The merits of these prints were sufficiently intelligible to the public: their originality and boldness of design, the force and freedom of their execution, rough as it is, won for them an extensive popularity and a rapid and continued sale. The "Harlot's Progress" was the most eminently successful, from its novelty rather than from its superior excellence. Twelve hundred subscribers' names were entered for it; it was dramatized in several forms; and we may note, in illustration of the difference of past and present manners, that fan-mounts were engraved containing miniature copies of the six plates. The merits of the pictures were less obvious to the few who could afford to spend large sums on works of art, and Hogarth, too proud to let them go for prices much below the value which he put upon them, waited for a long time, and waited in vain, for a purchaser. At last he determined to commit them to public sale; but instead of the common method of auction, he devised a new and complex plan with the intention of excluding picture-dealers, and obliging men of rank and wealth who wished to purchase to judge and bid for themselves. The scheme failed, as might have been expected. Nineteen of Hogarth's best pictures, the "Harlot's Progress," the "Rake's Progress," the "Four Times of the Day," and "Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn" produced only £427 7s., not averaging £22 10s. each. The "Harlot's Progress" was purchased by Mr. Beckford at the rate of fourteen guineas a picture; five of the series perished in the fire at Fonthill. The "Rake's Progress" averaged twenty-two guineas a picture; it has passed into the possession of Sir John Soane, at the advanced price of five hundred and seventy guineas. The same eminent architect became the proprietor of the four pictures of an "Election" for the sum of £1,732. "Marriage à la Mode" was disposed of in a similar way in 1750; and on the day of the sale one bidder appeared, who became master of the six pictures, together with their frames, for £115 10s. Mr. Angerstein purchased them, in 1797, for £1,381, and they now form a striking feature in the National Gallery.