Chapter II: Part 2

"Others, as common face-painters, and copiers of pictures, denied that there could be such a rule either in art or nature, and asserted it was all stuff and madness; but no wonder that these gentlemen should not be ready in comprehending a thing they have little or no business with. For though the picture-copier may sometimes, to a common eye, seem to vie with the original he copies, the artist himself requires no more ability, genius, or knowledge of nature, than a _journeyman weaver_ at the _Gobelins_, who in working after a piece of painting, bit by bit, scarcely knows what he is about; whether he is weaving a man or a horse; yet at last, almost insensibly, turns out of his loom a fine piece of tapestry, representing, it may be, one of Alexander's battles painted by Le Brun.

"As the above-mentioned print thus involved me in frequent disputes, by explaining the qualities of the line, I was extremely glad to find it (which I had conceived as only part of a system in my own mind) so well supported by a precept of Michael Angelo, which was first pointed out to me by Dr. Kennedy, a learned antiquarian and connoisseur, of whom I afterwards purchased the translation, from which I have taken several passages to my purpose."[15]

To explain this system, he in 1753 commenced author, and published his Analysis, the professed purpose of which was to fix the fluctuating ideas of _taste_, by establishing a standard of beauty. This he expected would be considered by his contemporaries, as the ancients considered the little soldier modelled by Policletus, the grammar of proportion, criterion of elegance, and rule of perfection. It must be acknowledged that this was expecting somewhat more than his system deserved; but he received much less. Sheets of good copper were defaced to prove, in the first place, that _there was no such line_, and in the next, that _he had stolen it from the ancients_. Some called it the line of deformity, and others the line of drunkenness. By a lady he was more flattered: she told him it was precisely the line which the sun makes in his annual motion round the ecliptic.

His book is divided into chapters, treating of _fitness_, _variety_, _symmetry_, _simplicity_, _intricacy_, _quantity_, _lines_, _forms_, _composition with the waving line_, _proportion_, _light and shade_, _colouring_, _attitude_, _and action_. The hypothesis which he endeavours to establish is illustrated by near three hundred explanatory figures, with references to each.

_ANALYSIS OF BEAUTY._

PLATE I.

"So vary'd he, and of his tortuous train
Curl'd many a wanton wreath in sight of Eve,
To lure her eye."

--MILTON.

If the figures which compose this plate are considered independent of the volume, they will appear sufficiently incongruous. He has given us curves and curvatures, straight lines and angles, circles and squares. He has ransacked the garden for examples, and drawn from the shops of the blacksmith, founder, and cabinetmaker, illustrations of his doctrine. To the beauteous and elegant Grecian Venus,[16] he has opposed the venerable English judge, arrayed in an ample robe, with his head enveloped in a periwig like the mane of a lion. The naked majesty of the Apollo Python is contrasted with an English actor, dressed by a modern tailor and barber, to personate a Roman general. The elegant winding lines of an Egyptian sphynx are opposed by a bloated, overcharged, recumbent Silenus. The uniform, coldly correct figures of Albert Durer's drawing-book, that never deviate into grace, to the antique _torso_, in which Michael Angelo asserted he discovered every principle that gave so grand a _gusto_ to his own works. Three anatomical representations of the muscles which appear in a human leg when the skin is taken off, are placed close to a shapeless pedestal in a shoe and stocking, which by disease has, in the painter's phrase, _lost its drawing_.

A fine wire, properly twisted round the figure of a cone, represented in Number 26, as giving that elegant wave which adds grace to beauty, is the leading principle on which he builds his system of serpentine lines. Of this ancient _grace_, opposed to modern _air_, he could not have selected better examples than Numbers 6 and 7, where Mr. Essex, an English dancing-master, places himself in such an attitude as he thinks the sculptor ought to have given the Antinous, who he is ludicrously enough handing out to dance a minuet.

Number 19 represents the _deep-mouth'd Quin!_ dressed in all the dignity of a playhouse wardrobe, to perform the part of Brutus. That this (and not Coriolanus) is the character meant by the artist, I am inclined to think, from the statue of Julius Cæsar, with a rope round his neck, immediately before him.[17] The rope is passed through a pulley, inserted in one of those triple supporters of great weights, which some of our provincial carpenters call a gallows, and passes to upright beams intersected by poles, in the front of a monument, on which is seated a judge, over whose head is another noosed pulley. How far this may hint at any connection between the _law_ and the _rope_ I cannot determine; but a weeping naked boy, who is seated below, has in his hand what may pass for the model of a gibbet as well as a square. Over the judge's head is written, BIT DECEM. 1752, ÆTATIS; the O preceding BIT is covered: I apprehend the same judge may be found in a print of THE BENCH.

A _new order_ was Hogarth's favourite idea: he has here made an attempt at a capital composed of hats and periwigs.[18] _An infant with a man's wig and cap on_, is a miniature representation of Mr. Quin's Roman general; and a monkey child, led by a travelling tutor, gives the painter's opinion of those young gentlemen who visited Rome for improvement in _connoisseurship_.[19] It is copied from a burlesque of Cav. Ghezzi, etched by Mr. Pond.

PLATE II.

"Though rosy youth embloom the sprightly fair,
And beauty mold her with a lover's care,
If motion to the form denies a grace,
Vain is the beauty that adorns the face."

The fatigued figures that labour through this dance, Mr. Hogarth in his 16th chapter thus explains:

OF ATTITUDE.

