Whoever desires to trace the life of this English artist--to note him in his apprenticeship--when he tamed as well as his rough nature would permit, his hand to the delicate graving so cherished by his master, Ellis Gamble; and when freed from his apprenticeship, he sought art through the stirring scenes of life, saying quaintly enough, that "copying other men's works resembled pouring wine out of one vessel into another; there was no increase of quantity, and the flavor of the vintage was liable to evaporate;"--whoever would study the great, as well as the small, peculiarities of the painter who converted his thumb-nail into a palette, and while transcribing characters and events both rapidly and faithfully, complained of his "constitutional idleness:"--whenever, we say, our readers feel desirous of revelling in the biography of so diligent, so observing, so faithful, so brave a spirit, we should send them to our old friend Allan Cunningham's most interesting history of the man. Honest Allan had much in common with our great national artist: though of different countries, they sprung from the same race--sturdy yeomen; they were alike lovers of independence, fighting for the best part of life manfully and faithfully enjoying the noble scorn of wrong, and battling for the right from the cradle to the grave. Self-educated--that is to say, educated by Nature, which gave and nourished his high intellect and independent soul--Allan could comprehend and appreciate the manly bearing and stern self-reliance of the painter, whose best resources were in himself; thus the biography of Hogarth is among the finest examples of its class which our language supplies. Allan's sympathies were with his subject; and his knowledge also came to his aid: for the poet was thoroughly imbued with a love of art.
Allan Cunningham was a better disciplinarian, and less prone to look for or care for enjoyment, than Hogarth; though we have many pleasant memories how he truly relished both music and conversation. But there was more sentiment in the Scottish poet than in the English painter; and the deep dark eyes of the Scot had more of fervor and less of sarcasm in their brightness. We repeat, Allan, of all writers, could thoroughly appreciate Hogarth; and his biography is written _con amore_. He says that "all who love the dramatic representations of actual life,--all who have hearts to be gladdened by humor,--all who are pleased with judicious and well-directed satire,--all who are charmed with the ludicrous looks of popular folly, and all who can be moved with the pathos of human suffering, are admirers of Hogarth." But to our thinking; Hogarth had a calling even more elevated than the Scottish poet has given him in this eloquent summing-up of his attributes; "he is one of our greatest teachers--a TEACHER to whom is due the _highest_ possible honor; and the more we feel the importance of the teacher, the more we value those who teach well. In grappling with folly and in combating with crimes, he was compelled to reveal the nature of that he proposed to satirize; he was obliged to set up sin in its high place before he could crown it with infamy." The times were full of internal as well as foreign disturbance, and Hogarth's studio was no hermitage to exclude passing events or their promoters. He lived with the living, moving _present_,--his engravings being his pleasures; portraits, as they are now to many a high-hearted man of talent, his means of subsistence; heavy weights of mortality that fetter and clog the ascending spirit.