"Berkeley Square, October 4, 1780.
"Mr. Walpole begs Mrs. Hogarth's acceptance of the volume that accompanies this letter, and hopes she will be content with his endeavours to do justice to the genius of Mr. Hogarth. If there are some passages less agreeable to her than the rest, Mr. Walpole will regard her disapprobation only as marks of the goodness of her heart, and proofs of her affection to her husband's memory; but she will, he is sure, be so candid as to allow for the duty an historian owes to the public and himself, which obliges him to say what he thinks, and which when he obeys, his praise is corroborated by his censure. The first page of his Preface will more fully make his apology;[82] and his just admiration of Mr. Hogarth, Mr. W. flatters himself, will, notwithstanding his impartiality, still rank him in Mrs. Hogarth's mind as one of her husband's most zealous and sincere friends."
In nine years after the receipt of this letter, Mrs. Hogarth died, bequeathing her property to her relation, Mrs. Mary Lewis of Chiswick, by whose kindness and friendship I am in possession of the manuscripts which form the basis of the foregoing sheets, the following most singular and curious print of "Enthusiasm Delineated," etc. etc. etc.
ENTHUSIASM DELINEATED,
CONTRASTED WITH THE PRINT ENTITLED
A MEDLEY;
TO WHICH HOGARTH AFTERWARDS ALTERED THE PLATE.[83]
"Idolatry is not only an accounting and worshipping that for God which is not God, but it is also a worshipping the true God in a way unsuitable to His nature, and particularly by the mediation of images and corporeal resemblances."—South.
Such was the opinion of Dr. South, and such the opinion of Hogarth, when he designed this very extraordinary print, the intention of which is to give "a lineal representation of the strange effects resulting from literal and low conceptions of sacred beings, as also of the idolatrous tendency of pictures in churches, and prints in religious books," etc. To exemplify this, he has parodied the productions of several eminent masters, whose works, having been generally painted under the direction of cardinals, popes, etc., are chiefly on religious subjects; and by the artists absurdly attempting to represent what are not properly objects of sight, that which they intended to be sublime is rendered in the highest degree ridiculous. To burlesque the idolatrous symbols with which they have peopled their canvas, place the popish doctrine of transubstantiation[84] in its true point of view, unmask hypocrisy, and check the progress of those enthusiastic delusions which Bishop Lavington properly terms "Religion run Mad,"[85] are the author's leading objects.