Harmony, flying in the air, turns her back on the English playhouse, and hastens towards the rival theatre. Musicians stand in front of the former, playing on the Jew's harp, the salt-box, the bladder and string, bagpipes, etc. On one side are people of distinction, some of whom kneel, as if making an offer to Polly, or paying their adorations to her. To these are opposed a butcher, etc., expressing similar applause. Apollo and one of the muses are fast asleep beneath the stage. A man is indelicately seated under a wall hung with ballads, and showing his contempt of such compositions by the use he makes of them. A sign of the star, a gibbet, and some other circumstances less intelligible, appear in the background. TWELVE PRINTS OF HUDIBRAS. [Illustration: FRONTISPIECE TO HUDIBRAS PLATE I.] [Illustration: HUDIBRAS, PLATE II.] [Illustration: HUDIBRAS, PLATE III.] [Illustration: HUDIBRAS, PLATE IV.] [Illustration: HUDIBRAS, PLATE V.] [Illustration: HUDIBRAS, PLATE VI.] [Illustration: HUDIBRAS, PLATE VII.] [Illustration: HUDIBRAS, PLATE VIII.] [Illustration: HUDIBRAS, PLATE IX.] [Illustration: HUDIBRAS, PLATE X.] [Illustration: HUDIBRAS, PLATE XI.] [Illustration: HUDIBRAS, PLATE XII.] This well-imagined series of plates was designed by Hogarth, and engraved by himself, for the matchless poem of Butler. Each plate is illustrated by an appropriate quotation from the facetious satirist; and as our ingenious artist formed his designs from an attentive perusal of the poem, his engravings, and the extracts selected under each of them, reciprocally explain each other. "His 'Hudibras,'" says Mr. Walpole, "was the first of his works that marked him as a man above the common; yet," adds the critic, somewhat too fastidiously, "what made him then noticed now surprises us, to find so little humour in an undertaking so congenial to his talents." The original title ran thus: "Twelve excellent and most diverting Prints, taken from the celebrated Poem of Hudibras, wrote by Samuel Butler; exposing the villany and hypocrisy of the times. Invented and engraved on twelve copperplates by William Hogarth; and are humbly dedicated to William Ware, Esq., of Great Houghton, in Northamptonshire, and Mr. Allan Ramsay, of Edinburgh." "What excellence can brass or marble claim? These papers better do secure thy fame; Thy verse all monuments does far surpass, No mausoleum's like thy 'Hudibras.'" Allan Ramsay subscribed for thirty sets, and the number of subscribers amounted to one hundred and ninety-two. The original plates were afterwards purchased by Mr. Philip Overton. They subsequently passed into the hands of the late Mr. Robert Sayer; and it is certain that Hogarth often lamented the having parted with his property in them without ever having had an opportunity to improve them.