Chapter VII: Part 7

The method Gay took to rout this army of unnatural auxiliaries does great honour to his generalship. A new disorder had been imported from the Continent, and like the plague which was wont to be imported from Turkey, infected our capital. To lay an embargo upon sound was impossible; to make an echo perform quarantine, ridiculous!--he took a better mode, drew up song against sing-song, and to the soft sonnetteering stanza of Italy, opposed the nervous old ballad of Britain. He brought into the field the whole force of three kingdoms, and took his tunes from the most popular songs of the ancient bards of England, Scotland, and Wales. _Britons strike home_ was the word; _Chevy Chase_ led the van, was followed by a _Soldier and a Sailor_ singing _All Joy to great Cæsar_, and chorussed by _Shenkin of a Noble Race_; when _An old Woman clothed in Gray_, with a _Bonny Broom_ in her hand, swept the whole swarm of buzzing caterpillars _Over the Hills and far away_. Goldoni's opera, I VIAGGIATORI RIDICOLI TORNATI IN ITALIA,[219] was in a degree realized.[220]

For Italian music, William Hogarth had about as much respect as John Gay, and was therefore so well pleased with a subject which threw it into ridicule, that he not only painted it three times, but has in several of his miscellaneous prints made these senseless sounds one great object of his satire.

The picture from which this is copied was painted in the year 1729, for Mr. Rich of Covent Garden Theatre; at the sale of his effects in 1762, it was purchased by the late Duke of Leeds,[221] and is at this time (1806) in the collection of the noble peer who now bears that title. When the late Duke permitted Messrs. Boydell to copy it, the print was engraved by Mr. Blake. To these volumes is annexed an outline descriptive of the characters, which it is therefore unnecessary to enumerate in this page.[222] They afford a good example of the dresses, and what was then called the dignified manner, of the old school. That any woman should admire such a figure as Mr. Walker in Macheath, must excite a degree of astonishment; but to believe for a moment that so attractive a female as Miss Fenton would choose such an Adonis,[223] must, even in the year 1727, require a very large portion of dramatic faith. Her charms have fascinated the Duke of Bolton: his eye is fixed on her face, and his mind wholly engrossed by the contemplation of that beauty which he afterwards made his own. Mr. Rich, and Mr. Cock the auctioneer, are properly enough represented as totally inattentive to the scene. The poet immediately behind them, saturated by public approbation, pays no greater regard to the performance than is displayed by the manager. It had made _Gay rich_, and _Rich gay_, and that was sufficient.

As Hogarth was invariably faithful in delineating what he saw, I dare believe the characters are represented as they were. Considered in that point, without regard to other merit, it has quite as much value as many groups of portraits which are published in this our day, and denominated "Historical Pictures."

In the beginning of the year 1729, Hogarth painted for a Sir Archibald Grant two original pictures, "The Committee,"[224] and the "Beggars' Opera;" but though Sir Archibald paid half-price for them at the time he gave the order, I cannot positively assert that they were ever in his possession, for they afterwards got into the hands of Mr. Huggins, at the sale of whose effects the latter was purchased by Doctor Monkhouse, of Queen's College, Oxford. It has a frame with a carved bust of Gay at the top. The late Horace Lord Orford had a sketch of a scene in the same play.

THE INDIAN EMPEROR; OR, THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO:

_As performed at Mr. Conduit's, Master of the Mint, before the Duke of Cumberland, etc._

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

CORTEZ. CYDARIA. ALMERIA. ALIBECK.

ACT. IV.--SCENE 4th.--_A Prison._

CYDARIA.

"More cruel than the tiger o'er his spoil,
And falser than the weeping crocodile;
Can you add vanity to guilt, and take
A pride to hear the conquests which you make?
Go; publish your renown, let it be said
You have a woman, and that lov'd betray'd."

CORTEZ.

"With what injustice is my faith accused!
Life! freedom! empire! I at once refus'd;
And would again ten thousand times for you."

ALMERIA.

"She'll have too great content to find him true;
And therefore since his love is not for me,
I'll help to make my rival's misery.
Spaniard, I never thought you false before;
Can you at once two mistresses adore?
Keep the poor soul no longer in suspense,
Your change is such, it does not need defence."

The scene of Hogarth's last drama was Newgate; and in this it is a Mexican prison, where his pigmy personages are playing their little parts in one of Dryden's heroic tragedies.

That these minor performers should prefer rhyme to prose, I can readily conceive--the jingling of verse is a great help to your short memory; but that Dryden, "the great high priest of all the Nine," should so far deviate from nature and outrage common sense as thus to fetter his dramatic dialogue, is to be accounted for on no other principle than the vile taste of Charles the Second's vile Court. The play is dedicated to the most excellent and most illustrious Princess Anne, Duchess of Monmouth and Buccleuch, wife to the most illustrious and high-born James Duke of Monmouth; and by that dedication[225] appears to have been warmly patronized by the most eminent persons of wit and honour.

It is a sequel to the _Indian Queen_, written by Dryden and Sir Robert Howard, which was published two years before. Of this connection between the two tragedies, notice was given to the audience by printed bills distributed at the door,[226]--an expedient which the Duke of Buckingham very happily ridicules in _The Rehearsal_, when Bayes boasts of the number of bills he has printed, to instil into the audience some conception of his plot. By the age of the warlike William of Cumberland, I conjecture that these embryotic heroes and heroines strutted away their little hour about the year 1731; and though the play which they are enacting is beneath the blazing genius of John Dryden, it is well worthy the puny powers of these puny performers.[227] Lady Sophia Fermor, who plays the part of Almeria, in 1744 married Lord Granville, and died in 1750. The prompter was a Mr. T. Hill; and though this reverend gentleman is in rather too conspicuous a situation, he is not quite so obtrusive an object as the prompter at the Opera House. The governess playing with one of the children was Lady Deloraine. Miss Conduit, who appears as Alibeck, was daughter to Catherine, the niece of Sir Isaac Newton, and in 1740 married Lord Lymington, eldest son to John first Earl of Portsmouth.

