have counterfeited that mafter fo as to deceive all those who did not know his works by heart. Worlidge's imitations and his heads in black-lead have grown astonishingly into fashion. His best piece is the whole length of fir John Aftley, copied from Rembrandt: his print of the theatre at Oxford and the act there, and his ftatue of lady Pomfret's Cicero, are very poor performances. His laft work was a book of gems from the antique. He died Sept. 23, 1766, at Hammersmith, though latterly he refided chiefly at Bath. The following compliment to his wife, on feeing her copy a landscape in needle-work, was printed in the Public Advertiser;

At Worlidge's as late I faw
A female artift sketch and draw,
Now take a crayon, now a pencil,
Now thread a needle, ftrange utenfil!
I hardly could believe my eyes,
To fee hills, houses, steeples rife ;

While

While crewel o'er the canvass drawn
Became a river or a lawn.

Thought I-it was not faid thro' malice,
That Worlidge was oblig'd to Pallas;
For fure fuch art can be display'd
By none except the blue-ey'd maid!
To him the prude is tender hearted→→
The paintress from her easel started-
"Oh! fir, your servant-pray fit down :
My husband's charm'd you're come to town."
For wou'd you think it ?-on my life,
"Twas all the while the artift's wife.

I chose to infert thefe lines, not only in juftice to the lady celebrated, but to take notice that the female art it records, has of late placed itself with dignity by the fide of painting, and actually maintains a rank among the works of genius. Mifs Gray was the first who distinguished herself by fo bold an emulation of painting. She was taught by a Mr. Taylor, but greatly excelled him, as appears by their works at lord Spencer's at Wimbledon. His represents an old woman selling fruit to a Flemish woman,

man, after Snyder: hers a very large picture of three recruiting-officers and a peafant, whole lengths-in each, the figures are as large as life. This gentlewoman has been followed by a very great miftrefs of the art, Caroline countefs of Ailefbury, who has not only surpassed several good pictures that she has copied, but works with fuch rapidity and intelligence, that it is almoft more curious to fee her pictures in their progress, than after they are finished. Befides several other works, she has done a picture of fowls, a water-dog and a heron, from Oudry, and an old woman spinning, whole length, from Velafco, that have greater force than the originals. As fome of these masterly performances have appeared in our public exhibitions, I venture to appeal to that public, whether justice or partiality dictated this encomium.

VOL. IV.

K

ANEC

OF

PAINTING, &c.

CHA P. IV.

Painters in the Reign of King GEORGE II.

WILLIAM HOGARTH.*

HA

AVING dispatched the herd of our painters in oil, I referved to a clafs by himself that great and original genius, Hogarth; confidering him rather as a wri

ter

* Since the first edition of this work, a much ampler account of Hogarth and his works has been given by

Mr.

.

ter of comedy with a pencil, than as a painter. If catching the manners and follies of an age living as they rife, if general fatire on vices and ridicules, familiarized by strokes of nature, and heightened by wit, and the whole animated by proper and just expreffions of the paffions, be comedy, Hogarth compofed comedies as much as Moliere : in his marriage alamode there is even an intrigue carried on throughout the piece. He is more true to character than Congreve; each perfonage is diftinct from the reft, acts in his fphere, and cannot be confounded with any other of the dramatis perfonæ, The alderman's footboy, in the laft print of the fet I have mentioned, is an ignorant

}

Mr. Nichols, which is not only more accurate, but much more fatisfactory than mine; omitting nothing that a collector would wish to know, either with regard to the hiftory of the painter himself, or to the circumftances, different editions and variations of his prints. I have compleated my lift of Hogarth's works from that fource of information.