Wm Hogarthe

Fac-simile.

WILLIAM HOGARTH, the celebrated painter, was born in London, in 1697. His father, who was a schoolmaster, and occasionally a corrector of the press, bound him apprentice to an engraver of arms on plate, but his genius led him to cultivate painting. The first piece by which he distinguished himself was a representation of Wanstead assembly, about 1720, and he was now engaged on his own account in engraving arms and shop bills, and in designing plates for booksellers. His cuts for Hudibras, and other works, are still preserved as curiosities, but his powers were exerted with singular effect, not only in portrait painting, but in whimsical and humorous representations. By degrees he thus rose from obscurity to fame, and in 1730 married Sir James Thornhill's daughter. Though the match was altogether against the knights consent, yet they were reconciled, and the fatherin-law afterwards had reason to be proud of the connection which his daughter had formed. During his residence at South Lambeth, soon after his marriage, he contri buted largely to the embellishment of Vauxhall gardens. In 1733, his Harlot's Progress recommended him powerfully to the public notice, and thus by the most striking scene in conveying a simple girl through all the horrors and vicissitudes of the wretchedness of a prostitute to a premature death, he exhibited a lesson to the understanding, and most sensibly touched the heart. Thus successful in a new mode of conveying moral instruction, he devoted himself to the delineation of other equally interesting and appropriate characters, and to the accuracy of his figures must be added the faithful representation of the dress, the manners, and the particularities of the age. The Midnight Conversation, the Rake's Progress, the Marriage a-la-mode, the Happy Marriage, and other works, succeeded each other, and ensured to the artist the high and undisputed character of great genius, strong originality, and successful delineation. After the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, he visited France, and while taking a drawing of the gates of Calais, he was arrested as a spy, but soon liberated, a circumstance which he has beautifully recorded in his "O, the roast beef of Old England," 1749. In 1753, he appeared before the public as an author, and in his Analysis of Beauty he made many sensible and original remarks on his profession.

He first asserted that a curve is the line of beauty, and that round swelling figures are most pleasing to the eye, and the opinion has been supported by other eminent writers, as the language of truth and nature. Though he possessed in an incredible degree the powers of bringing his rivals or enemies to ridicule or infamy, yet Hogarth never used the dangerous talent in a vindictive degree, though perhaps his representation of Churchill, as a canonical bear, and his portrait of Wilkes may be said not highly to reflect on his judgment or good sense. He expired at his house Leicestersquare, 25th October, 1764, in consequence of aneurism, and was buried in Chiswick churchyard.

The following inscriptions are copied from inscriptions on monuments in the Chiswick churchyard. The first is on Hogarth's Monument, and was written by his friend the celebrated Garrick :

Farewell, great painter of mankind,

Who reached the noblest point of art;
Whose pictured morals charm the mind,
And, through the eye, correct the heart.
If genius fire thee, reader, stay;

If nature move thee, drop a tear;

If neither touch thee, turn away!

For Hogarth's honor'd dust lies here.*

To the memory of William Sharp, Esq., Historical Engraver, Member of the Imperial Academy of Vienna, and of the Royal Academy at Munich, died July 25th, 1824, aged 74 years.

This monument is dedicated to the memory of PHILIP JAMES DE LOUTHERBOURG, Esq., R. A., who was born at Stratsbourg in Alsace, November 1st, 1740, who was elected a Member of the Royal Academy, London, November 28th, 1781, and departed this life at Hammersmith Terrace, March 11th, 1812, aged 72 years.. -With talents brilliant and supereminent as an Artist, he united the still more enviable endowments of a cultivated, enlarged and elegant mind, adding to both those superior qualties of the heart, which entitled him as a man and as a Christian, to the cordial respect of the wise and good. In him science was associated with Faith, Piety and Liberality. Virtue with suavity of manners, and to the rational use of this world, with the ennobling hope of a world to come. A deathless Fame will record his professional excellence. But to that of Friendship belongs the office of strewing on his Tomb those moral flowers, which displayed themselves in life, and which rendered him estimable as a Social Being.

Here LOUTHERBOURG repose thy laureled head!

While Art is cherish'd thou can'st ne'er be dead;
SALVATOR, POUSSIN, CLAUDE, thy skill divine,
And beautious Nature lives in thy designs.

MRS. MARY PRING, who died in 1851, aged 85.
She was-but words are wanting to say what;

Say what a virtuous woman ought to be, and she was that.

*Hogarth's house in Chiswick is quite a singular structure, particularly in the inside. We were informed there were no rooms in the house of a regular form, being generally of a triangular shape and very low between joists; they were, in fact, so constructed, that it was difficult to find tenants who were willing to stay in them for any considerable length of time.

BEDFORD-ELSTOW-JOHN BUNYAN.

