Chapter II: Part 2

"Dreadful deed, unbidden thus
To rush into the presence of her Judge,
And challenge vengeance. 'Tis said
Unheard-of tortures are reserved
For murderers of themselves. They herd together:
The common damn'd shun their society,
As fiends too foul for converse."

Dreadful as is this resolve, she puts it in execution by bribing the servant of her father to procure her a dose of laudanum. Close to the vial, which lies on the floor, Hogarth has judiciously placed Counsellor Silvertongue's last dying speech, thus intimating that he also has suffered the punishment he justly merited.[23] The records of their fate being thus situated, seems to imply, that as they were united in vice, they are companions in the consequences. These two terrific and monitory testimonies are a kind of propitiatory sacrifice to the manes of her injured and murdered lord.

Her avaricious father, seeing his daughter at the point of death, and knowing the value of her diamond ring, determined to secure this glittering gem from the depredations of the old nurse, coolly draws it from her finger. This little circumstance shows a prominent feature of his mind. Every sense of feeling absorbed in extreme avarice, he seems at this moment calculating how many carats the brilliants weigh.

From a gown hung up near the clock we know him to be an alderman; and from his sleek appearance, we have some right to infer that he is constant in his attendance at city feasts, for so comely a countenance could never be supported by the scanty and meagre viands of his own table. His domestic care is intimated by the gaunt and hungry appearance of a dog, who, taking advantage of this general confusion, seizes the brawn's head.[24]

A rickety child, heir to the complaints of its father, shows some tenderness for its expiring mother; and the grievous whine of an old nurse is most admirably described. These are the only two of the party who exhibit any marks of sorrow for the death of our wretched Countess. The smug apothecary, indeed, displays some symptoms of vexation at his patient dying before she has taken his julap, the label of which hangs out of his pocket. Her constitution, though impaired by grief, promised to have lasted long enough for him to have marked many additional dittos in his day-book. Pointing to the dying speech, he threatens the terrified footboy with a punishment similar to that of the Counsellor for having bought the laudanum. The fellow protests his innocence, and promises never more to be guilty of a like offence. The effects of fear on an ignorant rustic cannot be better delineated; nor is it easy to conceive a more ludicrous figure than this awkward retainer, dressed in an old full-trimmed coat, which in its better days had been the property of his master. By the physician retreating, we are led to conceive that, finding his patient had dared to quit the world in an irregular way, neither abiding by his prescriptions nor waiting for his permission, he cast an indignant frown on all present, and exclaimed in style heroic,

"'Fellow, our hat!'--no more he deign'd to say,
But stern as Ajax' spectre, stalk'd away."

The leathern buckets immediately over the Doctor's head were, previous to the introduction of fire-engines, considered as proper furniture for a merchant's hall. Every ornament in his parlour is highly and exactly appropriate to the man. The style of his pictures, his clock, a cobweb over the window, repaired chair, nay, the very form of his hat, are characteristic. A silver cup upon the table, and jug on the floor, show us his style of living. The scantiness of his own table is well contrasted by the plenty exhibited in the picture over the old nurse's head, where iron pots, brass pans, cabbages, and lanterns, are indiscriminately huddled together, with no other meaning than to show how highly a Flemish artist could _finish_. The _attic_ delicacy of this patient and laborious school is displayed in the adjoining picture; and their humour, in that of a fellow wittily lighting his tobacco-pipe by the red nose of his companion.[25] The pipe and bottle placed under the day-book and ledger, and the whole crowned by a broken punch-bowl, intimate that this venerable gentleman united business with pleasure. The view through an open window marks the situation of our plodding merchant's house to be near London Bridge, and represents that absurd and ill-contrived structure in its original state, loaded with houses. A clock points the hour to be a little after eleven, which at this highly polished and refined period would be deemed an early hour for a citizen's breakfast; at that, it was his hour of dinner!

Thus has our moral dramatist concluded his tragedy, and brought his heroine from dissipation and vice to misery and shame, terminating her existence by suicide!

The drama of Shakspeare has been said to be the mirror of life, which to-day we see lighted up with gaiety, and to-morrow clouded with sorrow. Shakspeare had the power of exciting laughter or grief, not only in one mind, but in one composition. That Hogarth had the same power, and exerted it with the same disdain of the little cavils of little minds, is evinced in this series of prints; from the study of which, a peasant, who has never strayed beyond the precincts of his own cottage, may calculate the consequences of dissipation; and he who has lived secluded from society, may form an estimate of the value of riches and high birth when abused by prodigality or degraded by vice.

In the year 1746 was published a coarse and vulgar poem, in doggerel verse, with the following title: "_Marriage à la Mode_, an humorous tale in six cantos, in Hudibrastic verse, being an Explanation of the six Prints lately published by the ingenious Mr. Hogarth. London, printed for Weaver Bickerton, in Temple Exchange Passage, Fleet Street. Price One Shilling."

The _Clandestine Marriage_ is professedly formed upon the model of these prints.

THE FOUR STAGES OF CRUELTY.

"The poorest beetle that we tread upon,
In corporal sufferance feels a pang as great
As when a giant dies."

This pathetic lesson of humanity is given by the poet of nature. Aiming at the same end by different means, our benevolent artist here steps forth as the instructor of youth, the friend to mercy, and advocate of the brute creation.

