Another remarkable instance of _Hogarth's_ absence was told me, after the first edition of this work, by one of his intimate friends. Soon after he set up his carriage, he had occasion to pay a visit to the lord-mayor (I believe it was Mr. _Beckford_). When he went, the weather was fine; but business detained him till a violent shower of rain came on. He was let out of the Mansion-house by a different door from that at which he entered; and, seeing the rain, began immediately to call for a hackney-coach. Not one was to be met with on any of the neighbouring stands; and our artist sallied forth to brave the storm, and actually reached _Leicester-fields_ without bestowing a thought on his own carriage, till Mrs. _Hogarth_ (surprized to see him so wet and splashed) asked where he had left it. Mr. _Walpole_, in the following note, p. 69, is willing to expose the indelicacy of the _Flemish_ painters, by comparing it with the purity of _Hogarth_. "When they attempt humour," says our author, "it is by making a drunkard vomit; they take evacuations for jokes; and when they make us sick, think they make us laugh. A boor hugging a frightful frow is a frequent incident, even in the works of _Teniers_." Shall we proceed to examine whether the scenes painted by our countryman are wholly free from the same indelicacies? In one plate of _Hudibras_, where he encounters a _Skimmington_, a man is making water against the end of a house, while a taylor's wife is most significantly attending to the dirty process. In another plate to the same work, a boy is pissing into the shoe of _Ralpho_, while the widow is standing by. Another boy in the _Enraged Musician_ is easing nature by the same mode; and a little miss is looking earnestly on the operation. In the _March to Finchley_, a diseased soldier has no better employment; and a woman is likewise staring at him out of a window. This circumstance did not escape the observation of _Rouquet_ the enameller, whose remarks[44] on the plates of our artist I shall have more than once occasion to introduce. "Il y a," says he, "dans quelques endroits de cet excellent tableau, des objets peut être plus propres à peindre qu'à décrire. D'ou vient que les oreilles sont plus chaste que les yeux? Ne seroit ce pas parce qu'on peut regarder certains objets dans un tableau, et feindre de ne pas les voir; et qu'il n'est pas si aisé d'entendre une obscénité, et de feindre de ne l'entendre pas! L'objet, dont je veux parler, est toutefois peu considérable; il s'agit seulement d'un soldat à qui le voyage de _Montpelier_ conviendroit mieux que celui d'_Ecosse_. L'amour lui a fait une blessure, &c." Was this occurrence delicate or precious enough to deserve such frequency of repetition? In the burlesque _Paul before Felix_, when the High Priest applies his fingers to his nose, we have reason to imagine that his manœuvre was in consequence of some offensive escape during the terrors of the pro-consul of _Judea_, who, as he is here