is appearance on the
artistic stage was a quality which was eminently serviceable to English
painting. Though of humble parents, his honest and forceful character
won for him the daughter of Sir James Thornhill in marriage (by
elopement) and his sturdy talent in painting secured for him his
father-in-law's forgiveness and encouragement. Thornhill came of a good,
old Wiltshire family, and had been knighted by George I. for his
sterling merits as much as for his skill in painting and decorating the
royal palaces and the houses of noblemen. His place among English
artists is not a very high one, but he deserves the credit of having
stood out against the monopoly that was being established by foreigners
in this country in every department of artistic work, and in this sense
he is a still earlier forerunner of the great English painters, than his
more forcible son-in-law.

If Hogarth had been content to follow the beaten track of portraiture as
his main pursuit, and let the country's morals take care of themselves,
he would in all probability have attained much greater heights as a
painter. But his nature would not allow him to do this. His character
was too strong and his originality too uncontrollable. There is enough
evidence among the works which have survived him, especially in those
which were never finished, to show that his accomplishments in oil
painting were of a very high order indeed. I need only refer to the
famous head in the National Gallery known as _The Shrimp Girl_ to
explain what I mean. In this surprisingly vivacious and charming sketch
we see something that is not inferior to Hals, in its broad truth and
its quick seizure of the essentials of what had to be rendered. In
another unfinished piece, which is now in the South London Art Gallery
at Camberwell, we see the same powerful qualities differently exhibited,
for it is not a single head this time, but a sketch of a ballroom where
everybody is dancing, except one gentleman who is even more vivid than
the rest, in the act of mopping his head at the open window. There is
nothing grotesque in this picture, but it is all perfectly life-like and
wonderfully sketched in.

In his finished pictures Hogarth does not appear to such great
advantage--I mean as a painter; but it must be remembered that in his
day there was little example for him to follow in the higher departments
of his art. Nor had he ever been out of England to see fine pictures on
the Continen