[2] I am authorized to say that during her life Mrs. Hogarth never parted with any of his papers, except a loose leaf or some such trifle, which in one or two instances she gave to such as wished to possess a little specimen of Hogarth's handwriting. [3] The printed sheets were occasionally corrected by his friend Townley, etc. The Editor will have great pleasure in showing the MSS. to any gentleman who will do him the honour of inspecting them. [4] Rouquet's book was written in French, and describes the "Harlot's" and "Rake's Progress," "Marriage à la Mode," and "March to Finchley." [5] When I wrote the two former volumes of _Hogarth Illustrated_, I had not seen the MSS. which I now lay before the reader, nor did I know that there were any such papers. His own declaration corroborates the following conjecture relative to his early bias to the arts:--"Young Hogarth had an early predilection for the arts, and his future acquirements give us a right to suppose he must have studied the curious sculptures which adorned his father's spelling-books, though he neglected the letterpress; and when he ought to have been storing his memory with the eight parts of speech, was examining the allegorical apple-tree which decorates the grammar."--_Hogarth Illustrated_, vol. i. p. 27. [6] The dictionary here alluded to, Mrs. Lewis of Chiswick presented to the Editor of this volume. It is a thick quarto, containing an early edition of Littleton's _Dictionary_, and also Robertson's _Phrases_, with numerous corrections to each, and about 400 pages of manuscript close written. On the marginal leaf is inscripted in Hogarth's handwriting, "The manuscript part of this dictionary was the work of Mr. Richard Hogarth." Another volume of this work is in the possession of J. Bindley, Esq., of the Stamp Office. [7] Hogarth's father came to the metropolis in company with Dr. Gibson, the late Bishop of London's brother, and was employed as corrector of the press, which in those days was not considered as a mean employment. [8] By Sir James Thornhill, afterwards his father-in-law. [9] Though averse, as he himself expresses it, to coldly copying on the spot any objects that struck him, it was usual with him when he saw a singular character, either in the street or elsewhere, to pencil the leading features and prominent markings upon his nail, and when he came home, to copy the sketch on paper, and afterwards introduce it in a print. Several of these sketches I have seen, and in them may be traced the first thoughts for many of the characters which he afterwards introduced in his works. [10] As this was the doctrine I preached as well as practised, an arch brother of the pencil once gave it this turn, that the only way to draw well, was not to draw at all; and, on the same principle, he supposed that if I wrote an essay on the art of swimming, I should prohibit my pupil from going into the water until he had learnt.