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Great English Painters, Selected Biographies From 'lives of Eminent British Painters', Ed. by W. Sharp
Great English Painters Selected Biographies From 'lives of Eminent British Painters' Ed by W Sharp Author:Allan Cunningham General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1886 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: WILLIAM HOGARTH. William Hogarth was born in the parish of St. Bartholomew the Great, London, on the 10th of December 1697. That he was baptised on the 28th of the same month we have the authority of his own manuscripts -- the parish registers have been examined for confirmation with fruitless solicitude. He was a descendant of the family of Hogard, Hogart, or Hogarth, of Kirkby-Thore, in the county of Westmoreland ; his father being the youngest of three brothers -- the eldest of whom lived and died in the condition of yeoman, on a small hereditary freehold in the vale Nichols says, in his earlier years he wrote himself Hogart or Hogard, but in this he is certainly incorrect. His father to his books and his letters added Richard Hogarth, and there is no reason to believe that the son, even for a time, refused to adopt an improvement so graceful. That the name, in London pronunciation, would have the concluding th hardened into t, there can be little doubt; such is the fate of all northern names with similar terminations. Thus in conversation he was called Hogart, which the following lines, from Swift's "Legion Club," sufficiently prove ; -- " How I want thee, humorous Hogart I Thon, I hear, a pleasant rogue art I Were but you and I acquainted, Every monster should be painted ; You should try your graving tools On this odious group of fools ; Draw the beasts as I describe them From their features while I gibe them. Draw them like, for I assure-a You'll need no caricatura ; Draw them so that we may trace All the soul in every face,' of Bampton. The second held the plough at ...« less