This epistle bears also internal evidence to the suggestions _Rouquet_ received from _Hogarth_. Are not the self-congratulations and prejudices of our artist sufficiently visible in the following passage? "Ce Tableau dis-je a le defaut d'etre encore tout brillant de cette ignoble fraîcheur qu'on decouvre dans la nature, et _qu'on ne voit jamais dans les cabinets bien célèbres. Le tems ne l'a point encore obscurci de cette decte fumée, de ce usage sacré, qui le cachera quelque jour aux yeux profanes du vulgaire, pour ne laisser voir ses beautés qu'aux initiés._" The title of this performance, is, "Lettres de Monsieur * * à un de ses Amis à _Paris_, pour lui expliquer les Estampes de Monsieur _Hogarth_.--Imprimé à _Londres_: et se vend chez _R. Dodsley_, dans _Pall Mall_; et chez _M. Cooper_, dans _Paternoster Row_, 1746." (Le prix est de douze sols.) I should here observe, that this pamphlet affords only descriptions of the _Harlot's_ and _Rake's Progress, Marriage à la Mode,_ and the _March to Finchley_. Nine other plates, viz. the _Modern Midnight Conversation_, the _Distressed Poet_, the _Enraged Musician,_ the _Fair, Strolling Actresses dressing in a Barn,_ and the _Four Times of the Day,_ are enumerated without particular explanation. I am authorized to add, that _Hogarth_, not long before his death, had determined, in compliance with the repeated solicitations of his customers, to have this work enlarged and rendered into _English_, with the addition of ample comments on all his performances undescribed by _Rouquet_. "_Hogarth_ Moralised"[80] will however in some small degree (a very small one) contribute to preserve the memory of those temporary circumstances which Mr. _Walpole_ is so justly apprehensive will be lost to posterity. Such an undertaking indeed, requires a more intimate acquaintance with fleeting customs, and past occurrences, than the compiler of this work can pretend to. Yet enough has been done by him to awaken a spirit of enquiry, and point out the means by which it may be farther gratified. The works of _Hogarth_, as his elegant biographer has well observed, are his history;[81] and the curious are highly indebted to Mr. _Walpole_ for a catalogue of prints, drawn up from his own valuable collection, in 1771. But as neither that catalogue, nor his appendix to it in 1780, have given the whole of Mr. _Hogarth's_ labours, I hope that I shall not be blamed if, by including Mr. _Walpole's_ catalogue, I have endeavoured from later discoveries of our artist's prints in other collections, to arrange them in chronological order. It may not be unamusing to trace the rise and progress of a Genius so strikingly original.