"I should add, that these remarks are made upon the first edition of this work. When the plates were much worn, they were altered in many parts. They have gained by the alterations, in point of design; but have lost in point of expression."
[A] The architect. Mr. Gilpin means—the gardener.
[B] I am authorized to observe, that this is no fault in our artist. The old church at Marybone was so little, that it would have stood within the walls of the present one, leaving at the same time sufficient room for a walk round it.
[13] Afterwards twice lord mayor of London. See p. [44].
[14] The same as that introduced in Plate II.
1736.
1. Two prints of Before and After. The two pictures, from which these prints are taken, were painted at the particular request of a certain vicious nobleman, whose name deserves no commemoration. The hero of them is said to have been designed for Chief Justice Willes. Hogarth repented of having engraved them; and almost every possessor of his works will wish they had been with-held from the public, as often as he is obliged to shew the volume that contains them to ladies. To omit them, is to mutilate the collection; to pin the leaves, on which they are pasted, together, is a circumstance that tends only to provoke curiosity; and to display them, would be to set decency at defiance. The painter who indulges himself, or his employers, in such representations, will forfeit the general praise he might have gained by a choice of less offensive subjects. We have an artist of no common merit, who has frequently disgraced his skill by scenes too luxuriant to appear in any situation but a brothel; and yet one of the most meretricious of his performances, but a few years ago, was exhibited by the Royal Academy. These prints, however, display almost the only instance in which Hogarth condescended to execute a subject proposed to him; for I am assured by one who knew him well, that his obstinacy on these occasions has often proved invincible. Like Shakspeare's Tully,
"——he would never follow any thing
That other men began."
In the later impressions from these plates, the scroll-work on the head-cloth, &c. of the bed, is rendered indistinct, by an injudicious attempt to strengthen the engraving. Mr. S. Ireland has the first sketch in oil of "Before."[1]