In Development: William Hogarth Prints: Comparing the Later Editions

Great Caricatures • Articles & Galleries •

Prints by Hogarth:
Publishers
& Editions

Comparing the
Later Editions:
Four Prints
of an Election

Plate I

Plate II

Plate III

Plate IV

Piracies & Copies
After Hogarth

Tim Bobbin:
Human Passions
Delineated

James Gillray
Galleries

The Golden Age
of the English
Engraver

Books on
British Caricature

Books on
William Hogarth

Books on
James Gillray

In Development • In Development • In Development

WILLIAM HOGARTH PRINTS

Comparing the Later Editions

Four Prints of an Election

Charles Lamb, "On the Genius and Character of Hogarth," 1822

"In that inimitable print, (which in my judgment as far exceeds the more known and celebrated 'March to Finchley' as the best comedy exceeds the best farce that ever was written,) let a person look till he be saturated; and when he has done wondering at the inventiveness of genius which could bring so many characters (more than thirty distinct classes of face) into a room, and set them down at table together, or otherwise dispose them about, in so natural a manner engage them in so many easy sets and occupations, yet all partaking of the spirit of the occasion which brought them together, so that we feel that nothing but an Election-time could have assembled them: -- when he shall have done wondering at all these faces so strongly charactered, yet finished with the accuracy of the finest miniature; when he shall have done admiring the numberless appendages of the scene, those gratuitous doles which rich genius flings into the heap when it has already done enough; the dumb rhetoric of the scenery -- for tables, and chairs, and joint stools, are, in Hogarth, living and significant things; -- when he shall have sufficiently admired this wealth of genius, let him fairly say what is the result left on his mind."

Plate I: An Election Entertainment
Originally published February 1755