The names and additions of three of the auditors are inserted under the small print. One of the figures has a resemblance to the courtly Lord Chesterfield. Upon the chimney-piece is the bust of Sir Isaac Newton, and it is fair to conjecture that the two framed portraits represent Mr. and Mrs. Conduit.

The figure leaning on the back of a chair is said to be intended for the Duke of Montagu; and the two in the background, for the Duke and Duchess of Richmond.

Hogarth's original painting is the property of Lord Holland.

THE END.

The writer of this catalogue is now come to his last chapter, and has before him the last plate that Hogarth engraved, which is properly denominated the _Finis_ to that great painter's works.

Of the various opinions which the numerous readers of these his volumes will form at this his conclusion, he can have no certain judgment; but fears that some of them may be thus anticipated.

The votary of comedy, who considers Hogarth as a mere burlesque painter, with whom he only wishes to laugh, will deem this book too grave; while the saturnine spirit, that looks at him as a mere sermonic moralist, will say it is not grave enough. The man who supposes that every character was individual, and expects the scandalous chronicle of those who were satirized by the artist, will probably complain that there is too little anecdote; while he that considers this as a frivolous, gossiping, and anecdotish age, will say there is too much.

Some will observe that these volumes are too long, and in the style of a tired mariner, exult that they see land. In this their exultation the writer most sincerely participates, but at the same time acknowledges (so predominant is vanity) that he trusts there are who would not regret if the work were still longer, who will correct what they find erroneous without triumphing in their superior sagacity, and candidly forgive the writer's weakness without too much glorying in their own strength.

From the pedantic and quizzical connoisseur I expect no mercy, but suppose that the book and the writer will be arraigned and condemned in manner and form following:--

"I took up these volumes with the expectation of seeing all the characters that Hogarth introduced determined, and all his variations recorded. With respect to the characters, some are mistaken, and others are omitted; and as to the variations, few are noticed.[228] Concerning a multitude of invaluable prints, which have singly produced three times as much as the volume of his prints in their present state sells for, there is not even a catalogue; there are many pages of extraneous matter, which I had not patience to read; every iota of Hogarth I understood without the assistance of this book."

With all possible humility the author declareth, that for your use or benefit he did not compile it.

"Laugh where you may, be candid where you can."

That you may know some of the characters of which the writer is ignorant, he willingly acknowledges; that you may guess at many, where he sees no ground for conjecture, he cheerfully admits; and that both you and himself are very frequently mistaken, he firmly believes.

The prints are described as they are copied from the present state of the plates, and the material alterations incidentally noticed. However great the merit of the tankards and teapots, the waiters and coats of arms, to reduce them did not come into the present plan; to commemorate them was unnecessary.[229] The author of these volumes, from the day he has written man, inspected the works of Hogarth with delight, but was not fully conscious of their superlative merit until the compilation of these remarks, in the progress of which his duty to the public obliged him to examine their design, and endeavour to illustrate their tendency. In this he has engaged with the consciousness that there would be error,--which to such a work is necessarily attached.

To those readers who are not too fastidious to peruse it with this allowance, or who have not hitherto looked at Hogarth with the attention he merits, it is addressed. If it impels them to more minute inspection of his works, the purpose is answered.

Yes, great and unrivalled genius! every contemplation of thy works must be succeeded by admiration!

THE BATHOS, OR MANNER OF SINKING IN SUBLIME PAINTINGS.[231]

_Inscribed to the dealers in dark pictures._

In five compartments beneath the title are the following inscriptions:--

In the dexter corner is a pyramidical shell inscribed: "The conic form in which the Goddess of Beauty was worshipped by the ancients at Paphos in the Island of Cyprus. See the medal struck when a Roman emperor visited the temple."

"Simulacrum Deæ non effigie humana, continuus orbis latiori initio tenuem in ambitum meta modo, exsurgens et ratio in obscuro."--TACIT. _Hist._ lib. 2.

In the sinister corner is a white pyramid, round which is twisted the favourite serpentine line inscribed:--

"A copy of the precise line of Beauty, as it is represented on the first explanatory plate of the 'Analysis of Beauty.'"

"Venus a Paphiis colitur, cujus simulacrum nulli rei magis assimile, quam albæ Pyramidi."--MAXIMUS TYRIUS, _Ann._ 157.

"_Note._--The similarity of these two conic figures did not occur to the author till two or three years after the publication of the _Analysis_ in 1754."

Thus conclude the inscriptions. We will next inquire into the motives by which the artist was actuated, and the subjects he has intended to satirize in this his concluding enigmatical and pun-ical print.

