her size called forth more remark than admiration. She wore a very plain cotton dress, made with no attempt at adornment, and coming up to her throat, with no relief but a narrow cambric frill. Her thick hair was plaited tightly at the back of her head; and her large, honest face beamed upon Eleanor with no softening shadow of falling tresses or coloured ribbon : but it was a very good face, nevertheless.

"How is your cold, Netta?" asked Eleanor. "You are as hoarse as an old raven."

"Yes, I know I am. It is so kind of you to come, Eleanor."

"Well, I came to please myself, you see; it is so terribly dull in the drawing-room at Stellafont; nothing new; we do lead the most monotonous life. Come, sit down and be cosy, and tell me what you have been up to, to-day." 'So I will; and I will go and coax nurse to let us have a cup of nursery tea; and I will fetch my knitting, if you will sit down and make yourself comfortable."

"I'll try," said Eleanor; and then when Netta was gone, the thought did strike her that it must be a great deal duller in that schoolroom, with no view but of the kitchen garden, and the roof of Kewley cottages beyond, than it was in the spacious drawing-room at Stellafont, with its pictures and books, and all the pretty things the taste of her step-mother had gathered there.

"Nurse will send Fanny with the tea," said Netta, returning with her full-moon face radiant and pleased.

Just as the two girls were settling themselves, one in the well-worn easy chair, the other on a stool with four straight legs covered with a dingy piece of carpet, a little voice was heard at the door.

"Sissie, may me and Johnnie come in, and you tell us stories ?"

"Oh! pray don't have the children," Eleanor said. "I can't enjoy anything if they come." Netta sprang up, and went to the door. "Wait till the clock strikes five, and then you shall come Charlie," she said.

There was a smothered murmur of dissatisfaction; but after a minute's hesitation, the two little boys retreated to the nursery again, and Netta returned to her friend.

"What a bother those children must be, said Eleanor! I suppose you have been teaching them their A B C this morning, and you must have had enough of them?"

"They are good little boys," said Netta, "and I only find them a bother sometimes, not often. You know, Nellie, mamma left them and baby to my care."

Eleanor did not answer; she was lying back in the chair watching Netta's fingers as they moved the needles swiftly round and round the stocking she was knitting.

"Netta, I wish I were as good as you are. Stop! yes, I wish I was as good; not like you exactly, you understand."

"Of course I do," Netta answered brightly. "It would be a poor exchange, I must say, for you, to grow like me."

"Look here, Netta: whether it is the wet weather, or whatever it is, I am dreadfully dull; and I have been for a week. It seems to me if my life is always to be so quiet and unexciting, that I shall go mad. And nobody understands it. As to mamma, why, she has the sweetest temper; she is always pleased, and one can't catch her out in a grumble. Papa sits in that den of his day after day; writes and reads and teaches us; and cares for nothing else. If people call on him, he can't be dragged out to see them. And as to returning their visits, he never thinks of it. Mamma has always to take his card. Then of an evening we play chess and read some fusty old book, well enough in its way. And, oh! I don't know-Netta! pray stop fidgetting away with those needles and talk to me; or listen to me."

"I am listening," said Netta, quietly, “and I think-"

"Well, what do you think? Speak out." "I think you ought to be very happy, Eleanor; and never dull or out of spirits." "That's all very well-ought, and must, and so on; but it does not alter the case."

"There is only one way to alter things that we don't like. Of course, Eleanor, you know a great deal more than I do," said Netta, humbly, "and if-"

"If what?" said Eleanor, tapping her foot impatiently on the fender: 'If, what?"

"If we forget ourselves, and what we like, and what we don't like, and think of others, and try to please them, there is no time to be dull and discontented. Papa has taught me this. And then, Eleanor, you know, what is

God's will for us must be best."

"Oh, I don't understand that," said Eleanor, "that is such an awfully serious way of looking at the concerns of a little person like me.

I know mamma, and your father, of course, who is a clergyman, can talk like that."

"It is not talk," said Netta; "talk is no good—it is true and real-I feel that."

"Oh, I dare say; and you have been confirmed, and are so good and religious; but I am not. And-well, let's change the subject, and I will tell you that if it is fine to-morrow, which it won't be, and your cold is better, we are going to Springsholme, and you are to come too-and we'll have a little fun for once."

"Thanks, Eleanor. I'm sure you do a great deal to make my life pleasant, and I often wonder how I got on before we came here, and. I could have you for a friend, and come over to Stellafont for my lessons."

"You are a good old thing," said Eleanor; "there's no doubt about it."

