WILLIAM HOGARTH.THE
WORKS
OF
WILLIAM HOGARTH;
IN A
SERIES OF ENGRAVINGS:
WITH
DESCRIPTIONS,
AND
A COMMENT ON THEIR MORAL TENDENCY,
BY THE
REV. JOHN TRUSLER.
TO WHICH ARE ADDED,
ANECDOTES OF THE AUTHOR AND HIS WORKS,
BY J. HOGARTH AND J. NICHOLS.
London:
PUBLISHED BY JONES AND CO.
TEMPLE OF THE MUSES, (LATE LACKINGTON'S,) FINSBURY SQUARE.
1833.
C. BAYNES, PRINTER, 13 DUKE STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.[Pg 1]
THE LIFE OF HOGARTH.
William Hogarth is said to have been the descendant of a familyoriginally from Kirby Thore, in Westmorland.
His grandfather was a plain yeoman, who possessed a small tenementin the vale of Bampton, a village about fifteen miles north ofKendal, in that county; and had three sons.
The eldest assisted his father in farming, and succeeded to his littlefreehold.
The second settled in Troutbeck, a village eight miles north west ofKendal, and was remarkable for his talent at provincial poetry.
Richard Hogarth, the third son, who was educated at St. Bees, andhad kept a school in the same county, appears to have been a man of somelearning. He came early to London, where he resumed his original occupationof a schoolmaster, in Ship-court in the Old Bailey, and wasoccasionally employed as a corrector of the press.
Mr. Richard Hogarth married in London; and our artist, and hissisters, Mary and Anne, are believed to have been the only product ofthe marriage.
William Hogarth was born November 10, and baptised Nov. 28, 1697,in the parish of St. Bartholomew the Great, in London; to which parish,it is said, in the Biographia Britannica, he was afterwards a benefactor.
The school of Hogarth's father, in 1712, was in the parish of St.Martin, Ludgate. In the register of that parish, therefore, the date ofhis death, it was natural to suppose, might be found; but the registerhas been searched to no purpose.
Hogarth seems to have received no other education than that ofa mechanic, and his outset in life was unpropitious. Young Hogarthwas bound apprentice to a silversmith (whose name was Gamble) ofsome eminence; by whom he was confined to that branch of the trade,which consists in engraving arms and cyphers upon the plate. Whilethus employed, he gradually acquired some knowledge of drawing; and,[Pg 2]before his apprenticeship expired, he exhibited talent for caricature."He felt the impulse of genius, and that it directed him to painting,though litt