As an artist, Hogarth occupies a position between the
seventeenth-century Dutch painters of low life and the English
painters that succeeded him, who expressed the ideals of a refined
society. His portraits have something of the strength of Rembrandt's.
His street and tavern scenes rival Jan Steen's; but behind the mere
representation of brutality, vice, crime, and misery we perceive not
merely a skilled craftsman but a moral being, whom contact with misery
deeply stirs and the sight of wickedness moves to indignation.
After 1720 a succession of distinguished painters were born in England.
Many of them first saw the light in obscure villages in the depths
of the country. Reynolds came from Devonshire, Gainsborough from
Suffolk, Romney from the Lake country.
The eighteenth century was a time when politicians and men of letters
had the habit of gathering in the coffee-houses of London--forerunners
of the clubs of to-day. Conversation was valued as one of life's best
enjoyments, and the varied society of actors, authors, and politicians,
in which it flourished best, could only be obtained in the town.
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