* * * * *

The labours of this great painter to the passions are now at an end; and this is the last page of his eventful and instructive histories. Those which he had formed into a series, added to the single prints, portraits, etc., had become so numerous as to form a large volume. A concluding plate seemed necessary; and we are told that, a few months before he was seized with that malady which deprived society of one of its greatest ornaments, he had in contemplation a last engraving. After a dinner with a few social friends at his own table, enjoying

"The feast of reason, and the flow of soul,"

the board crowned with wine, and each glass circulating convivial cheerfulness, he was asked, "What will be the subject of your next print?" "The end of all things!" was his reply. "If that should be the case," added one of his friends, "your business will be finished, for there will be an end of the painter." With a look that conveyed a consciousness of approaching dissolution, and a deep sigh, he answered, "There will so; and therefore, the sooner my work is done the better." With this impulse he next day began this plate, and seeming to consider it as a terminus to his fame, never turned to the right or left until he arrived at the end of his journey.

The aim of this _Omega_ to his own alphabet was twofold; to bring together every object which denoted the end of time, and throw a ridicule upon the bathos and profundity of the ancient masters.

That the bathos is not confined to the poet, but hath at sundry times and in divers manners been of sovereign use to the painter, I am well convinced. My opinion was originally formed upon the inspection of many ancient and modern pictures, innumerable volumes of ancient and modern prints, and an annual attendance at the Royal Exhibition: it was confirmed by the perusal of some papers on the arts, which came into my possession by one of those fortunate accidents that happen to few men above once in their lives. Walking some years ago through Harp Alley, I observed a porter carrying an old trunk without a cover, in which was a little picture in a broad and deep ebony frame, a few mutilated pamphlets, a parcel of prints, and an old manuscript volume bound in vellum. He laid down his load at a broker's shop; I inspected it, and seeing the book inscribed "Mart. Scrib.," purchased the whole lot, took a hackney coach, and joyfully conveyed my prize home. Eagerly inspecting the contents, I found the picture was Dutch, and turned to a tint sombre as the frame: by the help of clear water I brought out the colours, and--

"Oh! Jephtha, judge of Israel,--what a treasure!"

To have painted it, must have been the labour of a long life. Such a green stall!--such a cabbage!--a cauliflower!--a string of Spanish onions!--a bunch of carrots!--a lobster!--a brass kettle!--and a sunflower!--I never beheld before. So clear! transparent! vivid!--It was forcible as Rembrandt! brilliant as Rubens!--and for finishing--the most accurate works of Denner!--the most delicate pencilling of the Chevalier Vanderweff!--compared with this charming _tableau_, would appear hasty sketches.

The pamphlets were German, and touched of the transmutation of metals; to discover which, who can calculate the loads of charcoal that have been burnt, the retorts that have been burst, or the heads that have been turned? That this grand arcanum of nature will at some future day be revealed, I have no doubt; and there is little reason to fear but the benefit of the discovery will be reaped by this island;--because, Britain is highly favoured by the gods; and several great calculators have clearly proved, that without some such miraculous assistance, Britain must be undone by her enormous national debt.

The prints were Flemish; but these subjects are foreign to my manuscript. First craving pardon for the digression, to that I proceed.

By time[232] it was turned to the colour of old parchment, but that it was written by the righte cunnynge hand of Martinus Scriblerus there can be little doubt.

When he sent some literary memoranda to Arbuthnot,[233] he recommended to the Doctor "the recovery of others which lay straggling about the world."[234]

Let it be also remembered, that though this prodigy of science presented to our English Cervantes numerous tracts, he might not think the Doctor would have a proper value for those on painting. That Martinus was a competent judge of the fine arts, is proved by his fifth chapter on Sinking in Poetry. Now as the family of the Scribleri, with all their alliances and collateral relations, have time immemorial been distinguished for the _cacoëthes scribendi_ of whatever he was a judge, certes he would write, and that which he hath written I have happily preserved. A few extracts[235] which I have inserted will give a general idea of the whole, which is entitled, THE ART OF SINKING IN PAINTING; and is thus introduced in the _Prolegomena_:--

"Great and manifold have been the benefits (my dear countryman)
which poesy hath derived from that innumerable army of critics
and commentators, who fabricated fences to keep her in bounds,
and bore blazing torches to irradiate her path. Lamentable is it
to consider how few lights have been held out to her sister art;
who, notwithstanding an equal or prior claim, hath been suffered
to wander through her dreary night with no other illumination
than the glow-worm on the bank, or the _ignis fatuus_ in the
ditches. For the use and service of the poet there is an ocean
of commentary; while the painter hath no other stream in which to
slake his thirst for instruction than that which creeps among the
weeds in the meadow, or gurgles over the pebbles in the valley.

"From intense application to the mysterious tablets of my great
ancestors, for ages professors of astrology and chemistry in the
universities of Germany, I am empowered to see by anticipation.

"For me it is decreed to strike the rock of nature with the rod
of science, and liberate the fountain of truth, whose waters
shall fertilize this ungenial isle. Ye whose well-poised pinions
enable you to soar above this our terrestrial globe, and dip your
pencils in the rainbow! come and contemplate the magic mirror of
Martinus Scriblerus.

"Conscious am I that this our divine muse, who hath not unaptly
been styled journeywoman to Nature, is now in a profound sleep;
but in the coming century she shall awake from her trance,
shake the dust from her many-coloured mantle, and dazzle the
surrounding nations. Blest with the power of penetrating the
cloud of time, which is impervious to vulgar sight, I see, as
in a vision, the wonders of another age; and should these my
lucubrations be neglected by my contemporaries, happy am I in
the confidence that by their posterity they will be properly
estimated, and sought for as were the Sibyl's leaves, regarded as
the oracles of Apollo, and considered as the touchstone of true
taste. To the age of whom they are worthy, and who are worthy of
them, I dedicate these my labours.

