Note 44 — Chapter III
Reading edition
Little did Hogarth imagine that a man lived in his own time, who, by a great commercial enterprise, should awaken the spirit of the nation to historical and poetical paintings from the drama of Shakspeare. This drama has been a school for the representation of all the passions, and opened to the artist a new mine of rich materials for displaying the mirror of life in the colours of nature. The Shakspeare Gallery has been followed by undertakings of a similar description, and, all united, have afforded a patronage to the arts which had been vainly sought for among the nobility, and given to such painters as had the power, a fair opportunity of confuting the visionary assertion, that it was not possible for an Englishman to paint a good historical picture.