The eighteenth century and the twentieth meet at the Foundling Hospital; the art of Hogarth, the art of his contemporaries, of young Mr. Joshua Reynolds, and the artless lives of the foundlings who patter the note of a past day in revivified Bloomsbury. You will seek in vain for modernity at the Foundling Hospital. A reproduction of a popular picture of our day called “For Ever and Ever, Amen,” was the only example of a modern work of art in the playroom of the little girl foundlings at the Foundling Hospital where I found myself one Sunday. Of course the little girls understood the picture. Their dawning minds can grasp a simple representation of the human gamut of love, loyalty, and grief from childhood to age. Not for them is Hogarth’s forcible, chaotic, amazingly clever “March to Finchley,” that hangs in one of the rooms. But the little girls understand Hogarth’s bold and picturesque “Captain Coram” displayed in the place of honour, even though the gallant and charitable seaman may frighten them on darkening evenings by his very life-likeness, Hogarth’s great gift. [Illustration: PLATE VIII.--PEG WOFFINGTON (In Sir Edward Tennant’s Collection) Delightful Peg, actress, daughter of a Dublin bricklayer, known in staid biographies as Margaret Woffington. “Her beauty and grace, her pretty singing and vivacious coquetry, and the exquisite art, especially of her male characters, carried all hearts by storm.” Here she is, not “dallying and dangerous” on a couch as in the version at the Garrick Club, but very charming, with a touch of primness that suits her. Note the daintiness of the flower in her bosom, the delicious colour of the dress, and the importance of the accent of the knot of black ribbon against the gleaming pearls. Oh yes! Hogarth knew his business.] Captain Coram is very much alive, “all there.” Another moment and he will start from his chair. But this founder of the hospital will not shout at the children. This big man had a big, kind heart. His life was a long whisper of love to the fatherless. It was here, at the Foundling Hospital, that Hogarth was instrumental in forming the first public collection of pictures in this country. Long before the National Gallery was thought of, before the Royal Academy was born, this Foundling Hospital collection was one of the sights of London. It was the fashionable lounge in the reign of George II.; here was held the first exhibition of contemporary portraits. And Hogarth, a governor and guardian of the Foundling Hospital, originated it.