"Such dispositions of the body and limbs as appear most graceful when seen at rest, depend upon gentle winding contrasts, mostly governed by the precise serpentine line, which in attitudes of authority are more extended and spreading than ordinary, but reduced somewhat below the medium of grace in those of negligence and ease; and as much exaggerated in insolent and proud carriage, or distortions of pain (see Number 9, in PLATE I.), as lessened and contracted into plain and parallel lines, to express meanness, awkwardness, and submission.

"The general idea of an action, as well as of an attitude, may be given with a pencil in very few lines. It is easy to conceive that the attitude of a person upon the cross may be fully signified by the true straight lines of the cross; so the extended manner of St. Andrew's crucifixion is wholly understood by the X-like cross.

"Thus, as two or three lines at first are sufficient to show the intention of an attitude, I will take this opportunity of presenting my reader with the sketch of a country-dance, in the manner I began to set out the design. In order to show how few lines are necessary to express the first thoughts, as to different attitudes, see Number 71 (top of the plate), which describes in some measure the several figures and actions, mostly of the ridiculous kind, that are represented in the chief part of Plate II.

"The most amiable person may deform his general appearance by throwing his body and limbs into plain lines; but such lines appear still in a more disagreeable light in people of a particular make. I have therefore chose such figures as I thought would agree best with my first score of lines, Number 71.

"The two parts of curves next to 71, served for the figures of the old woman and her partner, at the farther end of the room. The curve, and two straight lines at right angles, gave the hint for the fat man's sprawling posture. I next resolved to keep a figure within the bounds of a circle, which produced the upper part of the fat woman, between the fat man and the awkward one in the bag-wig, for whom I had made a sort of an X. The prim lady his partner, in the riding habit, by pecking back her elbows, as they call it, from the waist upwards, made a tolerable D, with a straight line under it, to signify the scanty stiffness of her petticoat; and the Z stood for the angular position the body makes with the legs and thighs of the affected fellow in the tie-wig; the upper part of his plump partner was confined to an O, and this changed into a P, served as a hint for the straight lines behind. The uniform diamond of a card was filled up by the flying dress, etc. of the little capering figure in the Spencer wig, whilst a double L marked the parallel position of his poking partner's hands and arms: and lastly, the two waving lines were drawn for the more genteel turns of the two figures at the hither end."[20]

Such is the author's alphabetical analysis of his serpentine system, which some of my readers may possibly think borders on the visionary: certain it is, that however he may have failed in his two specimens of grace, those of awkwardness are carried as far as they could have been in a Russian dance, when Peter the Great ordained that no lady of any age should presume to get drunk before nine o'clock.

I have seen the print framed as a companion to Guido's _Aurora_; nothing surely can form a stronger contrast to the golden age, when

"Universal Pan,
Knit with the Graces and the Hours, in dance
Led on th' eternal Spring."

They are said to represent the _Wanstead assembly_, and contain portraits of the first Earl Tylney, his Countess, their children, tenants, etc. In the tall young lady he has evidently aimed at Milton's description of motion--_smooth sliding without step_; but her _air_ is affected. Her noble partner was originally intended for a portrait of the present King, then Prince of Wales; and though I learn from Mr. Walpole that it was afterward altered to the first Duke of Kingston, still retains so much of its original designation as to bear a resemblance.

The design was made about the year 1728, and might be a just representation of the Wanstead belles and beaux; but since that period we have had so many ship-loads of _grace_ imported from the Continent, and such numbers of _well-educated gentlemen_,[21] who have exerted their talents in perfecting this _divine art_, that the picture would not do for the present day.

The _sighing_ Celadon, privately delivering a letter _fraught with love_ to his fair Amelia, is evidently the native of a country that has furnished many of our English heiresses with _good_ husbands. Her impatient father's watch is precisely twelve, which determines what were then thought late hours, on so particular an occasion as a wedding-ball, the sketch being originally designed for a series illustrative of _a happy marriage_.[22]

Hogarth is said to have boasted that each of the hats which lie upon the floor are so characteristic of their respective proprietors, that any man who understood the form of the human _caput_ might assign each to its owner. Among them is a cushion, which was formerly part of the ball-room furniture, for what was called _the cushion-dance_, in the progress of which the gentleman kneels down and salutes his partner.

The light diffused from the chandelier shows an attention to nature worthy the study and imitation of many modern painters, whose figures are illuminated by _beams unaccountable_!

Thus much may suffice for the prints; as to the book, a pen was not Hogarth's instrument. His life had been devoted to the study of the pencil; and however clear in idea, he felt the consciousness that his language might be rendered more worthy public attention by the advice and assistance of literary friends. This he acknowledges, in the style of a man who felt that his character did not depend on the power of constructing a sentence, in which branch of the work he was aided by Doctor Hoadley, Doctor Morrell, and his friend the Reverend Mr. Townley,[23] whose son told me, that when his father corrected the first sheet, he found a _plentiful crop of errors_; the second and third were less incorrect; and the fourth much more accurate than the preceding. Such is the power of genius, whatever its direction.

I will not go so far as Mr. Ralph, who says, "that by means of this volume composition is become a science; the student knows what he is in search of, the connoisseur what to praise, and fancy or fashion, or prescription, will usurp the hackneyed name of taste no more; because I think with Lady Luxborough, that in the line of beauty no man can literally fix _the precise degree of obliquity_;" but I think with the same lady, "that between his pencil and his pen, he conveys an idea which enables one to conceive his meaning," and that he gives many hints which may be of great use to the artist, actor, dancer, or connoisseur.[24]

Though many profitable opportunities were offered by the politics of the day, it does not appear that Hogarth ever degraded his character by either servile adulation or interested abuse of _the powers which were_.

