eglected. I am sorry for this, because I
cannot think meanly of an art which engaged the heads and hands of the
ladies of England, and gave to the tapestried hall of elder days fame
little inferior to what now waits on a gallery of paintings."

Passing over Holbein, Sir Antonio Moore, Vandyke, Lely, Kneller, and
Thornhill, we come to the lives of Hogarth--Wilson--Reynolds and
Gainsborough--from which we select a few characteristic anecdotes and
sketches. In noticing Hogarth's early life, Mr. Cunningham has thrown
some discredit on a book, which on its publication, made not a little
chat among artists:--

"Of those early days I find this brief notice in Smith's Life of
Nollekens the sculptor. 'I have several times heard Mr. Nollekens
observe, that he had frequently seen Hogarth, when a young man, saunter
round Leicester Fields with his master's sickly child hanging its head
over his shoulder.' It is more amusing to read such a book than safe to
quote it. Hogarth had ceased to have a master for seventeen years, was
married to Jane Thornhill, kept his carriage, and was in the full blaze
of his reputation, when Nollekens was born."

Among Hogarth's early labours are his Illustrations of Hudibras,
published in 1726. These were seventeen plates; and we have lately seen
in the possession of Mr. Britton, the architect, eleven original
paintings illustrative of Butler's witty poem, and attributed to
Hogarth.

From the notices of Hogarth's portraits we select the following:--

"Hogarth's Portrait of Henry Fielding, executed after death from
recollection, is remarkable as being the only likeness extant of the
prince of English novelists. It has various histories. According to
Murphy, Fielding had made many promises to sit to Hogarth, for whose
genius he had a high esteem, but died without fulfilling them; a lady
accidentally cut a profile with her scissars, which recalled Fielding's
face so completely to Hogarth's memory, that he took up the outline,
corrected and finished it and made a capital likeness. The world is
seldom satisfied with a common account of any thing that interests
it--more especially as a marvellous one is easily manufactured. The
following, then, is the second history. Garrick, having dressed himself
in a suit of Fielding's clothes, presented himself unexpectedly before
the artist, mimicking the step, and assuming the look of their deceased
friend. Hogarth was much affected at first, but, on recovering, to