"The few who have written upon the fine arts have endeavoured to
inculcate simplicity of action, anatomical correctness, symmetry
of parts, harmony of colouring, easy folding of drapery, and due
attention to the grouping of figures. These rules can only be
classed among the idle dreams of visionary speculation; resign
yourselves unto my guidance, and listen unto the lessons of truth.

"In every animal there is an original instinct, tending towards
that for which it was by nature designed. In man, there is a
natural bias to the bathos; but he must be instructed, or rather
compelled into any relish or taste for what is denominated the
sublime.

"To prove this my position, show a collection of drawings or
paintings to a child: it will be irresistibly attracted by
glittering colours, forced expressions, and grotesque, or what
are commonly called caricatured countenances. Let the savage, who
is not vitiated by idle rules, and has never seen painted canvas,
be taken into a picture-gallery,--his natural taste will lead him
to similar objects. What the artists call a quiet picture, he
will quietly pass; but let the figures be crowded, the attitudes
extravagant, and the colours gaudy,--his attention and admiration
are ensured.

"These facts being admitted, and they cannot be denied, why
should we not take the genuine undebauched disposition of man
in his original state of simplicity, as a better criterion of
truth than that ideal nature which hath misled many painters
and writers; of whose fantastic dogmas I cannot too strongly
caution you to beware. Should you, in the course of your early
studies, have contracted any of this ancient _ærugo_,--it is
corrosive,--consider it as the dross of science, and scatter
it in the air, for with my precepts it cannot coalesce. Ideal
beauty is a childish absurdity. Painting is, or ought to be, an
imitation of nature; and that can never be a good picture which
representeth things that never did or can exist."

After many more pages to the same purport, this great philosopher divideth his subject. The table of contents to a few of his chapters, which will give a general idea of his plan, is hereunto annexed:--

"CHAP. 1.--_Of the Story._

"The principal character in your piece should be an illustrious
person; but as great men may sometimes, for their recreation and
diversion, or worse purposes, be taken up in mean and trivial
matters, in such situations, it is proved from many right worthy
examples, they may and ought to be delineated. The Emperor
Domitian should be represented killing flies; Nero, playing upon
the fiddle; Julius Cæsar, kicking a football; and Commodus, at a
bull-baiting.

"CHAP. 2.--_Relateth unto the Allegory._

"To raise an historical picture above vulgar expression, it
should be seasoned with allegory, and elevated with metaphorical
allusions and figures.

"CHAP. 3.--_Of the Time._

"In this there should be variety; and if your story have not
a sufficient number of great and famous persons to render it
important and interesting, you may embellish it with such
portraitures as suit your purpose. Their not having lived in the
same age or nation is of little import.

"CHAP. 4.--_Of the Machinery._

"The machinery, _id est_, the celestial and infernal powers,
must be brought into your picture on every great or difficult
occasion. This will not only give your delineation a classical
and learned air, but account for any wonderful action which
the world might think your hero could not perform without
supernatural assistance.

"CHAP. 5.--_Treateth of the Episode._

"To vary the pleasure of the spectator, an historical picture
should be diversified with an episode; especial care being taken
that it have no congruity with the main subject; for the name
deriveth from that which is superadded to the original plan, and
ought no more to appear a part of it than an insect appeareth as
a part of the animal unto which it adhereth.

"CHAP. 6.--_Describeth the nature and end of the Hyperbola, or
Impossible._

"This image is of eminent use in giving a cast of grandeur and
greatness to what would, without it, appear trivial and mean.
It excites astonishment; and the majority of mankind being most
delighted with that which is most marvellous, is a good and
sufficient cause for your works being well strewed with wonders."

For the contents of eighteen succeeding chapters, treating of the cumbrous, the inflated, the glittering, the infantine, the pun-ical, the vulgar, and sundry other styles, I have not room, but quitting the bathos of Martinus Scriblerus, must proceed unto that of William Hogarth.

It is well worthy of the title, for a more heterogeneous compound of ludicrous and serious objects was never displayed in one print.

Some of his images the artist has gleaned from the common field of the poor company of punsters, and for others hath soared into the lofty regions of mythological allegory. He ascends from an inch of candle setting fire to a print, to the chariot of the sun, which, with Apollo Pæan and his three fiery coursers, sinks into endless night. Mounts from the cobbler's end, twisted round a wooden last, to the world's end, elegantly exemplified by a bursting globe on an alehouse sign. He has contrasted the worn-out brush with the broken crown; and opposed to the empty purse a commission of bankrupt, which, sanctioned with the great seal of a hero upon a white horse, is issued and awarded against Nature,--by Heaven knows who! He has joined the huge cracked bell of the cathedral to the broken bottle of the tavern; and set in opposition to the mutilated column and capital of Ionia, the rope's end of a man-of-war. The bow which, drawn by the old English archer, gave force fraught with death to the barbed arrow, is unstrung and broken. The mutilated firelock, divested of its tube, shall no more thin the ranks of contending armies. The tottering tower, funeral yew, death's head, cross-bones, and "_Hic jacet_" of a country churchyard, are opposed by the hard-worn besom, blighted oaks, falling sign-post, and unthatched cottage. In what painters call the sky, we have not only the son of Latona, but Luna in a veil: in the distance a ship is sinking into the bed of the ocean, and a gibbet is erected on the shore; to this, in conformity with the wise institutions of our polished ancestors, and for the luxury of those strong-beaked birds that feast their young with blood,--a lord of the creation is suspended.[236] ONCE,--

"On our quick'st decrees
The inaudible and noiseless foot of Time
Stole, ere we could effect them."