In an account of the March to Finchley, it will be found that when the print was presented to George II., the king returned it in a way that must have mortified and wounded the artist, who, though he was tremblingly alive to professional indignity, made no _graven retaliation_. He could not therefore be considered as an opponent it was proper to silence, or as an advocate it was necessary to retain; notwithstanding which, on the 16th of July 1757, when Mr. Thornhill (son to Sir James) resigned his place of sergeant painter, William Hogarth was appointed his successor; and very soon after, engaged in a _pencil competition_ that did not terminate to his advantage.

I have had frequent occasion to mention the opinion he entertained of _ancient paintings_. By ridiculing copies and contemptible originals, he got a habit of laughing at them all; and when, in 1758, Sir Thomas Sebright, at Sir Luke Schaub's sale, gave £404, 5s. for Correggio's Sigismunda,[25] Hogarth, _in evil hour_, asserted that, were he paid as good a price, he could paint a better picture. Sir Richard (afterwards Lord) Grosvenor unluckily gave him an order for the same subject, _guarded with the qualifying monosyllable_ IF. The work was finished,--sent to the purchaser,--and returned to the artist,--_because_,--as the ironical epistle[26] which accompanied it expressed,--"_Contemplating such a subject must excite melancholy ideas, which a curtain being drawn before it would not diminish._"[27]

This rejection produced a letter from Hogarth to a friend, relating the whole transaction, in rhymes that might perhaps give our painter a niche amongst the minor poets; but which, having neither the harmony of Pope nor the ardour of Dryden, shall find no place here. The prophecy it concludes with has not been absolutely fulfilled, but in the form of a _wish_ may be a suitable motto for the next print.

_SIGISMUNDA._

"Let the picture rust;
Perhaps Time's price-enhancing dust,
As statues moulder into earth,
When I'm no more, may mark its worth;
And future connoisseurs may rise,
Honest as ours, and full as wise,
To puff the piece, and painter too,
And make me _then_ what Guido's _now_."

--_Hogarth's Epistle._

A competition with either Guido or Furino would to any modern painter be _an enterprise of danger_: to Hogarth it was more peculiarly so, from the public justly conceiving that the representation of elevated distress was not his _forte_, and his being surrounded by an _host of foes_, who either dreaded satire or envied genius. The connoisseurs considering the challenge as too insolent to be forgiven,--_before his picture appeared_, determined to decry it. The painters rejoiced in his attempting what was likely to end in disgrace; and to satisfy those who had formed their ideas of Sigismunda upon the inspired page of Dryden, was no easy task.

The bard has consecrated the character, and his heroine glitters with a brightness that cannot be transferred to the canvas. Mr. Walpole's description, though equally radiant, is too _various_ for the utmost powers of the pencil.

Hogarth's Sigismunda, as this gentleman poetically expresses it, "_has none of the sober grief, no dignity of suppressed anguish, no involuntary tear, no settled meditation on the fate she meant to meet, no amorous warmth turned holy by despair; in short, all is wanting that should have been there, all is there that such a story would have banished from a mind capable of conceiving such complicated woe; woe so sternly felt, and yet so tenderly_." This glowing picture presents to the mind a being whose contending passions may be felt, but were not delineated even by Correggio. Had his tints been aided by the grace and greatness of Raphael, they must have failed.

The author of the _Mysterious Mother_ sought for sublimity, where the artist strictly copied nature, which was invariably his archetype, but which the painter, who soars into _fancy's fairy regions_, must in a degree desert. Considered with this reference, though the picture has faults, Mr. Walpole's satire is surely too severe. It is built upon a comparison with works painted in a language of which Hogarth knew not the idiom,--trying him before a tribunal whose authority he did not acknowledge; and from the picture having been in many respects altered after the critic saw it, some of the remarks become unfair. To the frequency of these alterations we may attribute many of the errors:[28] the man who has not confidence in his own knowledge of the leading principles on which his work ought to be built, will not render it perfect by following the advice of his friends. Though Messrs. Wilkes and Churchill dragged his heroine to the altar of politics, and mangled her with a barbarity that can hardly be paralleled, except in the history of her husband,--the artist retained his partiality, which seems to have increased in exact proportion to _their_ abuse. The picture being thus contemplated through the medium of party prejudice, we cannot wonder that all its imperfections were exaggerated. The _painted harlot_ of Babylon had not more opprobrious epithets from the _first race_ of reformers, than the _painted_ Sigismunda of Hogarth from the _last race_ of patriots.[30]

When a favourite child is chastised by his preceptor, a partial mother redoubles her caresses. Hogarth, estimating this picture by the labour he had bestowed upon it, _was certain_ that the public were prejudiced, and requested, if his wife survived him, she would not sell it for less than five hundred pounds. Mrs. Hogarth acted in conformity to his wishes; but after her death, the painting was purchased by Messrs. Boydell, and exhibited in the Shakspeare Gallery. The colouring, though not brilliant, is harmonious and natural: the attitude, drawing, etc., may be generally conceived by the print engraved by Mr. Benjamin Smith. I am much inclined to think, that if some of those who have been most severe in their censures, had consulted their own feelings, instead of depending upon connoisseurs, poor Sigismunda would have been in higher estimation. It has been said that the first sketch was made from Mrs. Hogarth, at the time she was weeping over the _corse_ of her mother.

Hogarth once intended to have appealed from the critics' fiat to the world's opinion, and employed Mr. Basire to make an engraving, which was begun, but set aside for some other work, and never completed.[31]

TIME SMOKING A PICTURE.

