Hogarth’s engravings of the adventures of Kate Hackabout were extensively and grossly pirated. In those days, as in these, there were pictorial Curlls in the land. The author of the foregoing has had the honour to see some early and trifling pictorial performances of his own pirated upon pocket-handkerchiefs and shirt-fronts; but, dear me, what a legal pother would have arisen at Manchester if any one had pirated those beautiful patent cylinders on which the piracies must have been so neatly engraved! Some vile imitations of Hackabout were even cut on wood; and I should dearly like to know if any impressions of those blocks are extant. Mr. Ottley hits none in his _History of Chalcography_; but a series of woodcuts so long after Albert Durer and Maso Fineguerra, so long before Bewick the revivalist’s time, would be deeply interesting.[10] Hogarth smarted under this injury, as well he might. The artist had always a strong admixture of the British tradesman in his composition, and, as was his wont when injured, he bellowed lustily. He moved the Lords of the Treasury. He moved the Houses of Lords and Commons; and, at last (1735), he obtained an Act of Parliament, specially protecting his copyright in his prints. As usual, too, he celebrated the victory with a loud and jubilant cock-crow, and complimented Parliament on their recognition of the principles of truth and right, in an allegorical etching, with a flowery inscription. It is good to learn that the Legislature were tender to this artist even after his death, and that his widow, Jane Hogarth, obtained, by another special act, a renewal of his copyrights for her sole use and benefit. In this age of photography and electro-printing, do we not need a law of artistic copyright somewhat more definite and more stringent than the loose statutes that lawyers quibble about and interpret different ways?