In the "Progress of an Harlot," and the "Adventures of a Rake," Mr. Hogarth displayed his powers of painting history. Holding the mirror up to Nature, he shows
"Virtue her own feature, Vice her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure."
Had he exhibited no other specimen of his art, these fourteen prints would have given him a right to the title of a moral painter; and thus was he denominated by the late Mr. Fielding, in his Adventures of Joseph Andrews.
In the series before us he treads poetic ground. A description of the day, particularly the morning, has been generally deemed the bard's peculiar province. Considering Homer as the father of poesy, the whole family of Apollo have echoed his notes, and run their divisions of fancy upon his scale. With one of them,
"The morn, wak'd by the circling hours,
Unbars the gates of light."
With another, she "sows the earth with orient pearl." At one time, with a star as her gentleman usher, she
"Draws night's humid curtains, and proclaims