Page:The English humourists of the eighteenth century. A series of lectures, delivered in England, Scotland, and the United States of America (IA englishhumourist00thacrich).pdf/235

 any other representations of the same kind of subjects—that they form a class, and have a character, peculiar to themselves. It may be worth while to consider in what this general distinction consists. "In the first place, they are, in the strictest sense, historical pictures; and if what Fielding says be true, that his novel of 'Tom Jones' ought to be regarded as an epic prose-poem, because it contained a regular development of fable, manners, character, and passion, the compositions of Hogarth, will, in like manner, be found to have a higher claim to the title of epic pictures than many which have of late arrogated that denomination to themselves. When we say that Hogarth treated his subjects historically, we mean that his works represent the manners and humours of mankind in action, and their characters by varied expression. Everything in his pictures has life and motion in it. Not only does the business of the scene never stand still, but every feature and muscle is put into full play; the exact feeling of the moment is brought out, and carried to its utmost height, and then instantly seized and stamped on the canvass for ever. The expression is always taken en passant, in a state of progress or change, and, as it were, at the salient point His figures are not like the back-ground on which they are painted: even the pictures on the wall have a peculiar look of their own. Again, with the rapidity, variety, and scope of history, Hogarth's heads have all the reality and correctness of portraits. He gives the extremes of character and expression, but he gives them with perfect truth and accuracy. This is, in fact, what distinguishes his compositions from all others of the same kind, that they are equally remote from caricature, and from mere still life His faces go to the very verge of caricature, and yet never (we believe in any single instance) go beyond it."—. he speaks popular parables to interest simple hearts and to inspire them with pleasure or pity or warning and terror. Not one of his tales but is as easy as "Goody Two Shoes;" it is the moral of Tommy was a naughty boy and the master flogged him, and Jacky was a good boy and had plum cake, which pervades the whole works of the homely and famous English moralist. And if the moral is written in rather too large letters after the