NOW,--his scythe, tube, and hour-glass being broken, his progress is ended! his sinews are unstrung! his hour of dissolution arrived!--and with those five _capital letters_ that have concluded the labours of so many learned authors, and which conjoined form the word FINIS,--

"He ends his mortal coil, and breathes his last!"

By his will,--The great globe itself, and all which it inherits, is bequeathed to Chaos,--appointed sole executor;--and this, his last act, is witnessed by the _Parcæ_.

The print of "The Times," that gave rise to so much unmerited abuse of this wonderful painter and excellent man, is in a blaze. The palette on which he spread the varying tints of many-coloured life--broken;--the whip of satire, armed with which he

"Dar'd the rage
Of the bad men of this degenerate age,"

and scourged those that were safe from the law, and laughed at the gospel;--the whip of satire--divested of its lash, lies unheeded on the earth.

The book of Nature, in which he was so deeply read, and from whence he drew all his images, is open at the last page. The characters that compose his pictured tragi-comedies have passed in review before us, and with the words engraven on the last leaf of that volume which he so well studied, I will conclude this--

EXEUNT OMNES.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] From some late examples in our courts of justice, I have thought it barely possible that this dignified descendant of crowned heads, at the same time that he is admiring his own person, may be observing the Counsellor's attention to his lady, and hoping that he shall find some future opportunity of detecting her infidelity and obtaining a divorce. But this is merely conjecture. I wish, for the honour of human nature, that there had been no example to justify such a suspicion.

[2] The following whimsical imitation of Chaucer was written, I believe, by Hermes Harris:--

"Right welle my lerned clerkis it is said,
That womanhoode for manne his use was made;
But naughtie manne liketh not one, or soe,
But wisheth aye unthriftilie for mo;
And when by holie church to one he's tied,
Then for his soule he cannot her abide.
Thus when a dogge first lighteth on a bone,
His taile he waggeth,--gladde thereof y-growne;
But if thilke bone untoe his taile thou tie,
Pardie, he fearing it, away doth flie."

[3] Hogarth might intend by this, and the improprieties and violations of order in the unfinished building seen out of a window, to hint at the absurdities of the then fashionable architect, William Kent. As a painter Kent was beneath satire, as an architect he was above it; but he was protected by Lord Burlington, patronized by Lord Pembroke, and employed by all who aspired to a character for _virtu_. Hogarth saw with disgust bordering upon indignation that his taste in one art, modern gardening (of which he was the acknowledged father), procured him the reputation of excellence in another, in which he was grossly ignorant and glaringly erroneous. In some of the grounds laid out by Kent's directions, he realized that Paradise which Milton had described; his patrons saw that he could improve nature in their plantations, and very kindly gave him credit for a power which he never possessed--that of giving an imitation of nature on his canvas. By the Dryades his sacrifice had been accepted; but the offering he laid upon the altar sacred to the fine arts was rejected with disdain. It was the praise of Hercules that he destroyed monsters and discomfited giants; it was the praise of William Kent that he cleared our gardens of their representatives. Before his time the plantations round the seats of our nobility were a kind of vernal menagerie: the lion shook his shaggy mane in yew; the dragon waved his wings in evergreen; and in box, the wild boar displayed his bristled neck and tusks terrific. Our disciple of true taste cleared away these fantastic forms, and in their place gave us nature,--"nature to advantage dressed." But when consulted about interior decorations, his taste evaporated. The heavy canopy over the nobleman's head, the ponderous chairs and massy frames which decorate the room, are from his designs. In some of the old houses of our ancient nobility we see furniture of a similar appearance, though the greatest part of it, after passing through the purgatory of a broker's shop, has either been placed in very inferior situations or consigned to the flames.

Of Kent's abilities as a painter the public thought so highly, that he was absurdly enough opposed to Sir James Thornhill. This circumstance might be one source of Hogarth's dislike; he, however, took an early opportunity of showing it, by what is called a "Burlesque of Kent's Altarpiece at St. Clement's Church," but which Hogarth declared to be a fair delineation of the original. A reduced copy is in vol. iii. of this work; see p. 17 of the 2d edition.

[4] Some of the portraits of Louis XIV. are quite as absurd. We are told that he once sent to Rome for Poussin, to paint him in the character of Jupiter. This great artist obeyed the summons, and prepared his canvas and colours; when, to his extreme astonishment, the monarch informed him that, although he was to be delineated as the representative of Jove, etiquette did not permit him to appear without his major peruke, and he must consequently be so painted. Poussin, not able to conceive any way of giving appropriate dignity to the thunderer of Olympus with this flowing appendage, declined beginning the picture, and returned to Rome without making his _congé_.

[5] By the loose negligence of her habit, and some circumstances, I am inclined to think the artist intended to represent her as pregnant. It has been said that after Baron had finished the plate, Mr. Hogarth added a lock of hair with Indian ink, but after a few impressions were taken off, inserted this supplemental ornament with the graver. In his _Analysis of Beauty_, he makes a remark which in some degree accounts for the introduction of this fascinating attraction:--

"It was once the fashion to have two curls of equal size, stuck at the same height close upon the forehead, which probably took its rise from seeing the pretty effect of curls falling loosely over the face.

"A lock of hair falling thus across the temples, and by that means breaking the regularity of the oval, has an effect too alluring to be strictly decent, as is very well known to the loose and lowest classes of women; but being paired in so stiff a manner as they formerly were, they lost the desired effect, and ill deserved the name of ornaments."

Moralists of different nations have considered hair as calculated to entangle hearts, and one of our pious writers of the last century wrote a furious treatise on the _un_loveliness of love-locks.