"To nature and yourself appeal,
Nor learn of others what to feel."--_Anon._

This animated satire was etched as a receipt-ticket for a print of Sigismunda. It represents _Time_, seated upon a mutilated statue, and smoking a landscape, through which he has driven his scythe, to give proof of its antiquity,--not only by _sober, sombre_ tints, but by an injured canvas. Beneath the easel on which it is fixed the artist has placed a capacious jar, on which is written VARNISH,--to _bring out_ the beauties of this inestimable assemblage of straight lines. The frame is dignified with a Greek motto:

_Crates_,--Ὁ γὰρ χρόνος μ' ἔκαμψε, τέκτων μὲν σοφὸς,
Ἅπαντα δ' ἐργαζόμενος ἀσθενέστερα.

See _Spectator_, vol. ii. p. 83.

This, though not engraved with precise accuracy, is sufficiently descriptive of the figure.

_Time has bent me double; and Time, though I confess he is a great artist, weakens all he touches._

"From a contempt" (says Mr. Walpole) "of the ignorant virtuosi of the age, and from indignation at the impudent tricks of picture-dealers,[32] whom he saw continually recommending and vending vile copies to bubble-collectors, and from having never studied, indeed having seen few good pictures of the great Italian masters, he persuaded himself that the praises bestowed on those glorious works were nothing but the effects of prejudice. He talked this language till he believed it; and having heard it often asserted, as is true, that Time gives a mellowness to colours, and improves them, he not only denied the proposition, but maintained that pictures only grew black and worse by age, not distinguishing between the degrees in which the proposition might be true or false."

Whether Mr. Walpole's remarks are right or wrong, Hogarth has admirably illustrated his own doctrine, and added to his burlesque, by introducing the fragments of a statue, below which is written,

As statues moulder into worth. P. W.

By part of this print being in _mezzotinto_ and the remainder etched, it has a singularly striking and spirited appearance.

Hogarth, the following year, published that admirable satire, _The Medley_, which completely refutes the reproach thrown on his _declining talents_ by his political opponents, whose violent, and in some respects vindictive attack, is erroneously said to have hastened his death. That he was _wounded_ with a barbed spear, hurled by the hand of a friend, it is reasonable to suppose; but armed with the _mailed coat_ of conscious superiority, he could not be _wounded mortally_. What!--_broken-hearted by a rhyme!_--_pelted to death with ballads!_--He was too proud! I am told by those who knew him best, that the little mortification he felt, did not arise from the severity of the satire, but from a recollection of the terms on which he had lived with the satirist.

To the painter's recriminations in this party jar, Mr. Nichols I suppose alludes, page 97 of his Anecdotes, where he says, that "_in his political conduct and attachments, Hogarth was at once unprincipled and variable_." These are harsh and heavy charges, but I am to learn on what they are founded. He never embarked with any party, nor did he publish a political print before the year 1762; and the principles he there professes he retained until his death.

In the same page of the Anecdotes, I find, after a complimentary quotation from one of Mr. Hayley's poems, several severe strictures to which I cannot assent.[33] The assertion, that _all his powers of delighting were confined to his pencil_, is in a degree refuted by the Analysis. That _he was rarely admitted into polite circles_, I can readily believe; but if by _polite circles_, Mr. Nichols means those persons of honour who deem _dress_ the grand criterion of distinction, think making _an easy bow_ the first human acquirement, and Lord Chesterfield's code _the whole duty of man_,--the artist had no great cause to regret the loss of such society. But _his sharp corners not being rubbed off_ by collision with these polite circles, he was, _to the last, a gross, uncultivated man_. Engaged in ascertaining the principles of his art, he had not leisure to study the _principles of politeness_; but by those who lived with him in habits of intimacy, I am told he was by no means gross.

"_To be member of a club consisting of mechanics, or those not many degrees above them, seems to have been the utmost of his social ambition._"--Yet we find in the list of his social companions, Fielding, Hoadley, Garrick, Townley, and many other names who were an honour to their age and country. Though excluded from _polite circles_, by these and such men he was received as a friend. Some of his evenings were probably passed among his neighbours, and being above dissimulation, I suppose he resented what he disliked, and was, as Mr. Nichols informs us, often _sent to Coventry_. "_He is said to have beheld the rising eminence and popularity of Sir Joshua Reynolds with a degree of envy; and, if I am not misinformed, spoke with asperity both of him and his performances._" It has been said, and I believe with equal truth, that Rubens _envied_ the rising eminence and popularity of Vandyke: neither the Englishman nor the Fleming were capable of so mean a passion. The walk of William Hogarth was diametrically opposite to that of Sir Joshua Reynolds. They saw nature through a different medium: one of them almost invariably dignifies his characters; whilst the other, from the nature of his subjects, sinks, and in some measure degrades them. The man whose portrait is painted by the President feels exalted; whilst he who looks in the mirror displayed by Hogarth, finds a resemblance better calculated to gratify his _good-natured friends_ than himself. These circumstances considered, I can conceive Hogarth might have been pleased if he could have united the elegance of Sir Joshua to his own humour, and that the knight might be proud of adding the powers of Hogarth to his own taste, without either of them possessing a particle of the diabolical passion alluded to by Mr. Nichols, who thus winds up the character: "_Justice, however, obliges me to add, that our artist was liberal, hospitable, and the most punctual of paymasters._" This is fair and unequivocal praise,--but justice obliges _me_ to add, seems given _upon compulsion_. _Why_ the biographer feels so much reluctance at being _thus obliged_ to commend the hero of his own history, we are not told,--though the cause of a lady being most _indecently caricatured_, is, in the same book, frankly acknowledged.

