Ere I quit the subject of the _Harlot’s Progress_, it is meet to advert to a little dictum of good Mr. Fuseli, the ambidextrous Anglo-Swiss, who painted the _Lazar-house_ and other horrifying subjects, who used to swear so dreadfully at the clerks in Coutt’s banking-house, and who called for his umbrella when he went to see Mr. Constable’s showery pictures. “The characteristic discrimination and humorous exuberance,” says Fuseli, in a lecture, “which we admire in Hogarth, but which, like the fleeting passion of a day, every hour contributes something to obliterate, will soon be unintelligible by time or degenerate into caricature: the chronicle of scandal, and the history book of the vulgar.” I have the highest respect for the learning and acumen of Fuseli; but I think he is wholly wrong in assuming that Hogarth’s humour or discrimination will _ever_ become “unintelligible by time,” or will “degenerate into caricature.” Look at this _Harlot’s Progress_. Who cares to know, now, that Charteris continues to rot; that he was guilty of every vice but prodigality and hypocrisy—being a monster of avarice and a paragon of impudence; that he was condemned to death for a dreadful crime, and only escaped the halter by the interest of aristocratic friends; that he was a liar, a cheat, a gambler, a usurer, and a profligate; that he amassed an estate of ten thousand a year; that he was accused while living, and that the populace almost tore his body from his remote grave in Scotland? Who cares to know how many times Mother Needham was carted—although you may be sure they were not half so frequent as she deserved. Is it important to know exactly whether the Caucasian financier was intended for Sir Henry Furnese, or for Rafael Mendez, or Israel Vanderplank. The quack Misaubin[11] and his opponent are forgotten. Stern Sir John Gonson[12] and his anti-Cyprian crusades are forgotten. For aught we can tell, the Bridewell gaoler, the Irish servant, the thievish harridan, the Fleet parson, the glowering undertaker, may all be faithful portraits of real personages long since gone to dust. It boots little even to know if Kate were really Kate or Mary Hackabout, or Laïs, or Phryne, or Doll Common. She is dead, and will sin and suffer stripes no more. But the humour and discrimination of the painter yet live, the types he pourtrayed endure to this hour. I saw Charteris the day before yesterday, tottering about in shiny boots beneath the Haymarket Colonnade. The quacks live and prosper, drive mail-phætons, and enter horses for the Derby. The Jew financier calls himself Mr. Montmorenci de Levyson, and lends money at sixty per cent., or as Julius McHabeas, Gent., one of her Majesty’s attorneys-at-law, issues a writ at the suit of his friend and father-in-law Levyson. And Kate decoys and cozens the financier every day in a cottage _ornée_ at Brompton or St. John’s Wood. Kate! there is her “miniature brougham” gliding through Albert Gate.