Isleworth, between the portraits and conversations, and the book-plates and the benefit-tickets; odds and ends of artists’ work, done in the way of business for the lords and gentlemen who were good enough to employ him; shop-bills, “illustrating the commerce of Florence;” “breaking-up” tickets for Tiverton School; scenes from _Paradise Lost_; busts of Hesiod; tickets for Figg the prize-fighter, for Milward, Jemmy Spiller, Joe Miller, and other comedians; coats of arms for his friend George Lambert; caricatures of Orator Henley; benefit cards even for Harry Fielding, illustrating scenes from _Pasquin_ and the _Mock Doctor_; between high jinks and suburban jaunts, and pleasant evening strolls in Vauxhall Gardens; between 1733 and 1735, he was planning, and maturing, and brooding over the _Rake’s Progress_. The experiment was a dangerous one. The public are averse from tolerating _Paradise Regained_ after _Paradise Lost_, the _Drunkard’s Children_ after the _Bottle_, the _Marriage of Figaro_ after the _Barber of Seville_. And who has not yawned and rubbed his eyes over the second _Faust_? But William Hogarth saw his way clearly before him, and was determined to pursue it. The pictures, eight in number, were painted by the end of 1733. In 1734, the proposals of subscription to the plates were issued. The subscription ticket was the well-known etching of the _Laughing Audience_. The sums were one guinea and a half for nine plates; the ninth promised being _The Humours of a Fair_—no other than the far-famed _Southwark_. Thus I sweep the stage, and sound the whistle for the curtain to draw up on the drama of _The Rake’s Progress_, closing this paper with the form of receipt given by Hogarth to his subscribers: “Recd. Decr. 18th, of the Rt. Honble. Lord Biron, half a guinea, being the first payment for nine plates, eight of which represent a _Rake’s Progress_, and the ninth a _Fair_, which I promise to deliver at Michaelmas next, on receiving one guinea more. _Note._—The _Fair_ will be delivered at Christmas next, at sight of this receipt. The prints of the _Rake’s Progress_ will be two guineas, after the subscription is over.” “WILLIAM HOGARTH.” FOOTNOTES [9] I was at Bristol in the summer of 1858; but the fine old church was then in process of restoration, and the Hogarths, I heard, had been temporarily removed. Have those curious altar-pieces been since restored? [10] There is a mania just now for giving excessive prices for steel and copper engravings. There is a millennium for artists’ proofs. The auctioneers only know what a genuine Marc Antonio Raimondi is worth; but I am told that a “Sunday” proof of the _March to Finchley_—the original plate was dated on a Sunday, but the _dies non_ was subsequently erased by Hogarth—will fetch thirty guineas in the market. The price seems as exorbitant as those sometimes given for a “breeches” or a “vinegar” Bible.