In the prints before us, an obdurate boy begins his career of cruelty by tormenting animals; repeated acts of barbarity sear his heart, he commits a deliberate murder, and concludes in an ignominious death. These gradations are natural, I had almost said inevitable; and that parent who discovers the germ of barbarity in the mind of a child, and does not use every effort to exterminate the noxious weed, is an accessory to the evils which spring from its baneful growth. To check these malign propensities becomes more necessary from the general tendency of our amusements. Most of our rural and even infantine sports are savage and ferocious. They arise from the terror, misery, or death of helpless animals. A child in the nursery is taught to impale butterflies and cockchafers. The schoolboy's proud delight is clambering a tree

"To rob the poor bird of its young."

Grown a _gentle_ angler, he snares the scaly fry, and scatters leaden death among the feathered tenants of the air. Ripened to man, he becomes a mighty hunter, is enamoured of the chase, and crimsons his spurs in the sides of a generous courser, whose wind he breaks in the pursuit of an inoffensive deer or timid hare.

Many of our town diversions have the same tendency. The bird, whose melodious warblings echo through the grove, is imprisoned in a sort of a _Bastille_, where, like an unplumed biped in a similar situation, it frequently perishes through anguish or want of food. The high-crested chanticleer, whose courage is innate, and only vanquished by death, is furnished with weapons of pointed steel, when, set in opposition to one of the same species, armed in a similar style, these two champions, for the diversion of the _humane_ lords of the creation, lacerate each other until one or both of them are slain.

The faithful dog, whose attachment and gratitude are exemplary, and worthy the imitation of man, when in the possession of a farmer, or country 'squire, is well fed, and has no great cause of complaint, except his ears and tail being lopped to _improve nature_, and having a rib now and then broken by a gentle spurn; but if the poor quadruped falls into the hands of a tanner, a surgeon, or an _experimental_ philosopher, of what avail are his good qualities?[26]

The Abyssinian cruelties of our slaughter-houses[27] and kitchens[28] I do not wish to enumerate. The catalogue would fill a volume. Humanity demands that the brute creation should be protected by the Legislature.

The Mosaic Law, to guard against tortures being inflicted on animals which were slaughtered for sustenance, ordained them to die by a highly polished and pointed instrument; if the bone was pierced, or the beast mangled, it was deemed unclean, and burnt.

FIRST STAGE OF CRUELTY.

"While various scenes of sportive woe
The infant race employ;
And tortur'd victims bleeding, show
The tyrant in the boy.

"Behold a youth of gentler heart!
To spare the creature's pain,
O take, he cries--take all my tart,
But tears and tart are vain.

"Learn from this fair example, you
Who savage sports delight,
How cruelty disgusts the view,
While pity charms the sight."

Let us suppose a disciple of Pythagoras to contemplate this print, how would it affect him? He would imagine it to represent a group of young barbarians qualifying themselves for executioners; would raise his voice to Heaven, and thank the God of mercy that he is not an inhabitant of such a country; would lament that these degenerate little beings should not have been informed that the animals on whom they are now inflicting such tortures, might, previous to transmigration, have been their fathers, brothers, friends.

The delineation of such scenes must shock every feeling heart, and their enumeration disgust every humane mind. I hope, for the honour of our nature and our nation, that they are not so frequently practised as when these prints were published.

The hero of this tragic tale is Tom Nero: by a badge upon his arm, we know him to be one of the boys of St. Giles' Charity School. The horrible business in which he is engaged was, I hope and believe, never realized in this or any other country. The thought is taken from Callot's "Temptation of St. Anthony." A youth of superior rank, shocked at such cruelty, offers his tart to redeem the dog from torture. This Hogarth intended for the portrait of an illustrious personage, then about thirteen years of age; the compliment was rather coarse, but well intended. A lad chalking on a wall the suspended figure, inscribed TOM NERO, prepares us for the future fate of this young tyrant, and shows by anticipation the reward of cruelty.

Throwing at cocks might possibly have its origin in what some of our sagacious politicians call a natural enmity to France, which is thus _humanely_ exercised against the allegorical symbol of that nation. A boy tying a bone to the tail of his dog, while the kind-hearted animal licks his hand, must have a most diabolical disposition.[29] Two little imps are burning out the eyes of a bird with a knitting-needle. A group of embryotic Domitians, who have tied two cats to the extremities of a rope and hung it over a lamp-iron, to see how _delightfully_ they will tear each other, are marked with grim delight. The link-boy is absolutely a Lilliputian fiend. The fellow encouraging a dog to worry a cat, and two animals of the same species thrown out of a garret window with bladders fastened to them, completes this mortifying prospect of youthful depravity.

SECOND STAGE OF CRUELTY.

"The generous steed in hoary age,
Subdued by labour lies,
And mourns a cruel master's rage,
While nature strength denies.

"The tender lamb, o'er-drove and faint,
Amidst expiring throes,
Bleats forth its innocent complaint,
And dies beneath the blows.

"Inhuman wretch! Say, whence proceeds
This coward cruelty?
What interest springs from barbarous deeds?
What joy from misery?"

If, as the Samian taught, the soul revives,
And shifting seats, in other bodies lives,
Severe shall be the brutal coachman's change,
Doom'd in a hackney horse the town to range;
Carmen, transform'd, the groaning load shall draw,
Whom other tyrants with the lash shall awe!

Tom Nero is now a hackney coachman, and displaying his disposition in his conduct to a horse. Worn out by ill-usage, and exhausted by fatigue, the poor animal has fallen down, overset the carriage, and broken his leg. The scene is laid at Thavie's Inn gate:[30] four brethren of the brawling bar, who have joined to pay threepence each for a ride to Westminster Hall, are in consequence of the accident overturned, and exhibited at the moment of creeping out of the carriage. These ludicrous periwig-pated personages were probably intended as portraits of advocates eminent in their day; their names I am not able to record.

