stal, in stays and high-heeled shoes, and
holding before her a hoop petticoat, somewhat larger than a fig-leaf; a
Cupid paring down a fat lady to a thin proportion, and another Cupid
blowing up a fire to burn a hoop petticoat, muff, bag, queue wig, &c. On
the dexter side is another picture, representing Monsieur Desnoyer,
operatically habited, dancing in a grand ballet, and surrounded by
butterflies, insects evidently of the same genus with this deity of
dance. On the sinister, is a drawing of exotics, consisting of queue and
bag-wigs, muffs, solitaires, petticoats, French heeled shoes, and other
fantastic fripperies.

Beneath this is a lady in a pyramidical habit walking the Park; and as
the companion picture, we have a blind man walking the streets.

The fire-screen is adorned with a drawing of a lady in a sedan-chair--

"To conceive how she looks, you must call to your mind
The lady you've seen in a lobster confined,
Or a pagod in some little corner enshrined."

As Hogarth made this design from the ideas of Miss Edwards, it has been
said that he had no great partiality for his own performance, and that,
as he never would consent to its being engraved, the drawing from which
the first print was copied, was made by the connivance of one of her
servants. Be that as it may, his ridicule on the absurdities of
fashion,--on the folly of collecting old china,--cookery,--card playing,
&c. is pointed, and highly wrought.

At the sale of Miss Edwards's effects at Kensington, the original
picture was purchased by the father of Mr. Birch, surgeon, of
Essex-street, Strand.

[Illustration: TASTE IN HIGH LIFE.]

THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS.

PLATE I.

"The snares are set, the plot is laid,
Ruin awaits thee,--hapless maid!
Seduction sly assails thine ear,
And _gloating, foul desire_ is near;
Baneful and blighting are their smiles,
Destruction waits upon their wiles;
Alas! thy guardian angel sleeps,
Vice clasps her hands, and virtue weeps."

The general aim of historical painters, says Mr. Ireland, has been to
emblazon some signal exploit of an exalted and distinguished character.
To go through a series of actions, and conduct their hero from the
cradle to the grave, to give a history upon canvass, and tell a story
with the pencil, few of them attempted. Mr. Hogarth saw, with the
intuitive eye of genius, that one path to the Temple of Fame was yet
untrodden: he took Nature