seen (together with the landlord’s portrait, I presume) at the “Crown and Anchor,” in the Strand. Then it disappeared, and faded away from the visible things extant. With another bookseller’s commission, I arrive at another halting-place in the career of William Hogarth. In 1726-7 appeared his eighteen illustrations to Butler’s _Hudibras_. They are of considerable size, broadly and vigorously executed, and display a liberal instalment of the _vis comica_, of which William was subsequently to be so lavish. Ralpho is smug and sanctified to a nicety. Hudibras is a marvellously droll-looking figure, but he is not human, is generally execrably drawn, and has a head preternaturally small, and so pressed down between the clavicles, that you might imagine him to be of the family of the anthropophagi, whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders. There is a rare constable, the perfection of Dogberryism-_cum_-Bumbledom, in the tableau of Hudibras in the stocks. The widow is graceful and beautiful to look at. Unlike Wilkie, Hogarth _could_ draw pretty women;[9] the rogue who chucks the widow’s attendant under the chin is incomparable, and Trulla is a most truculent brimstone. The “committee” is a character full study of sour faces. The procession of the “Skimmington” is full of life and animation; and the concluding tableau, “Burning rumps at Temple Bar,” is a wondrous street-scene, worthy of the ripe Hogarthian epoch of _The Progresses_, _The Election_, _Beer Street_ and _Gin Lane_. This edition of Butler’s immortal satire had a great run; and the artist often regretted that he had parted absolutely, and at once, with his property in the plates. So now then, William Hogarth, we part once more, but soon to meet again. Next shall the moderns know thee—student at Thornhill’s Academy—as a painter as well as an engraver. A philosopher—_quoique tu n’en doutais guère_—thou hast been all along. FOOTNOTES