A man taking the number of the coach is marked with traits of benevolence, which separate him from the savage ferocity of Nero or the guilty terror of these affrighted lawyers.

As a further exemplification of extreme barbarity, a drover is beating an expiring lamb with a large club. The wheels of a dray pass over an unfortunate boy, while the drayman, regardless of consequences, sleeps on the shafts.[31]

In the background is a poor overladen ass: the master, presuming on the strength of this patient and ill-treated animal, has mounted upon his back, and taken a loaded porter behind him. An over-driven bull, followed by a crowd of heroic spirits, has tossed a boy.[32] Two bills pasted on the wall advertise cock-fighting and Broughton's Amphitheatre[33] for boxing, as further specimens of national civilisation.

Parts of this print may at first sight appear rather overcharged, but some recent examples convince us that they are not so. In the year 1790, a fellow was convicted of lacerating and tearing out the tongue of a horse; but there being no evidence of his bearing any malice towards the proprietor, or doing it with a view of injuring _him_, this diabolical wretch, not having violated any then existing statute, was discharged without punishment.

CRUELTY IN PERFECTION.

"To lawless love, when once betray'd,
Soon crime to crime succeeds;
At length beguil'd to theft, the maid
By her beguiler bleeds.

"Yet learn, seducing men, not night,
With all its sable cloud,
Can screen the guilty deed from sight:
Foul murder cries aloud!

"The gaping wounds, the blood-stain'd steel,
Now shock his trembling soul;
But ah! what pangs his breast must feel
When death his knell shall toll!"

An early indulged habit of wanton cruelty strengthens by time, chokes every good disposition, corrupts the mind, and sears the heart. We cannot say to the malevolent passions,

"Thus far shall ye go, and no further."

The hero of this print began by torturing a helpless dog; he then beat out the eye of an unoffending horse; and now, under the influence of that malignant rancorous spirit, which by indulgence is become natural, he commits murder--most foul and aggravated murder!--for this poor deluded girl is pregnant by the wretch who deprives her of life. He tempts her to quit a happy situation; to plunder an indulgent mistress, and meet him with the produce of her robbery. Blinded by affection, she keeps the fatal appointment, and comes loaded with plate. This remorseless villain, having previously determined to destroy her, and by that means cancel his promise of marriage, free himself from an expected encumbrance, and silence one whom compunction might at a future day induce to confess the crime and lead to his detection, puts her to death!

This atrocious act must have been perpetrated with most savage barbarity, for the head is nearly severed, and the wrist cut almost through. Her cries are heard by the servants of a neighbouring house, who run to her assistance. 'Tis too late. The horrid deed is done! The ethereal spirit is forced from its earthly mansion,

"Unhousell'd, unappointed, unaneal'd!"

but the murderer, appalled by conscious guilt, and rendered motionless by terror, cannot fly. He is seized without resistance, and consigned to that punishment which so aggravated a violation of the laws of nature and his country demand.

The glimpses of the moon, the screech-owl and bat hovering in the air, the mangled corpse, and above all, the murderer's ghastly and guilty countenance, give terrific horror to this awful scene.[34]

By the pistol in his pocket and watches on the ground, we have reason to infer that this callous wretch has been committing other depredations in the earlier part of the evening. The time is what has been emphatically called "the witching hour!"--the iron tongue of midnight has told ONE!

The letter found in his pocket gives a history of the transaction; it appears to be dictated by the warmest affection, and written by the woman he has just murdered, previous to her elopement:--

"DEAR TOMMY,--My mistress has been the best of women to me, and
my conscience flies in my face as often as I think of wronging
her; yet I am resolved to venture body and soul to do as you
would have me; so do not fail to meet me as you said you would,
for I shall bring along with me all the things I can lay my hands
on. So no more at present; but I remain yours till death.

"ANN GILL."

This is the simple effusion of a too credulous heart; whatever would lessen the solemnity of the scene is carefully avoided; neither bad spelling, nor any other ridiculous circumstances that might create laughter are introduced.

THE REWARD OF CRUELTY.

"Behold, the villain's dire disgrace,
Not death itself can end;
He finds no peaceful burial-place,
His breathless corpse--no friend.

"Torn from the root that wicked tongue,
Which daily swore and curst;
Those eye-balls from their sockets wrung,
That glow'd with lawless lust.

"His heart exposed to prying eyes,
To pity has no claim;
But dreadful! from his bones shall rise
His monument of shame."

The savage and diabolical progress of cruelty is now ended, and the thread of life severed by the sword of justice. From the place of execution the murderer is brought to Surgeons' Hall, and now represented under the knife of a dissector. This venerable person, as well as his coadjutor, who scoops out the criminal's eye, and a young student scarifying the leg, seem to have just as much feeling as the subject now under their inspection.[35] A frequent contemplation of sanguinary scenes hardens the heart, deadens sensibility, and destroys every tender sensation.

Our legislators, considering how unfit such men are to determine in cases of life and death, have judiciously excluded both surgeons and butchers from serving upon juries.

Hogarth was most peculiarly accurate in those little markings which identify. The gunpowder initials T. N. on the arm, denote this to be the body of Thomas Nero. The face being impressed with horror has been objected to. It must be acknowledged that this is rather "o'er-stepping the modesty of nature;" but he so rarely deviates from her laws, that a little poetical licence may be forgiven where it produces humour or heightens character.

The skeletons on each side of the print are inscribed "James Field" (an eminent pugilist), and "Maclean" (a notorious robber). Both of these worthies died by a rope. They are pointing to the physician's crest which is carved on the upper part of the president's[36] chair, viz. a hand feeling a pulse; taking a guinea would have been more appropriate to the practice. The heads of these two heroes of the halter are turned so as to seem ridiculing the president, "Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp." Every countenance in this grisly band is marked with that medical importance which dignifies the professors. Some of them we discover to be "from Caledonia's bleak and barren clime."

