villainous-looking figure on the prodigal's left, whose recommendation is seen in the letter he presents: "The Capt. is a man of honour, his sword may serve you." Meanwhile, a jockey holds before his master the cup he has won; and a tame poet in the corner seems to be invoking the Muses in unmerited praise of the same patron.

   In his next plate Hogarth passes to a scene of indescribable orgy; but all this satire on fashionable extravagance, which we have just noted in detail, is still more fully developed in his masterly Series of

    "Marriage à la Mode."

   Hogarth's oil paintings of this complete Series are in the London National Gallery, and it is instructive to compare these with the prints, the two first pictures of the Series being especially attractive in treatment. The second of these, representing the morning, when husband and wife awake to

    ennui

   from a night of dissipation, is peculiarly happy in spacing and composition, as my illustration may show; while Plate IV. of this Series, showing a reception of the Countess while at her toilet, gives an opening for a clever satire by our artist of the fashionable society of his day, which is as brilliant as any Venetian

   scene by Longhi, and the ensuing plates point the sequel to a life of folly. Nor has the artist forgotten here to give a side blow to the foreign element—which aroused his hostility, from the French dancing-master or

    perruquier

   to the great Italian Masters—Correggio's "Jupiter and Io" finding a place on the walls of her ladyship's bedroom, just as the "Choice of Paris" had been included in the Rake's

    levée

   ; and we shall note very soon that these allusions were not incidental, but far more probably intended.

   For Hogarth had now in these three series attained a reputation which he probably increased by his delightful studies of pure humour, among which "Modern Midnight Conversation," "The Sleeping Congregation," "Strolling Players in a Barn," "The Laughing Audience," "The Enraged Musician," and "The Distressed Poet" are to be especially commended, as well as that fine series of "The Four Times of the Day," in which last

    "Morning"

   (of which 

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