"_She is still living, and has been loud in abuse of this work, a circumstance to which she owes a niche in it!_"--Nichols' _Anecdotes_, p. 114.

Hogarth, with all the indelicacy of which he is accused, would have blushed at the perusal of this overcharged character. Though _nothing fastidious_, I cannot quote so disgusting a combination of abominable images. In page 59 we are presented with a series equally delectable.

Mr. Walpole remarks that the Flemish painters, as writers of farce and editors of burlesque nature, are the _Tom Brownes_ of the mob; and in their attempts at humour, when they intend to make us laugh, make us sick; that Hogarth resembles Butler,--amidst all his pleasantry, observes the true end of comedy, REFORMATION, and has always a moral. To prove this truth, is one great object of these volumes. But Mr. Nichols, thinking it necessary to _examine whether the scenes painted by our countryman are wholly free from Flemish indelicacies_, has with laudable industry culled some sixteen or eighteen _delicious_ examples, to convince us that they are not. _I omit the catalogue_; yet let me be permitted to suggest, that without the aid of _a commentary_, these indelicacies are not generally obtrusive. I once knew a very grave and profound critic, who employed several years of his life in collecting all Shakspeare's _double entendres_; these he intended for _publication_, to _prove_ that his plays were not fit for the _public_ eye, but was prevented, by a friend suggesting that it would be thought he had acted like the birds--_pecked at that fruit which he liked best_.

Leaving these and all other indecencies to the contemplation of those _who seek for them_, let us return to our narrative.

Finding his health in a declining state, Hogarth had some years before purchased a small house at Chiswick.[34] To this he retired during the summer months, but so active a mind could never _rust in idleness_;--even there he pursued his profession, and employed the last years of his life in retouching and superintending some repairs and alterations in his plates. From this place he, on the 25th October 1764, returned to Leicester Square, and though weak and languid, retained his usual flow of spirits; but being on the same night taken suddenly ill, died of an _aneurism_, in the arms of his friend Mrs. Lewis, who was called up to his assistance.

"The hand of him here torpid lies,
That drew th' essential form of grace;
Here cloath'd in death th' attentive eyes,
That saw the manners in the face."[35]

His will, which bears date August 16, 1764, has the following bequests:--

"I do hereby release, and acquit, and discharge my sister Ann
Hogarth, of and from all claims and demands which I have on her
at the time of my decease on any account whatsoever; and I do
hereby give and bequeath unto my said sister Ann, eighty pounds
a year, to be paid her during her natural life, by my executrix
hereinafter named, out of the profits which shall arise from
the sale of the prints taken from my engraved copperplates;
which yearly payment shall commence within three months after
my decease, and be paid in quarterly payments: and my will
is, that the said copperplates shall not be sold or disposed
of without the consent of my said sister, and my executrix
hereinafter named; but the same shall remain in the custody or
possession of my executrix hereinafter named, for and during her
natural life, if she continues sole and unmarried; and from and
immediately after her marriage, my will is that the three sets of
copperplates, called Marriage à la Mode, the Harlot's Progress,
and the Rake's Progress, shall be delivered to my said sister, by
my said executrix, during her natural life; and immediately after
the decease of my said executrix, the said copperplates, and the
whole profits arising from such prints as aforesaid, shall be and
of right belong to my said sister; and in case my executrix shall
survive my sister, the same shall in like manner become the sole
property, and of right belong to my said executrix hereinafter
named: and I hereby give and bequeath unto Mary Lewis, for her
faithful services, one hundred pounds, to be paid her immediately
after my decease by my executrix hereinafter named: and my
will is, that Samuel Martin, Esq., of Abingdon Buildings, be
requested to accept of the portrait which I painted of him for
myself. _Item_, that a ring, value ten guineas, be presented to
Doctor Isaac Schomberg, in remembrance of me. _Item_, that Miss
Julian Bence be presented with a ring, value five guineas: and my
will is, that the remainder of my money, securities for money,
and debts due to me, shall of right belong to my said executrix
hereinafter named; and all my other goods, pictures, chattels,
and estates, real or personal whatsoever, I do give and bequeath
the same and every part thereof unto my dear wife Jane Hogarth,
whom I do ordain, constitute, and appoint my sole executrix of my
will. And I do hereby revoke all the other wills by me made at
any time. In witness thereof, I do hereunto set my hand and seal,
this day, August 16th, 1764.

"WILLIAM HOGARTH (L.S.).

"Signed, sealed, and published, and delivered by William Hogarth,
to be his last will and testament, in the presence of us, who in
the presence of each other have subscribed our names as witness
thereto.--_Richard Loveday_, _George Ellsom_, _Mary Graham_."

His remains were removed to Chiswick, where, on a plain but neat pyramidical monument, are the following inscriptions:--

On the first side is engraven:

"HERE LIETH THE BODY
OF WILLIAM HOGARTH, ESQ.,
WHO DIED OCTOBER 26, 1764,
AGED 67 YEARS.

MRS. JANE HOGARTH,
WIFE OF WILLIAM HOGARTH, ESQ.
OBIT 13 NOVEMBER 1789,
ÆTAT: 80 YEARS."

On the second:

"HERE LIETH THE BODY OF
DAME JUDITH THORNHILL,
RELICT OF SIR JAMES THORNHILL, KNIGHT,
OF THORNHILL, IN THE COUNTY OF DORSET:
SHE DIED NOV. 12, 1757,
AGED 84 YEARS."

