Chapter V (1)

HOGARTH'S INDUCEMENT TO PAINTING THE PICTURE OF SIGISMUNDA. HIS
CORRESPONDENCE WITH LORD GROSVENOR ON THIS SUBJECT, CONTRASTED
BY TWO LETTERS FROM LORD CHARLEMONT, FOR WHOM HE HAD PREVIOUSLY
PAINTED AN INTERESTING SCENE. ORIGIN OF THE QUARREL WITH WILKES
AND CHURCHILL, WHICH GAVE RISE TO THE PRINT OF THE BEAR, ETC.;
AND THE ARTIST'S DEATH.

The particulars relative to the picture of "Sigismunda," Hogarth has himself inserted in his subscription-book, on the leaves of which he has pasted his correspondence with Lord Charlemont and Lord Grosvenor, and a proof print of MacArdell's copy from Correggio's picture. In a little blue memorandum book he resumes the subject, and concludes with a narrative of his quarrel with Wilkes and Churchill, which ends with the word _Finis_.

In these and some other loose papers, after having stated the professional injury which he had sustained from his opponents asserting, and the public believing, that he could not paint portraits, he continues:--

"Being thus driven out of the only profitable branch of
my profession, I at first thought of attaching myself to
history-painting; but in this there was no employment, for
in forty years I had only two orders of any consequence for
historical pictures. This was rather mortifying; and being, by
the profits of my former productions and the office of serjeant
painter, tolerably easy in my circumstances, and thoroughly sick
of the idle quackery of criticism, I determined to quit the
pencil for the graver. In this humble walk I had one advantage;
the perpetual fluctuations in the manners of the times enabled
me to introduce new characters, which being drawn from the
passing day, had a chance of more originality and less insipidity
than those which are repeated again, and again, and again from
old stories. Added to this, the prints which I had previously
engraved were now become a voluminous work, and circulated not
only through England, but over Europe. These being secured to
me by an Act which I had previously got passed, were a kind of
an estate; and as they wore, I could repair and re-touch them,
so that in some particulars they became better than when first
engraved.[72]

"While I was making arrangements to confine myself entirely
to my graver, an amiable nobleman (Lord Charlemont) requested
that, before I bade a final adieu to the pencil, I would paint
him one picture; the subject to be my own choice, and the
reward--whatever I demanded. The story I pitched upon was a young
and virtuous married lady, who, by playing at cards with an
officer, loses her money, watch, and jewels; the moment when he
offers them back in return for her honour, and she is wavering at
his suit, was my point of time.[73]

"The picture was highly approved of, and the payment was noble;
but the manner in which it was made, by a note enclosed in one of
the following letters, was to me infinitely more gratifying than
treble the sum:--

_From Lord Charlemont to Mr. Hogarth._

"MOUNT STREET, _19th Aug. 1759_.

"DEAR SIR,--I have been so excessively busied with ten thousand
troublesome affairs, that I have not been able to wait upon you
according to my promise, nor even to find time to sit for my
picture. As I am obliged to set out for Ireland to-morrow, we
must defer that till my return, which will be in the latter end
of January, or in the beginning of February at furthest. I am
still your debtor, more so indeed than I ever shall be able to
pay; and did intend to have sent you before my departure what
trifling recompense my abilities permit me to make you. But the
truth is, having wrong calculated my expenses, I find myself
unable for the present even to attempt paying you. However, if
you be in any present need of money, let me know it, and as
soon as I get to Ireland I will send you, not the price of your
picture, for that is inestimable, but as much as I can afford to
give for it.--Sir, I am, with the most sincere wishes for your
health and happiness, your most obedient humble servant,

CHARLEMONT.

_To Mr. Hogarth._

"DUBLIN, _29th January 1760_.

"DEAR SIR,--Enclosed I send you a note upon Nesbitt for one
hundred pounds; and considering the name of the author, and the
surprising merit of your performance, I am really much ashamed to
offer such a trifle in recompense for the pains you have taken,
and the pleasure your picture has afforded me. I beg you would
think that I by no means attempt to pay you according to your
merit, but according to my own abilities. Were I to pay your
deserts, I fear I should leave myself poor indeed. Imagine that
you have made me a present of the picture, for literally as such
I take it, and that I have begged your acceptance of the enclosed
trifle. As this is really the case, with how much reason do I
subscribe myself, Your most obliged humble servant,

CHARLEMONT.

"This elevating circumstance had its contrast, and brought on a
train of most dissatisfactory circumstances, which by happening
at a time when I thought myself, as it were, landed, and secure
from tugging any longer at the oar, were rendered doubly
distressing.