A fellow depositing the intestines in a pail, and a dog licking the murderer's heart, are disgusting and nauseous objects. The vessel where the skulls and bones bubble-bubble, gives some idea of the infernal caldron of Hecate.

Of this print, and that preceding it, there are wooden blocks engraved upon a large scale, invented and published by "William Hogarth, Jan. 1, 1750; J. Bell, sculpt." They were executed by order of Mr. Hogarth, who wished to circulate the salutary examples they contain, by making the price low enough for a poor man's purse; but finding engraving on wood much more expensive than he had calculated, he altered his plan, and engraved them on copper.

BEER STREET AND GIN LANE.

"The nature and use of aliments maketh men either chaste or
incontinent; either courageous or cowardly; either meek or
quarrelsome: let those who deny these truths come to me; let them
follow my counsel in eating and drinking, and I promise them they
will find great helps thereupon towards moral philosophy. They
will acquire more prudence, more diligence, more memory."--GALEN.

Fully impressed with the truth of this axiom, Mr. Hogarth engraved the two following prints, in which he has considered porter as the liquor natural to an English constitution; and that villanous distillation, gin, as pernicious and poisonous. While that noble beverage properly termed British Burgundy[37] refreshes the weary, exhilarates the faint, and cheers the depressed, an infernal compound of juniper and fiery spirits debases the mind, destroys the constitution, and brings its thirsty votaries to an untimely grave.

These, as well as the four preceding prints, are calculated for the lower orders of society, and exhibit such a contrast as must strike the most careless observer. In the first, we see healthy and happy beings inhaling copious draughts of a liquor which seems perfectly congenial to their mental and corporeal powers; in the second, a group of emaciated wretches who, by swallowing liquid fire, have consumed both.

BEER STREET.

"Beer, happy product of our isle,
Can sinewy strength impart;
And wearied with fatigue and toil,
Can cheer each manly heart.

"Labour and art, upheld by thee,
Successfully advance;
We quaff the balmy juice with glee,
And water leave to France.

"Genius of health, thy grateful taste
Rivals the cup of Jove;
And warms each English, generous breast,
With liberty and love."

This admirable delineation is a picture of John Bull in his most happy moments. In the left corner, a butcher and a blacksmith are each of them grasping a foaming tankard of porter. By the _King's Speech_ and the _Daily Advertiser_ upon the table before them, they appear to have been studying politics, and settling the state of the nation. The blacksmith having just purchased a shoulder of mutton, is triumphantly waving it in the air. Next to him a drayman is whispering soft sentences of love to a servant-maid, round whose neck is one of his arms; in the other hand a pot of porter. Two fish-women, furnished with a flagon of the same liquor, are chaunting a song of Mr. Lockman's[38] on the British Herring Fishery. A porter having put a load of waste-paper[39] on the ground, is eagerly quaffing this best of barley wine.

On the front of a house in ruins, is inscribed "Pinch, pawnbroker," and through a hole in the door a boy delivers a full half-pint. In the background are two chairmen.[40] They have joined for threepenny-worth to recruit their spirits, and repair the fatigue they have undergone in _trotting between two poles_ with a ponderous load of female frailty. Two paviors are washing away their cares with a heart-cheering cup. In a garret window a trio of sailors are employed in the same way; and on a house-top are four bricklayers equally joyous. Each of these groups seem hale, happy, and well clothed; but the artist, who is painting a glass bottle from an original which hangs before him, is in a truly deplorable plight, at the same time that he carries in his countenance a perfect consciousness of his talents in this creative art.[41]

GIN LANE.

"Gin, cursed fiend! with fury fraught,
Makes human race a prey;
It enters by a deadly draught,
And steals our life away.

"Virtue and Truth, driv'n to despair,
Its rage compels to fly;
But cherishes with hellish care,
Theft, murder, perjury.

"Damn'd cup! that on the vitals preys,
That liquid fire contains;
Which madness to the heart conveys,
And rolls it thro' the veins."

From contemplating the health, happiness, and mirth flowing from a moderate use of a wholesome and natural beverage, we turn to this nauseous contrast, which displays human nature in its most degraded and disgusting state. The retailer of gin and ballads,[42] who sits upon the steps with a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other, is horribly fine. Having bartered away his waistcoat, shirt, and stockings, and drank until he is in a state of total insensibility; pale, wan, and emaciated, he is a perfect skeleton. A few steps higher is a debased counterpart of Lazarus, taking snuff; thoroughly intoxicated, and negligent of the infant at her breast, it falls over the rail into an area, and dies an innocent victim to the baneful vice of its depraved parent. Another of the fair sex has drank herself to sleep. As an emblem of her disposition being slothful, a snail is crawling from the wall to her arm. Close to her we discover one of the lords of the creation gnawing a bare bone, which a bull-dog, equally ravenous, endeavours to snatch from his mouth. A working carpenter is depositing his coat and saw with a pawnbroker. A tattered female offers her culinary utensils at the same shrine: among them we discover a tea-kettle pawned to procure money to purchase gin.[43] An old woman, having drank until she is unable to walk, is put into a wheel-barrow, and in that situation a lad solaces her with another glass. With the same poisonous and destructive compound, a mother in the corner drenches her child. Near her are two charity-girls of St. Giles', pledging each other in the same corroding compound. The scene is completed by a quarrel between two drunken mendicants, both of whom appear in the character of cripples. While one of them uses his crutch as a quarterstaff, the other with great goodwill aims a stool, on which he usually sat, at the head of his adversary. This, with a crowd waiting for their drams at a distiller's door, completes the catalogue of the _quick_. Of the _dead_ there are two, besides an unfortunate child whom a drunken madman has impaled upon a spit.[44] One a barber, who, having probably drank gin until he has lost his reason, has suspended himself by a rope in his own ruinous garret; the other a beautiful woman, whom by direction of the parish beadle two men are depositing in a shell. From her wasted and emaciated appearance, we may fairly infer she also fell a martyr to this destructive and poisonous liquid. On the side of her coffin is a child lamenting the loss of its parent.