On a third:

"HERE LIETH THE BODY OF MRS. ANNE HOGARTH,
SISTER TO WILLIAM HOGARTH, ESQ.
SHE DIED AUGUST 13, 1771,
AGED 70 YEARS."

On the front, in _basso-relievo_, is the comic mask, laurel wreath, rest-stick, palette, pencils, a book inscribed _Analysis of Beauty_, and the following admirable lines by his friend Mr. Garrick:--

"Farewell, great painter of mankind,
Who reached the noblest point of art;
Whose pictured morals charm the mind,
And through the eye correct the heart.
If genius fire thee, reader, stay;
If Nature touch thee, drop a tear:
If neither move thee, turn away,
For Hogarth's honoured dust lies here."[36]

_Time_ will obliterate this inscription, and even the pyramid must crumble into dust; but his fame is engraven on tablets which shall have longer duration than monumental marble.

During the twenty-five years which his widow survived, the plates were neither repaired nor altered,[37] but being necessarily entrusted to the management of others, were often both negligently and improperly taken off.[38] On Mrs. Hogarth's demise, in 1789, she bequeathed her property as follows:--

"_Imprimis_, I give and devise unto my cousin Mary Lewis, now
living with me, all that my copyhold estate, lying and being at
Chiswick, in the county of Middlesex, to have and to hold, during
the term of her natural life; and after her decease, I give and
devise the said copyhold estate unto Richard Loveday, surgeon,
of Hammersmith, to have and to hold during his natural life;
and after his decease, to his son Francis James Loveday, to him
and his heirs for ever. _Item_, I give and bequeath unto the
said Mary Lewis all my personal estate, of what kind soever, the
legacies hereinafter mentioned excepted. _Item_, I give unto my
god-daughter Jane Amelia Loveday, the sum of one hundred pounds.
And I do make, constitute, and appoint my said cousin Mary Lewis,
my sole executrix of this my last will and testament, written
with my own hand, this third day of August, in the year of our
Lord, 1770. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and
seal.

"JANE HOGARTH (L.S.).

"Witnesses--_Michael Impey_, _Jane Sarah Home_.

"This stock of £479, 10s. 3d. I give to M. Lewis; and to Charles
Stilewell, if he is with me at the time of my death, twenty
pounds.--May the 17th, 1789.

"JANE HOGARTH."

Mrs. Lewis, soon after the death of her friend, on condition of receiving an annuity for life, transferred to Messrs. Boydell her right in all the plates; and since in their possession, they have not been touched upon by a _burin_. It may be proper to add, that every plate has been carefully cleaned; and the rolling-presses now in use being on an improved principle, the paper superior, and the art of printing better understood, impressions are more clearly and accurately taken off than they have been at any preceding period.

Thus much may suffice for the state of his plates: their general intention and execution is the proper basis on which to build his

CHARACTER.

Were it considered by a connoisseur, he would probably assert that this man could not be a painter, for he had never travelled to Rome; could not be a judge of art, for he spoke irreverently of the ancients; gave his figures neither dignity nor grace; was erroneous in his distribution of light and shade, and inattentive to the painter's balance; that his grouping was inartificial, and his engraving coarse.

To traverse continents in search of antique paintings, explore caverns for mutilated sculpture, and measure the proportions of a statue with mathematical precision, was not the boast of William Hogarth. The _Temple of Nature_ was his academy, and his topography the map of the human mind. Disdaining to copy or translate, he left the superior class of beings that people the canvas of Poussin and Michael Angelo to their admirers; selected his images from his own country, and gave them with a truth, energy, and variety of character,[39] ever appropriate, and invariably original. Considering his peculiar powers, it is fortunate for his fame that he was a native of Britain. In Switzerland, the scenery is romantic,--the rocks are stupendous; in Italy, the models of art are elevated and majestic,--the ruins of ancient Greece still continue a school of architecture and proportion;--but in England, and in England alone, we have every variety of character that separates man from man. To these he resorted, and rarely attempted to _heighten nature_, either by ideal or elevated beauty; for though he had the eye, he had not the wing of an eagle; when he attempted to soar, particles of his native clay clung to his pinions, and retarded his flight.

His engravings, though coarse, are forcible in a degree scarcely to be paralleled. Every figure is drawn from the quarry of nature; and, though seldom polished, is always animated.

He has been accused of grossness in some of his single figures: but the general vein of his wit is better calculated to make the man of humour smile than the humourist laugh;--has the air of Cervantes rather than Rabelais,--of Fielding rather than Smollett.

I do not know in what class to place his pictured stories. They are too much crowded with little incidents for the dignity of history; for tragedy, are too comic; yet have a termination which forbids us to call them comedies. Being selected from life, they present to us the absurdities, crimes, punishments, and vicissitudes of man: to-day, basking in the bright beams of prosperity; to-morrow, sunk in the gloom of comfortless despair. Be it recorded to his honour, that their invariable tendency is the promotion of virtue, and the diffusion of such a spirit as tends to make men industrious, humane, and happy. If some of the incidents are thought too ludicrous, and a few of the scenes rather border on the licentious, let it be remembered, that since they were engraved the _standard of delicacy_ has been somewhat altered: that species of wit which this sentimental and _double-refined_ age deems too much debased for common currency, was then, with a still larger portion of alloy, the sterling coin of the kingdom.