"A gentleman (now a nobleman) seeing this picture, pressed me
with much vehemence to paint another for him upon the same terms.
To this I reluctantly assented; and as I had been frequently
flattered for my power of giving expression, I thought the figure
of Sigismunda weeping over the heart of her lover would enable me
to display it. Impressed with this idea, I fixed upon this very
difficult subject. My object was dramatic, and my aim to draw
tears from the spectator,--an effect I have often witnessed at a
tragedy; and it therefore struck me that it was worth trying if
a painter could not produce the same effect, and touch the heart
through the eye, as the player does through the ear.[74] Thus far
I have been gratified: I have more than once seen the tear of
sympathy trickle down the cheek of a female while she has been
contemplating the picture.

"As four hundred pounds had a short time before been bid for a
picture of 'Sigismunda,' painted by a French master, but falsely
ascribed to Correggio, four hundred pounds was the price at which
I rated this.[75]

"By any other of my pursuits I could have got twice the sum
in the time I devoted to it; nor was it more than half what a
fashionable face-painter would have gained in the same period.
Upon these grounds I put it at this sum; see the letter, and
see the answer. It ended by my keeping the picture in my
painting-room, and his Lordship keeping his money in his pocket.
Had it been Charlemont!"

This transaction having given rise to many ridiculous falsehoods, the following unvarnished tale will set the whole in its true light:--

"_January 1764._

"The picture of 'Sigismunda' was painted at the earnest request
of Sir Richard Grosvenor (now Lord Grosvenor) in the year 1759,
at a time when Mr. Hogarth had fully determined to leave off
painting, partly on account of ease and retirement, but more
particularly because he had found by thirty years' experience
that his pictures--except in an instance or two, mentioned in the
note[76]--had not produced him one quarter of the profit that
arose from his engravings. However, the flattering compliments,
as well as generous offers, made him by the above gentleman
(who was immensely rich), prevailed upon the unwary artist to
undertake this difficult subject, which being seen and fully
approved of by his Lordship whilst in hand, was, after much time,
and the utmost efforts, finished. _But how!_ the painter's death
(as usual) can only positively determine. The price required for
it was therefore not on account of its value as a picture, but
proportioned to the value of the time it took in painting.

"This nobleman in the interim fell into the clutches of the
dealers in old pictures; the treatment a man who painted new ones
was to expect where these gentry once get a footing[77] so much
alarmed the artist, that he thought it best to set his Lordship
at full liberty to take or reject the picture by writing the
following letter, and putting him in mind of the agreement which
was made when the work was undertaken:--

_Mr. Hogarth's Letter to Sir Richard Grosvenor._

"SIR,--I have done all I can to the picture of 'Sigismunda.' You
may remember you was pleased to say you would give me what price
I should think fit to set upon any subject I would paint for you;
and at the time that you made this generous offer, I in return
made it my request that you would use no ceremony in refusing the
picture when done, if you should not be thoroughly satisfied with
it. This you promised should be as I pleased, which I now entreat
you will comply with, without the least hesitation, if you think
four hundred too much money for it.[78] One more favour I have to
beg, which is, that you will determine on this matter as soon as
you can conveniently, that I may resolve whether I shall go about
another picture for Mr. Hoare the banker, on the same conditions,
or stop here.--I am, etc.

"_June 13, 1757._

_Sir Richard Grosvenor to Mr. Hogarth._

"SIR,--I should sooner have answered yours of the 13th instant,
but have been mostly out of town. I understand by it that you
have a commission from Mr. Hoare for a picture. If he should have
taken a fancy to the 'Sigismunda,' I have no sort of objection
to your letting him have it; for I really think the performance
so striking and inimitable, that the constantly having it before
one's eyes would be too often occasioning melancholy ideas to
arise in one's mind, which a curtain's being drawn before it
would not diminish in the least.--I am, Sir, your most obedient
servant,

RICHARD GROSVENOR.

"GROSVENOR SQUARE,
_Sunday morning, June 17_.

_Mr. Hogarth's Reply._

"SIR RICHARD,--As your obliging answer to my letter in regard to
the picture of 'Sigismunda' did not seem to be quite positive, I
beg leave to conclude you intend to comply with my request if I
do not hear from you within a week.--I am, etc.

W. H.

"His Lordship not thinking fit to take any further notice of
the affair, here it must have ended; but things having been
represented in favour of his Lordship, and much to Mr. Hogarth's
dishonour, the foregoing plain tale is therefore submitted to
such as may at any time think it worth while to see _the whole
truth_ in what has been so publicly talked of."

To vindicate his fame, Hogarth at one time determined to have the picture engraved, and Mr. Ravenet undertaking it, "a subscription for the print was begun March 2d, 1761;[79] but, some time afterwards, finding that Mr. Ravenet was under articles not to work for any one except Mr. Boydell for three years then to come, the subscription was put a stop to, and the money returned to the subscribers, there being no other engraver at leisure capable of doing it as it should be done."

