Ireland, John: Hogarth illustrated (Band 2,3): Nature (London, 1793)

gO MOSRS BEFORE H-IARAOHS DAUGHTER.

Considered as a whole, this picture has a more
historic air than we often find in the works of Ho-
garth. The royal Egyptian is graceful, and in
some degree elevated.* The treasurer is marked
with an austere dignity, and the Jewess and child,
with nature. The s'cene is superb, and the distant
prospect of pyramids, etc. highly picturesque, and
appropriate to the country. To exhibit this scene,
the artist has placed the groups at such a distance
as crowd the corners, and leave the centre unoc-
cupied. As the Greeks are said to have received
the rudiments of art from Egypt, the line of
beauty on the base of a pillar is properly intro-
duced. A crocodile creeping from under the
stately chair, may be intended to mark the neigh-
bourhood of the Nile, but is a poor and forced
conceit.

■ The head is said to be copied from a youth of the name
of Sea ton. The altitude and genera] air very much resemble
that of Dalilab, in a picture painted by Vandyke, of Samp-
son seized by the Philistines, now in the Emperor's gallery