I will not go so far as Mr. Ralph, who says, "that by means of this volume composition is become a science; the student knows what he is in search of, the connoisseur what to praise, and fancy or fashion, or prescription, will usurp the hackneyed name of taste no more; because I think with Lady Luxborough, that in the line of beauty no man can literally fix _the precise degree of obliquity_;" but I think with the same lady, "that between his pencil and his pen, he conveys an idea which enables one to conceive his meaning," and that he gives many hints which may be of great use to the artist, actor, dancer, or connoisseur.[24] Though many profitable opportunities were offered by the politics of the day, it does not appear that Hogarth ever degraded his character by either servile adulation or interested abuse of _the powers which were_. In an account of the March to Finchley, it will be found that when the print was presented to George II., the king returned it in a way that must have mortified and wounded the artist, who, though he was tremblingly alive to professional indignity, made no _graven retaliation_. He could not therefore be considered as an opponent it was proper to silence, or as an advocate it was necessary to retain; notwithstanding which, on the 16th of July 1757, when Mr. Thornhill (son to Sir James) resigned his place of sergeant painter, William Hogarth was appointed his successor; and very soon after, engaged in a _pencil competition_ that did not terminate to his advantage. I have had frequent occasion to mention the opinion he entertained of _ancient paintings_. By ridiculing copies and contemptible originals, he got a habit of laughing at them all; and when, in 1758, Sir Thomas Sebright, at Sir Luke Schaub's sale, gave £404, 5s. for Correggio's Sigismunda,[25] Hogarth, _in evil hour_, asserted that, were he paid as good a price, he could paint a better picture. Sir Richard (afterwards Lord) Grosvenor unluckily gave him an order for the same subject, _guarded with the qualifying monosyllable_ IF. The work was finished,--sent to the purchaser,--and returned to the artist,--_because_,--as the ironical epistle[26] which accompanied it expressed,--"_Contemplating such a subject must excite melancholy ideas, which a curtain being drawn before it would not diminish._"[27] This rejection produced a letter from Hogarth to a friend, relating the whole transaction, in rhymes that might perhaps give our painter a niche amongst the minor poets; but which, having neither the harmony of Pope nor the ardour of Dryden, shall find no place here. The prophecy it concludes with has not been absolutely fulfilled, but in the form of a _wish_ may be a suitable motto for the next print. _SIGISMUNDA._