The large pewter measure hung over a cellar, on which is engraved "Gin Royal," was once a common sign; the inscription on this cave of despair, "Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for twopence, clean straw for nothing," is worthy observation; it exhibits the state of our metropolis at that period.

The scene of this horrible devastation is laid in a place which was a few years since properly enough called the Ruins of St. Giles'.[45] Except the pawnbroker's, distiller's, and undertaker's, the houses are literally ruins! These doorkeepers to Famine, Disease, and Death, living by the calamities of others, are in a flourishing state.[46]

Mr. Hogarth seems to have received the first idea of these two prints from a pair by Peter Breughel (frequently called _Breughel d'enfer_), which exhibit a similar contrast. In the one entitled "La Grosse" are a number of comely and well-fed personages; in the other, which is baptized "La Maigre Cuisine," the characters are meagre and wasted: seated on a straw mat are a mother and child, which very much resemble the wretched female we see upon the steps in the print under consideration.

To the perspective little attention is paid, but the characters are admirably discriminated. The emaciated retailer of gin is well drawn. The woman with a snuff-box has all the mawkish marks of debasement and drunkenness. The man gnawing a bone, a dog tearing it from him, and the pawnbroker, have countenances in an equal degree hungry and rapacious.

A print entitled the "Gin Drinkers," which bears strong marks of being one of Hogarth's early productions, may perhaps have been the first thought on which this print was built.

On the subject of these plates was published a catchpenny compilation from Reynolds' "God's Revenge against Murder," entitled "_A Dissertation on Mr. Hogarth's six prints--'Gin Lane,' 'Beer Street,' and the 'Four Stages of Cruelty.'_"

PAUL BEFORE FELIX.

_Designed and etched in the ridiculous manner of Rembrandt, by
William Hogarth. Published according to the Act of Parliament,
May 1, 1751._

"Each hero is a pillar of darkness, and the sword a beam of
fire."[47]--FINGAL, Book I. p. 21.

For the etchings of Rembrandt, and a herd of servile imitators who, without any of his genius, copied his defects, Hogarth had the most sovereign contempt. He considered their productions as unmeaning scratches, as dingy and violent combinations of light and darkness, which would not bear to be tried by the criterion of either nature or art. How far he was right in his opinion is not my inquiry; but certain it is, that at the time of this publication they had the sanction of those who were deemed good judges, and produced most enormous prices. To correct this vitiated taste, and bring men back to reason and common sense, our whimsical artist etched this very grotesque print.

The Apostle, conformable to the general practice of the Flemish school, is represented as a mean and vulgar character. Among the Lilliputians he might have been a giant; among the Romans he must have been a dwarf. In the true spirit of Dutch allegory, a figure fat enough for a burgomaster, invested with wings "that clad each shoulder broad," is seated on the floor behind him as a guardian angel. At this unpropitious moment the guardian angel is asleep, and a little imp of darkness,[48] ever active in mischief, is busily employed with a hand-saw cutting through the leg of the Apostle's stool, which falling, must inevitably bring the orator to the ground, where he will probably be seized by the snarling dog on whose collar is engraved "Felix," and who seems to have an eye to the saint, though his nose is evidently pointed at his appalled master. Seated in a wicker chair, with the Roman eagle over his head, and the fasces at his left hand, Felix indeed trembles. On an adjoining seat is the all-accomplished Drusilla and her lap-dog. Her olfactory nerves, as well as those of her companion, are violently affected. With a sacrificing knife in his right hand, his left clenched, and a countenance irritated almost to madness, the High Priest appears ready to leap from the bench and put the Apostle to death, but is prevented by a more prudent senator. The audience are worthy of the judges; male and female, young and old, are in dress, deportment, and feature, perfectly Dutch. Of the same school is the statue of Justice, with a bandage over one eye, and grasping, in the place of a flaming sword, a butcher's knife.[49] She stands in awful state, laden with bags of gold, the rewards of legal decisions.

At a table beneath the bench are five curious characters. The first, maugre the thundering eloquence of St. Paul, is asleep; the next, mending a pen; two adjoining are highly offended with a noxious effluvia, while their bearded associate is grinning and pointing at the cause from which it emanates. Regardless of all other objects, an Hebrew counterpart of Shylock is expanding his hands in astonishment at the unguarded vehemence of the preacher. Not less exasperated is Tertullus, who, arrayed in the habit of an English serjeant-at-law,[50] has nothing Roman but his nose. Boiling with rage, and irritated almost to madness, he tears his brief: this, a devil, who to give him peculiar distinction has three horns, is carefully picking up and joining the remnants together.[51] The vase, and silver plates in a recess, the violent stream of light which dazzles the eyes of a priest _who stands with his back to it_, the boat, bark, and white sail glittering in the wave, and a village and windmill in the distance, are all of Rembrandt's school.

The plate was originally intended as a receipt-ticket to the large "Paul before Felix," and "Pharaoh's Daughter;" and the artist stained many early impressions with that yellow tint which time gives to old prints. For the Paul, and Moses, he afterwards engraved another design, and presented this to any of his friends who requested it; but finding applications increase, he fixed the price at five shillings.[52]

PLATE I.

