menced painter, a painter of portraits: the most ill-suited
employment imaginable to a man whose turn certainly was not flattery,
nor his talent adapted to look on vanity without a sneer. Yet his
facility in catching a likeness, and the methods he chose of painting
families and conversations in small, then a novelty, drew him
prodigious business for some time. It did not last: either from his
applying to the real bent of his disposition, or from his customers
apprehending that a satirist was too formidable a confessor for the
devotees of self-love. He had already dropt a few of his smaller
prints on some reigning follies; but as the dates are wanting on most
of them, I can not ascertain which, tho those on the South Sea and
"Rabbit Woman" prove that he had early discovered his talent for
ridicule, tho he did not then think of building his reputation or
fortune on its powers.

His "Midnight Modern Conversation" was the first work that showed his
command of character; but it was "The Harlot's Progress," published in
1729 or 1730, that established his fame. The pictures were scarce
finished, and no sooner exhibited to the public, and the subscription
opened, than above twelve hundred names were entered on his book. The
familiarity of the subject and the propriety of the execution made it
tasted by all ranks of people. Every engraver set himself to copy it,
and thousands of imitations were dispersed all over the kingdom. It
was made into a pantomime, and performed on the stage. The "Rake's
Progress," perhaps superior, had not so much success, from want of
novelty; nor, indeed, is the print of "The Arrest" equal in merit to
the others.

The curtain was now drawn aside, and his genius stood displayed in its
full luster. From time to time he continued to give those works that
should be immortal, if the nature of his art will allow it. Even the
receipts for his subscriptions had wit in them. Many of his plates he
engraved himself, and often expunged faces etched by his assistants
when they had not done justice to his ideas.

Not content with shining in a path untrodden before, he was ambitious
of distinguishing himself as a painter of history. But not only his
coloring and drawing rendered him unequal to the task; the genius that
had entered so feelingly into the calamities and crimes of familiar
life deserted him in a walk that called for dignity and grace. The
burlesque turn of his mind mixt itself with the most serious su