Sr. Hudibras his passing Worth, The Manner how he sally’d forth.

William Hogarth
Sr. Hudibras his passing Worth, The Manner how he sally’d forth.
Illustration for Samuel Butler’s Hudibras
Philip Overton and John Cooper February 1725-6
Copper engraving
275 x 360mm.
£280
A rare early state of Plate 2
Hudibras and his servant Ralpho, riding their sorry nags along the highway.
Hogarth had originally engraved the Hudibras plates for Philip Overton and John Cooper in February 1725-6, and they passed to Robert Sayer, Overton’s successor, with Hogarth’s other early plates. In the mid nineteenth century the copper plates were bought by Bernard Quaritch, they are now form part of the collection in Hogarth’s House, Chiswick. Samuel Butler first published Hudibras ‘the modern Don Quixote’ in 1662, but although the poem was hugely successful, he died in poverty and obscurity.
Paulson II/III