' The
terrible scourge of the satirist fell bitterly upon the personal and
moral deformities of the man. Compared with his chastisement the
hangman's whip is but a proverb, and the pillory a post of honour. He
might hope oblivion from the infamy of both; but from Hogarth there was
no escape. It was little indeed that the artist had to do, to brand and
emblazon him with the vices of his nature--but with how much
discrimination that little is done! He took up the correct portrait,
which Walpole upbraids him with skulking into a court of law to obtain,
and in a few touches the man sank, and the demon of hypocrisy and
sensuality sat in his stead. It is a fiend, and yet it is Wilkes still.
It is said that when he had finished this remarkable portrait, the
former friendship of Wilkes overcame him, and he threw it into the fire,
from which it was saved by the interposition of his wife."
All the criticisms on Hogarth's _moral_ pictures have an air of
originality and freshness of mind, which is so attractive, as to make us
regret that we have not room for them. In proof of this, only let the
reader turn to Mr. Cunningham's remarks on the Harlot and Rake's
Progress, at pages 98 and 99. His descriptions too of the satirical
pictures are extremely ludicrous, and in effect second only to painting
itself.
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