Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/624

 610 which the delicate and sensitive will always revolt, and which have necessarily an air of vulgarity about them, but the purpose consecrates them; for they are not selected to pander to vice and folly, but to expose, to brand, to extirpate them. There is, even in their repulsiveness, a tragic and deeply moral spirit which the most fastidious must feel, and which has given them so strong a hold on public estimation. Like Swift, he exposes to view the foulest and vilest corners of human nature; but, though with as powerful, it is with a more sympathising hand. Like Juvenal, he lays bare the tainted flesh of depraved society to the bone, but he means unmistakably to heal and not to destroy. The dashes of exaggeration in many of his pieces give him the title of a caricaturist, but it is never at the expense of nature and truth. He may be said to have introduced and established caricature in this country.



He first published an engraving of "The Small Masquerade Ticket, or Burlington Gate," in ridicule of lord Burlington's architecture, and of Pope's eulogiums on Burlington and satire of the duke of Chandos. He illustrated "Hudibras," and produced a satirical plate, "The Taste of the Times," in 1721; and, some years after, "The Midnight Conversation" and "Southwark Fair." Not content with the fame which this vein, so peculiarly his own, was bringing him, he had the ambition to attempt the historical style, but this was a decided failure. In 1731, however, he came out in his full and peculiar strength in "The Harlot's Progress." The melancholy truth of this startling drama, mingled with touches of genuine humour, seized at once on the minds of all classes. It became at once immensely popular; it was put upon the stage, and twelve hundred subscriptions for the engravings produced a rich harvest of profit. In the following year he produced "The Rake's Progress," which, though equally clever, had not the same recommendation of novelty. In 1744 he offered for sale the original paintings of these subjects, as well as "The Four Times of the Day," and "The Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn;" but here he felt the effect of the sturdy English expression of his sentiments on art, and his distributing, as a ticket of admission, an engraving of "The Battle of the Pictures," which gave great offence to painters and their patrons. The whole sum received was only four hundred and twenty-seven pounds—a sum nearly doubled by the sale of "The Rake's Progress" alone, since then. Undaunted by his self-injuring avowal of his opinions, he offered in 1750 the pictures of "Marriage à la Mode" for