seen the best and most carefully finished series of his comic paintings, and the portrait of his own
"—commenced painter of small Conversation Pieces, from twelve to fifteen inches high. This being a novelty, succeeded for a few years."
(About this time Hogarth had summer-lodgings at South Lambeth, and did all kinds of work, "embellishing" the "Spring Gardens" at Vauxhall," and the like. In 1781, he published a satirical plate against Pope, founded on the well-known imputation against him of his having satirised the Duke of Chandos under the name of Timon, in his poem on Taste. The plate represented a view of Burlington House with Pope whitewashing it, and bespattering the Duke of Chandos's coach. Pope made no retort, and has never mentioned Hogarth.)
"Before I had done anything of much consequence in this walk, I entertained some hopes of succeeding in what the puffers in books call The Great Style of History Painting; so that without having had a stroke of this grand business before, I quitted small portraits and familiar conversations, and with a smile at my own temerity, commenced history-painter, and on a great staircase at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, painted two Scripture stories, the 'Pool of Bethesda' and the 'Good Samaritan,' with features seven feet high. . . . But as religion, the great promoter of this style in other countries, rejected it in England, I was unwilling to sink into a portrait manufacturer; and still ambitious of being singular, dropped all expectations of advantage from that source, and returned to the pursuit of my former dealings with the public at large.
"As to portrait-painting, the chief branch of the art by which a painter can procure himself a tolerable livelihood, and the only one by which a lover of money can get a fortune; a man of very moderate talents may have great success in it, as the artifice and address of a mercer is infinitely more useful than the abilities of a painter. By the manner in which the present race of professors in England conduct it, that also becomes still life."
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"By this inundation of folly and puff" (he has been speaking of the success of Vanloo, who came over here in 1737), "I must confess I was much disgusted, and determined to try if by any means I could stem the torrent, and by opposing end it. I laughed at the pretensions of these quacks in colouring, ridiculed their productions as feeble and contemptible, and
