[14] The annexed letter, which was published about this time, I have been informed was written by Hogarth; add to this authority, of which I have no doubt, I think it carries internal evidence of his mind. It is printed in the London Magazine for 1737, and thus prefaced: The following piece, published in the St. James's Evening Post of June 7th, is by the first painter in England, perhaps in the world, in his way: "Every good-natured man and well-wisher to the Arts in England, must feel a kind of resentment at a very indecent paragraph, in the Daily Post of Thursday last, relating to the death of _M. de Morine_, first painter to the French king, in which very unjust as well as cruel reflections are cast on the noblest performance (in its way) that England has to boast of,--I mean the work of the late Sir James Thornhill, in Greenwich Hall. It has ever been the business of narrow, little geniuses, who by a tedious application to minute parts have (as they fancy) attained to a great insight into the correct drawing of a figure, and have acquired just knowledge enough in the art to tell accurately when a toe is too short or a finger too thick, to endeavour, by detracting from the merits of great men, to build themselves a kind of reputation. These peddling demi-critics, on the painful discovery of some little inaccuracy (which proceeds mostly from the freedom of the pencil), without any regard to the more noble parts of a performance (which they are totally ignorant of), with great satisfaction condemn the whole as a bad and incorrect piece. 'The meanest artist in the Emelian square, Can imitate in brass the nails or hair; Expert at trifles, and a cunning fool, Able to express the parts, but not the whole.'