On canvas he was not so successful as on copper. Scripture history, which was one of his first attempts,[40] did not add a leaf to his laurel. In small portraits of conversations, etc., he was somewhat more successful; but in a few years the novelty wore off, and the public grew tired. Though he had great facility[41] and general success in his resemblances, his eye was too correct and his hand too faithful for those who wished to be flattered. The fantastic fluttering robes, given by contemporary painters, were too absurd for him to imitate; and he painted all his figures in the exact habits they wore. Compared with the dignified dresses of Vandyke, the Germanic garb, which then prevailed, gave a mean and unpicturesque formality to his portraits.

With respect to his person, though hardly to be classed as a little man, Hogarth was rather below the middle size; he had an eye peculiarly bright and piercing, and an air of spirit and vivacity. From an accident in his youth, he had a deep scar on his forehead: the mark remained; and he frequently wore his hat so as to display it. His conversation was lively and cheerful,[42] mixed with a quickness of retort that did not gain him friends. Severe in his satire on those who were present, but of the absent he was usually the advocate;[43] and has sometimes boasted that he never uttered a sentence concerning any man living, that he would not repeat to his face. In the relations of husband, brother, friend, and master, he was kind, generous, sincere, and indulgent. In diet abstemious; but in his hospitalities, though devoid of ostentation, liberal and free-hearted. Not parsimonious, yet frugal;--but so comparatively small were the rewards then paid to artists, that, after the labour of a long life, he left a very inconsiderable sum to his widow, with whom he must have received a large portion of what was bequeathed to her.[44] His character, and the illustrations I have attempted, are built upon a diligent examination of his prints: if in any case it should be thought that they have biassed my judgment, I can truly say that they have informed it. From them I have learnt much which I should not otherwise have known, and to inspecting them I owe many very happy hours. Considering their originality, variety, and truth, if we take from the artist all that he _is said_ to have wanted, he will have more left than has been often the portion of man.

HOGARTH ILLUSTRATED.

THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS.

PLATE I.

"The snares are set, the plot is laid,
Ruin awaits thee, hapless maid!
Seduction sly assails thine ear,
And gloating, foul desire is near;
Baneful and blighting are their smiles,
Destruction waits upon their wiles:
Alas! thy guardian angel sleeps,
Vice clasps her hands, and virtue weeps."--E.

The general aim of historical painters has been to emblazon some signal exploit of an exalted and distinguished character. To go through a series of actions, and conduct their hero from the cradle to the grave, to give a history upon canvas, and tell a story with the pencil, few of them attempted. Mr. Hogarth saw with the intuitive eye of genius, that one path to the temple of Fame was yet untrodden: he took Nature for his guide, and gained the summit. He was the painter of nature; for he gave not merely the ground-plan of the countenance, but marked the features with every impulse of the mind. He may be denominated the biographical dramatist of domestic life. Leaving those heroic monarchs who have blazed through their day with the destructive brilliancy of a comet to their adulatory historians, he, like Lillo, has taken his scenes from humble life, and rendered them a source of entertainment, instruction, and morality.

This series of prints gives the history of a Prostitute. The story commences with her arrival in London, where, initiated in the school of profligacy, she experiences the miseries consequent to her situation, and dies in the morning of life. Her variety of wretchedness forms such a picture of the way in which vice rewards her votaries, as ought to warn the young and inexperienced from entering this path of infamy. The first scene of this domestic tragedy is laid at the Bell Inn, in Wood Street, and the heroine may possibly be daughter to the poor old clergyman who is reading the direction of a letter close to the York waggon, from which vehicle she has just alighted. In attire, neat, plain, unadorned; in demeanour, artless, modest, diffident; in the bloom of youth, and more distinguished by native innocence than elegant symmetry; her conscious blush and downcast eyes attract the attention of a female fiend who panders to the vices of the opulent and libidinous. Coming out of the door of the inn we discover two men, one of whom is eagerly gloating on the devoted victim. This is a portrait, and said to be a strong resemblance of Colonel Francis Chartres,[45] whose epitaph was written by Doctor Arbuthnot: in that epitaph his character is most emphatically described.[46]

The old procuress, immediately after the girl's alighting from the waggon, addresses her with the familiarity of a friend rather than the reserve of one who is to be her mistress.

Had her father been versed in even the first rudiments of physiognomy, he would have prevented her engaging with one of so decided an aspect; for this also is the portrait of a woman infamous in her day:[47] but he, good, easy man, unsuspicious as Fielding's Parson Adams, is wholly engrossed in the contemplation of a superscription to a letter addressed to the bishop of the diocese. So important an object prevents his attending to his daughter, or regarding the devastation occasioned by his gaunt and hungry Rozinante having snatched at the straw that packs up some earthenware, and produced

"The wreck of flower-pots, and the crash of pans!"

From the inn she is taken to the house of the procuress, divested of her home-spun garb, dressed in the gayest style of the day, and the tender native hue of her complexion encrusted with paint and disguised by patches. She is then introduced to Colonel Chartres, and by artful flattery and liberal promises becomes intoxicated with the dreams of imaginary greatness. A short time convinces her of how light a breath these promises were composed. Deserted by her keeper, and terrified by threats of an immediate arrest for the pompous paraphernalia of prostitution, after being a short time protected by one of the tribe of Levi, she is reduced to the hard necessity of wandering the streets for that precarious subsistence which flows from the drunken rake or profligate debauchee. Here her situation is truly pitiable! Chilled by nipping frost and midnight dew, the repentant tear trickling on her heaving bosom, she endeavours to drown reflection in draughts of destructive poison. This, added to the contagious company of women of her own description, vitiates her mind, eradicates the native seeds of virtue, destroys that elegant and fascinating simplicity which gives additional charms to beauty, and leaves in its place art, affectation, and impudence.

