"The play was opened by this character, with a song, which answered the double purpose of a play-bill and a prologue, for his duty gave the audience a foretaste of the rueful incidents they were about to behold; and it called out the actors one by one to make the spectators acquainted with their names and characters, walking round and round, till the whole _dramatis personæ_ made one great circle on the stage. The audience being thus become acquainted with the actors, the play opened with Paris running away with Helen, and Menelaus scampering after them. Then followed the death of Patroclus, the rage of Achilles, the persuasions of Ulysses, etc. etc., and the whole was interlarded with apt songs, both serious and comic, all the production of auld Hogarth. The bard, however, at this time had been dead some years, and I believe this _fête_ was a jubilee to his memory: but let it not detract from the memory of Mr. Garrick to say, that his at Stratford was but a copy of one forty years ago on the banks of Windermere. Was it any improvement, think you, to introduce several bulls into the procession instead of one?--But I love not comparisons, and so conclude.--Yours, etc., "ADAM WALKER." [3] It was written for the information of Marshal Belisle, then a prisoner in Windsor Castle. [4] In Mr. Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, vol. iv. p. 161, we are told that "_his apprenticeship was no sooner expired, than he entered into the academy in St. Martin's Lane, and studied drawing from the life_." In this circumstance, which is in itself trifling, I think the Right Honourable author has not displayed his usual accuracy. Hogarth was emancipated from his Cranbourn Alley confinement about the year 1718, at which time, I believe, there was not an academy either in that or any other part of London. The first for the use of students in drawing was opened in 1724, by Sir James Thornhill, at his house in Covent Garden. On his death, which was in May 1734, the casts, models, benches, etc., were sent to Mr. Hogarth (who had four years before married Miss Thornhill); by him they were afterwards lent to an academy established at what had previously been _Roubiliac's workshop_, in St. Martin's Lane. [5] This gentleman was also _a patron_ to the late Mr. Major the engraver, who told me that when very young, and on the point of going to Paris for improvement in his profession, he took two plates of small landscapes, which he had just finished, to Mr. Bowles, who expressed himself much pleased with the performance of them, and _generously_ proffered him two pieces of plain copper, of the same size and weight,--by practising on which, he might still further _improve_ himself. When I add, that one of the engravings delivered to this _patron_ was that very pretty little landscape inscribed EVENING, it is scarcely necessary to say--the offer was rejected.