[1] "This work is in quarto, containing 172 pages, and 51 plates, in the whole; with a frontispiece designed and drawn by Mr. _Hogarth_. 'Tis a humourous piece, shewing the absurdities a person may be liable to, who attempts to draw without having some knowledge in perspective. As the production of that great genius, it is entertaining; and, though abounding with the grossest absurdities possible, may pass and please; otherwise I think it is a palpable insult offered to common sense, and tacitly calling the artists a parcel of egregious blockheads. There is not a finished piece in the book, but the mason's yard and the landscapes; so that I question if the whole of the plates were forty pounds expence. It was first printed for himself at _Ipswich_, dedicated to Mr. _Hogarth_, and published in the year 1754." _Malton_, Appendix to Treatise on Perspective, p. 106. * * * * * 1755. 1. Four prints of an Election.[1] These, by _Hogarth_, came out at different times, _viz._ Plate I. _Feb._ 24, 1755 (inscribed to the Right Hon. _Henry Fox_); Plate II. _Feb._ 20, 1757, (to his Excellency Sir _Charles Hanbury Williams_, Ambassador to the Court of _Russia_); Plate III. _Feb._ 20, 1758, (to the Hon. Sir _Edward Walpole_, Knight of the Bath); Plate IV. _Jan._ 1, 1758, (to the Hon. _George Hay_,[2] one of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty). The original pictures are now in the possession of Mrs. _Garrick_, at _Hampton_. The inscription on the banner, "Give us our eleven days," alludes to the alteration of the Style in 1752; in which year, from the 2d to the 14th of _September_, eleven days were not reckoned by act of parliament. In the election-dinner, Mr. _Hogarth_ assured the writer of this paragraph, that there is but one at table intended for a real portrait and that is the _Irish_ gentleman [the present Sir _John Parnell_, nephew to the poet, and remarkable for a very flat nose], who is diverting the company by a face drawn with a burnt cork upon the back of his hand, while he is supposed to be singing--_An old woman cloathed in grey_. This gentleman (then an eminent attorney) begged it as a favour; declaring, at the same time, he was so generally known, that the introduction of his face would be of service to our artist in the sale of his prints at _Dublin_. Notwithstanding _Hogarth's_ assertion, the handsome candidate is pronounced to be the late _Thomas Potter_, esq. and the effigy, seen through the window, with the words "_No Jews_" about its neck, to be meant for the late Duke of _Newcastle_. Of yet another real personage we receive notice, from a pamphlet intituled "The last Blow, or an unanswerable vindication of the Society of _Exeter College_, in reply to the Vice-chancellor Dr. _King_, and the writers of _The London Evening Post_." 4to. 1755. p. 21.--"The next character, to whose merits we would do justice, is the Rev. Dr. _C--ff--t (Cofferat)_. But as it is very difficult to