es in this direction, of a Mr.
Nichols following him; and of the Rev. Mr. Townley being much busied on
that Preface, wherein Lomazzo rubs shoulders with Michelangelo and
Protogenes, and where the modern mortal hears with astonishment of "the
sublime part which is a real _je ne scai quoi_," and which, "being the
most important part to all connoisseurs, I shall call a harmonious
propriety, which is a touching or moving unity, or a pathetic agreement,
&c."

But it would be unfair to judge the Analysis by this preface, which
admittedly befogged even poor Hogarth himself. Suffice to say here that
he seeks to divide his elusive element, which might have defied even the
dialectic of Socrates, into its "principles of Fullness, Variety,
Uniformity, Simplicity, Intricacy, and Quantity; _all which co-operate
in the production of beauty, mutually correcting, and restraining each
other occasionally_"; and that the essay, even if entirely inadequate as
a philosophical treatment of the subject, contains many useful
suggestions and shrewd observations.

It had been enough surely for one short life-time to have been the
greatest pictorial humorist of his age, to have tried to climb above
Allegri and Titian, and to have traced in thought Beauty's self to her
hidden source; but behold our ill-judged artist plunging now, with equal
assurance and courage, into that tumultuous sea of English
eighteenth-century political strife. The result was this time fatal to
his peace, and probably even to his life. John Wilkes was not a very
safe man to attack carelessly, nor yet likely to remain quiescent under
this treatment; and Hogarth's print of the "Times," published in
September of 1762, provoked a very savage rejoinder in No. 17 of the
_North Briton_. Hogarth's reply was a caricature of the popular leader;
who then engaged one of his supporters, named Churchill, to retaliate in
an angry epistle to the artist. Hogarth again replies with the
graver--that terrible weapon in his practised hands--and draws a
portrait of "The Bruiser, once the Reverend Churchill," shown in the
form of a dancing bear, with club plastered with lies, and a tankard of
porter at his side.

"Never," says one of his earlier critics, "did two angry men with their
abilities throw mud with less dexterity; but during this period of
pictorial and poetic warfare (so virulent and disgraceful to all the
parties) Hogarth's health declined visibly." A presentiment of his end
seems