Chapter I: Front Matter

BIOGRAPHICAL ANECDOTES OF WILLIAM HOGARTH;

WITH A CATALOGUE OF HIS WORKS CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED; AND OCCASIONAL REMARKS.

[BY JOHN NICHOLS.]

THE THIRD EDITION, ENLARGED AND CORRECTED.

LONDON: PRINTED BY AND FOR JOHN NICHOLS, IN RED-LION-PASSAGE, FLEET-STREET. M DCC LXXXV.

CONTENTS

Page
MEMORANDUM. iii
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION. v
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION. vii
DETAILS OF MR. CRAYEN'S GERMAN EDITION. viii
INDIVIDUALS CONSULTED BY THE AUTHOR. xv
COLLECTORS OF HOGARTH. xvi
CONCERNING HOGARTH'S ORIGINAL WORKS. xvii
BIOGRAPHICAL ANECDOTES OF HOGARTH. 1
CATALOGUE OF HOGARTH'S PRINTS. 120
POSTSCRIPT. 455
ADDITION. 460
APPENDIX NO. 1. 461
NO. 2. 492
NO. 3. 502
GENERAL INDEX TO HOGARTH'S PLATES. 527
NEW BOOKS PUBLISHED BY J. NICHOLS.

MEMORANDUM.

Respect and gratitude having engaged me to compile a memoir of my deceased Master and Patron Mr. BOWYER, in the same performance I included anecdotes of all the eminent persons any way connected with him. A note of about a page's length was allotted to HOGARTH. While it was printing, Mr. WALPOLE'S Fourth Volume on the subject of English Painters came out, and was followed by an immediate rage for collecting every scrap of our Artist's designs. Persevering in my enquiries among my friends, I had now amassed so much intelligence relative to these engravings, that it could no longer be crowded into the situation originally meant for it. I was therefore advised to publish it in the form of a sixpenny pamphlet. This intended publication, however, grew up by degrees into a three-shilling book, and, within a year and a half afterwards, was swelled into almost its present bulk, at the price of six shillings. Such was the origin and progress of the following sheets, which, with many corrections, &c. have now reached a Third Edition.

_J. N._

_Nov._ 10, 1785.

ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE SECOND EDITION.

The author of these imperfect sheets cannot present them a second time to the world, before he has expressed his gratitude for the extreme candour with which they have been treated by the _Monthly Reviewers_. If _J. N._ has not availed himself of all the corrections designed for his service, it is because the able critic who proposes them has been deluded by intelligence manifestly erroneous. _J. N._ received each particular he has mentioned, in respect to the assistance bestowed on _Hogarth_ while his _Analysis_ was preparing, from Dr. _Morell_, a gentleman who on that subject could not easily mistake. Implicit confidence ought rather to be reposed in a literary coadjutor to the deceased, than in any consistory of females that ever "mumbled their wisdom over a gossip's bowl." Authors rarely acquaint domestic women with the progress of their writings, or the proportion of aid they solicit from their friends. If it were needful that Dr. _Morell_ should translate a _Greek_ passage[1] for _Hogarth_, how chanced it that our artist should want to apply what he did not previously understand? I must add, that the sentiments, published by the _Reviewer_ concerning these _Anecdotes_, bear no resemblance to the opinion circulated by the cavillers with whom he appears to have had a remote connection. The parties who furnished every circumstance on which he founds his reiterated charges of error and misinformation, are not unknown. Ever since this little work was edited, the people about Mrs. _Hogarth_ have paid their court to her by decrying it as "low, stupid, or false," without the slightest acknowledgement for the sums of money it has conducted to _The Golden Head_ in _Leicester Fields_. While the talents of the writer alone were questioned by such inadequate judges of literary merit, a defence on his part was quite unnecessary. He has waited, however, with impatience for an opportunity of making some reply to their groundless reflections on his veracity. This purpose he flatters himself will have been completely executed after he has observed that all credentials relative to his disputed assertion shall be ready (as they are at this moment) for the Reviewer's inspection. _J. N._ cannot indeed dismiss his present advertisement without observing, that though the amiable partialities of a wife may apologize for any contradiction suggested by Mrs. _Hogarth_ herself, the _English_ language is not strong enough to express the contempt he feels in regard to the accumulated censure both of her male and her female Parasites.

