J. N.
[1] Prints have, of late years, been judiciously rated according to the quality of their impressions. But the very term impression, as applied to copper-plates, perhaps is a novelty among us. If we refer to the earliest and most valuable assemblage of portraits (such as that catalogued by Ames, afterwards purchased by Dr. Fothergill, and lately sold to Mr. Thane), we shall have little reason to suppose any regard was once paid to a particular of so much importance. As fast as heads were met with, they were indiscriminately received; and the faintest proofs do not appear to have been excluded at a time when the strongest might easily have been procured. In consequence of an àmás so carelessly formed, the volumes already mentioned, were found to display alternately the most beautiful and the most defective specimens of the graphic art.
J. N. had once thoughts of adding a list of the copies made from the works of Hogarth; but finding them to be numerous, beyond expectation, has desisted from a task he could not easily accomplish. This pursuit, however, has enabled him to suggest yet another caution to his readers. Some of the early invaders of Hogarth's property were less audacious than the rest; and, forbearing to make exact imitations of his plates, were content with only borrowing particular circumstances from each of them, which they worked up into a similar fable. A set of The Rake's Progress, in which the figures were thus disguised and differently grouped, has been lately found. But since the rage of collection broke out with its present vehemence, those dealers who have met with any such diversified copies, have been desirous of putting them off either as the first thoughts of Hogarth, or as the inferior productions of elder artists on whose designs he had improved. There, is also a very small set of The Rake's Progress, contrived and executed with the varieties already mentioned; and even this has been offered to sale under the former of these descriptions. Thus, as Shakspeare says, While we shut the gate upon one imposition, another knocks at the door.
It may not be impertinent to conclude these cautions with another notice for the benefit of unexperienced collectors, who in their choice of prints usually prefer the blackest. The earliest copies of Hogarth's works are often fainter than such as have been retouched. The excellence of the former consists in clearness as well as strength; but strength only is the characteristic of the latter. The first and third copies of The Harlot's Progress will abundantly illustrate my remark, which, however, is confined to good impressions of the plates in either state; for some are now to be met with that no more possess the recommendation of transparency than that of force. I may add, that when plates are much worn, it is customary to load them with a double quantity of colour, that their weakness, as far as possible, may escape the eye of the purchaser. This practice the copper-plate printers facetiously entitle—coaxing; and, by the aid of it, the deeper strokes of the graver which are not wholly obliterated, become clogged with ink, while every finer trace, which was of a nature less permanent, is no longer visible. Thus in the modern proofs of Garrick in King Richard III. the armour, tent, and habit, continue to have considerable strength, though the delicate markings in the face, and the shadows on the inside of the hand, have long since disappeared. Yet this print, even in its faintest state, is still preferable to such smutty impositions as have been recently described. The modern impressions of The Fair, and The March to Finchley, will yet more forcibly illustrate the same remark.
To the original paintings of Hogarth already enumerated may be added a Breakfast-piece, preserved in Hill-Street, Berkeley-Square, in the possession of William Strode, Esq; of Northaw, Herts. It contains portraits of his father the late William Strode, Esq; his mother Lady Anne (who was sister to the late Earl of Salisbury), Colonel Strode, and Dr. Arthur Smith (afterwards Archbishop of Dublin).
[ADDITION.]
Four Times of the Day, p. [250].