Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 8.djvu/86

 248 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS memory might be applied, and fell upon one most suitable to my situation and idle disposition ; laying it down first as an axiom, that he who could by any means acquire and retain in his memory perfect ideas of the subjects he meant to draw, would have as clear a knowledge of the figure as a man who can write freely hath of the twenty-five letters of the alphabet and their infinite combina- tions." Acting on these principles, he improved, by constant exercise, his natural powers of observation and recollection. We find him roaming through the country, now at Yarmouth and again at Queenborough, sketching everywhere. In his rambles among the motley scenes of London he was ever on the watch for striking features or incidents ; and not trusting entirely to memory, he was ac- customed, when any face struck him as being peculiarly grotesque or expressive, to sketch it on his thumb-nail, to be treasured up on paper at his return home. For some time after the expiration of his apprenticeship, Hogarth continued to practise the trade to which he was bred ; and his shop-bills, coats-of-arms, en- gravings upon tankards, etc., have been collected with an eagerness quite dispro- portionate to their value. Soon he procured employment in furnishing frontis- pieces and designs for the booksellers. The most remarkable of these are the plates to an edition of " Hudibras," published in 1 726 ; but even these are of no distinguished merit. About 1 728 he began to seek employment as a portrait- painter. Most of his performances were small family pictures, containing several figures, which he calls " Conversation Pieces," from twelve to fifteen inches high. These for a time were very popular, and his practice was considerable, as his price was low. His life-size portraits are few; the most remarkable are that of Cap- tain Coram, in the " Foundling Hospital," and that of Garrick as King Richard 1 1 1., which is reproduced in the present volume. But his practice as a portrait- painter was not lucrative, nor his popularity lasting. Although many of his like- nesses were strong and characteristic, in the representation of beauty, elegance, and high-breeding he was little skilled. The nature of the artist was as uncourtly as his pencil. When Hogarth obtained employment and eminence of another sort through his wonderful prints, he abandoned portrait-painting, with a growl at the jealousy of his professional brethren ; and the vanity and blindness of the public. March 25, 1729, Hogarth contracted a stolen marriage with the only daughter of the once fashionable painter, Sir James Thornhill. The father, for some time implacable, relented at last ; and the reconciliation, it is said, was much forwarded by his admiration of the " Harlot's Progress," a series of six prints, commenced in 1 73 1 and published in 1 734. The novelty as well as merit of this series of prints won for them extraordinary popularity ; and their success encouraged Hogarth to undertake a similar history of the " Rake's Progress," in eight prints, which appeared in 1735. The third, and perhaps the most popular, as it is the least objectionable of these pictorial novels, " Marriage a la Mode," was not engraved till 1 745. The merits of these prints were sufficiently intelligible to the public : their originality and boldness of design, the force and freedom of their execution,