HOG 74 



Megan*. Each made Car each, as bodies for their soul, 



I- , ' So ai to form one true and perfect whole, 



Where a plain story to the eye is told, 



Which conceive the moment we behold; 



Hogarth iinrivall'd .stands, and shall engage 



UnrivalJ'd praise to the roost distant age. 



Hogarth having been said to be in his dotage when 

 he produced his print of the bear, it should seem was 

 provoked to make the following additions to this print, 

 in order to give a farther specimen of his still existing 

 genius. In the form of a framed picture on the pain- 

 ter's pallet, he has represented an Egyptian pyramid, 

 on the side of which is a Cheshire cheese, and round it 

 3000 per annum, and at the foot a Roman veteran in 

 a reclining posture, designed as an allusion to Mr Pitt's 

 resignation. The cheese is meant to allude to a former 



rch of Mr Pitt's, in which he said that he would ra- 

 subsist a week on a Cheshire cheese and a shoulder 

 of mutton, than submit to the enemies of his country. 

 But to ridicule this character still more, he is, as he lies 

 down, firing a piece of ordnance at the standard of 

 Britain, on which is a dove, with an olive branch, the 

 emblem of peace. On one side of the pyramid is the 

 city of London represented by the figure of one of the 

 Guildhall giants going to crown the reclining hero. 

 On the other side, is the King of Prussia, in the cha- 

 racter of one of the Csesars, but smoking his pipe. In 

 the centre, stands Hogarth himself, whipping a dan- 

 cing bear, (Churchill,) which he holds in a string. At 

 the side of the bear is a monkey, designed by Mr 

 Wilkcs. Between the legs of the little animal is a mop- 

 ttick, on which he seems to ride like a child on a 

 hobby-horse. At the top of the mop'Stick is the cap of 

 liberty. The monkey is undergoing the same disci- 

 pline as the bear. Behind the monkey is the figure of 

 a man, but with no lineaments of face, and playing 

 on a fiddle. This was designed for Earl Temple, in 

 allusion to the inexpressiveness of his countenance. 



Amidst these disgraceful hostilities, Hogarth was vi- 

 sibly declining in his health. In 1762, he complained 

 of an inward pain, which proved to be an aneurism, 

 and became incurable. The last year of his life was 

 employed in retouching his plates, with the assistance of 

 several engravers, whom he took with him to Chis- 

 wick. On the 25th of October 176'4, he was conveyed 

 from thence to his house in Leicester Fields, in a very 

 weak condition, yet remarkably cheerful ; and receiv- 

 ing an agreeable letter from the celebrated Dr Franklin, 

 he drew up a rough draught of an answer to it In 

 the night time, however, he was seized with a vomit- 

 ing, probably owing to a circumstance of which he had 

 boasted before going to bed, viz. that he had eat a 

 pound of beef steakes to his dinner, and expired about 

 two hours after, aged 67. His corpse was interred in 

 the Church-yard of Chiswick, on a monument which 

 bears a simple inscription on one side, and on the other 

 emblematic ornaments, with some verses by Garrick. 



In his private character this celebrated man is repu- 

 ted to have been hospitable and liberal, as well as accu- 

 rately just in his dealings, but his manners were coarse 

 and vulgar, and his powers of delighting seem to have 

 been restrained to his pencil. To be a member of clubs 

 of illiterate men was the utmost of his social ambition, 

 and even in those assemblies he was oftener sent to 



H O L 



Coventry than any other member. The slightest con- 

 tradiction is said to have transported him to rage. 

 His genius as a comic painter is of that strong descrip. ' 

 tion which breaks down the partition between con- 

 noisseurship and the popular taste in the enjoyment of 

 it. It is merit which his satyrist yet ablest panegyrist 

 so well expressed, " which we conceive the moment 

 we behold." The critic Du Bos often complained that 

 no history painter of his time went through a series of 

 actions. What Dubos wished to see done, Hogarth: 

 performed, though probably without knowing that he 

 was so obligingly complying with a critic's request. 

 In his Harlot's Progress he launches out his young ad- 

 venturer a simple girl upon the town, and conducts 

 her through all the vicissitudes of wretchedness to a 

 premature death. This was painting to the under* 

 standing and to the heart. None had before made the 

 comic pencil subservient to instruction ; nor was the 

 success of this painter confined to his persons. One 

 of his excellencies consisted in what may be termed 

 the furniture of his pieces ; for as in sublime historical' 

 representations, the fewer trivial circumstances are per- 

 mitted to divide the spectators attention, the greater is 

 the force of the principal figures; so in scenes of familiar 

 life, a judicious variety of little incidents contributes an 

 air of versimilitude to the whole. The rake's levee 

 room, (Walpole observes) the nobleman's dining room, 

 the apartments of the husband and wife in marriage a 

 In mode, the alderman's parlour, the bed-chamber, and 

 many others, are the history of the manners of the age.* 

 For a scientific view of the works of this great art- 

 ist, we must refer the reader to Walpole's Anecdotes of 

 Painters, which we have already quoted. A complete 

 list of his prints, at least the most complete that has 

 been made out, will be found in the Biographical An- 

 ecdotes, by Nichols. Walpole has made one remark 

 upon them in his eulogy of Hogarth, against the truth of 

 which his works bear ocular demonstration, viz. that 

 his delicacy is superior to that of the Dutch painters, 

 or rather that his indelicacy is less. The illustration 

 of this would be a task more easy than agreeable. Mr 

 Gilpin, in his Essay on Prints, observes, that in design 

 Hogarth was seldom at a loss. His invention was fer- 

 tile, and his judgment accurate. An improper inci- 

 dent is rarely introduced. In composition, he conti- 

 nues, we see little in him to admire ; in many of his 

 prints, the deficiency is so great, as to imply a want of 

 all principle, which makes us ready to believe that 

 when we do meet with a beautiful group, it is the ef- 

 fect of chance. Of the distribution of light, according 

 to the same writer, he had as little knowledge as of 

 composition. Neither was Hogarth a master of draw- 

 ing. But of his expression, in which the force of his 

 genius Jay, we cannot speak in too high terms ; in 

 every mode of it he was truly excellent. The passions 

 he thoroughly understood, and all the effects which 

 they produce in every part of the human frame; he had 

 the happy art also of conveying his ideas with the same 

 precision with which he conceived them. () 



HOLBEIN, JOHN, or HANS, an eminent painter, 

 was born at basle, in Switzerland, in the year 1 4-98. He 

 was instructed in the art by his father John Holbein, 

 whom he very soon surpassed. Holbein was the par- 

 ticular friend of the celebrated Erasmus. At his re- 



* Among the small article! of furniture in the scenes of Hogarth, (says the compiler of the anecdotes of his life) a few objects may 

 speedily become unintelligible, because their archetypes being out of use, and of perishable natures, can no longer be found. Such is 

 the dare for lark}, a circular board, with pieces of looking-glats inserted in it, hung up over the chimney-piece of the distressed poet ; 

 and the Jew's cake, (a dry tasteless biscuit, perforated with many holes, and formuily gweu away in greut quantities at the feast of 

 the pasTCYcr) generally used only as a Hj -trap, and hung up us such against the wall in the sixth p!atc of the Harlot's Progress. 



