"On the success, however, of those plates," Mr. _Walpole_ says, "he commenced painter, a painter of portraits; the most ill-suited employment imaginable to a man whose turn certainly was not flattery, nor his talent adapted to look on vanity without a sneer. Yet his facility in catching a likeness, and the method he chose of painting families and conversations in small, then a novelty, drew him prodigious business for some time. It did not last, either from his applying to the real bent of his disposition, or from his customers apprehending that a satirist was too formidable a confessor for the devotees of self-love." There are still many family pictures by Mr. _Hogarth_ existing, in the style of serious conversation-pieces. He was not however lucky in all his resemblances, and has sometimes failed where a crowd of other artists have succeeded. The whole-length of Mr. _Garrick_ sitting at a table, with his wife behind him taking the pen out of his hand,[12] confers no honour on the painter or the persons represented.[13] He has certainly missed the character of our late _Roscius's_ countenance while undisturbed by passion; but was more lucky in seizing his features when aggravated by terror, as in the tent scene of King _Richard_ III. It is by no means astonishing, that the elegant symmetry of Mrs. _Garrick's_ form should have evaded the efforts of one to whose ideas _la basse nature_ was more familiar than the grace inseparable from those who have been educated in higher life. His talents, therefore, could do little justice to a pupil of Lady _Burlington_. What the prices of his portraits were, I have strove in vain to discover; but suspect they were originally very low, as the people who are best acquainted with them chuse to be silent on that subject. In the Bee, vol. V. p. 552. and also in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. IV. p. 269. are the following verses to Mr. _Hogarth_, on Miss _F's_ picture, 1734. "To _Chloe's_ picture you such likeness give, The animated canvas seems to live; The tender breasts with wanton heavings move, And the soft sparkling eyes inspire with love: While I survey each feature o'er and o'er, I turn _Idolater_, and paint adore: Fondly I here can gaze without a fear, That, _Chloe_, to my love you'd grow severe; That in your _Picture_, as in _Life_, you'd turn Your eyes away, and kill me with your scorn: No, here at least with transport I can see Your eyes with softness languishing on me. While, _Chloe_, this I boast, with scornful heart Nor rashly censure _Hogarth_, or his _art_, Who all your _Charms_ in strongest _Light_ has laid, And kindly thrown your _Pride_ and _Scorn_ in _Shade_."