"Wait one minute, Eleanor. I want to tell you something, before we forget what we have been saying to each other. It is some words Papa quoted in his sermon last Sunday evening."

"I wasn't there," said Eleanor; "well, let us hear."

And Netta repeated, very gravely, these lines which are gathered from the wisdom and spiritual life of a saint of old,-“ A man

that seeketh himself shall get this punishment-that he shall find himself."

"I asked Papa about the words when we walked home from church, and he said 'they showed the root of a great deal of the misery and trouble in the world; that often when we seek our own gratification, and think how we can best get what we like, and avoid what we dislike, we are allowed to succeed, and then we find in ourselves and our selfish aims that which is the bitterest sorrow of our whole lives.' I can't say this half as well as Papa did, but that is what he meant."

Eleanor made no answer; and then, as the clock struck the first stroke of five, the door was thrown open, and little Johnnie and Charlie came rushing in, secure in Netta's promise that she would not send them away, if they waited till five o'clock. They were by no means abashed by Eleanor's presence, but took up their accustomed places on the hearthrug, with sturdy defiant mien, and said, "Now, sissy, now amuse us, and tell us a story."

Eleanor resumed her hat and cloak, and left Netta to gratify them, saying to herself, "I am glad I am not in Netta's place!" (To be continued.)

facts and dates connected with his life and principal works; and, if possible, induce the reader to study and find out for himself, amid innumerable touches of quaint humour, the moral teachings, tragic or comic, grave or gay, but always true and deep, with which his compositions are everywhere stored.

Hogarth was born in London, in A.D. 1697. His father was at that time a corrector of the press, and came originally from Westmoreland. At fourteen years of age, Hogarth-whose taste for drawing, as he himself tells us, was early developed, and manifested itself in the ornamental letters and designs with which he delighted to adorn his school exercises-was apprenticed to Ellis Gamble, a silversmith in Cranbourne Street, and engraved crests and coats of arms on silver plates and tea-spoons. At the expiration of his term, in A.D. 1718, he took to execute plates in copper for the booksellers; the chief of these being illustrations of "Hudibras” (1726), and "Mortraye's Travels."

In A.D. 1730, he married Jane, the only daughter of Sir James Thornhill-he who painted the dome of St. Paul's, the refectory and saloon at Greenwich Hospital, the hall at Blenheim, and some of the apartments at Hampton Court-and under whom he had studied. This marriage was without the consent of the Thornhill family; but within two years they were quite reconciled to their gifted son-in-law. Hogarth took for a time to portrait painting; what he called his "conversation pieces" meeting with considerable success. After painting a few pictures in the historical and classical styles, he resolved to follow the bent of his own genius, reading and studying men directly, rather than through schools of art or books, and produced a succession of satirical paintings, reflecting very pointedly on the social abuses of his time.

In A.D. 1734, appeared "The Harlot's Progress"; in A.D. 1735, "The Rake's Progress"; in A.D. 1745," Marriage à la Mode"; (now in the National Gallery.)

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'Although the moral tendency of his pencil is unexceptional, and he laboured all his life to illustrate the axiom that

'Vice is a monster of such frightful mien

As, to be hated, needs but to be seen,'

the change in our taste since Hogarth drew (and in many respects the change is an improvement)," would prevent us from exhibiting

or wishing to dwell on certain of his admirable works, which, however, were quite applicable to his time, and then, not only wholesome and admissible, but greatly needed.

Lamb says: "His graphic representations are indeed books; they have the teeming, fruitful, suggestive meaning of words. Other pictures we look at,-his prints we read."

In illustration of this remark we would instance the marriage scene in "The Rake's Progress" series, which exhibits several strokes of Hogarth's peculiar humour; such as, the creed destroyed by damp; the commandments cracked; and the money-slit of the poor's-box covered over with a spider's web! Thus he accumulates characteristic incidents and exaggerates salient peculiarities, making every object, repetition, or aside, subserve the one serious purpose which he has ever in view.

"Further, his pictures are in the strictest sense original. Neither for subject nor treatment is he indebted to any other writer or painter. Story, character, and treatment, are alike entirely his own. His invention is unbounded and every part of his picture, whatever be the subject, teems with meaning; and, what is a prime virtue in a moral satirist, the meaning is always perfectly clear."

Among other works we can merely name "The Enraged Musician": (Lamb remarks the "intense thinking faces" of the knifegrinder and flute-player in this picture.) "Southwark Fair"; "The Cockpit"; "The Election" (a series of four); "The Countryyard Inn"; "March of the Guards to Finchley"; "The Distressed Poet"; "A Midnight Conversation"; "The Oratorio"; "The Laughing Audience"; and "The Politician"; any one of which would furnish ample material for a volume.

