Notes and Queries, Number 52, October 26, 1850: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.Various
History
Notes and Queries, Number 52, October 26, 1850: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
This reminds me of another Query. What has become of Dr. Welton's famous
Whitechapel altar-piece, which Bishop Compton drove out of his church. Some
doubts have been expressed whether that is the identical one in the Saint's
Chapel of St. Alban's Abbey. A friend has assured the writer that he had
seen it about twenty years ago, at a Roman Catholic meeting-house in an
obscure court at Greenwich. It is not there now. The print of it in the
library of the Society of Antiquaries is accompanied with these MS. lines
by Mr. Mattaire:--
"To say the picture does to him belong,
Kennett does Judas and the painter wrong;
False is the image, the resemblance faint,
Judas, compared to Kennett, was a saint."
One word more. The episcopal seal of the nonjuring bishops was a shepherd
with a sheep upon his shoulders. The crozier which had been used by them,
was, in 1839, in the possession of John Crossley Esq., of Scaitcliffe, near
Todmorden.
J. YEOWELL.
Hoxton.
* * * * *
HOGARTH'S ILLUSTRATIONS OF HUDIBRAS.
"Butler's _Hudibras_, by Zach. Grey, LL.D. 2 vols. 8vo. Cambridge,
1744.
"Best edition. Copies in fine condition are in considerable request.
The cuts are beautifully engraved, and Hogarth is much indebted to the
designer of them; but who he was does not appear."
The above remarks in Lowndes's _Bibliographical Manual_ having caught my
attention, they appeared to me somewhat obscure and contradictory; and as
they seemed rather disparaging to the fame of Hogarth, of whose works and
genius I am a warm admirer, I have taken some pains to ascertain what may
have been Mr. Lowndes's meaning.
On examining the plates in Dr. Grey's edition, they are all inscribed "_W.
Hogarth inv^t, J. Mynde sc^t_." {356} How, then, can Hogarth be said to be
_much indebted to the designer of them_, if we are to believe the words on
the plates themselves--"_W. Hogarth inv^t"?_
It is clear that Mr. Lowndes supposes the designer of these plates to have
been some person distinct from Hogarth; and he was right in his conjecture;
but he was ignorant of the name of the artist alluded to.
Whoever he was, he can have little claim to be regarded as the original
designer; he was rather employed as an expurgator; for these plates are
certainly copies of the two sets of plates invented and engraved by Hogarth
himself in 1726.
All that this second designer performed was, to revise the original designs
of Hogarth's, in order to remove some _glaring indecencies_; and this, no
doubt, is what Mr. Lowndes means, when he says that "_Hogarth is much
indebted to the designer of them_."
The following passage in a letter from Dr. Ducaral to Dr. Grey, dated Inner
Temple, May 10th, 1743, printed In Nichols's _Illustrations_, will furnish
us with _the name_ of the artist in question:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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