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Biographical Anecdotes of William Hogarth (1785) by John Nichols
WITH A CATALOGUE OF HIS WORKS CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED; AND OCCASIONAL REMARKS.
CONTENTS
MEMORANDUM.
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION.
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION.
DEDICATION.
PREFACE.
HOGARTH.
CATALOGUE OF HOGARTHâS PRINTS.
POSTSCRIPT.
APPENDIX.
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MEMORANDUM.
Respect and gratitude having engaged me to compile a memoir of my deceased Master and Patron Mr. Bowyer, in the same performance I included anecdotes of all the eminent persons any way connected with him. A note of about a pageâs length was allotted to Hogarth. While it was printing, Mr. Walpoleâs Fourth Volume on the subject of English Painters came out, and was followed by an immediate rage for collecting every scrap of our Artistâs designs. Persevering in my enquiries among my friends, I had now amassed so much intelligence relative to these engravings, that it could no longer be crowded into the situation originally meant for it. I was therefore advised to publish it in the form of a sixpenny pamphlet. This intended publication, however, grew up by degrees into a three-shilling book, and, within a year and a half afterwards, was swelled into almost its present bulk, at the price of six shillings. Such was the origin and progress of the following sheets, which, with many corrections, &c. have now reached a Third Edition.
J. N.
Nov. 10, 1785.
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ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION.
The author of these imperfect sheets cannot present them a second time to the world, before he has expressed his gratitude for the extreme candour with which they have been treated by the Monthly Reviewers. If J. N. has not availed himself of all the corrections designed for his service, it is because the able critic who proposes them has been deluded by intelligence manifestly erroneous. J. N. received each particular he has mentioned, in respect to the assistance bestowed on Hogarth while his Analysis was preparing, from Dr. Morell, a gentleman who on that subject could not easily mistake. Implicit confidence ought rather to be reposed in a literary coadjutor to the deceased, than in any consistory of females that ever âmumbled their wisdom over a gossipâs bowl.â Authors rarely acquaint domestic women with the progress of their writings, or the proportion of aid they solicit from their friends. If it were needful that Dr. Morell should translate a Greek passage for Hogarth, how chanced it that our artist should want to apply what he did not previously understand? I must add, that the sentiments, published by the Reviewer concerning these Anecdotes, bear no resemblance to the opinion circulated by the cavillers with whom he appears to have had a remote connection. The parties who furnished every circumstance on which he founds his reiterated charges of error and misinformation, are not unknown. Ever since this little work was edited, the people about Mrs. Hogarth have paid their court to her by decrying it as âlow, stupid, or false,â without the slightest acknowledgement for the sums of money it has conducted to The Golden Head in Leicester Fields. While the talents of the writer alone were questioned by such inadequate judges of literary merit, a defence on his part was quite unnecessary. He has waited, however, with impatience for an opportunity of making some reply to their groundless reflections on his veracity. This purpose he flatters himself will have been completely executed after he has observed that all credentials relative to his disputed assertion shall be ready (as they are at this moment) for the Reviewerâs inspection. J. N. cannot indeed dismiss his present advertisement without observing, that though the amiable partialities of a wife may apologize for any contradiction suggested by Mrs. Hogarth herself, the English language is not strong enough to express the contempt he feels in regard to the accumulated censure both of her male and her female Parasites.
J. N.
Nov. 1, 1782.
Whereabouts is this translation of a Greek passage to be found in the Analysis? It may have escaped my hasty researches.
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ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION.
When this pamphlet was undertaken, the Author had no thought of swelling it to itâs present bulk; but communicating his design to his friends, they favoured him with various particulars of information. Some of these accommodated themselves to his original plan, if he can be supposed to have had any, but others were more intractable. Still aware of the value even of disjointed materials, which his profession would not afford him leisure to compact into a regular narrative, and conscious that these sheets, rude and imperfect as they are, may serve to promote a publication less unworthy of its subject, he dismisses his present work without any laboured apology for the errors that may be detected in it; claiming, indeed, some merit on account of intelligence, but not the least on the score of arrangement or composition. He takes the same opportunity to observe, that many curious anecdotes of extraordinary persons have been unfortunately lost, because the possessors of those fugitive particulars had not the power of communicating them in proper form, or polished language, and were unwilling to expose them in such a state as these are offered to the world.
May 9, 1781.
THE INGENIOUS MR. CRAYEN OF LEIPZIG
having translated the First Edition of these Anecdotes, &c. into the German Language, dispatched a copy of his work to J. N. attended by the obliging letter here subjoined:
SIR,
Though I have not the honour of being acquainted with you, I hope your goodness will excuse the liberty I take of sending you a German translation of the Biographical Anecdotes of Mr. Hogarth you published. Being convinced of the merits of your production, and its usefulness to such collectors of prints and connoisseurs in our country as donât understand the English language, I undertook this translation, and flatter myself you will be pleased to accept of it as a proof of my real esteem for you.
You will find, that I did not always adhere literally to the original, but made some abridgments, alterations, notes, &c. &c. But I hope you will do me the justice to consider, that I wrote for my countrymen, and therefore left out such passages, poems, anecdotes, &c. &c. as would have been entirely uninteresting to them, and have swelled the volume to no purpose.
As to the typographical performance, I think you will be tolerably satisfied of it. Though the noble art of printing is of German origin, your nation has improved and brought it to the highest pitch of perfection in point of neatness, elegance, and correctness.
I remain, with all possible esteem,
Sir,
Your most obedient
and most humble servant,
A. CRAYEN.
Leipzig in Saxony,
the 29th Jan. 1783.
The following are Translations, by a Friend,
from the Dedication and Preface to
Mr. Crayenâs performance.
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DEDICATION.
To Mr. Gottfried Winkler, in Leipzig;
Honoured and Worthy Friend,
Pardon my presumption in offering you the slender fruit of a few leisure hours. Receive it with your wonted kindness, and judge of it not by the trifling value of the work, but by the intention of its Author, whose most zealous wish has long been to find an opportunity of publickly offering you, however small, a memorial of his respect and friendship.
If my labour in adding a mite towards the diffusion of the knowledge of the Arts, is honoured with the approbation of so enlightened a Connoisseur, I shall feel myself completely rewarded.
Receive at the same time my sincerest thanks for the obliging communication of your Copy of Hogarthâs prints, of which, in my translation, I have more than once availed myself.
Live, honoured Sir, many days; happy in the bosom of your worthy family, in the circle of your friends, and in the enjoyment of those treasures of the Arts you have collected with such distinguished taste. Remain also a friend of
Yours, &c.
The Translator.
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PREFACE.
To the German Reader.
Collectors of the Fine Arts were already possessed of Catalogues and Memoires Raisonnées of the engravings of many great masters, for which their acknowledgements are due to the industry of a Gersaint, a Jombert, a Hecquet, a Vertue, a de Winter, &c. &c.
But a similar illustration of Hogarthâs copper-plates was still wanting; though it may be asked what works have a juster claim to a distinguished place in a compleat collection, than those of this instructive moral painter, this creative genius?
On this account, it is presumed that the German Lover of the Arts will deem himself indebted to the Translator, for giving him, in his own tongue, a concise and faithful version of a book that has lately made its appearance in London, under the title of âBiographical Anecdotes of W. Hogarth, and a Catalogue of his Works chronologically arranged.â
The Compiler as well as Editor of this work is Mr. John Nichols, a Printer an...
