Mr. Hogarth frequently asserted that no man was so ill qualified
to form a true judgment of pictures as the professed connoisseur;
whose taste being originally formed upon imitations, and confined to
the manners of Masters, had seldom any reference to Nature. Under
this conviction, his subjects were selected for the crowd rather
than the critic;[1] and explained in that universal language common
to the world, rather than in the _lingua technica_ of the arts,
which is sacred to the scientific. Without presuming to support his
hypothesis, I have endeavoured to follow his example.
My original design was to have comprised in one volume a moral and
analytical description of seventy-eight prints; but as the work
advanced, such variety of anecdote and long train of _et cetera_
clung to the narrative, that these limits were found too narrow. With
the explanation of fifteen additional plates, the letterpress has
expanded to near seven hundred pages.
Where the artist has been made a victim to poetical or political
prejudice, without meaning to be his panegyrist, I have endeavoured
to rescue his memory from unmerited obloquy. Where his works have
been misconceived or misrepresented, I have attempted the true
reading. In my essay at an illustration of the prints, with a
description of what I conceive the comic and moral tendency of
each, there is the best information I could procure concerning the
relative circumstances, occasionally interspersed with such desultory
conversation as frequently occurred in turning over a volume of his
prints. Though the notes may not always have an immediate relation to
the engravings, I hope they will seldom be found wholly unconnected
with the subjects.
Such mottoes as were engraven on the plates are inserted; but where
a print has been published without any inscription, I have either
selected or written one. Errors in either parody or verse with the
signature E, being written by the editor, are submitted to that
tribunal from whose candour he hopes pardon for every mistake or
inaccuracy which may be found in these volumes.