"_January 2, 1764._

"All efforts to this time to get the picture finely engraved
proving in vain, Mr. Hogarth humbly hopes his best endeavours to
engrave it himself will be acceptable to his friends."

CORREGGIO'S SIGISMUNDA.

"Mute, solemn sorrow, free from female noise."
--DRYDEN'S _Sigismunda_.

On the comparative merit of the two pictures of "Sigismunda" there have been various opinions. By the foregoing narrative it appears that Hogarth never paid so much attention to any preceding production; but in works of imagination success is not always proportionate to labour, and his performance might not be equal to his exertions. Be that as it may, this was the criterion by which he estimated its worth; and by the political disputes in which he was afterwards engaged with Wilkes and Churchill, this estimation was turned against himself. His opponents discovered his parental partiality for "Sigismunda;" and to wound the artist in his most vulnerable part, they mangled her without mercy.

Mr. Walpole's critique did not appear until after Hogarth's death; but when he gravely states Hogarth's performance to be more ridiculous than anything the artist had ever ridiculed, it ceases to be criticism. The best reply to so extravagant an assertion, is the original picture now in the possession of Messrs. Boydell, which, though not well coloured, and rather French, is marked with mind, and would probably have been better had it not been so often altered on the suggestions of different critical friends. Mr. Walpole contrasts it with that painted by Correggio (or Furino), on which, at the expense of the poor English artist, he bestows most extravagant and unqualified praise; asserting that it is impossible "to see the picture, or read Dryden's inimitable tale, and not feel that the same spirit animated both poet and painter." That the reader may form his own opinion by comparison, I have annexed a copy from MacArdell's admirable print; and as both sides ought to be heard, I have subjoined the following remarks from the _Monthly Register of Literature_, vol. ii., in which is a critique (possibly written by Mr. Joshua Kirby), as extravagant in the abuse of this picture as Mr. Walpole is in its praise. It is here stated that these observations were written for private use by a professional man whose name is well known as the author of a treatise on painting and perspective; it begins with some remarks on Miss Edwards' sale in 1746, and concludes with several strictures on Sir Luke Schaub's in April 1756: "Sir Luke's pictures (only 178) sold for £7784! a lucky collection for his heir, but unlucky for Sir Luke's reputation as a judge of painting." After several severe remarks on some of the preceding lots, the writer observes of "No. 59,--'Sigismunda Weeping over the Heart of Tancred,' called a Correggio,--that this picture is an undoubted copy; nothing in the character of Sigismunda but sorrow to recommend it. The painter might take it from his cook-maid, there being nothing elegant or delicate in her appearance. The virtuosi ran it up to £400; but Sir Thomas Sebright, at the desire of the proprietor, bought it in for £404, 5s. He soon discovered his mistake, for in reality it was worth no more than ten guineas."

Though I cannot consent to view this picture through the medium of Mr. Walpole's overcharged panegyric, which gives to the artist a power that is not in the art, and seems heightened for the pure purpose of sinking Hogarth by the contrast; yet I by no means meet this indiscriminate and unfounded censure. It is many years since I saw the picture in the Duke of Newcastle's collection, and I then thought it sublimely conceived and finely coloured. MacArdell's print gives a faithful representation of the character, and the annexed head is a correct copy.

Hogarth still bearing in mind this transaction, in which he thought himself very ill-used, continues his narrative, and concludes with a recital of the circumstances which occasioned his quarrel with Mr. Wilkes, etc.; this much hurt his feelings, and in the progress of it I have ever thought he was unjustly and most inhumanly treated:--

"As the most violent and virulent abuse thrown on 'Sigismunda'
was from a set of miscreants, with whom I am proud of having
been ever at war, I mean the expounders of the mysteries of
old pictures, I have been sometimes told they were beneath my
notice. This is true of them individually; but as they have
access to people of rank, who seem as happy in being cheated
as these merchants are in cheating them, they have a power of
doing much mischief to a modern artist. However mean the vendor
of poisons, the mineral is destructive; to me its operation was
troublesome enough. Ill-nature spread so fast, that now was the
time for every little dog in the profession to bark, and revive
the old spleen which appeared at the time of the _Analysis_.[80]
The anxiety that attends endeavouring to recollect ideas long
dormant, and the misfortunes which clung to this transaction,
coming at a time when nature demands quiet, and something besides
exercise to cheer it, added to my long sedentary life, brought
on an illness which continued twelve months. But when I got well
enough to ride on horseback I soon recovered. This being at a
period when war abroad and contention at home engrossed every
one's mind, prints were thrown into the background; and the
stagnation rendered it necessary that I should do some timed
thing, to recover my lost time and stop a gap in my income. This
drew forth my print of 'The Times,' a subject which tended to
the restoration of peace and unanimity, and put the opposers
of these humane objects in a light which gave great offence to
those who were trying to foment destruction in the minds of the
populace. One of the most notorious among them, till now rather
my friend and flatterer, attacked me in a _North Briton_, in so
infamous and malign a style, that he himself, when pushed even by
his best friends, was driven to so poor an excuse as to say, 'he
was drunk when he wrote it.' Being at that time very weak, and in
a kind of slow fever, it could not but seize on a feeling mind.
My philosophical friends advise me to laugh at the nonsense of
party writing--who would mind it?--but I cannot rest myself:

'Who steals my gold steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands:
But he that filches from me my good name,
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.'

