cumstances of his burlefque manner. The faces are faid to be extremely like, and the colouring is rather better than in fome of his beft fubfequent pieces. But we muft obferve in general of this excellent painter, that his colouring is dry and difpleafing, and that he could never get rid of the appellation of a manerist, which was given him early in life. His next piece was probably that excellent picture of the Pool of Bethesda, which he prefented to St. Bartholomew's hofpital, in which parish, as we have already faid, he was born.

for a

We have hitherto only feen him in grave history paintings; a walk in which he has many competitors; but he foon launched out into an unbeaten track, in which he excelled all that ever came before, or have fince fucceeded him. His being firft employed to draw defigns new edition of Hudibras, was the inlet to his future excellence in the burlefque; we mean in his life pictures, for fuch we will venture to call them. It is unjuft to give these the character either of burlesque or grotefque pieces, fince both the one and the other convey to us a departure from nature, to which Hogarth almoft always ftrictly adhered. The work of this kind, which firft appeared, was his Harlot's Progress. The ingenious abbé du Bos has often complained, that no hiftory painter of his time went through a feries of actions, and thus, like an hiftorian, painted the fucceffive fortunes of an hero from the cradle to the grave. What du Bos wifhed to fee done, Hogarth performed. He launches out his young adventurer, a fimple girl upon the town, and conducts her through

all the viciffitudes of wretchedness to a premature death. This was painting to the reason and to the heart: none had ever before made the art fubfervient to the purposes. of morality and inftruction; a book like this is fitted to every foil and every obferver, and he that runs may read.

The Rake's Progress fucceeded the former, which, though not equal to it, came fhort only of that fingle excellence, in which no other could come near him that way. His great excellence confifted in what we may term the furniture of his 'pieces; for as in fublime fubjects, and hiftory pieces, the fewness of little circumftances capable of taking the fpectator's attention from the principal figures, is reckoned a merit; fo in life-painting, a great variety of thofe little domeftic images gives the whole a greater degree of force and refemblance. Thus in the Harlot's Progress we are not displeased with James Dalton's wig-box on the bed-tefter of her lodgings in Drury-lane: particularly too if it be remembered, that this James Dalton was a noted highwayman of that time. In the pieces of Marriage Alamode, what can be more finely and fatirically conceived, than his introducing a gouty lord, who carries his pride even into his infirmities, and has his very crutches marked with a

coronet.

But a comment or panegyric on picture is of all fubjects the moft difpleafing; and yet the life before us offers little elfe. We may, indeed, in the manner of biographers, obferve, that he travelled to Paris for improvement; but scarce any circumftance remains by which he was diftinguifhed in this journey from the rest of mankind who

go

go thither without defign, and return without remark. Perhaps his general character of the French may be thought worth remembering; which was, that their houfes were gilt and bt.

About the year 1750 he published his Analysis of Beauty, which, though it was ftrongly oppofed, yet was replete with thofe ftrokes which ever characterife the works of genius. In this performance he thews, by a variety of examples, that round fwelling figures are moft pleafing to the eye; and the truth of this has of late been further confirmed by an ingenious writer on the fame fubject.

Little elfe remains of the circumftances of this admirable man's life, except his late conteft with Mr. Churchill: the circumstances of this are too recent in every memory to be repeated. It is well known that both met at Westminster-hall; Hogarth, to catch a ridiculous likenefs of the poet; and Churchill, to furnih a natural defcription of the painter. Hogarth's picture of Churchill was but little efteemed, and Churchill's letter to Hogarth has died with the fubject; fomé pretend, however, to fay, that it broke the latter's heart; but this we can, from good authority, fay is not true; indeed, the report falls of itfelf; for we may as well fay that Hogarth's pencil was as efficacious as the poet's pen, fince neither long furvived the conteft.

has a wife and several small children, whom he endeavours to maintain by great application to his business, and by teaching children to read and write, which is all the learning he ever received himself, being taken from school at feven years old.

He lives at the village of Rowley, near Hales-Owen, about feven miles from Birmingham in Warwickshire, and two miles from an eftate of the late Mr. William Shenftone, called the Leafowes.

After he was taken from fchool he had no means of gratifying his infatiable thirft after reading and knowledge, but by procuring the magazines with fuch little perquifites as he could pick up, till about five years ago, when an accident brought him acquainted with Mr. Shenstone.

That gentleman, who, by improving nature with a true tafte of her beauties, has rendered the Leafowes the admiration of all who have feen the place, used to fuffer his delightful walks to be open to every body, till the mifchief that was done by the thoughtlefs, or the malicious, obliged him to exclude all but fuch as fhould have his fpecial permiffion on a proper application for that purpose. Woodhoufe, who was more a lofer by this prohibition than almoft any other perfon whom it excluded, applied to Mr. Shenftone for leave to indulge his imagination among the fcenes which had fo often delighted him before, by a copy of verfes. This immediately procured him the liberty he folicited, and introduced him to Mr. Shenftone himself. The poem appeared to be fo extraordinary for a perfon in so obscure a station, who

had

had been taken from a fchool at feven years old, and had fince read nothing but magazines, that he of fered him the ufe not only of his garden, but his library.

