2. A Landscape. Etch'd by Saml Ireland, from an original picture in his possession, said to be the only landscape ever painted by Hogarth.—To the Right Honourable the Earl of Exeter, an admirer of Hogarth, and encourager of the arts, this etching is inscribed by his Lordship's most obliged and obedient servant. S. Ireland.
The very considerable degree of skill and fidelity, displayed in the execution of these two plates, entitles the gentleman who etched them to the warmest thanks of every collector of the works of Hogarth.—May a hope be added, that he will favour us with yet other unpublished designs of the same master?
Prints of uncertain Date.
Before Mr. Walpole's enumeration of the following shop-bills, coats of arms, &c. made its appearance, perhaps few of them were known to our collectors. Concerning the genuineness of some of these unimportant engravings, no doubt can be entertained; but whence is it inferred that all of them were his productions? Do we receive them merely on the faith of Mr. Pond? or are they imputed to our artist for any other reason, or on the strength of any other testimony? I am assured, by a gentleman who possesses the chief of them, and is well acquainted with Hogarth's manner, that from mere external evidence several of these could not have been authenticated.
It is natural, however, to suppose that most of them (if Hogarth's) were the fruits of his apprenticeship.[1] As such, therefore, they should be placed at the beginning of every collection.
[1] Let it be remembered likewise, that being bound apprentice to the single branch of engraving arms and cyphers, the majority of his works, whether on base metal or silver, must have been long since melted down. During the minority of Hogarth, the forms in which plate was made, could contribute little to its chance of preservation. Pot-bellied tankards, and salvers scalloped like old-fashioned minced-pies, were the highest efforts of that period.
1. People in a shop under the King's arms: Mary and Ann Hogarth. "A shop-bill" for his two sisters, who for many years kept a linen-draper's, or rather what is called a slop-shop.