"Rouquet.
"Paris, March 22, 1753."
To Mr. Hogarth, in Leicester Fields.
"Cambridge, Nov. 28, 1753.
"Sir,—I return you thanks for your book, which came to my hand last night, and for which I will find a place in the University library. I have read it over with pleasure, and have no doubt but that many others will do the same, as there can be no one here to whom Mr. Hogarth's name will not be an inducement to inquire into anything that comes from his hand.—I am, Sir, your most obedient humble servant,
"P. Yonge."
Hogarth presented another copy to the Royal Society; and by several of his books that were sent abroad, he found that, however captiously the work had been treated by some of his own countrymen, it had its admirers on the Continent. From Mr. Reiffsten of Cassel, in consequence of this publication, he received a letter couched in most complimentary terms, inviting him to become a counsellor and member of the Imperial Academy at Augsburg,—an invitation which, by his reply, he appears to have accepted.
An Italian translation of his Analysis was published at Leghorn, dedicated, "All' illustrissime Signora Diana Molineux Dama Inglese." It had been previously done into German by Mr. Mylins, a new edition of whose translation is thus pompously announced by Mr. C. F. Vok, in a written paper I found among Hogarth's manuscripts:—
Advertisement for a New Edition of Mr. Hogarth's "Analysis of Beauty."
"If ever a work met with great applause and deserved still more, it was certainly Mr. Hogarth's Analysis of Beauty. The literary journals and newspapers have amply and handsomely noticed it. The author made the beauty of forms, which was the object of his art, at the same time the subject of his philosophical meditations, and fell at last upon a system which was meant to ascertain in some degree the various conceptions of mankind concerning the agreeable, and to banish from the learned as well as the vulgar the absurd proverb, that men neither can nor ought to dispute about Taste. 'Tis therefore to him we are indebted if the word beautiful, to which people daily fix a thousand different ideas, becomes for the future as much an object of reflection as it has hitherto been of sensation. Yet this work does not contain empty and fruitless speculations, which, when they are not of practical use, justly merit the name of whim and chimera; but its utility is equally extensive with its subject, viz. the beauty of forms, and all arts and sciences that have a relation to it will borrow new light from the performance. The philosopher, the naturalist, the antiquarian, the orator (both in the pulpit and on the stage), the painter, the statuary, the dancing-master, must consider it as a book essentially necessary to them; and not only to them, but also to those persons who are vain of being thought connoisseurs, yet often form such contradictory and inadequate judgment of what relates to the imitation of natural beauty, that they but too plainly betray their want of fixed and determinate ideas. One may venture to affirm that the utility of Mr. Hogarth's system will soon extend itself into the empire of fashion; for even there, where nothing reigned but occasional caprice, now something of certainty may take its place by the assistance of this theory.