Tho' niggard fate withheld her fordid.

ore,

Woodhouse, however, did not fuffer his love of poetry, or his defire of knowledge, to intrude the duties of his ftation: as his work employed only his hands, and left his mind at liberty, he ufed to place a pen and ink at his fide, while the last was in his lap, and when he had made a couplet he wrote it down on his knee; his feafons for reading he borrowed not from those which others of his rank usually devote to tippling, or fkittles, but from the hours that would otherwife have been loft in fleep.

The verfification of this extraordinary writer is remarkably harmonious, his language is pure, his images poetical, and his fentiments uncommonly tender and ele

gant.

His Poem to Mr. Shenftone was written when he was about three and twenty; and though in the character of a fuitor, and with a proper fenfe of the inferiority of his ftation, yet there is a confcioufnefs of that equality of nature, which petitioners and dedicators too often proftitute or forget.

After an address to Mr. Shenftone, in which he encourages himfelf by confidering the general kindness of his character, he fays:

Shall he, benevolent as wife, difdain The mufe's fuitor, though a fandal'd fwain ?

Tho' no aufpicious rent-rolls grace my line,

I boaft the fame original divine:
VOL. VII.

and of

gen

.poem, another addreffed to the fame tleman, were fent by Mr. Shenftone's direction, with fome manufcript poems of his own, to a friend in London; this friend fhewed them to fome of his acquaintance, and a small collection was made for the author, which produced an Ode on Benevolence; by this ode he appears to have profited by Mr. Shenftone's library; for he talks of Palladian fkill, Sappho's art, Phidias's chiffel, and the pencil of Titian. But his force of thought, and skill in poetical expreffion, appear to greater advantage in a poem of 50 ftanzas, each confifting of 4 verfes, intitled Spring: this contains a ftriking picture of the infelicities of his fituation, and the keennefs and delicacy of his fenfa

tions.

After regretting the vacant cheerfulness of his earlier days, before domeftic connections condemned him to inceffant labour, and abforbed him in care and

folicitude, he exhibits this picture of the pain and pleasure that are mingled in his conjugal and paternal character.

But now domeftic cares employ

And bufy every fense,
Nor leave one hour of grief or joy,

But's furnifh'd out from thence;

Save what my little babes afford, Whom I behold with glee, When finiling at any humble board, Or pratiling on my knee.

Not

and were, in confequence, hung up by fcores at a time, and thus expofed in terrorem. At other places were to be met fmall croffes with infcriptions, "Pray for the foul of A. B. that was found murdered on this fpot." At the age of fixteen, when he was in Ger

ferved fuch an one hung up as a monument of gratitude by fome wandering pilgrim, arrived at the end of his journey; and though this chapel was never without a number of devotees, who prayed and burnt tapers before the image of the faint, he was not deterred from venturing in, and taking both ftaff and cloak away, at noon-day: he efcaped without any enquiry after him, carried off the booty unmolested, made hafte to a private corner, threw the cloak about his fhoulders, and ftalked, in all fanctified gravity, with the ftaff in his hand, till he got out of the city : Being thus accoutred (fays he) and furnished with a proper pafs, I began, at all proper places, to beg my way in a fluent Latin, accofting only clergymen, or perfons of figure, by whom I could be understood, and found them moftly fo generous and credulous, that I might eafily have faved money, and put myself into a much better drefs before I had gone a score or two of miles; but fo powerful was my vanity and extravagance, that as foon as I had got what I thought a fufficient viaticum, I begged no more, but viewed every thing worth feeing, and then retired to fome inn, where I fpent my money as freely as I had obtained it." He tells us, that he frequently met with objects that made him fhrink. In lonely places, the carcaffes of men rotting and ftinking by the way fide, faftened with ropes round their necks to pofts; thefe were difbanded foldiers and failors, who used, after the peace of Rhyfwick, to infeft the roads,

many, he fell upon the wild project of paffing for a Formofan. He recollected, that he had heard the Jefuits fpeak much of China and Japan, and was rafh enough to think that what he wanted of a right knowledge, he might make up by the ftrength of a pregnant invention, which here, it must be confeffed, found ample fcope to work in. He fet himself to form a new character and language, a grammar, a divifion of the year into twenty months, a new religion, and what not! His alphabet was written from right to left, like the oriental tongues! and he foon inured his hand to write it with great readiness. He now thought himfelf fufficiently prepared to pafs for a Japanese converted to christianity. He altered his Avignon certificate as well as he could, reaffumed his old pilgrim's habit, and began his tour, though with a heavy heart, to the Low Countries. Under the pretence of being a Japanese converted by fome Jefuit miffionaries, and brought to Avignon to be farther inftructed by them, as well as to avoid the dreadful punishment inflicted on converts by the, emperor of Japan, he travelled feveral hundred leagues with an appearance, however, fo difmal, and fhabby, as to exceed even the very common beggars. His affairs now grew F2

from