thoughts, of the past century. We look, and see pass before us
the England of a hundred years ago--the peer in his drawing-room, the lady
of fashion in her apartment, foreign singers surrounding her, and the
chamber filled with gewgaws in the mode of that day; the church, with its
quaint florid architecture and singing congregation; the parson with his
great wig, and the beadle with his cane: all these are represented before
us, and we are sure of the truth of the portrait. We see how the Lord
Mayor dines in state; how the prodigal drinks and sports at the bagnio;
how the poor girl beats hemp in Bridewell; how the thief divides his booty
and drinks his punch at the night-cellar, and how he finishes his career
at the gibbet. We may depend upon the perfect accuracy of these strange
and varied portraits of the bygone generation: we see one of Walpole's
Members of Parliament chaired after his election, and the lieges
celebrating the event, and drinking confusion to the Pretender: we see the
grenadiers and trainbands of the City marching out to meet the enemy; and
have before us, with sword and firelock, and white Hanoverian horse
embroidered on the cap, the very figures of the men who ran away with
Johnny Cope, and who conquered at Culloden.

Posterity has not quite confirmed honest Hogarth's opinion about his
talents for the sublime. Although Swift could not see the difference
between tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum, posterity has not shared the Dean's
contempt for Handel; the world has discovered a difference between
tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum, and given a hearty applause and admiration to
Hogarth, too, but not exactly as a painter of scriptural subjects, or as a
rival of Correggio. It does not take away from one's liking for the man,
or from the moral of his story, or the humour of it--from one's admiration
for the prodigious merit of his performances, to remember that he
persisted to the last in believing that the world was in a conspiracy
against him with respect to his talents as an historical painter, and that
a set of miscreants, as he called them, were employed to run his genius
down. They say it was Liston's firm belief, that he was a great and
neglected tragic actor; they say that every one of us believes in his
heart, or would like to have others believe, that he is something which he
is not. One of the most notorious of the "miscreants", Hogarth says, was
Wilkes, who assailed him in the _North Briton_; the other was