out so many prejudices as to render it manifest that the preceding account has not unfairly stated the class of feelings he entertained. His account has also the advantage of containing an explanation of the picture.

After the March to Finchley,' says the artist, "the next print I engraved was the Roast Beef of Old England; which took its rise from a visit I paid to France the preceding year. The first time an Englishman goes from Dover to Calais, he must be struck with the different face of things at so little a distance. A farcical pomp of war, pompous parade of religion, and much bustle with very little business-to sum up all, poverty, slavery, and innate insolence, covered with an affectation of politeness, give you, even here, a true picture of the manners of the whole nation. Nor are the priests less opposite to those of Dover than the two shores. The friars are dirty, sleek, and solemn; the soldiery are lean, ragged, and tawdry; and as to the fishwomentheir faces are absolute leather!

"As I was sauntering about and observing them, near the gate, which it seems was built by the English when the place was in our possession, I remarked some appearance of the arms of England on the front. By this and idle curiosity I was prompted to make a sketch of it, which being observed, was taken into custody; but not attempting to cancel any of my sketches or memorandums, which were found to be merely those of a painter for his private use, without any relation to fortification, it was not thought necessary to send me back to Paris. I was only closely confined to my own lodgings till the wind changed for England, where I no sooner arrived than I set about the picture;-made the gate my background, and in one corner introduced my own portrait, which has generally been thought a correct likeness, with the soldier's hand upon my shoulder. By the fat friar, who stops the lean cook that is sinking under the weight of a vast sirloin of beef, and two of the military bearing off a great kettle of soup-maigre, I meant to display to my own countrymen the striking difference between the priests, food, soldiers, &c., of two nations so contiguous that, in a clear day, one coast may be seen from the

other. The melancholy and miserable Highlander, browsing on his scanty fare, consisting of a bit of bread and an onion, is intended for one of the many who fled from this country after the rebellion in 1745."

As far as regards the motive, this and the prints of France' and 'England,' are certainly among the least commendable of Hogarth's pieces. In the instance of the 'Gate of Calais' we discern the desire to be revenged for a personal affront, as well as to gratify a national antipathy, and possibly to acquire popularity and profit by ministering to the prejudices of the multitude. He doubtless persuaded himself that his objects were higher and more laudable than these; but we can, at this distance of time, discover nothing to satisfy us that they were so. Horace Walpole remarks, in reference to the three pictures of which this is one," Sometimes, to please his vulgar customers, he stooped to low images and national satire, as in the two prints of France' and England,' and that of the 'Gate of Calais.' The last, indeed, has great merit, though the caricature is carried to excess. In all these the painter's purpose was to exhibit the ease and affluence of a free government, opposed to the wants and woes of slaves."* It is pleasant to remember, that even if, at the time of its publication, this picture had exhibited truth and not caricature, the French of the present day might still afford to smile at it. They are no longer the slaves whom Hogarth saw. Since his time, many long years of suffering, of vehement conflict, and of good and evil deeds, have wrought much change both in the circumstances of the nation and in the character of the people.

This print obtained the popularity which might be expected. The profile of the artist in it was copied for a watch-paper; and a wood-cut copy of the half-starved

* In Beer Street' the English blacksmith tossing a Frenchman in the air with one hand is absolutely hyperbole. Hogarth has, however, in this instance the merit of having seen the bad taste of the circumstance, as he afterwards substituted a leg of mutton in the place of the Frenchman.

VOL. XII.

I

French sentinel has often since headed the advertisements for recruits, where it has been opposed to the figure of a well-fed British soldier. Soon after the publication, the popular cantata, entitled 'The Roast Beef of Old England,' appeared. It was written by Hogarth's friend, Mr. Theophilus Forest, and was published under the sanction of the artist, being headed by a copy of his print. This performance explains the different characters in detail; for which reason we copy some portions of the recitative:

""T was at the Gate of Calais, Hogarth tells,

*

Where sad Despair, with Famine, always dwells,
A meagre Frenchman, Madame Grandsire's cook,
As home he steer'd his carcase, that way took,
Bending beneath the weight of famed Sir-loin,
On whom he often wish'd in vain to dine,
Good Father Dominick by chance came by,
With rosy gills, round paunch, and greedy eye;
Who, when he first beheld the greasy load,
His benediction on it he bestow'd;

And while the solid fat his finger press'd,

He lick'd his chaps, and thus the knight address'd.

*

*

**

A half starv'd soldier, shirtless, pale, and lean,
Who such a sight before had never seen,
Like Garrick's frighted Hamlet, gaping stood.
And gazed with wonder on the British food.
His morning mess forsook the friendly bowl,
And in small streams along the pavement stole.

*

*

*

*

*

His fellow-guard, of right Hibernian clay,
Whose brazen front his country did betray.
From Tyburn's fatal tree had hither fled,
By honest means to get his daily bread;
Soon as the well-known prospect he espied,
In blubbering accents dolefully he cried.

Upon the ground hard by poor Sawney sate,
Who fed his nose, and scratch'd his ruddy pate;
But when Old England's bulwark he descried,
His dear-loved mull, alas! was thrown aside;

* Hogarth's hostess.

With lifted hands he bless'd his native place, Then scrubb'd himself, and thus bewail'd his case." The only known portrait in this performance, besides that of the artist, is that of the friar, for which Mr. Pine the engraver sat. He thus acquired the nickname of "Father Pine,' ,"* in consequence of which he unsuccessfully endeavoured to persuade Hogarth to give the friar another face. It is said that, when he sat to our artist he was not aware to what purpose his likeness would afterwards be applied.

The satire of Hogarth was not often of a personal nature; but he knew his own power, and he sometimes exercised it. Two of his prints, "The Times,' produced a memorable quarrel between himself on one side, and Wilkes and Churchill on the other. The satire of the prints of The Times,' which were published in 1762, was directed, not against Wilkes himself, but his political friends, Pitt and Temple; nor is it so biting as to have required Wilkes, in defence of his party, to retaliate upon one with whom he had lived in familiar and friendly intercourse. He did so, however, in a number of the 'North Briton,' containing not only abuse of the artist, but unjust and injurious mention of his wife. Hogarth was deeply wounded by this attack; he retorted by the wellknown portrait of Wilkes with the cap of liberty, and he afterwards represented Churchill as a bear. The quarrel was unworthy the talents either of the painter or poet. It is the more to be regretted, because its effects, as he himself intimates, were injurious to Hogarth's declining health. The summer of 1764 he spent at Chiswick, and the free air and exercise worked a partial renovation of his strength. The amendment, however, was but temporary, and he died suddenly, October 26, the day after his return to his London residence in Leicester Square.

* "Friar Pine," according to Nichols.

THIS eminent individual was one of those who leave behind them visible proofs of their skill and perseverance in those vast engineering works which seem almost destined to defy time. John Smeaton was born, according to most authorities, on the 28th of May, 1724, at Austhorpe, near Leeds, in a house built by his grandfather, and long afterwards inhabited by his family. His father was an attorney, and brought him up with a view to the legal profession. Our information respecting the domestic history of Smeaton is exceedingly scanty; it amounts to little more than that he very early displayed a taste for mechanical pursuits; delighting, it is said, even when a child in petticoats, to observe mechanics at work, and to question them respecting their employments. One of his biographers states that his toys were the tools of men; and that, while yet little more than an infant, he was discovered one day on the top of his father's barn, fixing something like a windmill.