_Engraved by William Hogarth, from his original painting in
Lincoln's-Inn Hall, and published as the Act directs, Feb. 5,
1752._

"And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to
come, Felix trembled."

This print Mr. Hogarth intended as a serious and sublime representation of the scene which he had so inimitably burlesqued; yet so little are we qualified to judge of our own powers, that he has here produced a print as destitute of elevation and sentiment as are the works of those masters he so successfully ridiculed. With the Roman eagle he could not soar, and has drawn the royal bird like a sparrow-hawk, nailed to the bottom of a writing-desk. The Apostle, with his right foot resting on a lower step than the left, has neither grace, dignity, nor firmness. Felix has the appearance of a vinegar-faced apothecary feeling the pulse of a nervous female patient, and shocked at the velocity of our circulation, dropping the prescription from his left hand. The haughty High Priest biting his nails, is deficient in everything except his drapery: the Jew immediately behind him bears a strong resemblance to an old-clothes-man. The standard-bearer, and woman with her hands closed, are a degree better; but the Herculean advocate, with a brief in his right hand, looks like a journeyman hatter that has drank porter till he is drowsy; by the strength of his muscles and the stupidity of his countenance, he seems better fitted for a bruiser than a pleader.

The listening soldier, at the opposite corner, is meanly conceived and ill drawn.

At the bottom of one of the copies I once saw the following memorandum in the handwriting of Hogarth: "A print of the plate that was set aside as insufficient. Engraved by W. H."

PLATE II.

_From the original painting in Lincoln's-Inn Hall, painted by Wm.
Hogarth._

This is engraved from the same design as the former, but the situation of the figures is reversed, and Drusilla omitted, it being thought that St. Paul's hand was rather improperly placed.

It is somewhat superior to the former, but the light is ill distributed, and the characters too individual for the dignity of historical composition.

Upon this and the following print Doctor Joseph Warton, in his _Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope_, made the following remark. Trusting to his memory, he confounded two prints together, and remembering to have seen a dog snarling at a cat in the fourth print of "Industry and Idleness," from an error in recollection, transferred them to the "Paul before Felix:"--

"Some nicer virtuosi have remarked, that in the serious pieces into which Hogarth has deviated from the natural bias of his genius there are some strokes of the ridiculous discernible, which suit not with the dignity of his subject. In his Preaching of St. Paul, a dog snarling at a cat; and in his Pharaoh's Daughter, the figure of the infant Moses, who expresses rather archness than timidity, are alleged as instances that this artist, unrivalled in his walk, could not resist the impulse of his imagination towards drollery. His picture, however, of Richard III. is pure and unmixed, without any ridiculous circumstances, and strongly impresses terror and amazement."

On the publication of this criticism, Hogarth engraved the whole quotation under the two prints alluded to without any comment; but on the appearance of the following very ample and candid apology, erased them:--

"The author gladly lays hold of the opportunity of this third edition of his work to confess a mistake he had committed with respect to two admirable paintings of Mr. Hogarth,--his Paul Preaching, and his Infant Moses,--which on a closer examination are not chargeable with the blemishes imputed to them. Justice obliges him to declare the high opinion he entertains of the abilities of this inimitable artist, who shines in so many different lights and on such very dissimilar subjects, and whose works have more of what the ancients called the ΗΘΟΣ in them than the compositions of any other modern. For the rest, the author begs leave to add, that he is so far from being ashamed of retracting his error, that he had rather appear a man of candour than the best critic that ever lived."

Hogarth did not understand Greek, and was for some time doubtful whether the ΗΘΟΣ was meant as complimentary or satirical.

If the original painting in Lincoln's-Inn Hall were destroyed, Hogarth's reputation would not be diminished.

MOSES BEFORE PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER.

"And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter,
and he became her son. And she called his name Moses."--EXODUS
II. 10.

Among the many benevolent institutions which do honour to this nation, the hospital for maintaining exposed and deserted infants may be ranked as one of the most humane and political. Let the austere enthusiast censure it as an encouragement to vice, and the rigid moralist declaim against giving sanction to profligacy, it is still an useful and a benevolent foundation.

To protect the helpless, give refuge to the innocent, and render that unoffending being a useful member of society whose parents may be too indigent to give it proper sustenance, or wicked enough to destroy it, is fulfilling one great precept of religion, and must afford a pure and exalted gratification to every philanthropic mind.[53]

That it is found necessary to restrict the plan, and confine the charity in such narrow limits, is much to be lamented. Compassion and policy demand that the doors should be open to every proper object.

To this asylum for deserted infancy Mr. Hogarth was one of the earliest benefactors,[54] and to their institution presented the picture from which this print is engraved; there is not perhaps in holy writ another story so exactly suitable to the avowed purpose of the foundation.

The history of Moses being deserted by his mother, exposed among the bulrushes, and discovered and protected by the daughter of Pharaoh, is known to every one who has read the Bible: those who have not, may find it there recorded, with many other things well worthy their attention. At the point of time here taken, the child's mother, whom the Princess considers as merely its nurse, has brought him to his patroness, and is receiving from the treasurer the wages of her services. The little foundling naturally clings to his nurse, though invited to leave her by the daughter of a monarch. The eyes of an attendant, and a whispering Ethiopian, convey an oblique suspicion that the child has a nearer affinity to their mistress than she chooses to acknowledge.[55]

Considered as a whole, this picture has a more historic air than we often find in the works of Hogarth. The royal Egyptian is graceful, and in some degree elevated.[56] The treasurer is marked with austere dignity, and the Jewess and child with nature. The scene is superb, and the distant prospect of pyramids, etc. highly picturesque and appropriate to the country. To exhibit this scene, the artist has placed the groups at such a distance as crowd the corners and leave the centre unoccupied. As the Greeks are said to have received the rudiments of art from Egypt, the line of beauty on the base of a pillar is properly introduced. A crocodile creeping from under the stately chair may be intended to mark the neighbourhood of the Nile, but is a poor and forced conceit.

