Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/635

In England. 605 rendered his name immortal, was the Harlot's Progress. It appeared in a series of six plates in 1734, and was received with general approbation. The next to follow was the Unices Progress, in a series of eight scenes, each complete in itself, and all uniting in relating a domestic history in a way at once natural, comic, satiric and serious. The folly of man, however, was not so warmly welcomed by the public as that of the woman had been. The fame of Hogarth was now so well established, that the popularity of his works excited printsellers to pirate his works, so much so that Hogarth applied to Parliament, and in 1735 obtained an Act for recognizing a legal copyright in engravings. In 1736 several more satires on the follies of London appeared. The Sleeping Congregation, in which a heavy parson is promoting, with all the alacrity of dulness, the slumber of his flock, was followed by the Distressed Poet, and Modern Midnight Conversation ; this last-named, in which most of the figures are portraits, carried the name of Hogarth into foreign lands, and is considered in France and Germany to be the best of his single works. The next print published was the Enraged Musician. It seems impossible to increase the annoyance of this sensitive mortal, who by the frogs on his coat appears to be a Frenchman, by the addition of any other din. * " This strange scene/' said a wit of the day, " deafens one to look at it." The next production, the Strolling Actresses, was, says Allan Cunningham, "one of the most imaginative and amusing of all the works of Hogarth." It is now lost. It is only possible to mention the next composition pieces, the six scenes of Marriage-a-la-Mode — representing profligacy in high life— which are in the National Gallery ;