tion of the London Medical Journal, it would have been bet ter to have passed it over. To this collection no remarks are subjoined. The Afiatic Researches; Fordyce's Treatise on Digeftion; Dr. Austin's Treatise on the Origin and component Parts of the Stone in the Bladder; some Papers from the Journal de Physique, October 1791; and some from the Annals of Chemistry for August and September 1791; Extracts from the Memoirs of the Royal Academy at Turin 1788, and 1789; as well as from the second Part of the Philofophical Tranfactions of last Year, are the other works analysed in this part of the Journal. From the Medical News we shall select two or three articles. • Extract of a Letter from Venice, Sept. 10, 1791. • A poor man, lying under the frightful tortures of the hydrophobia, was cured with some draughts of vinegar, given him by mistake instead of another potion. A physician of Padua, called count Leonissa, got intelligence of this event at Udine, and tried the same remedy upon a patient that was brought to the Padua hofpital, administering him a pint of vinegar in the morning, another at noon, and a third at sunset, and the man was speedily and perfectly cured.' In the Gazzette Salutaire it is faid, that M. Dufresnoy has cured twenty-eight cafes of consumption, la phithifie tuberculeuse, by the use of a fpecies of mushroom (agaricus piperatus et deliciosus Linn.) conjoined with an opiate-as mushrooms approximate to the nature of animal food, does not this fact corroborate the plan of treatment recommended by Dr. Percival, and other late writers?" • Extract of a Letter from Edinburgh, Nov. 10. • Dr. Hamilton's method of treating dropsies by giving mercury nearly to the point of falivation, previous to the exhibition of diuretics, is attended with great success. - The New College will be a magnificent and commodious building. - Dr. Black has espoused the antiphlogistic doctrine, and uses the French nomenclature in his class. - Dr. Gregory is faid to be engaged in a metaphysical work.' Hogarth illustrated, by John Ireland. 2 Vols. 8vo. 21. 125.6d. boards. Boydells. 1791. THE deserved popularity of the works of Hogarth renders any good commentary upon them a desirable publication. The meagre and uninformed work of Mr. Trufler, intituled, Hogarth 1 Hogarth Moralised, is deservedly superseded by Mr. Ireland's fuperior labours: the plates in Trusler's book, engraved by one Dent, whose name we recollect not to have seen affixed to other engravings, are retained in this work, and fome new plates are added. The first feature which struck us, in perusing Mr. Ireland's commentary, is its garrulity, fometimes entertaining, fometimes dull: the second is a fingular foppish quaintness of expreffion, which often stains his pages. As to the plates, the new ones are well engraved; and it would have been more worthy of Meff. Boydells' opulence and taste, and the favour they have received from the public, not to mention their own interest and reputation, to have accompanied the work with a complete set of new engravings, of the same size as the printed page, than to have been contented with late and bad impreffions of Dent's flat miniatures. The most proper form would have been an oblong octavo. After having offered these general remarks, we shall proceed to a particular specification of this work. Mr. Ireland's short Introduction, or rather advertisement, is in the following terms. Mr. Hogarth frequently asserted, that no man was so ill qua lified to form a true judgment of pictures as the professed connoiffeur; whose tafte being originally formed upon imitations, and confired to the manners of masters, had seldom any reference to nature. Under this conviction, his fubjects were selected for the crowd, rather than the critic; and explained in that universal language common to the world, rather than in the lingua technica of the arts, which is sacred to the scientific. • Without prefuming to support his hypothefis, I have endeavoured to follow his example; and not being vain enough to think I can make any material addition to the knowledge of either virtuoso or collector, with all due deference, make my apology. ، My original design was to have comprized, in two hundred pages, a moral and analytical description of about eighty prints; and during the progress of the first series, this plan was adhered to. As the work advanced, such variety of anecdote, and long train of etcetera, imperceptibly clung to the narrative, that the limits were found too narrow. With the explanation of fifteen new plates, the letter press has expanded to more than seven hun dred pages. • Where the artist has been made a victim to poetical or poli tical prejudice, without meaning to be his panegyrist, I have endeavoured to rescue his memory from unmerited obloquy. Where his works have been misconceived, or misrepresented, I have attempted the true reading. In my essay at an illustration of the C. R. N. AR. (IV.) April, 1792. prints, Ff prints, with a description of what I conceive the comic and moral tendency of each, there is the best information I could procure, concerning the relative circumstances, occafionally interspersed with such defultory conversation, as occurred in turning over a volume of his prints. Though these notes may not always have an immediate relation to the engravings, I hope they will seldom be found wholly unconnected with the subjects. • Such mottos as were engraved on the plates, are inserted; but where a print has been published without inscription, I have either selected or written one. Errors in either parody or verse, with the fignature E. the writer submits to that tribunal, from whose candour he hopes pardon for every mistake, or inaccuracy, which may be found in his volumes." We must beg leave to remind Mr. Ireland, that it is of alb things the easieft to expand a work by hafty compilation, carelefsness, and want of selection, while it requires time and labour, and some respect for the public, to render a work short, and to lay before the world only the effence of one's