[6] A chair kicked down, an _Essay on Whist_, cards scattered on the floor, and the general confusion of everything in the room, seem to intimate that this _right honourable society_ were actuated by passions somewhat similar to those which inflame the gentlemen in the sixth plate of "The Rake's Progress." Though a genuine gamester is not apt to lose his presence of mind on slight occasions, yet when a man of rank is stripped of sums that will draw into their vortex many anticipated years of his revenue, he is liable to lose his temper, and on such occasions apt to vent his spleen on inanimate objects. Such things sometimes happen even now.

[7] Absurd as this may seem, yet until Mr. Wedgwood introduced those beautiful Etruscan forms which now decorate the rooms, and form the taste of the possessors, these shapeless monsters disgraced the most splendid apartments in the metropolis.

[8] "Kent was not only consulted for furniture, as frames of pictures, glasses, tables, chairs, etc., but for plate, for a barge, for a cradle. So impetuous was fashion, that two great ladies prevailed on him to make designs for their birthday gowns. The one he dressed in a petticoat decorated with columns of the five orders; the other, like a bronze, in copper-coloured satin, with ornaments of gold."--Walpole's _Anecdotes_, 2d edit., vol. iv. p. 239.

[9] This race still roll round the metropolis; and while some put their trust in chariots, horses, and impudence, others depend on the credulity of his Majesty's liege subjects.

The following epitaph was written for one of them:--

Beneath lies lean old Fillgrave, once M.D.,
Who hunger felt much oft'ner than a fee;
These were the last, last words the doctor spoke
(And, believe me, sirs, the sentence was no joke),
"The world I leave, but can't the world forgive,
For by my patients I could never live."
In this rejoin'd a friend, "You'd but your due;
Your patients, doctor, ne'er could live by you."--E.

[10] It is said to have been designed for the once celebrated Betty Careless, and the remark is supposed to be countenanced by the initials E. C. on her bosom. This woman, by a transmigration as natural as is that of the chrysalis, from being one of the most fashionable of the Cyprian corps, became keeper of a brothel; and after repeated arrests and many imprisonments, was buried from the poorhouse of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, April 22, 1752. In many of the elegant Latin odes of Loveling her name is immortalized; and of her person and appearance Fielding thus speaks in his _Amelia_:--

"I happened in my youth to sit behind two ladies in a side-box at a play, where, in a balcony on the opposite side, was placed the inimitable Betsy Careless, in company with a young fellow of no very formal or indeed sober appearance. One of the ladies, I remember, said to the other, 'Did you ever see anything look so modest and so innocent as that girl over the way? What pity it is such a creature should be in the way of ruin, as I am afraid she is by being alone with that young fellow.'

"Now this lady was no bad physiognomist: for it was impossible to conceive a greater appearance of modesty, innocence, and simplicity than what nature had displayed in the countenance of that girl, and yet, all appearances notwithstanding, I myself (remember, critic, it was in my youth) had, a few mornings before, seen that very identical picture of those engaging qualities in bed with a rake at a bagnio, smoking tobacco, drinking punch, talking obscenity, and swearing and cursing with all the impudence and impiety of the lowest and most abandoned trull of a soldier."

Hogarth noticed this woman in a former print: one of the madmen in the last plate of "The Rake's Progress" has written "Charming Betsy Careless" on the rail of the stairs, and wears her portrait suspended to a riband tied round his neck. Mrs. Heywood's _Betsy Thoughtless_ was in MS. entitled _Betsy Careless_; but, from the infamy at that time annexed to the name, had a new baptism. There are those who say that the letters upon this woman's bosom are not E. C. but F. C., and intended to designate Fanny Cock, daughter of Mr. Cock the auctioneer, with whom the artist had a casual disagreement. After all these conjectures, I think it is probable that these gunpowder initials are merely the marks of a woman of the lowest rank and most infamous description.

[11] From the gallows, immediately over his head, we are led to suppose the artist intended to hint that this gentleman died for the good of his country; but from the records of some of our mortuary historians, it appears that about the time this set of prints were published, a number of bodies thus preserved, which had been exsiccated by some mode of embalming at present unknown, were discovered in a vault in Whitechapel Church.

[12] This royal mummy, being once the sole tenant of one of the largest pyramids, might be more positively ascertained than any of the Cleopatras. It was, however, profanely removed by a wild Arab, who, after he had stolen it, sold it to the Consul of Alexandria, by whom it was transmitted to England: and a right grave antiquary quotes a passage in Sandys' _Travels_ to prove its being genuine; where that learned and accurate voyager assures us that he saw the sepulchre empty, "which agrees exactly," saith he, "with the theft above mentioned." He omits to observe that Herodotus tells the same thing of it in his time.

[13] Carestini.

[14] A short time before the publication of these prints, the greatest part of our nobility acted as if they had been bitten by a tarantula. The sums lavished upon exotic warblers would have supported an army; the applause bestowed upon some of them would have turned the brain of a saint. It was little short of adoration. Persons of inferior rank caught this jingling contagion, and all orders of the people were infected with a musical mania, totally foreign to our national taste, and highly dishonourable to our national character. In one of Hogarth's former prints is a list of the rich presents Signior Farinelli, the Italian singer, condescended to accept from the English nobility and gentry for one night's performance in the opera of _Artaxerxes!_ comprising gold snuff-boxes, diamond rings, diamond buckles, etc. That such presents were actually made is ascertained by the newspapers of the day.

