built-up tints? Next, Hogarth went to his portraits. They were a course of physiognomy invaluable to him—of fair faces, stern faces, sensual, stupid, hideous and pretty little baby faces. From the exigencies of the “conversations” and “assemblies” he learnt composition, and the treatment of accessories; learnt to paint four-and-twenty fiddlers, not “all of a row,” but disposed in ellipse or in pyramid-form. The perception of female beauty and the power of expressing it were his by birthright, by heaven’s kindness; I am despondent only at his animals, which are almost invariably impossible deformities.[3] The Duke of Montagu and my Lord Castlemaine having ordered “conversations” from Hogarth, there was of course but one thing necessary to put the seal to his artistic reputation. That thing, so at least the patron may have thought, was the patronage of the eminent Morris. Morris is quite snuffed out now—evaporated even as the carbonic acid gas from yesterday’s flask of champagne; but in 1727, he was a somewhat notable person. He was a fashionable upholsterer in Pall Mall, and not only sold, but manufactured, those tapestry arras hangings which, paper-staining being in embryo, were still conspicuous ornaments of the walls of palaces, the nobility’s saloons. Morris kept a shop much frequented by the noble tribes, at the sign of the “Golden Ball,” in Pall Mall. There seems to have been a plethora of Golden Balls in London about this time, just as though all the Lombards had quarrelled among themselves, and set up in business each man for himself, with no connection with the golden ball over the way. In 1727, and, for a century and a half before, the best and most celebrated painters were employed to execute designs for tapestry. You know who drew for the Flemish weavers that immortal dozen of cartoons, seven of which are at Hampton Court, and which have been recently so wonderfully photographed. Rubens and Vandyke, the stately Lebrun, and the meek Lesueur, made designs also for these woven pictures. There are penitent thieves and jesting Pilates from Hans Holbein’s inspiration in many faded hangings. Thornhill had been himself commissioned by Queen Anne to make sketches for a set of tapestry hangings emblematic of the union between England and Scotland. And does not the fabric of the Gobelins yet flourish? Did not Napoleon the Third vouchsafe the gift of a magnificent piece of tapisserie to one of our West-end clubs? Morris, the upholsterer, had many of the “first foreign hands” in his employ; but, being a Briton, bethought himself magnanimously to encourage real native British talent. My lord duke had employed Hogarth; Morris likewise determined on giving a commission to the rising artist. He sought out William, conferred with him, explained his wishes, and a solemn contract was entered into between William Hogarth for the first part, and Joshua Morris for the second, in which the former covenanted to furnish the latter with a