Notwithstanding Hogarth's perpetual reference to the line of grace and analysis of the line of beauty, he has been generally said to be totally incapable of imparting either one or the other to his figures. Mr. Nichols, in his _Anecdotes_, insists on his notorious deficiency in what is styled "the graceful," and in page 48 quotes Mr. Garrick's opinion to corroborate his own. The writer of the _North Briton_, No. 17, boldly asserts that he never caught a single idea of beauty, grace, or elegance. Mr. Walpole, who is generally candid and liberal in his praise, declares him totally devoid of the principle, and, quoting the first plate of his _Analysis_ as an example, concludes the sentence by remarking, that "the two figures of a young lord and lady, which are added as samples of grace," are strikingly stiff and affected. I do not know that the artist intended them to be otherwise; he has not referred to them as models in his book, and, it is but fair to think, meant them as leading figures, less _outré_ in their forms, but nearly as affected in their graces, as the other dancers. His object seems to be, exemplifying grace by what it is not rather than by what it is. Whatever were his motives for thus amplifying awkwardness in the Wandsworth assembly,[63] the annexed design, which may be considered as its contrast, he has either composed on a different principle, or, by a most happy and singular accident, grouped some very easy and elegant forms with much taste. THE DANCE [Illustration: THE DANCE.] Was designed and engraved in the year 1723 for the first volume of De la Mottraye's _Travels_. In p. 159, this tedious writer tells us, in some very ill-arranged sentences, that the Greek women in the isle of Scio, where the scene is laid, have a striking pre-eminence over those of any other island in the Archipelago for beauty as well as gaiety, and, some say, likewise for complaisance. They verify the proverb, "Merry as a Greek," dance every Sunday or holiday in the open air, and in ring, as represented in the print; and on such occasions wine is not spared.[64] He describes fig. 1 as a chief woman of Smyrna, and fig. 7 as her daughter; fig. 4 as a Greek woman of Constantinople, and fig. 3 as a country girl of Scio, in a habit peculiar to that place. From these slender materials the artist made his design in a style which proves (notwithstanding the total deficiency of taste alleged by his biographers), that at this early period of his life he had the power of delineating figures with some portion of grace. It may possibly be asked, why examples of this do not more frequently occur in his other works? To which I can only answer, that his scenes were almost invariably laid in his own country, where he painted objects as he saw them; and whatever grace the Grecian habit might give to the beauties of Scio, the Germanic garb, in which the beauties of Britain then disguised themselves, "Chastely conceal'd each charm from every eye."