_J. N._

_Nov._ 1, 1782.

[1] Whereabouts is this translation of a _Greek_ passage to be found in the Analysis? It may have escaped my hasty researches.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION.

When this pamphlet was undertaken, the Author had no thought of swelling it to it's present bulk; but communicating his design to his friends, they favoured him with various particulars of information. Some of these accommodated themselves to his original plan, if he can be supposed to have had any, but others were more intractable. Still aware of the value even of disjointed materials, which his profession would not afford him leisure to compact into a regular narrative, and conscious that these sheets, rude and imperfect as they are, may serve to promote a publication less unworthy of its subject, he dismisses his present work without any laboured apology for the errors that may be detected in it; claiming, indeed, some merit on account of intelligence, but not the least on the score of arrangement or composition. He takes the same opportunity to observe, that many curious anecdotes of extraordinary persons have been unfortunately lost, because the possessors of those fugitive particulars had not the power of communicating them in proper form, or polished language, and were unwilling to expose them in such a state as these are offered to the world.

_May_ 9, 1781.

The ingenious Mr. CRAYEN of _Leipzig_ having translated the First Edition of these Anecdotes, &c. into the _German_ Language, dispatched a copy of his work to _J. N._ attended by the obliging letter here subjoined:

SIR,

Though I have not the honour of being acquainted with you, I hope your goodness will excuse the liberty I take of sending you a _German_ translation of the _Biographical Anecdotes of Mr. Hogarth_ you published. Being convinced of the merits of your production, and its usefulness to such collectors of prints and connoisseurs in our country as don't understand the _English_ language, I undertook this translation, and flatter myself you will be pleased to accept of it as a proof of my real esteem for you.

You will find, that I did not always adhere literally to the original, but made some abridgments, alterations, notes, &c. &c. But I hope you will do me the justice to consider, that I wrote for my countrymen, and therefore left out such passages, poems, anecdotes, &c. &c. as would have been entirely uninteresting to them, and have swelled the volume to no purpose.

As to the typographical performance, I think you will be tolerably satisfied of it. Though the noble art of printing is of _German_ origin, your nation has improved and brought it to the highest pitch of perfection in point of neatness, elegance, and correctness.

I remain, with all possible esteem,

SIR,

Your most obedient

and most humble servant,

A. CRAYEN.

_Leipzig_ in _Saxony,_ the 29th _Jan._ 1783.

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The following are Translations, by a Friend, from the Dedication and PREFACE to Mr. CRAYEN'S performance.

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DEDICATION.

To Mr. GOTTFRIED WINKLER, in _Leipzig_;

HONOURED and WORTHY FRIEND,

Pardon my presumption in offering you the slender fruit of a few leisure hours. Receive it with your wonted kindness, and judge of it not by the trifling value of the work, but by the intention of its Author, whose most zealous wish has long been to find an opportunity of publickly offering you, however small, a memorial of his respect and friendship.

If my labour in adding a mite towards the diffusion of the knowledge of the Arts, is honoured with the approbation of so enlightened a Connoisseur, I shall feel myself completely rewarded.

Receive at the same time my sincerest thanks for the obliging communication of your Copy of _Hogarth's_ prints, of which, in my translation, I have more than once availed myself.

Live, honoured Sir, many days; happy in the bosom of your worthy family, in the circle of your friends, and in the enjoyment of those treasures of the Arts you have collected with such distinguished taste. Remain also a friend of

Yours, &c.

THE TRANSLATOR.

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