BEDFORD, the capital town of Bedfordshire, is fifty miles north from London. It is situated on the river Ouse, and contains about 10,000 inhabitants. Offa, the celebrated king of Mercia, had a great predilection for this town, and his body was buried in a small chapel a little way out of the town, but the chapel being delapidated by long use, the river rose with such violence that it swept it entirely off the banks on which it was built, but, according to tradition, the king's body, enclosed in a strong sarcophagus, was deposited in the middle channel of the river. Bedford, and the little village of Estow, by its side, are rendered memorable chiefly on account of being the birth-place and residence of John Bunyan, the celebrated author of the Pilgrim's Progress.

On the 27th of September, 1853, we took the morning train from London and arrived in Bedford after a passage of about three hours. As we came near Bedford, I observed, on the right, an ancient looking village, containing about seventy-five houses. On inquiry, I found that this was Elstow, the native place of Bunyan; and the house in which he was born was still standing. On our arrival in Bedford, I inquired for the Bunyan Church, which I found to be a modern structure, of which the annexed cut is a representation.

Calling on the sexton, I was conducted into the vestry of the church, where the chair of Bunyan, in the old simple antique style, is still in good preservation. I found, by inquiry, that the congregation who met in the church were open Communion Baptists, or rather Independents. Members of the church were baptized by immersion, or in any other mode they might prefer. Those who

wished it, could have their infants baptized. The church consist ed of between three and four hundred members. A Sunday-school was kept up consisting of about two hundred scholars. The congregation met three times on Sunday in the morning at half-past 10 o'clock, at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and in the evening at 6.

Near the entrance door, inside of the church, the names of all the pastors, including John Bunyan, who had been connected with the congregation from its first commencement to the present time, are engraved on a tablet. On the outside wall is an inscription to the memory of Hannah Bunyan, who died in 1770, at the age of seventy-six years. She was the great grand-daughter of the author of the Pilgrim's Progress, and is stated to be the last descendant now known.*

ELSTOW, THE BIRTH-PLACE OF JOHN BUNYAN.
Drawn by the Author, Sept. 27th, 1853.

ELSTOW is one mile from the outskirts of Bedford. no houses on the route between the villages.

There are The country is open

Bunyan had six children-three sons and three daughters. In a recent edition of the Pilgrim's Progress published in London the present year, (1853,) it is stated that a Mrs. Senegar, living at Islington, in 1847, at the age of eighty-four, was a lineal descendant from John Bunyan, the author of the Pilgrim's Progress, by his son Joseph. It is also stated that there is still living, at Lincoln, an aged farmer, Robert Bunyan, also a lineal descendant through the same parentage.

and generally level, having very much the appearance of the better portion of the northern Atlantic States, excepting, of course, the hedge-rows on each side of the road, which were so thick-set, that in many places one could hardly see into the fields adjoining the road.

As I entered the village, I was quite struck with the appearance of a man tinkering* in the narrow street, nearly opposite the small house seen in the central part of the engraving. This house, I was afterwards informed, was the one in which John Bunyan was born, and where he lived, and, in all probability, worked at the same business on, or near the same spot, two centuries before. The accompanying view shows the southern extremity of the village as it is entered on the Bedford road. The haw-thorn hedges appear on each side of the road, and the thatched-roofed cottages next. The Bunyan house is the smallest in the view, and has two windows in its roof. By the very ancient appearance of the houses, &c., I should judge there had been no material alteration in the appearance of the village since the time that Bunyan lived in it two centuries since. Even the dress of some of the inhabitants appeared quite antiquated, and judging from some language which I heard while in the village, the morality of the inhabitants remained at the same standard as in the days of Bunyan.

Having made some inquiries of an aged and respectable inhabitant, who had always lived within a few rods of the Bunyan house, he kindly offered his services in conducting me to the localities in which I felt interested. The cottage in which Bunyan was born, and in which he lived, was of course the first spot visited. As I entered this humble, but venerated dwelling, I was struck with the appearance of its great antiquity. The entrance door from the street was so low that a person of but moderate height could but hardly enter it without stooping. The floor was of brick, and the timbers overhead projected below the ceiling. William Church, the tenant, was absent as a day laborer, but his wife, a respectable looking woman, was working at the wash-tub, near the large fireplace. I told her I had rather have the privilege of coming under her roof than of going into the palace of Queen Victoria, and that John Bunyan, the tinker, who once lived in her house, was better known, and more respected in America, where I belonged, than all the kings and queens they ever had, or probably ever would have, in England. Also, that John Bunyan's book was more read and

* In a conversation I held with him, I found his name was George Jackson, of Norfolk County, but now lived at Bedford. He took occasional turns about the country, purchasing old brass, &c. In the present instance, as I saw him, he was tinkering over a brass warming-pan, knocking out the iron ware around the edge. As he wished to purchase brass only, and that by weight, he did not wish to pay for old iron. He, accordingly, made a separation of these two substances.