THE BERLIN HOGARTH.

DURING the last quarter of the Eighteenth Century, when, in France, Moreau le Jeune was preparing his incomparable designs to 'La Nouvelle Héloïse'; when the famous La Fontaine of Eisen, 'dite des Fermiers-Généraux,' was on every collector's table; when Stothard in England was adding a chastened charm to the decoration of the yet-young Novel of Manners; and Bewick with his 'Birds' and Tailpieces was inaugurating the long triumphs of the boxwood block, there was living quietly at Berlin, in full activity of patient production, an artist and illustrator as remarkable as any of these, and possessing some of the distinctive characteristics of each. Moreau himself was not a keener lover of costume and detail; like Eisen, he delighted (though with Teutonic sobriety) in the endless surprises of feminine elegance; he sought grace of grouping as unweariedly as Stothard; and he had all Bewick's passion for truth, and his pleasure in humorous antithesis. His name was Daniel Nicolaus Chodowiecki.

It was at Dantzic, on the 16th of October, 1726, that Chodowiecki was born, his father being a tradesman of that then-Polish town, and his mother of French extraction. The father had no means of making his sons (for two years later came a second boy, Gottfried) anything more than he was himself; but he seems to have given them such indifferent instruction in drawing as lay in his power. An aunt, who painted in enamel, also superintended their early efforts, and under her guidance young Daniel busied himself in copying the plates of Bloemaert and Jacques Callot, of Perelle and Martin de Vos, passing later to engravings after Lancret and Watteau, which latter it was his practice to reduce in size, so accustomed had his eye already become to minute methods of execution. From these reproductions, outlined carefully with the pen and washed with Indian ink, he proceeded to painting on parchment, his performances in this way being purchased by an uncle at Berlin. In 1740, owing to the death of his father, his mother was obliged to apprentice him to a widowed relative, who kept a grocer's shop. Here, from six in the morning to ten at night, he served at the counter, and even then his daily round was incomplete, for later came evening prayers and singing of

anthems.' Yet so irrepressible already was his enthusiasm for art, that he began to draw as soon as he reached his bedroom, often dropping asleep over his work. At church, again (like Bewick), he managed to follow his darling pursuit by copying the pictures on the walls in the covers of his hymn-book. It was during his apprenticeship, also, that he made his first studies from nature, wisely reproducing the world about him; and a sketch of the shop in which he worked, including his mistress dispensing her wares to her customers, still, we believe, exists to attest his proficiency at this date.

Fortunately, after a year and a half, the grocer's shop was shut, and Chodowiecki returned to his mother's house, whence, in 1743, he went to the before-mentioned uncle at Berlin, his younger brother having already preceded him. At the capital he had hoped for larger facilities for artstudy. He was doomed to disappointment. There were no pictures worth seeing in the churches; and the collection at the palace was inaccessible. After some vague experiments in water-colour and miniature painting, coupled with a fruitless attempt at enamelling, he finally recognized the impossibility of living by art alone, and entered his uncle's business. But fate did

not intend him for a shopkeeper. With their uncle's consent, he and his brother took lessons of a Polish artist, one Johann Lorenz Haid, who had been a pupil of the battle-painter Rugendas. Though a mediocre craftsman, Haid, like Michael Cassio, was skilled in bookish theorick'; he had known men and cities, and his fluent studio patter once more aroused Chodowiecki's ambitions and enthusiasms. Once more he resolved to devote himself exclusively to art. This, his second 'Kunstperiod,' as he styled it, took place in 1754; and his commercial probation had therefore been sufficiently protracted.

At this time Boucher and Watteau were in full vogue, and engravings from their pictures. still formed his chief models. Gradually he began to try his hand at original design. By-and-by opportunities came to him of seeing pictures at Potsdam and elsewhere; and he made the acquaintance of Antoine Pesne, Meil, Bernhard Rode, and several other contemporary artists. In 1755 he married Jeanne Barez, a gold-embroiderer's daughter, having decided to support himself by miniature painting. At Rode's private life-school-the Berlin Academy not yet having recovered from the disastrous fire of 1742-he was a diligent student; and while in company he

practised himself sedulously, whenever opportunity offered, by sketching groups and single figures. In oil-painting he had as yet made little or no progress. To this latter he consecrated the winter evenings, substituting for daylight a cunningly devised arrangement with a lamp. At length, being more than thirty years of age, he made his first serious attempt at etching. He selected for his subject a certain deformed and ragged Thersites named Nicholas Fonvielle, a broken-down diesinker and snuff-box engraver, who haunted the gambling tables and diverted the company by his jests. Chodowiecki sketched this oddity furtively; and merely with the object of multiplying copies, transferred his design to copper. Such was the beginning of what proved to be his vocation. The 'Passe-dix' or 'Dicer' (' Der Würfler '), as this plate is called, was followed by others. Many of these were still merely tentative, for he had at this time little experience in the use of his materials, and particularly in the art of biting. Nor until some years later did he seriously think of devoting himself wholly to the needle, but eked out a livelihood by enamel and miniature painting.

A chance circumstance diverted his attention to the line in which he afterwards acquired so wide a reputation. In the year 1762, both in