has unbent his care-worn hard-working visage, and drawn iron smiles from it? or with that full-hearted cobbler, who is honouring with the grasp of an honest fist the unused palm of that annoyed patrician, whom the license of the time has seated next him?

I can see nothing "dangerous" in the contemplation of such scenes as this, or the Enraged Musician, or the Southwark Fair, or twenty other pleasant prints which come crowding in upon my recollection, in which the restless activities, the diversified bents and humours, the blameless peculiarities of men, as they deserve to be called, rather than their "vices and follies," are held up in a laughable point of view. All laughter is not of a dangerous or soul-hardening

tendency. There is the petrifying sneer of a demon, which excludes and kills love; and there is the cordial laughter of a man, which implies and cherishes it. What heart was ever made the worse by joining in a hearty laugh at the simplicities of Sir Hugh Evans, or Parson Adams, where a sense of the ridiculous mutually kindles, and is kindled, by a perception of the amiable? That tumultuous harmony of singers that are roaring out the words, "The world shall bow to the Assyrian throne," from the opera of Judith, in the third plate of the series called the Four Groups of Heads, which the quick eye of Hogarth must have struck off in the very infancy of the rage for sacred oratorios in this country, while "Music yet was young;" when we have done smiling at the deafening distortions which these tearers of devotion to rags and tatters, these takers of Heaven by storm, in their boisterous mimicry of the occupation of angels, are making; -what unkindly impression is left behind, or what more of harsh or contemptuous feeling, than when we quietly leave Uncle Toby and Mr. Shandy riding their hobby-horses about the room? The conceited, long-backed sign-painter, that with all the self-applause of a Raphael or Corregio (the twist of body which his conceit has thrown him into has something of the Corregiesque in it), is contemplating the picture of a bottle, which he is drawing from an actual bottle that hangs beside him, in the print of Beer Street ;—while we smile at the enormity of the self-delusion, can we help loving the good humour and self-complacency of the fellow? would we willingly wake him from his dream?

I say not that all the ridiculous subjects of Hogarth have necessarily something in them to make us like them; some are indifferent to us, some in their natures repulsive, and only made interesting by the wonderful skill and truth to

nature in the Painter; but I contend that there is in most of them that sprinkling of the better nature, which, like holywater, chases away and disperses the contagion of the bad. They have this in them besides, that they bring us acquainted with the every-day human face,-they give us skill to detect those gradations of sense and virtue (which escape the careless or fastidious observer) in the countenances of the world about us; and prevent that disgust at common life, that tædium quotidianarum formarum, which an unrestricted passion for ideal forms and beauties is in danger of producing. In this, as in many other things, they are analogous to the best novels of Smollett and Fielding.

BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY

ON THE

GENIUS AND WORKS

OF

WILLIAM HOGARTH.

SO much has already been written respecting the illustrious Artist who is the subject of the present memoir, that, were it not intended as a necessary accompaniment to this edition of his works,* a sketch of his life might seem to require some apology. It is not here professed to bring forward additional facts, but rather to examine generally his peculiar merits as an artist, and to exhibit, within a mode

* This elegant "Essay on the Genius and Works of Hogarth” is here reprinted by the permission of Messrs. Baldwin and Cradock, the Proprietors of the original plates of Hogarth. It was written expressly for the large edition of the “Genuine Works of Hogarth," after the plates had been repaired by James Heath, Esq. Associate Engraver, R.A. Without those plates, now happily to be obtained at a moderate price, no library can be said to be complete; and who would be content with copies, however excellent, when the originals can be so easily procured?

rate compass, the opinions of his various commentators; connecting this criticism with such a brief outline of his life as may serve to give a biographical form to the whole.

England is justly proud of having given birth to two men of kindred excellence, and of unrivalled genius, of each of whom it may be said, that he neither found a predecessor, nor left a successor, in the track which he pursued. Each was eminently gifted with the talent of pourtraying humour, passion, and feeling, in all their varying shades, with a felicity that seems to mock competition :-it is hardly necessary to add the names of Shakspeare and Hogarth.

Hogarth, like Shakspeare, has been a fertile theme to biographers, critics, commentators, and illustrators. As there is hardly a syllable in the works of the one that has not been the subject of a remark, or a note, so there is scarcely an incident or a figure in the productions of the other that has not been explained or noticed. Even this external evidence of their superior merit, alone, carries conviction; for, however fashion, prejudice, admiration of novelty, or some other circumstance, may for a while cause even extended reputation, it cannot be permanently secured through successive generations, unless founded upon qualities productive of lasting interest. The bulk of productions, whether in literature or in art, must necessarily be brief in their existence. Among these scintillations that gleam and disappear, it is only the few and mighty master-minds that are stars shining in that firmament where they have been fixed by the apotheosis of their own genius.

In discussing the merits of men like Hogarth, criticism naturally assumes the tone of eulogium: they who should preside as judges at a tribunal, prostrate themselves as worshippers before a shrine. Enthusiasm must not, however,