men and women my players, who, by means of certain actions and gestures, are to exhibit a dumb show. "Before I had done anything of much consequence in this walk, I entertained some hopes of succeeding in what the puffers in books call the great style of history-painting; so that, without having had a stroke of this grand business before, I quitted small portraits and familiar conversations, and, with a smile at my own temerity, commenced history-painter; and on a great staircase at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, painted two Scripture stories, 'The Pool of Bethesda' and 'The Good Samaritan,' with figures seven feet high. These I presented to the charity; and thought they might serve as a specimen, to show that, were there an inclination in England for encouraging historical pictures, such a first essay might prove the painting them more easily attainable than is generally imagined. But as religion, the great promoter of this style in other countries, rejected it in England, I was unwilling to sink into a portrait-manufacturer; and, still ambitious of being singular, dropped all expectations of advantage from that source, and returned to the pursuit of my former dealings with the public at large. This I found was most likely to answer my purpose, provided I could strike the passions, and, by small sums from many, by the sale of prints which I could engrave from my own pictures, thus secure my property to myself." While these pictures were in progress, it was announced that "among the governors of St. Bartholomew's Hospital was lately chosen Mr. William Hogarth, the celebrated painter, who, we are told, designs to paint the staircase of the said hospital, and thereby become a benefactor to it by giving his labours gratis." And a newspaper of July 14, 1737, says, "Yesterday the scaffolding was taken down from before the picture of 'The Good Samaritan,' which is esteemed a very curious piece." Hogarth paid his friend Lambert for painting the landscape in this picture; and to the imaginary merits of his coadjutor, the _Analysis_, p. 26, thus bears testimony: "The sky always gradates one way or other, and the rising or setting sun exhibits it in great perfection; the imitating of which was Claude de Lorraine's peculiar excellence, and it is now Mr. Lambert's." Both pictures, which appear of an oblong square in the engravings, in the originals are surrounded with scroll-work which cuts off the corners of them, etc. All these ornaments, together with compartments carved at the bottom, were the work of Mr. Richards. These the late Mr. Alderman Boydell caused to be engraved on separate plates, and appended to those above them, on which sufficient space had not been left. Hogarth requested that these paintings might never be varnished. They appear, therefore, to disadvantage, the decorations about them having, within these few years past, been highly glazed.