Fhie Arts, 409 



if general satire on vices and ridicules, familiarized 

 by strokes of nature, and heightened by wit, and 

 the whole animated by proper and just expressions 

 of the passions, be comedy, Hogarth composed 

 comedies as much as Moliere. He is more true 

 to character than Congreve; each personage is 

 distinct from the rest, acts in his sphere, and can- 

 not be confounded with any other of the dramatis 

 personce, Hogarth had no model to follow and 

 improve upon. He created his art, and used co- 

 lours instead of language. He resembles Butler ; 

 but his subjects are more universal; and amidst all 

 his pleasantry, he observes the true end of comedy, 

 reformation. There is always a moral to his pic- 

 tures."^ It is remarkable, however, and deserves 

 to be mentioned as an instructive fact, that while 

 his mind was so richly stored with materials for 

 exhibiting the common scenes of life; while he 

 possessed such unrivalled powers in displaying the 

 ridiculous, he could not rise to the great historical 

 style of painting, and whenever he attempted it 

 egregiously failed.'' 



It is worthy of remark, that, since the time of 

 Hogarth, a taste for Caricatura^ and for comic 

 painting in general, has evidently increased, es- 

 pecially in Great-Britain, to a degree beyond all 

 former example. Notwithstanding the phleo-- 

 matic character usually ascribed to the British, 

 it is a curious fact, that, in no country on earth 

 has the taste for this species of painting been so 

 fashionable, or carried to so high a degree of per- 

 fection. In a particular department of comic 

 painting, Mr. Henry Bunbury has much dis- 

 tinguished himself. His exhibitions of scenes in 

 Tristram Shand^y and other works, present his 



b Lord Orford's (Horace "Walpole's) H^orh, vol. iii. p. 4J3, &Ct 

 # Sir Joshua Reynold's Worksy vol. ii. p. i6j. 



iG 



