Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 8.djvu/85

WILLIAM HOGARTH 247 WILLIAM HOGARTH (169 7- i 764) I was born," says Hogarth, in his Me- moirs of himself, " in the city of Lon- don, November 10, 1697. My father's pen, like that of many authors, did not enable him to do more than put me in a way of shifting for myself. As I had naturally a good eye and a fondness for drawing, shows of all sorts gave me uncommon pleasure when an infant ; and mimicry, common to all children, was remarkable in me. An early access to a neighboring painter drew my attention from play, and I was, at every possible opportunity, employed in making drawings. I picked up an acquaintance of the same turn, and soon learned to draw the alphabet with great correctness. My exer- cises when at school were more remarkable for the ornaments which adorned them than for the exercise itself. In the former I soon found that blockheads with better memories could much surpass me, but for the latter I was particularly distinguished." To this account of Hogarth's childhood we have only to add that his father, an enthusiastic and laborious scholar, who, like many of his craft, owed little to the favor of fortune, consulted these indications of talent as well as his means would allow, and bound his son apprentice to a silver-plate engraver. But Ho- garth aspired after something higher than drawing ciphers and,coats-of-arms ; and before the expiration of his indentures he had made himself a good draughtsman, and obtained considerable knowledge of coloring. It was his ambition to be- come distinguished as an artist ; and not content with being the mere copier of other men's productions, he sought to combine the functions of the painter with those of the engraver, and to gain the power of delineating his own ideas and the fruits of his acute observation. He has himself explained the nature of his views in a passage which is worth attention : " Many reasons led me to wish that I could find the shorter path — fix forms and characters in my mind — and instead of copying the lines, try to read the lan- guage, and, if possible, find the grammar of the art by bringing into one focus the various observations I have made, and then trying by my power on the can vas how far my plan enabled me to combine and apply them to practice. For this purpose I considered what various ways, and to what different purposes, the