Note 116 — HOGARTH ILLUSTRATED.
Reading edition
These lines are from Banckes' Poems, p. 87, in which a contracted copy of the print is placed as the headpiece of an epistle to the painter. This good gentleman, with true poetic vanity, pathetically exclaims,
"Alas! that pictures should decay; That words alone can wit convey: But words remain—Oh, may this verse Remain, etc. etc."
Little did this rival of Stephen Duck imagine that the words "which alone can wit convey," would not have preserved his two volumes from the trunkmaker, to whom every verse had been long since consigned, had not this little print, and another copy from the same artist, sometimes induced a collector to purchase the volumes.
The concluding lines of his poem are not, however, so contemptible:
"In vain we ransack Rome and Greece To match this Conversation piece; In vain our follies would advance The names of Italy and France; Labour and art elsewere we see, But native humour strong in thee; In thee—but parallels are vain, A great original remain. Go on to lash our reigning crimes, And live the censor of the times."