"The darling passion of Mr. _Hogarth_ is to shew the _faulty_ and _dark_ side of every object. He never gives us in perfection the _fair face of nature_, but admirably well holds out her deformities to ridicule. The reason is plain. All objects are painted on his _retina_ in a grotesque manner, and he has never felt the force of what the _French_ call _la belle nature_. He never caught a single idea of beauty, grace, or elegance; but, on the other hand, he never missed the least flaw in almost any production of nature or of art. This is his true character. He has succeeded very happily in the way of humour, and has miscarried in every other attempt. This has arisen in some measure from his head, but much more from his heart. After _Marriage à la Mode_, the public wished for a series of prints of a _happy_ marriage. _Hogarth_ made the attempt, but the rancour and malevolence of his mind made him very soon turn with envy and disgust from objects of so pleasing contemplation, to dwell and feast a bad heart on others of a hateful cast, which he pursued, for he found them congenial, with the most unabating zeal, and unrelenting gall. "I have observed some time his _setting sun_. He has long been very _dim_, and almost _shorn of his beams_. He seems so conscious of this, that he now glimmers with _borrowed light. John Bull's house in flames_ has been hackney'd in fifty different prints; and if there is any merit in the figure on stilts, and the mob prancing around, it is not to be ascribed to _Hogarth_, but to _Callot_. That spirited _Italian_, whom the _English_ painter has so carefully studied, has given us in the _Balli di Sfessania di Jacomo Callot_, the very same ideas, but infinitely more ludicrous in the execution. The piece is _Smaraolo cornuto. Ratsa di Boio. The Times_ must be confessed destitute of every kind of original merit. The print at first view appears too much crouded with figures; and is in every part confused, perplexed, and embarrassed. The _story is not well told to the eye_; nor can we any where discover the faintest ray of that genius, which with a few strokes of the pencil enabled us to penetrate into the deepest recesses of thought, and even caprice, in a _rake_, a _harlot_, and a _profligate young man of quality_.