Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 27.djvu/102

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any, of his more famous works have found their way out of his native country. The ‘Marriage à-la-Mode,’ ‘Sigismunda,’ ‘Lavinia Fenton,’ ‘The Shrimp Girl,’ a couple of conversation-pieces, and his portrait of himself and his dog are in the National Gallery. His full-length of himself ‘painting the Comic Muse’ and one of his sketches of Lord Lovat are in the National Portrait Gallery. At the Soane Museum are ‘A Rake's Progress’ and the ‘Election’ series; at the Foundling Hospital the ‘March to Finchley,’ ‘Moses brought to Pharaoh's Daughter,’ and ‘Captain Coram.’ The Society of Lincoln's Inn possesses ‘Paul before Felix;’ St. Bartholomew's Hospital, ‘The Pool of Bethesda,’ and ‘The Good Samaritan.’ At the Royal Society is the portrait of Martin Folkes; at the church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields that of James Gibbs; at the Royal College of Surgeons, that of Sir C. Hawkins. To the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge belongs ‘Mr. and Miss Arnold of Ashby Lodge.’ Other examples of varied value are scattered in private collections. Her majesty the queen has ‘Garrick and his Wife’ and ‘A View of the Mall;’ the Duke of Westminster, ‘The Distressed Poet’ and ‘The Boy with a Kite;’ the Duke of Newcastle, ‘Southwark Fair;’ the Earl of Wemyss, Scene 2 in ‘A Harlot's Progress’ (the rest having been burnt at Fonthill in 1755); the Earl of Feversham, ‘Garrick as Richard III;’ the Earl of Carlisle, ‘The Committee of the House of Commons examining Bambridge;’ while the Duke of Leeds, Mr. John Murray, and Mr. Louis Huth have each examples of the ‘Beggar's Opera.’ Mr. Huth also possesses ‘The Lady's Last Stake.’ Besides these, Mr. R. Rankin has ‘The Sleeping Congregation;’ Lord Lansdowne, Sir Charles Tennant, and Mr. F. B. Henson, portraits of ‘Peg Woffington;’ and Lady Ashburton, ‘A View in St. James's Park.’ The catalogues of the Grosvenor Gallery for 1888 and 1889 and the successive catalogues of the winter exhibitions at the Royal Academy contain record of several other works which are, rightly or wrongly, attributed to Hogarth. It may be added that the ‘Apprentice’ series, the ‘Four Stages of Cruelty,’ ‘France’ and ‘England,’ and ‘Beer Street’ and ‘Gin Lane’ do not appear to have been painted, and that the picture of ‘The Strolling Actresses dressing in a Barn’ was burnt at Littleton in 1874.

Hogarth's prints, now grown somewhat too robust in character for the virtuosi of to-day, found many collectors in the century which followed his death. The variations which from time to time he made in the plates render the possession of certain ‘states’ of them an object of considerable solicitude to those concerned. Of these peculiarities few only can be here specified, and those solely as illustrations. For example, one impression of the ‘March to Finchley’ derives importance from the fact that it was by an oversight dated on a ‘Sunday’ (30 Dec. 1750), while a humbler value attaches to a later copy which has but a single s in the word ‘Prussia.’ The earliest state of the ‘Distrest Poet’ (1736) has a print of ‘Pope thrashing Curll’ in the background, for which in 1740 was substituted a ‘Map of the Gold Mines of Peru.’ Superior interest attaches to those copies of plate iii. of the ‘Four Times of the Day (Evening),’ in which the woman's face is printed in red, and the dyer's hands in blue, while in the most orthodox ‘Beer Street’ the blacksmith flourishes a Frenchman instead of a leg of mutton. In ‘Gin Lane’ a white-faced baby is the desirable element; in the ‘Enraged Musician’ a white horse; in the ‘Strolling Actresses’ it is Flora tallowing her hair when the feathers are already arranged in it. In the ‘Election’ series, the ‘Apprentice’ series, the ‘Marriage à-la-Mode,’ ‘A Rake's Progress,’ &c., there are also numerous differences which cannot in this place be enumerated. Full information with regard to them will, however, be found in the works of the Nicholses, elder and junior; in Stephens's ‘Catalogue of Satirical Prints in the British Museum,’ and in the sale catalogues of Horace Walpole, Gulston, George Baker, H. P. Standly, the Irelands, and others. It may be added that the original prices of the prints as sold by Mrs. Hogarth at the Golden Head were extremely moderate. From a list given by John Nichols it appears that the eight plates of ‘A Rake's Progress’ could be bought for 2l. 2s. This was the highest amount, the ‘Marriage à-la-Mode’ being 1l. 11s. 6d., ‘A Harlot's Progress,’ 1l. 1s., the ‘Apprentices,’ 12s., and the ‘March to Finchley,’ 10s. 6d. The rest varied from 7s. 6d. to 1s., and the entire collection was to be obtained bound up for thirteen guineas. Boydell, to whom, as already stated, the plates were transferred by Mary Lewis, reissued them in 1790 (110 plates); Baldwin and Cradock in 1822 (120 plates). In the latter issue the original coppers had been repaired and retouched by James Heath, associate engraver, R.A. There is a large and varied collection of Hogarth's engravings in the print room of the British Museum, the basis of which was the collection of Mr. William Packer of Bloomsbury, who sold it to the trustees before his death in 1828. The valuable collection of George Steevens is at Felbrigge Hall, near Cromer, in Norfolk. It was left by Steevens at his death in 1800 to