FOUR PRINTS OF AN ELECTION.

I think it is Voltaire who observes that the English nation are mad every seven years: he might have added that there are local fits which seize some parts of the country at other times; but this madness, like the fermentation of liquors, proves the spirit of the people.

In the following series of prints Mr. Hogarth has delineated the progress of this malady, in four of its most remarkable stages, with that broad and characteristic humour peculiar to himself. He has presented us with the mirror of a contested election, the British Saturnalia; in which is displayed what Abbé Raynal most emphatically calls "the majesty of the people!"--an expression, says the same writer, "which would alone consecrate a language."

The first print was published February 24, 1755, and inscribed to the Right Hon. Henry Fox.--Plate II., February 20, 1757, to Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, Ambassador to the Court of Russia.--Plate III., February 20, 1758, to the Hon. Sir Edward Walpole, Knight of the Bath.--Plate IV., January 1, 1759, to the Hon. George Hay, one of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty.

The original pictures are now in the possession of Mrs. Garrick, at Hampton.

It appears from the _Grub Street Journal_ of June 13, 1734, that the same subject had been previously attempted by another artist, under the title of "The Humours of a Country Election." It must be acknowledged that the inscriptions to some of the compartments have a striking similarity to the scenes represented by Hogarth. "The candidates very complaisant to a country clown," etc. "The candidates making an entertainment for the electors and their wives; at the upper end of the table the parson of the parish," etc.

In 1759 was published, in four cantos, a poetical description of these prints, introduced by the following remarkable advertisement, dated

"CHEAPSIDE, _March 1, 1759_.

"For the satisfaction of the reader, and in justice to the
concealed author, I take the liberty, with the permission of Mr.
Hogarth, to insert in this manner that gentleman's opinion of the
following cantos, which is--That the thoughts entirely coincide
with his own; that there is a well-adapted vein of humour
preserved through the whole; and that though some of his works
have been formerly explained by other hands, yet none ever gave
him so much satisfaction as the present performance.

"JOHN SMITH."

Had Mr. Hogarth's taste for poetry been in any degree equal to his skill in painting, he would scarcely have given so strong a sanction to this wretched attempt at Hudibrastic humour, which is coarse, dull, mean, and very unworthy of the scenes which it professes to celebrate.[57]

PLATE I.

AN ELECTION ENTERTAINMENT.

"Here tumult wild and rude confusion reign,
And hoodwink'd party heads the senseless train;
Here meets her motley tribe--here holds her court,
For pamper'd Gluttony, the grand resort.
From orgies so profane--stern Freedom flown,
Corruption mounts her abdicated throne.
Unhappy Britain--thy degenerate tribe,
Like Esau, barter birthright for a bribe."--E.

The first act of this popular farce is very properly a dinner, which in all public transactions ought to precede every other business.[58] The scene is laid in a country town, at an inn, which in these piping times of peace is kept open for the friends of the Court candidate. All the party, except the divine and the mayor, have ended their repast; but episcopal dignity, or prætorian distinction, gives a right to more indulgence than is allowed to the unhallowed multitude.

The highly polished and accomplished gentleman[59] who aspires to the honour of a seat in the British senate demands our first notice. He has what an Hibernian would call a face of much promise. His dress, air, and grace proclaim that he has travelled. Pope has described him exactly as if he had sat for the picture:

"He saunter'd Europe round,
And gathered every vice on Christian ground,
Saw every court, heard every king declare
His royal sense of operas, or the fair.--
See now half-cured, and perfectly well-bred,
With nothing but a solo in his head,
As much estate, and principle, and wit,
As Jansen, Fleetwood, Cibber, shall think fit;
Stol'n from a duel, follow'd by a nun,
And if a Borough choose him,--not undone," etc.

At this time of general equality and universal levelling, when knight and vassal, esquire and mechanic, are of equal rank, our paragon of politeness is lending an attentive ear to a disgusting old beldam, who from her rotundity may be a descendant of Sir John Falstaff's. In her hand, which is behind him, she holds a letter directed to Sir Commodity Taxem; this we may naturally suppose contains either a request of a favour or an offer of a service, in the sure and certain hope of a return to it. Be that as it may, the gallant knight shows her every attention, and has stretched his long arm half round her ample waist:

"Thus the bold eagle leaves his azure way,
And takes the carrion carcase for his prey;
There dips his beak--but when the banquet's done,
Replumes his wings, and rises to the sun."

While a little girl dazzled with the splendour of his brilliant ring attempts to make it a prize, a fellow who stands upon a chair behind him, with all that easy familiarity which the time warrants, strikes the Baronet's head against that of the old woman, and shakes the ashes out of his tobacco-pipe upon his powdered hair. This is election wit.

The next group form a trio, and are made up by a grinning cobbler, a dirty-faced barber, and a mawkish gentleman, whose hand the son of St. Crispin grasps with an energy that almost cracks the bones. The barber, equally friendly, pinches his arm, and resting one hand upon his shoulder blows the hot fumes from a short tobacco-pipe into his eye. This also is election wit.

