"Cassandra" (1725). Walpole says, somewhat too severely, that "no symptoms of genius dawned in those early plates." In 1726 was published, besides his twelve large prints, which are well known, an edition of "Hudibras," illustrated by Hogarth in seventeen smaller plates. Of this Walpole says, "This was among the first of his works that marked him as a man above the common; yet in what made him then noticed it surprises me now to find so little humour in an undertaking so congenial to his talents." The designs of Hogarth are not so witty as the verses of Butler, but we must remember that the painter had never seen men living and acting as they are described in the poem; they were not like the men of whom he made his daily studies. At this period he who dared to be original, and to satirise his neighbours, had much trouble. The value set upon his work in those early days may be estimated when we read that J. Bowles, of the Black Horse, in Cornhill, patronised Hogarth to the extent of offering him half-a-crown a pound weight for a copperplate just executed. In 1727, we find a certain upholsterer named Morris refusing to pay thirty pounds to the artist, because he had failed, in Morris's opinion, to execute a representation of the _Element of Earth_, as a design for tapestry, "in a workmanlike manner." It is on record that the verdict was in favour of Hogarth, who was paid L20 for his work and L10 for materials. In 1730, Hogarth made a secret marriage at old Paddington Church, with Jane, only daughter of Sir James Thornhill, Serjeant-Painter to the King. He had frequented Thornhill's studio, but whether the art of the court painter, or the face of his daughter was the greater attraction we know not. There is no doubt that Hogarth's technique was studied from Thornhill's pictures, and not from those of Watteau or Chardin, as has been supposed. Hogarth was painting portraits years before 1730. Mr. Redgrave, in his "Century of Painters," describes some wall pictures in the house No. 75, Dean Street, Soho, which is said to have been a residence of Sir James Thornhill. Some of the figures here are thoroughly of the Hogarth type, especially that of a black man in a turban, a familiar form in the _Marriage a la Mode_. For a time after his marriage Hogarth confined himself to painting portraits and conversation pieces, for which he was well paid, although Walpole declares that this "was the most ill-suited employment to a man whose turn was certainly not flattery." Truthfulness, however, is more valuable in a portrait than flattery, and we surely find it in Hogarth's portraits of himself, one in the National Gallery, and in that of _Captain Coram_, at the Foundling. In 1734, Hogarth published the first of those wonderful unspoken sermons against vice and folly, _A Harlot's Progress_, which was followed immediately by _A Rake's Progress_, issued in 1735. _A Harlot's Progress_, in six plates, met with an enthusiastic