[15] The group of which this is composed is worthy observation. The Counsellor is pointing to a friar and a nun who are in close conversation.

[16] Mrs. Lane (afterwards Lady Bingley).

[17] Fox Lane, her husband.

[18] Weideman.

[19] This curious delineation is whimsically placed immediately over the head of the Italian.

[20] Of the wisdom displayed in this judgment much has been said; I have sometimes thought that a decision of the great Frederick of Prussia's was equally deserving of record. When a list of criminals, who had forfeited their lives by violating the laws of their country, was once brought to him to sign, he observed the name of a soldier convicted of sacrilege.--"That a soldier of mine should be guilty of so atrocious a crime," said the king, "astonishes and distresses me. I will not, however, sign his death-warrant until I have examined him in person." The man was accordingly brought into the royal presence, and two monks, who were his accusers, declared that he had come into their church during the time they were celebrating mass, and placed himself under an image of the Virgin Mary, from whose shoes he had privately taken two pearl bows, and carried them out of the church: they pursued him, and found them in his pocket. The king, turning to the criminal, desired to know what he had to say in his defence? which was simply this: that he was a disbanded soldier, and in great distress for a dinner: that he walked into the churchyard, and earnestly prayed to the Virgin Mary that she would put him in the way of getting one: that she appeared to him, and told him she heard his supplications, and pitied his distress; to relieve which, she begged him to accept of some pearls which were on the feet of her image in the neighbouring church. When the doors opened, he walked into the church and took them out of her shoes, with an intention of converting them into money. "This," said the king, "alters the face of the business; but tell me, most reverend fathers, for you undoubtedly know, is it according to your canons possible that the Virgin could, to relieve distress and preserve a life, appear to this poor man in the way he describes?"--"Undoubtedly, my liege, she could, but it is not probable that she did." "Is it possible?"--"Certainly." "Very well. I will not let a soldier of mine suffer death upon probabilities. He shall be discharged this time; but observe what I say to you, young man; if at any future period I find that you accept another present from either virgin, saint, or angel, you shall be hanged."

[21] It is said to be copied from the frontispiece to a twopenny history of the notified Moll Flanders; but I do not remember seeing it among Mr. Gulston's two-and-twenty thousand portraits of illustrious characters.

[22] This is one among many proofs of Mr. Hogarth's close attention to those little markings which have been generally disregarded by other artists. By a fire in the room he fixes the time to be winter,--a season in which those exotic amusements, masquerades, are most frequent in the metropolis.

[23] "If he do not become a cart as well as another man--a plague on his bringing up!"

[24] A brawn's head, with an orange in its mouth, was at that time a fashionable winter dish; and it was a standing dish which might be marched from the pantry to the parlour, and give the semblance of plenty for forty days. This was perhaps one reason for our votary of Mammon making it the leading article in his bill of fare; the rest and residue of his feast is made up by a solitary egg.

A boiled egg was the usual dinner of Sir Hans Sloane. When he once complained to Dr. Mortimer that all his friends had deserted him, the Doctor observed that Chelsea was a considerable distance from the residence of most of them, and therefore they might be disappointed when they came to find he had so slight a dinner. This gentle remonstrance put the old Baronet in a rage, and he exclaimed, "Keep a table! Invite people to dinner! Would you have me ruin myself? Public credit totters already, and if (as has been presaged) there should be a national bankruptcy, or a sponge to wipe out the national debt, you may yet see me in a workhouse." His landed estate was at that time very considerable, and his museum worth much more than the twenty thousand pounds which was, however, given for it by Parliament.

Scanty as is our citizen's dinner, his table-cloth is ample. The founder of Guy's Hospital, which is the first private foundation in the world, was not so extravagant. His constant substitute for a table-cloth was either a dirty proof sheet of some book or an old newspaper.

[25] Let not any censure fall upon Mr. Hogarth for these indelicate representations. He evidently means to burlesque the gross and ridiculous absurdities of the Dutch painters.

[26] These canine unfortunates are not only useful when living, but frequently _die for the good of mankind_. Some have their throats cut, to prove the efficacy of a styptic; others are bled to death for a philosophical transfusion; and very many resign their breath in the receiver of an air-pump. _Unhappy Dogs!_

[27] "It appears to have been a part of that curse which the disobedience of the first man brought upon his posterity, that we were compelled to stain our hands in blood, and to subsist on the destruction of other animals. But surely, if the necessity of our nature obliges us to deprive an innocent being of life, it ought to be done in the easiest and speediest manner! and such was the custom among the peculiar people of God. What shall we say to that luxury which, for a momentary gratification of appetite, condemns a creature endued with feeling, perhaps with mind, to languish in torments, and expire by a protracted and cruel death?"--_Sermons by George Gregory, D.D., F.A.S._, 2d edit. p. 100.

[28] How much are we the creatures of habit! Those who would shudder at tying a lobster to a wooden spit, and roasting it alive, will _coolly_ place a dozen oysters between the bars of a slow fire; and yet these oysters, notwithstanding their supposed torpor, may have an equal degree of feeling with their armoured brother.

