William Hogarth:
PAINTER, ENGRAVER, AND PHILOSOPHER.
Essays on the Man, the Work, and the Time.
I.—Little Boy Hogarth.
"The Life and Adventures of William Hogarth,"—that would be a taking title, indeed! To do for the great painter of manners that which Mr. Forster has done for their great describer, would be a captivating task; and, successfully accomplished, might entitle a man to wear some little sprig of laurel in his cap, and rest, thenceforth, on his oars. It is not my fortune to have the means of writing such a book; and, for many reasons, this performance must be limited to a series of Essays upon the genius and character of the Man Hogarth; upon the Work he was permitted, by a healthful, sanguine constitution and by great powers of will and self-reliance backboning an unflagging industry, to get through in his appointed span here below; and upon the curious quaint Time in which he lived and did his work. Hogarth's life, away from his works and times, would be but a barren theme. Those old Italian painting men had strange adventures and vicissitudes. Rafaelle's life was one brief glorious romance. Leonardo had a king's arms to die in. Buonarotti lived amidst battles and sieges, and held flouting matches with popes. Titian's pencil was picked up by an emperor. The Germans and Dutchmen, even, were picturesque and eventful in their careers. Was not Rubens an ambassador? Are there not mysterious dealings between Rembrandt and the Jews that have not yet been fathomed? Did not Peter de Laar kill a monk? But in what manner is the historian to extract exciting elements from the history of a chubby little man in a cocked hat and scarlet roque-*laure, who lived at the sign of the "Painter's Head" in Leicester Fields, and died in his bed there in competence and honour; who was the son of a schoolmaster in the Old Bailey, and the descendant of a long line of north country yeomen, of whom the prime progenitor is presumed to have kept pigs and to haveg [typo for have? / have gone - p3] one by the rude name of "Hogherd"—whence Hogard and Hogart, at last liquefied into Hogarth? Benvenuto Cellini worked for the silversmiths, but at least he had poniarded his man and lain for his sins in the dungeons of St. Angelo; our Hogarth was a plain silversmith's apprentice, in Cranbourn Alley. He kept a shop afterwards, and engraved tankards and salvers, and never committed a graver act of violence than to throw a pewter pot at the head of a ruffian who had insulted him during an outing to Highgate. Honest man! they never sent him to Newgate or the Tower. Only once he was clapped up for an hour or so in a Calais guardhouse, and, coming home by the next packet-boat, took a stout revenge on the frog-eaters with his etching needle upon copper. He was no