Neither the painter of a sublime picture nor the writer of an heroic poem should introduce any trivial circumstances that are likely to draw the attention from the principal figures. Such compositions should form one great whole: minute detail will inevitably weaken their effect. But in little stories which record the domestic incidents of familiar life, these accessory accompaniments, though trifling in themselves, acquire a consequence from their situation; they add to the interest, and realize the scene. In this, as in almost all that were delineated by Mr. Hogarth, we see a close regard paid to things as they then were; by which means his prints become a sort of historical record of the manners of the age.

The balcony, with linen hanging to dry; the York waggon, which intimates the county that gave birth to our young adventurer; parcels lying on the ground, and a goose, directed _To my lofen coosin in Tems Stret London_, prove the peculiar attention he paid to the _minutiæ_. The initials M. H. on one of the trunks give us the name of the heroine of this drama,--Hackabout was a character then well known, and infamous for her licentiousness and debauchery.[48]

Of elegant beauty Mr. Hogarth had not much idea; but he has marked his heroine with natural simplicity. To the old procuress he has given her physiognomical distinction, and to the Colonel his appropriate stamp.[49]

PLATE II.

"Ah! why so vain, though blooming in thy spring;
Thou shining, frail, adorn'd, but wretched thing!
Old age will come; disease may come before,
And twenty prove as fatal as threescore!"

Entered into the path of infamy, the next scene exhibits our young heroine the mistress of a rich Jew, attended by a black boy,[50] and surrounded with the pompous parade of tasteless profusion. Her mind being now as depraved as her person is decorated, she keeps up the spirit of her character by extravagance and inconstancy. An example of the first is exhibited in the monkey being suffered to drag her rich head-dress round the room, and of the second in the retiring gallant. The Hebrew is represented at breakfast with his mistress; but having come earlier than was expected, the favourite has not departed. To secure his retreat, is an exercise for the invention of both mistress and maid. This is accomplished by the lady finding a pretence for quarrelling with the Jew, kicking down the tea-table, and scalding his legs, which, added to the noise of the china, so far engrosses his attention, that the paramour, assisted by the servant, escapes discovery.

The subjects of two pictures with which the room is decorated are, David dancing before the ark, and Jonah seated under a gourd.[51] They are placed there, not merely as circumstances which belong to Jewish story, but as a piece of covert ridicule on the old masters, who generally painted from the ideas of others, and repeated the same tale _ad infinitum_. On the toilet-table we discover a mask, which well enough intimates where she had passed part of the preceding night, and that masquerades, then a very fashionable amusement, were much frequented by women of this description; a sufficient reason for their being avoided by those of an opposite character.

Under the protection of this disciple of Moses she could not remain long. Riches were his only attraction, and though profusely lavished on this unworthy object, her attachment was not to be obtained, nor could her constancy be secured; repeated acts of infidelity are punished by dismission; and her next situation shows that, like most of the sisterhood, she had lived without apprehension of the sunshine of life being darkened by the passing cloud, and made no provision for the hour of adversity.

In this print the characters are marked with a master's hand. The insolent air of the harlot, the astonishment of the Jew,[52] eagerly grasping at the falling table, the start of the black boy, the cautious trip of the _ungartered_ and _barefooted_ retreating gallant, and the sudden spring of the scalded monkey, are admirably expressed. To represent an object in its descent has been said to be impossible: the attempt has seldom succeeded; but in this print, the tea equipage really appears falling to the floor.[53]

PLATE III.

"Reproach, scorn, infamy, and hate,
On all thy future steps shall wait;
Thy form be loathed by every eye,
And every foot thy presence fly."

We here see this child of misfortune fallen from her high estate! Her magnificent apartment is quitted for a dreary lodging in the purlieus of Drury Lane: she is at breakfast, and every object exhibits marks of the most wretched penury; her silver tea-kettle is changed for a tin-pot, and her highly-decorated toilet gives place to an old leaf-table, strewed with the relics of the last night's revel, and ornamented with a broken looking-glass. Around the room are scattered tobacco-pipes, gin measures, and pewter pots,--emblems of the habits of life into which she is initiated, and the company which she now keeps: this is further intimated by the wig-box of James Dalton, a notorious street-robber, who was afterwards executed. In her hand she displays a watch, which might be either presented to her, or stolen from her last night's gallant. By the nostrums which ornament the broken window, we see that poverty is not her only evil. The dreary and comfortless appearance of every object in this wretched receptacle, the bit of butter on a piece of paper,[54] the candle in a bottle, the basin upon a chair, the punch-bowl and comb upon the table, and the tobacco-pipes, etc. strewed upon the unswept floor, give an admirable picture of the style in which this pride of Drury Lane ate her matin meal. The pictures which ornament the room are, Abraham offering up Isaac, and a portrait of the Virgin Mary; Dr. Sacheverell[55] and Macheath the highwayman are companion prints. There is some whimsicality in placing the two ladies under a canopy,[56] formed by the unnailed valance of the bed, and characteristically crowned by the wig-box of a highwayman.

A magistrate,[57] cautiously entering the room with his attendant constables, commits her to an house of correction, where our legislators wisely suppose, that being confined to the improving conversation of her associates in vice, must have a powerful tendency towards the reformation of her manners!

PLATE IV.

"With pallid cheek and haggard eye,
And loud laments, and heartfelt sigh,
Unpitied, hopeless of relief,
She drinks the bitter cup of grief.
In vain the sigh, in vain the tear,
Compassion never enters here;
But justice clanks her iron chain,
And calls forth shame, remorse, and pain."--E.