thoughts and information; a compliment which it expects, and is entitled to receive, from every writer who aspires toany reputation. We do not wish, however, to be fevere, as the very nature of Mr. Ireland's commentary, and of the original text, requires a portion of trivial information, which might become ridiculous if conveyed in a precife manner: but we think the happy medium for Mr. Ireland's book would have been a volume not exceeding 400 pages; as it is, there is a great wafte of paper, ink, and chit-chat. The account of Hogarth, which follows, is in a great meafure taken from Mr. Nichols's anecdotes of this great painter of nature; and we could wish to have feen our author more frequently acknowledge his obligations to the fame fource, in the other pages of his motley mifcellany. In this divifion of the work is given the explanation of a new plate (for fo we shall style those not to be found in Trufler's book), the battle of the pictures. Mr. Ireland, in a note, offers fome well-timed remarks on the gross impositions of picture-dealers: as a cau tion on this subject cannot be too widely diffused, and as ridiculum acri fortius et melius, &c. we shall present our virtuosi readers with the following bill, not found a true bill, but ben trovato, and dated 1791. • Monfieur Varnish to Benjamin Bister, debtor. 1. • To painting the woman caught in adultery, upon a green ground, by Hans Holbein • To Solomon's wife judgment, on pannel, by Michael Angelo Buenorati • To painting and canvas for a naked Mary Magdalen, in the undoubted style of Paul Veronese 5. d. 330 2 12 6 220 • To brimstone, for smoking ditto • Paid Mrs. W- for a live model to fit for Diana bathing, by Tinteretto • Paid for the hire of a layman, to copy the robes of a cardinal, for a Vandyke • Portrait of a nun doing penance, by Albert Du • Paid the female figure for fitting thirty minutes in a wet sheet, that I might give the dry manner of that mafter The Tribute-money rendered, with all the exactness of Quintin Metsius, the famed blacksmith of Antwerp • To Ruth at the feet of Boaz, upon an oak board, by Titiano • St. Anthony preaching to the Fishes, by Salvator Rofa * The Martydom of St. Winifred, with a view • To a large allegorical altar-piece, confifting of To the Devil and St. Dunstan, high finished by To the Queen of Sheba falling down before Solomon, by Morallio • To a Judith in the tent of Holofernes, by Le Brun • To a Sicera in the tent of Jael, its companion, by the fame • Paid for admission into the House of Peers, to take a sketch of a great character, for a picture of Mofes breaking the Tables of the Law, in the darkest manner of Rembrandt, not yet finished.' In the account of Hogarth are also introduced the two plates of the Analysis of Beauty, the ill-fated Sophonisba, and Time smoking a picture. The author's remarks on the Sophonifba we shall tranfcribe. He quotes the objections of Mr. Walpole (now lord Orford) and thus replies : The author of the Mysterious Mother, fought for fublimity, where the artist strictly copied nature, of whom all his figures are the archetypes, but which the painter, who scars into fancy's fairy regions, Ff2 regions, must in a degree defert. Confidered with this reference, though the picture has faults, Mr. Walpole's fatire is surely too fevere. It is built upon a comparison with works painted in a language of which Hogarth knew not the idiom, - trying him before a tribunal, whose authority he did not acknowledge, and, from the picture having been in many respects altered after the critic faw it, some of the remarks become unfair. To the frequency of these alterations we may attribute many of the errors: the man who has not confidence in his own knowledge of the leading principles on which his work ought to be built will not render it perfect by following the advice of his friends. Although Messrs. Wilkes and Churchill dragged his heroine to the altar of politics, and mangled her with a barbarism that can hardly be paralleled, except in the history of her husband, the artist retained his partiality; which seems to have increased in exact proportion to their abuse. The picture being thus contemplated through the medium of party prejudice, we cannot wonder that all its improprieties were exaggerated. The painted harlot of Babylon had not more approbrious epithets from the first race of reformers, than the painted Sigifmonda of Hogarth from the last race of patriots. When a favourite child is chastised by his preceptor, a partial mother redoubles her caresses. Hogarth, estimating this picture by the labour he had beltowed upon it, was certain that the public were prejudiced, and requested, if his wife survived him, the would not fell it for less than five hundred pounds. Mrs. Hogarth acted in conformity to his wishes, but fince her death the painting has been purchased by Messrs. Boydell, and is now in the Shakipeare Gallery. The colouring, though not brilliant, is harmonious and natural: the attitude, drawing, &c. will be more universally known from a print now engraving by Mr. Ridley. I am much inclined to think, that if fome of those who have been most severe in their cenfures, had confulted their own feelings, instead of connoiffeurs, poor Sigifmonda would have been in higher estimation. It has been faid that the first sketch was made from Mrs. Hogarth, at the time the was weeping over the corse of her mother." In p. cxiv. and cxv. we learn that, on the death of Mrs. Hogarth, the plates of our great painter's works passed, by her will, to Mrs. Lewis; who, on condition of receiving an anpuity for life, transferred to Meffrs. Boydell her right in all the plates; and fince in their possession they have not been touched upon by a burin. Every plate has been carefully cleaned: and the rolling-presses now in ufe being on an improved principle, the paper fuperior, and the art of printing better understood, impreffions are more clearly and accurately taken off than they have been at any preceding period. ( Proceeding to the work, we must again cenfure the poor execution |