Not His Hogarth

To the Editors:

It is appropriate that P.N. Furbank’s review of books on Hogarth [NYR, December 18, 1997] should be illustrated with bad nineteenth-century engravings, the first reversed, the second misdated (and omitting the man who “is finding it painful to piss”). This was a way for the editors of the NYRB (who presumably made the error) to draw attention to the fact that Furbank sees Hogarth and his works through the eyes of Victorian sentimentalists, not eighteenth-century viewers or eighteenth-century historians. Twentieth-century viewers are free to choose, especially if they read the books under review rather than the review.

Ronald Paulson
Department of English
The Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland

The Editors reply:

P.N. Furbank was not responsible for the illustrations for his article.