the whims of nature, or the foibles or humors of our fellow-men, from degenerating into the heart-poison of contempt or hatred.”  To the beautiful females in Hogarth, which Mr. C. has pointed out, might be added, the frequent introduction of children (which Hogarth seems to have taken a particular delight in) into his pieces.  They have a singular effect in giving tranquillity and a portion of their own innocence to the subject.  The baby riding in its mother’s lap in the March to Finchley, (its careless innocent face placed directly behind the intriguing time-furrowed countenance of the treason-plotting French priest,) perfectly sobers the whole of that tumultuous scene.  The boy mourner winding up his top with so much unpretending insensibility in the plate of the Harlot’s Funeral, (the only thing in that assembly that is not a hypocrite,) quiets and soothes the mind that has been disturbed at the sight of so much depraved man and woman kind.

[Footnote 1:  The Friend, No.  XVI.]

I had written thus far, when I met with a passage in the writings of the late Mr. Barry, which, as it falls in with the vulgar notion respecting Hogarth, which this Essay has been employed in combating, I shall take the liberty to transcribe, with such remarks as may suggest themselves to me in the transcription; referring the reader for a full answer to that which has gone before.

“Notwithstanding Hogarth’s merit does undoubtedly entitle him to an honorable place among the artists, and that his little compositions, considered as so many dramatic representations, abounding with humor, character, and extensive observations on the various incidents of low, faulty, and vicious life, are very ingeniously brought together, and frequently tell their own story with more facility than is often found in many of the elevated and more noble inventions of Raphael and other great men; yet it must be honestly confessed, that in what is called knowledge of the figure, foreigners have justly observed, that Hogarth is often so raw and unformed, as hardly to deserve the name of an artist.  But this capital defect is not often perceivable, as examples of the naked and of elevated nature but rarely occur in his subjects, which are for the most part filled with characters that in their nature tend to deformity; besides his figures are small, and the jonctures, and other difficulties of drawing that might occur in their limbs, are artfully concealed with their clothes, rags, &c.  But what would atone for all his defects, even if they were twice told, is his admirable fund of invention, ever inexhaustible in its resources; and his satire, which is always sharp and pertinent, and often highly moral, was (except in a few instances, where he weakly and meanly suffered his integrity to give way to his envy) seldom or never employed in a dishonest or unmanly way.  Hogarth has been often imitated in his satirical vein, sometimes in his humorous:  but very few have