, so marked with genius in the execution,
excited the most eager attention of the public. At a time when England
was coldly inattentive to every thing which related to the arts, so
desirous were all ranks of people of seeing how this little domestic
story was delineated, that there were eight piratical imitations,
besides two copies in a smaller size than the original, published, by
permission of the author, for Thomas Bakewell. The whole series were
copied on fan-mounts, representing the six plates, three on one side,
and three on the other. It was transferred from the copper to the stage,
in the form of a pantomime, by Theophilus Cibber; and again represented
in a ballad opera, entitled, the Jew Decoyed; or, the Harlot's
Progress.

[Illustration: THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS.

PLATE 6.

THE FUNERAL.]

THE LECTURE.

DATUR VACUUM.

"No wonder that science, and learning profound,
In Oxford and Cambridge so greatly abound,
When so many take thither a little each day,
And we see very few who bring any away."

I was once told by a fellow of a college, says Mr. Ireland, that he
disliked Hogarth, because he had in this print ridiculed one of the
Universities. I endeavoured to defend the artist, by suggesting that
this was not intended as a picture of what Oxford is now, but of what it
was in days long past: that it was that kind of general satire with
which no one should be offended, &c. &c. His reply was too memorable to
be forgotten. "Sir, the Theatre, the Bench, the College of Physicians,
and the Foot Guards, are fair objects of satire; but those venerable
characters who have devoted their whole lives to feeding the lamp of
learning with hallowed oil, are too sacred to be the sport of an
uneducated painter. Their unremitting industry embraced the whole circle
of the sciences, and in their logical disputations they displayed an
acuteness that their followers must contemplate with astonishment. The
present state of Oxford it is not necessary for me to analyze, as you
contend that the satire is not directed against that."

In answer to this observation, which was uttered with becoming gravity,
a gentleman present remarked, as follows. "For some of the ancient
customs of this seminary of learning, I have much respect, but as to
their dry treatises on logic, immaterial dissertations on materiality,
and abstruse investigations of useless subjects, they are mere literary
legerdemain. Their disputation