Ireland, John: Hogarth illustrated (Band 1): William Hogarth (London, 1793)

THE FOUR TIMES OF THE DAT.

In the Progress of an Harlot, and the Adven-
tares of a Rake, Mr. Hogarth displayed his powers
of painting history. Holding the mirror up to
Nature, he shews

" Virtue her own feature, Vice her own image, and the
" very age and body of the time its form and pressure."

Had he exhibited no other specimen of his art,
these fourteen prints would have given him a
right to the title of a moral painter, and thus was
he denominated by the late Mr. Fielding, in his
Adventures of Joseph Andrews.

In the series before us, he treads poetic ground.
A description of the day, particularly the morning,
has been generally deemed the bard's peculiar
province. Considering Homer as the father of
poesy, the whole family of Apollo have echoed
his notes, and run their divisions of fancy upon his
scale. Widi one of them,

'* The morn, wak'd by the circling hours,
" Unbars the gates of light."

With another, she " sows the earth with orient
" pearl." Attended by a star as gentleman usher,

" She draws night's humid curtains, and proclaims
" The new-born day forth dawning from the east."