marriage.

William Hogarth was born November 10, and baptised Nov. 28, 1697, in the
parish of St. Bartholomew the Great, in London; to which parish, it is
said, in the Biographia Britannica, he was afterwards a benefactor.

The school of Hogarth's father, in 1712, was in the parish of St.
Martin, Ludgate. In the register of that parish, therefore, the date of
his death, it was natural to suppose, might be found; but the register
has been searched to no purpose.

Hogarth seems to have received no other education than that of a
mechanic, and his outset in life was unpropitious. Young Hogarth was
bound apprentice to a silversmith (whose name was Gamble) of some
eminence; by whom he was confined to that branch of the trade, which
consists in engraving arms and cyphers upon the plate. While thus
employed, he gradually acquired some knowledge of drawing; and, before
his apprenticeship expired, he exhibited talent for caricature. "He felt
the impulse of genius, and that it directed him to painting, though
little apprised at that time of the mode Nature had intended he should
pursue."

The following circumstance gave the first indication of the talents with
which Hogarth afterwards proved himself to be so liberally endowed.

During his apprenticeship, he set out one Sunday, with two or three
companions, on an excursion to Highgate. The weather being hot, they
went into a public-house; where they had not long been, before a quarrel
arose between some persons in the same room; from words they soon got to
blows, and the quart pots being the only missiles at hand, were sent
flying about the room in glorious confusion. This was a scene too
laughable for Hogarth to resist. He drew out his pencil, and produced on
the spot one of the most ludicrous pieces that ever was seen; which
exhibited likenesses not only of the combatants engaged in the affray,
but also of the persons gathered round them, placed in grotesque
attitudes, and heightened with character and points of humour.

On the expiration of his apprenticeship, he entered into the academy in
St. Martin's Lane, and studied drawing from the life: but in this his
proficiency was inconsiderable; nor would he ever have surpassed
_mediocrity_ as a painter, if he had not penetrated through external
form to character and manners. "It was character, passions, the soul,
that his genius was given him to copy."

The engraving of arms and shop-bills seems to have been his first
emplo