In the department of (rolls and conversations, till the appearance of Wilkie, the English school never pro duced any thing ; but, in the engravings of the Village Politicians by Raimbach, and the Blind Fddl • 1 Fiddler by our countryman Burnet, from the pictures of that master, we see specimens of British talent which rival the beautiful lvorks of Le Bas after the pictures of Teniers.
The works of Hogarth exhibit a walk of art untrodden before him. The Dutch and Flemish schools had car ried the representation of local manners to great perfec tion ; but Hogarth added to this a dramatic and didactic character, strong and poignant satire, and epigrammatic point. " I consider that great and original genius," says Lord Orford, " rather as a writer of comedy with a pen ell, than as a painter. If catching the manners and follies of an age, t living as they rise,'—if general satires on vices, familiarized by strokes of nature, and heightened by wit, and the whole maintained by proper and just ex pressions of the passions, be comedy, Hogarth composed comedy as much as Moliere. In his Marriage a la Mode, there is even an intrigue carried on through the whole piece. He is more true to character than Congreve ; each personage is distinct from the rest, acts in his sphere, and cannot be confounded with any other of the dramatis Izersonce. The alderman's footboy, in the last print of the set I have mentioned, is an ignorant rustic ; and if wit is struck out of the characters in which it is not expected, it is from their acting conformably to their situation, and from the mode of their passions, not from their having the wit of fine gentlemen. Sometimes he rose to tragedy, not however in the catastrophe of kings and heroes, but in marking how vice conducts insensibly and incidentally to misery and shame. He warns against encouraging cruelty and idleness in young minds, and discerns how the different vices of the great and the vulgar, lead, by different paths, to the same unhappy end. The fine lady in Marriage a la Mode, and Tom Nero in the Four Stages of Cruelty, terminate their story in blood : she occasions the murder of her husband ; he assassinates his mistress. It is seldom that his figures
do not express the character he intended to give them. When they wanted an illustration which colours could not bestow, collateral circumstances, full of wit, supply notes. The nobleman in Marriage a la Mode has a great air, and the coronet on his crutches, and his pedigree issuing from the bowels of William the Conquerer, add to his character. In the Breakfast Scene, the old stew ard reflects for the spectator. Sometimes a short label is an epigram, and is never introduced without improv ing the subject." His plates arc numerous, and have all the expression and character of his pictures, and arc executed with great boldness and spirit. His drawing, though not correct, is almost sufficient for the subjects which he excelled in. It is to be regretted, that his am bition prompted him, in an evil hour, to aspire to the rank of a historical painter—a walk of art in which, from his previous pursuits, and the peculiar nature of his ta lents, (great as they were), he was by no means qualified to excel. He painted several pictures in this way, which display the greatest ignorance of the requisites essential to this branch of the art ; and are completely destitute of good taste, correctness of design, colouring, in short of every quality which is considered indispensible in such subjects. He has likewise engraved them, and in a style which, though happily suited for those subjects on which his fame rests, have turned his history into caricature.
There are various kinds of engraving, as has already been seen ; but that which is performed with the graver is the oldest, and to it, in common language, the term engraving is often exclusively applied, in contradistinc tion to etching, mezzotint°, or any other method.
The improvements of modern art have given a degree of importance to the etching-needle, which the older mas ters (lid not acknowledge : and, accordingly, works of every description, from the largest historical plates to the smallest vignettes, are, with it, brought up to consi derable effect, and finished to the necessary depth with the graver ; the lights on the more delicate parts being tinted with the dry point.