Where a beginning, middle, and an end
Are aptly joined; where parts on parts depend,
Each made for each, as bodies for their soul,
So as to form one true and perfect whole,
Where a plain story to the eye is told,
Which we conceive the moment we behold,
Hogarth unrivall'd stands, and shall engage
Unrivall'd praise to the most distant age.'
Thus even his enemy and assailant, Charles Churchill. But Hogarth had the misfortune to live in an age when Art was given over to the bubblemongers and 'black masters;' when, to the suppression of native talent, sham chefs d'ouvre were praised extravagantly by sham connoisseurs; and the patriotic painter of 'Marriage À-la-Mode' justly resented the invasion of the country by the rubbish of the Roman art-factories. Had he confined himself to the forcible indignation of which, as an impenitent islander, he possessed unlimited command, it would have been better for his peace of mind. But, in an unpropitious hour, he undertook to prove his case by demonstration. Among the pictures from Sir Luke Schaub's collection, offered for sale in 1758, was a 'Sigismunda,' attributed to Correggio, but in reality from the brush of the far inferior artist, Furini. It was recklessly run up by the virtuosi, and was finally bought in for over £400. Hogarth, whose inimitable 'Marriage' had fetched only £126 (frames included), determined to paint the same subject. He had an open commission from Sir Richard Grosvenor, a wealthy art-collector, who had been one of the bidders for the Furini, and he set to work. He took unusual pains—a thing which, in his case, was of evil augury; and he modified the details of his design again and again, in obedience to the suggestions of friends. When at last the picture was completed, Sir Richard, who, perhaps not unreasonably, had looked for something more in the artist's individual manner, took advantage of Hogarth's conventional offer to release him from his bargain, and rather shabbily withdrew from it upon the specious ground 'that the constantly having it [the picture] before one's eyes would be too often occasioning melancholy ideas'—a sentiment which the irritated painter, calling verse to his relief, afterwards neatly paraphrased. Admitting its power to touch the heart to be the 'truest test' of a masterpiece, he says of 'Sigismunda':
'Nay;'tis so moving that the Knight