[29] I remember once seeing a practical lesson of humanity given to a little chimney-sweeper, which had, I dare say, a better effect than a volume of ethics. The young soot merchant was seated upon an alehouse bench, and had in one hand his brush, and in the other a hot buttered roll. While exercising his white masticators with a perseverance that evinced the highest gratification, he observed a dog lying on the ground near him. The repetition of "Poor fellow, poor fellow," in a good-natured tone, brought the quadruped from his resting-place: he wagged his tail, looked up with an eye of humble entreaty, and in that universal language which all nations understand, asked for a morsel of bread. The sooty tyrant held his remnant of roll towards him; but on the dog gently offering to take it, struck him with his brush so violent a blow across the nose as nearly broke the bone. A gentleman who, unperceived, had been a witness to the whole transaction, put a sixpence between his finger and thumb, and beckoned this little monarch of May-day to an opposite door. The lad grinned at the silver, but on stretching out his hand to receive it, the practical teacher of humanity gave him such a rap upon the knuckles with a cane as made them ring. His hand tingling with pain, and tears running down his cheeks, he asked "What that was for?" "To make you feel," was the reply. "How do you like a blow and a disappointment?--the dog endured both! Had you given him a piece of bread, this sixpence should have been the reward; you gave him a blow, I will therefore put the money in my pocket."

[30] By a strange and inapplicable mistake, this has sometimes been written Thieves Inn. It was at that time the longest shilling fare from the great fountain of law in Westminster.

[31] Though contrary to an express Act of Parliament, this is done every day.

[32] To the dishonour of our police, the savage custom of driving cattle through the streets, even at high noon, is still continued, though scarce a week passes without a consequent accident. Might not the Fleet Market be removed to Smithfield, and that for live cattle be held in the skirts of the city, with a penalty upon any person driving a beast through the streets after nine in the morning? This may be impracticable; but the number of accidents which happen from the present custom show the necessity of some reform.

[33] Instead of Amphitheatres, these Gymnasia are now more elegantly called Academies.

[34] The scene has been said to be laid in Pancras Churchyard: I think it bears more resemblance to that of Marybone. The building in the background may be on the same eminence where now is the Jew's Harp House. This is only conjecture, and as such let it be received.

[35] Shakspeare saw this in its true light:

"_Hamlet._ Has this fellow any feeling of his business?

"_Horatio._ Custom hath made it in him a matter of easiness.

"_Hamlet._ Tis e'en so: the hand of little employment hath the
daintier sense."

[36] The president much resembles old Frieake, who was the master of Nourse, to whom the late Mr. Potts was a pupil.

Mr. Frieake was originally a member of the Barbers' Company, and lived in Salisbury Square. Being desirous of building a carriage on the most reasonable terms, he employed a number of journeymen coachmakers in his own garret. They performed their task, but found it was not possible to get this appendage to modern practice into the street by any other means than unroofing the house. This was done, and a bricklayer's bill for re-covering the attic storey rendered his _saving_ scheme much more expensive than it would have been if he had employed the king's coachmaker.

[37] The importance of the brewery to the revenue will appear by the following statement:--

MALT AND BREWERS.

The duty on malt from July 5, 1785, to the same day 1786, produced a million and a half of money, from a liquor which invigorates the bodies of its willing subjects to defend the blessings they enjoy, while that from Stygian gin enervates and incapacitates.

One of the brewers (or Chevaliers de Malte, as an impertinent Frenchman styled Humphrey Parsons, when the King of France inquired who he was) within one year contributed fifty thousand pounds to his own share. The sight of a great London brewery exhibits a magnificence unspeakable. The vessels evince the extent of the trade. Mr. Meux of Liquorpond Street can show twenty-four vessels containing thirty-five thousand four hundred barrels of wholesome liquor, which enables our London porter-drinkers to perform tasks that ten gin-drinkers would sink under.

[38] This gentleman has been very properly baptized the _Herring Poet_.

[39] It is directed to the Trunkmaker, and contains five enormous folios, titled as follows:--_Lauder on Milton_. _Politics_, vol. 999. _Modern Tragedies_, vol. 12. _Hill on the Royal Society_, and _Turnbull on Ancient Paintings_. The two last are worthy of a better fate, for one has some wit, and the other many sensible remarks.

[40] It is not 400 years since a Baron of this realm was tried for high crimes and misdemeanours, and one of the chief accusations exhibited against him was, that he suffered himself to be carried about his garden by two of his own species.

[41] It is said, I don't know upon what authority, to be intended as a burlesque delineation of John Stephen Liotard, of whom Mr. Walpole thus writes in p. 195 of his _Anecdotes_:--

"Devoid of imagination, and one would think of memory, he could render nothing but what he saw before his eyes. Freckles, marks of the small-pox, everything found its place; not so much from fidelity, as because he could not conceive the absence of anything that appeared to him."

This miserable personage may, however, be only intended to show the state of the arts at that time, when an English painter, if not excellent in portraits, had no other patronage than that of those gentlemen who put out signs of Blue Lions, Green Dragons, and Red Harts. Thanks to the talents of our immortal bard, it is not so now. Whether the artists of the present day drain copious draughts of humble porter, or fill their flagons with Falernian or French wines, let not the memory of their patron poet be forgotten. "He merits all their wonder, all their praise!"

[42] This wretched being was painted from nature. His cry was, "Buy my ballads, and I'll give you a glass of gin for nothing."

[43] This _infernal broth_ is vulgarly called "Strip-me-naked," and has almost invariably that effect.

[44] This is an unnatural and violent exaggeration.

[45] The church in view is _St. George's, Bloomsbury_. Ralph, in his _Critical Review of the Buildings in London_, properly observes that "this structure is ridiculous and absurd even to a proverb. That the builder mistook whim for genius, and ornament for taste, and that the execrable conceit of displaying a statue of the king on the top of it excites laughter in the ignorant, and contempt in the judge of architecture."

[46] Two of these harpies have names highly descriptive of their professions--"Gripe" and "Killman."