The "Industry and Idleness" series (ten plates) ought to be circulated broadcast, for the valuable lessons they teach. The Germans have a commentary on Hogarth, in five volumes, 8vo, which was published at Göttingen, by G. C. Lichtenbergh, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University there, as far back as A.D. 1794-9; and one of the volumes is entirely devoted to the elucidation of this one series.

A more recent writer has said of it :-"We have now traced the Industrious and the Idle Apprentice to that point when their future career must be determined. The one is a magistrate of the first city in the world-the

other is an apprehended felon. The course of their progress, each to such different results, is natural and certain. Is there anything of chance in these violent contrasts? Look at the history of all criminals-it is that of Hogarth's apprentice. The stages are idleness, depraved excitements, contempt of the Sabbath, profligate companionship, disobedience, contempt of the affections which God implanted in us for our happiness and our instruction, obduracy of heart, desperation, and death by the laws. Look at the history of all those who have advanced themselves from small beginnings to wealth and honour-it is that of Hogarth's apprentice. The stages are industry, calm enjoyments, love of social worship, few and tried friends, obedience, cherishing of pure affections, perseverance in well-doing, honest ambition, public respect. Hogarth kept strictly to the true and the probable in both his examples."

Of" Gin Lane," Charles Lamb writes (Works, pp. 11-542, Moxon, 1852):-

"It is the fashion with those who cry up the great historical school in this country, at the head of which Sir Joshua Reynolds is placed, to exclude Hogarth from that school, as an artist of an inferior and vulgar class. Those persons seem to me to confound the painting of subjects in common or vulgar life, with the being a vulgar artist. The quantity of thought which Hogarth crowds into every picture would alone unvulgarise every subject which he might choose.

"Let us take the lowest of his subjects, the print called Gin Lane. Here is plenty of poverty and low stuff to disgust, upon a superficial view; and accordingly a cold spectator feels himself immediately disgusted and repelled. I have seen many turn away from it, not being able to bear it. The same persons would perhaps have looked with great complacency upon Poussin's celebrated picture of the Plegue at Athens. Disease and Death and bewildering Terror in Athenian garments are endurable, and come, as the delicate critics express it, within the limits of pleasurable sensation.' But the scenes of their own St. Giles's, delineated by their own countryman, are too shocking to think of. Yet if we could abstract our minds from the fascinating colours of the picture, and forget the coarse execution (in some respects) of the print, intended as it was to be a cheap plate, accessible to the poorer sort of people, for whose instruction it was done, I

think we could have no hesitation in conferring the palm of superior genius upon Hogarth, comparing this work of his with Poussin's picture. There is more of imagination in it-that power which draws all things to one,-which makes things animate and inanimate, beings with their attributes, subjects, and their accessories, take one colour and serve to one effect. Everything in the print, to use a vulgar expression, tells. Every part is full of strange images of death. It is perfectly amazing and astounding to look at. Not only the two prominent figures the woman and the half-dead man, which are as terrible as anything which Michael Angelo ever drew; but everything else in the print, contributes to bewilder and stupify,-the very houses, as I heard a friend of mine express it, tumbling all about in various directions, seem drunk-seem absolutely reeling from the effect of that diabolical spirit of frenzy which goes forth over the whole composition.

"To show the poetical and almost prophetical conception in the artist, one little circumstance may serve. Not content with the dying and dead figures, which he has strewed in profusion over the proper scene of the action, he shows you what (of a kindred nature) is passing beyond it. Close by the shell, in which, by direction of the parish beadle, a man is depositing his wife, is an old wall, which, partaking of the universal decay around it, is tumbling to pieces. Through a gap in this wall are seen three figures which appear to make a part in some funeral procession which is passing by on the other side of the wall, out of the sphere of the composition. This extending of the interest beyond the bounds of the subject could only have been conceived by a grand genius.

The spectator must meet the artist in his conceptions half-way; and it is peculiar to the confidence of high genius alone to trust so much to spectators or readers. Lesser artists show everything distinct and full, as they require an object to be made out to themselves before they can comprehend it

When I think of the power displayed in this (I will not hesitate to say it) sublime print, it seems to me the extreme narrowness of system alone, and of that rage for classification, by which, in matters of taste at least, we are perpetually perplexing, instead of arranging, our ideas, that would make us concede to the work of Poussin, above mentioned, and deny to this of Hogarth, the name of a grand