Note 2 — CATALOGUE OF HOGARTH'S PRINTS.[1] (continued 3)

Mr. Walpole has honoured a passage in the first edition of this hasty work, with the following stricture: (see Anecdotes of Painting, vol. IV. p. 149).

"I have been blamed for censuring the indelicacies of Flemish and Dutch painters, by comparing them with the purity of Hogarth, against whom are produced many instances of indelicacy, and some repetitions of the same indelicacy. I will not defend myself by pleading that these instances are thinly scattered through a great number of his works, and that there is at least humour in most of the incidents quoted, and that they insinuate some reflection, which is never the case of the foreigners—but can I chuse but smile when one of the nastiest examples specified is from the burlesque of Paul before Felix, professedly in ridicule of the gross images of the Dutch?"

In consequence of private remarks from Mr. W. this questionable position, as well as a few others, had been obviated in my second impression of the trifling performance now offered to the public: but as our author cannot chuse but smile, when the occasion of his mirth was no longer meant to be in his way, I would ask, in defence of my former observation, if moralists usually attempt to reform profligates by writing treatises of profligacy? or, if painters have a right to chastise indelicacy, by exhibiting gross examples of it in their own performances? To become indecent ourselves, is an unwarrantable recipe for curing indecency in others. The obscenities of Juvenal have hitherto met with no very successful vindication: "Few are the converts Aretine has made." According to our critic's mode of reasoning, a homicide might urge that the crime of which he stands accused was committed only as a salutary example of the guilt of murder; nay, thus indeed every human offence might be allowed to bring with it its own apology.—I forbear to proceed in this argument, or might observe in behalf of our "foreigners," that their incidents insinuate some reflections as well as Hogarth's. The evacuations introduced in Dutch pictures, most certainly inculcate the necessity of temperance, for those only who eat and drink too much at fairs, or in ale-houses, are liable to such public and unseemly accidents as Heemskirk, Ostade, and Teniers, have occasionally represented. If we are to look for "Sermons in stones, and good in everything," this inference is as fair as many which Mr. W. seems inclined to produce in honour of poor Hogarth, who, like Shakspeare, often sought to entertain, without keeping any moral purpose in view. But was there either wit or morality in Hogarth's own evacuation against the door of a church, a circumstance recorded by Mr. Forrest in his MS. tour, though prudently suppressed in his printed copy of it? Perhaps, following Uncle Toby's advice, he had better have wiped the whole up, and said nothing about the matter. Our worthy Tour-writer, however, was by no means qualified to be the author of a Sentimental Journey. He rather (and purposely, as we are told) resembles Ben Jonson's communicative traveller, who says to his companion,

——I went and paid a moccinigo For mending my silk stockings; by the way I cheapen'd sprats, and at St. Mark's I urin'd. Faith, these are politic notes!