HOGARTH. 29
life. I have endeavoured to treat my sub-
jects as a dramatic writer; my picture is
my stage, and men and women my players,
who by means of certain actions and ges-
tures, are to exhibit a dumb show.*
" Before I had done any thing of much
consequence in this walk, I entertained
some hopes of succeeding in what the puf-
fers in books call the great style of history
painting; so that without having had a
stroke ofthisgrandbusiness before; I quit-
ted small portraits and familiar conversa-
tions, and, with a smile at my own teme-
rity, commenced history painter, and on a
great staircase at St. Bartholomew's hos-
pital, painted two Scripture stories, the Pool
of Bethesda, and the Good Samaritan, with
figures seven feet high. These I presented
to the charity ,-f and thought they might
* Plato wished that virtue could assume a visible
form; this style of delineation, gives one, to both virtue
and vice.
i For these paintings he was elected a governor of the
hospital.
On the top of the staircase, beneath the cornice, is the
life. I have endeavoured to treat my sub-
jects as a dramatic writer; my picture is
my stage, and men and women my players,
who by means of certain actions and ges-
tures, are to exhibit a dumb show.*
" Before I had done any thing of much
consequence in this walk, I entertained
some hopes of succeeding in what the puf-
fers in books call the great style of history
painting; so that without having had a
stroke ofthisgrandbusiness before; I quit-
ted small portraits and familiar conversa-
tions, and, with a smile at my own teme-
rity, commenced history painter, and on a
great staircase at St. Bartholomew's hos-
pital, painted two Scripture stories, the Pool
of Bethesda, and the Good Samaritan, with
figures seven feet high. These I presented
to the charity ,-f and thought they might
* Plato wished that virtue could assume a visible
form; this style of delineation, gives one, to both virtue
and vice.
i For these paintings he was elected a governor of the
hospital.
On the top of the staircase, beneath the cornice, is the