A pyramidical group behind is composed of an officer, a drunken counsellor, and a pleasing young woman, over whose head the maudlin advocate, flourishing a bumper of wine, roars out an obscene toast. This is the third and most finished specimen of election wit. At a table a little beneath, stewing "the last lov'd remnant of the forest haunch," sits an oily divine,[60] holding his canonical periwig in his right hand, and wiping his forehead with the left. Behind him is a Scotch bagpiper, who, at the same time that he is pressing out his harsh and unmusical tones, enjoys the _royal_ luxury of scratching.[61] A female player on the violin,[62] and a most consequential performer on the bass viol, when aided by the Caledonian pipe, must form a most melodious concert.

A fourth votary of St. Cecilia holds his musical instrument under his arm, ceasing all dulcet sounds, while he drinks a glass of Burgundy with a gentleman who seems much gratified at seeing a chin of more extravagant length than his own. Adjoining are two country fellows delighted beyond measure at a person[63] making the representation of a face by wrapping a napkin round his hand, and singing, "An old woman clothed in grey," etc. This face, ingeniously designed with charcoal blots for eyes and mouth, bears a strong resemblance to the poor gouty old fellow on his left hand, whose violent contortions lead us to suspect that he feels some disagreeable internal emotion. Behind, is a fellow pouring the contents of a vessel through a window amongst a crowd made up of the opposite party, in return for a shower of stones they are hurling into the room. To annoy and repel these troublesome assailants, a man at the opposite corner throws out a three-legged stool. At the upper end of the table sits a gentleman in a tye-wig, whom we presume to be the Right Worshipful Mr. Mayor. He has ate oysters until his breath is stopped, and is now under the hands of a barber-surgeon. This village _Sangrado_ attempts to breathe a vein; "But ah! the purple tide no more will flow."

Notwithstanding this suspension of vital powers, our absolute monarch of his own corporation, true to the cause, and actuated by his ruling passion, even in death, grasps a fork, on which he has impaled an oyster. Immediately behind him an electioneering agent offers a bribe to a puritanic tailor; but this conscientious wielder of the needle, lifting up his eyes with horror, refuses the money, maugre the terrific threats of his _amiable_ wife, who, while she raises her right fist in a menacing style, rests her left hand on the head of their barefooted boy.

On an opposite chair is an unfortunate man of the law, who, intent on casting up the sure and doubtful votes, is, like the mighty Goliah, struck in the forehead with a stone, and falls prostrate to the floor. "Where be his quirks and quiddits now?"

A champion of the same party, generally called a bludgeon-man,[64] having met with a similar accident in the cause of his country, is taken in hand by a patriotic butcher, who, assuming the office of surgeon, pours gin into the wound. A little boy filling a mashing-tub with punch,[65] and a trading Quaker reading a promissory note, conclude the catalogue. This note is from the candidate to Mr. Abel Squat for fifty pounds, payable six months after date, and probably offered in payment for ribands, gloves, etc., which are to be presented to the electors' wives and daughters. With this note honest Abel is much dissatisfied; and by the manner one hand is laid upon his little bale of goods, it does not seem probable that he will part with them for paper security.

Coming in at the door we see a band of assailants from the opposite party, determined to attack the enemy in their entrenchments; most of them flourish their cudgels, but one of the heroes brandishes a sword. The stag's horns over the door may perhaps be intended to convey some allusion to the trembling Puritan. A party, whom their enemies at that time distinguished by the name of Jacobites, to show _their_ respect for Revolution principles, have mangled the portrait of King William the Third. The escutcheon with the Elector's arms, A CHEVRON SABLE BETWEEN THREE GUINEAS OR, with the crest of a gaping mouth, and motto "Speak and Have," is very applicable to a parliamentary canvas. The landscape over the candidate's head may, it has been observed, be intended as a representation of the town where this business is transacting. On the flag, which is entwined with laurels, is inscribed "Liberty and Loyalty," which cabalistic words, like the Abracadabra, are a sort of charm to the eyes of your Englishman. On another flag, which lies upon the ground, is written, "Give us our Eleven Days."[66] In the tobacco tray is a paper of Kirton's best,[67] and a slip from the Act against Bribery and Corruption is torn to light pipes with. A lobster appears to be creeping towards a mutton chop, which lies unheeded in a corner. A procession in the street are following an effigy,[68] on the breast of which is inscribed, "No Jews." The mottoes on their flags are equally curious: "Liberty and Property, and no Excise;" and, "Marry and Multiply, in spite of the devil."

An inscription on the butcher's cockade is infinitely more classical and elegant: "Pro Patriæ" has a chance of general admiration, because it is not generally understood.

As to the characters of the _dramatis personæ_. The face and air of the Baronet are perfectly of Lord Chesterfield's school; a fellow scattering ashes on his head, and the cobbler at the table, are marked with mischief. The fat old woman is of Mother Cole's family; and the divine has the corpulence and consequence of a bishop. He must "lard the lean earth as he walks along." The two country fellows looking with delighted eyes at Mr. Parnell, and an old man tortured by the gout, are admirably discriminated. The barber-surgeon and his brother butcher have so much _sang froid_, and display so little feeling for their suffering patients, that we naturally infer each of them is in great practice.

Hogarth was fond of making experiments; and it has been said, that when engraving this plate he determined to attempt what no artist had ever performed, _i.e._ to finish the plate without taking a single proof during the process. The consequence was such as might be expected; he made some mistakes that it was scarcely possible to rectify, and on discovering the errors, violently exclaimed that he was ruined. On his passion subsiding, a brother engraver assisted him to correct the faults occasioned by trying to perform an impossibility. It is, however, the highest finished print he ever engraved.