Note 1 — CATALOGUE OF HOGARTH'S PRINTS.[1] (continued 4)

Prints have, of late years, been judiciously rated according to the quality of their impressions. But the very term impression, as applied to copper-plates, perhaps is a novelty among us. If we refer to the earliest and most valuable assemblage of portraits (such as that catalogued by Ames, afterwards purchased by Dr. Fothergill, and lately sold to Mr. Thane), we shall have little reason to suppose any regard was once paid to a particular of so much importance. As fast as heads were met with, they were indiscriminately received; and the faintest proofs do not appear to have been excluded at a time when the strongest might easily have been procured. In consequence of an àmás so carelessly formed, the volumes already mentioned, were found to display alternately the most beautiful and the most defective specimens of the graphic art.