The Laird of the Posts, or the Bonnets exalted. Printed for T. Baldwin, London. Hogarth inv.
6. A Scotch Nobleman and his Friends taking possession of several posts, having kick'd down the former Possessors. Labels from their mouths too tedious to copy. A Lion on the fore-ground, hood-winked by a Scotch plaid.
Supposed to be printed for The London Magazine.
7. The Lion entranced. Printed for T. Baldwin, London. Hogarth inv. 1762.
A Lion in a Coffin. A plate on the cover, inscribed, "Leo Britanicus, Ob. An. 1762. Requiescat in pace." Attended by state mourners with labels as above. In one corner Hibernia supplicating for her Sister's interest.
A respect for the obliging communicator has induced me to publish this supposed addition to the foregoing catalogue of Hogarth's works. But, without ocular proof, I cannot receive as genuine any one of the plates enumerated. The name of our Artist has more than once been subscribed to the wretched productions of others; and a collector at Dublin must have had singular good fortune indeed, if he has met with seven authentic curiosities unknown to the most confidential friends of Hogarth, and the most industrious connoisseurs about London. I may add, that two, if not three, of the above-mentioned anti-ministeral pieces, appeared in 1762, the very year in which our artist was appointed Serjeant Painter. Till that period he is unsuspected of having engaged his pencil in the service of politicks; and T. Baldwin (perhaps a fictitious name) is not known to have been on any former occasion his publisher. So much for the probability of Hogarth's having ushered performances like these into the world.
Chance, and the kindness of my friends, have not enabled me to form a more accurate series of Hogarth's labours. Those of the collector, however, are still incomplete, unless he can furnish himself with a specimen of several other pieces, said, I think, to have been produced a little before our artist's marriage. I forbear to keep my readers in suspense on the occasion. Hogarth once taking up some plain ivory fishes that lay on his future wife's card-table, observed how much was wanting to render them natural representations. Having delivered this remark with becoming gravity, he proceeded to engrave scales, fins, &c. on each of them. A few impressions have been taken from these curiosities, which remain in Mrs. Hogarth's possession. As a button decorated by her husband has been received into the foregoing catalogue of his works, it can hardly be disgraced by this brief mention of the ornaments he bestowed on a counter.
There are three large volumes in quarto by Lavater, a minister at Zurich (with great numbers of plates), on Physiognomy. Among these are two containing several groups of figures from different prints of Hogarth, together with the portraits of Lord Lovat and Wilkes. For what particular purpose they are introduced, remains to me a secret.[1]