Far above all other English artists of this period, however, stood William Hogarth (b. 1697). There is no artist of that or any former age who is so thoroughly English. He is a John Bull from head to footsturdy, somewhat headstrong, opinionated, and satirical. He is, indeed, the great satirist of the brush; but his satire, keen as it is, is employed as the instrument of the moralist; the things which he denounces and derides are crimes, follies, and perverted tastes. In his own conduct, as on his canvas, he displayed the same spirit, often knocking down his own interests rather than not express his indignant feeling of what was spurious in art, or unjust towards himself. Hogarth was the first English painter who attracted much notice amongst foreigners, and he still remains one of the most original in genius of the British school. His subjects are not chosen from the loftier regions of life and imagination, but from the very lowest or the most corrupted ones of the life of his country and time. "The Harlot's Progress," "The Rake's Progress," "Marriage la Mode,"[163] "The March to Finchley," "Gín Lane," "Beer Lane," etc., present a series of subjects from which the delicate and sensitive will always revolt, and which have necessarily an air of vulgarity about them, but the purpose consecrates them; for they are not selected to pander to vice and folly, but to expose, to brand, to extirpate them.CHAPTER XVII. REIGN OF GEORGE III. (continued).The Allies, on coming near, found Saxe encamped on some gentle heights, with the river Scheldt and the village of Antoine on his right, and a wood named Barr on his left. In front lay a narrow valley, and, as at Dettingen, he had secured the passage of the river by the bridge of Calonne in his rear, defended by a tte-de-pont, and a reserve of the Household Troops. He had constructed abatis in the wood of Barr, thrown up redoubts between Antoine and Fontenoy, and strongly fortified those villages themselves. The narrow valley between Barr and Fontenoy was formidably defended by cross batteries, and by the natural ruggedness of the ground; and altogether the French officers confidently regarded their position as unassailable. Yet, inferior as they were in numbers, the Allies at once marched and attacked the French pickets and outposts, drove them in, and stood under arms, as it was growing dark, ready to renew the onset at daybreak.