This print Mr. Hogarth intended as a serious and sublime representation of the scene which he had so inimitably burlesqued; yet so little are we qualified to judge of our own powers, that he has here produced a print as destitute of elevation and sentiment as are the works of those masters he so successfully ridiculed. With the Roman eagle he could not soar, and has drawn the royal bird like a sparrow-hawk, nailed to the bottom of a writing-desk. The Apostle, with his right foot resting on a lower step than the left, has neither grace, dignity, nor firmness. Felix has the appearance of a vinegar-faced apothecary feeling the pulse of a nervous female patient, and shocked at the velocity of our circulation, dropping the prescription from his left hand. The haughty High Priest biting his nails, is deficient in everything except his drapery: the Jew immediately behind him bears a strong resemblance to an old-clothes-man. The standard-bearer, and woman with her hands closed, are a degree better; but the Herculean advocate, with a brief in his right hand, looks like a journeyman hatter that has drank porter till he is drowsy; by the strength of his muscles and the stupidity of his countenance, he seems better fitted for a bruiser than a pleader.
The listening soldier, at the opposite corner, is meanly conceived and ill drawn.
At the bottom of one of the copies I once saw the following memorandum in the handwriting of Hogarth: "A print of the plate that was set aside as insufficient. Engraved by W. H."
PLATE II.
From the original painting in Lincoln's-Inn Hall, painted by Wm. Hogarth.
PAUL PREACHING BEFORE FELIX.
This is engraved from the same design as the former, but the situation of the figures is reversed, and Drusilla omitted, it being thought that St. Paul's hand was rather improperly placed.
It is somewhat superior to the former, but the light is ill distributed, and the characters too individual for the dignity of historical composition.