"Such being my feelings, my great object was to return the
compliment, and turn it to some advantage.

"This renowned patriot's portrait drawn, like as I could as to
features, and marked with some indications of his mind, fully
answered my purpose. The ridiculous was apparent to every eye.
A Brutus! a saviour of his country with such an aspect! was so
arrant a farce, that, though it gave rise to much laughter in the
lookers-on, galled both him and his adherents to the bone. This
was proved by the papers being every day crammed with invectives
against the artist, till the town grew absolutely sick of thus
seeing me always at full length.

"Churchill, Wilkes' toad-eater, put the _North Briton_ into
verse in an epistle to Hogarth; but as the abuse was precisely
the same, except a little poetical heightening, which goes for
nothing, it made no impression, but perhaps in some measure
effaced or weakened the black strokes of the _North Briton_.
However, having an old plate by me, with some parts ready, such
as the background and a dog, I began to consider how I could turn
so much work laid aside to some account; so patched up a print
of Master Churchill in the character of a Bear. The pleasure and
pecuniary advantage which I derived from these two engravings,
together with occasionally riding on horseback, restored me to as
much health as can be expected at my time of life.

"Thus have I gone through the principal circumstances of a life
which, till lately, passed pretty much to my own satisfaction,
and, I hope, in no respect injurious to any other man. This I
can safely assert, I have invariably endeavoured to make those
about me tolerably happy, and my greatest enemy cannot say I
ever did an intentional injury; though, without ostentation, I
could produce many instances of men that have been essentially
benefited by me. What may follow, God knows.--FINIS."

Such is the candid and dispassionate appeal which this unequalled artist and excellent man makes to his contemporaries and to posterity.

In October 1764, he died of an aneurism at his house in Leicester Fields. His remains were removed to his family vault at Chiswick. The epitaph by Dr. Johnson, and that written by Mr. Garrick and inscribed on his monument, are in the first volume of _Hogarth Illustrated_.

In the _Public Ledger_ of November 19, 1764, his friend Doctor Townley paid the following tribute to his talents and virtues:--

"_TO THE MEMORY OF WILLIAM HOGARTH, WHO WAS SUCH AM ACCURATE
OBSERVER OF MANKIND THAT NO CHARACTER ESCAPED HIM, AND SO HAPPY
IN EXPRESSING HIS CONCEPTIONS BY THE STRENGTH OF HIS PENCIL,
THAT, AS HIS OWN TIMES NEVER PRODUCED A RIVAL, POSTERITY WILL
SCARCE EVER SEE AN EQUAL TO HIM. HIS THOUGHTS WERE SO CONSTANTLY
EMPLOYED IN THE CAUSE OF TRUTH AND VIRTUE, THAT HE MAY BE JUSTLY
RANKED AMONGST THE BEST MORAL AUTHORS. WHILST HE FAITHFULLY
FOLLOWED NATURE THROUGH ALL HER VARIETIES, AND EXPOSED WITH
INIMITABLE SKILL THE INFINITE FOLLIES AND VICES OF THE WORLD,
HE WAS HIMSELF AN EXAMPLE OF MANY VIRTUES; AND WHEN, WITH
UNIVERSAL ADMIRATION AND APPLAUSE, HE HAD REPROVED, INSTRUCTED,
AND DELIGHTED THE AGE WHEREIN HE LIVED, HE RESIGNED THE UNCOMMON
GIFTS WHICH HE POSSESSED, AND PAID THE GREAT DEBT HE OWED TO
NATURE, OCT. 27, 1764._"

DESCRIPTION OF THE PRINTS, ETC.

With talents equally honourable to himself, his country, and the age in which he lived, Hogarth did not leave his widow possessed of much more than arose from the sale of his prints. But during the twenty-five years which she survived him, she had the higher and more exalted gratification of finding that his reputation increased, and his fame acquired stability by time.

In the year 1780, the late Horace Lord Orford published his _Anecdotes_, in which he has introduced Hogarth's catalogue and character. The volume printed at Strawberry Hill, he (with the preceding part of the work) presented to Mrs. Hogarth. The books were accompanied with the following handsome apology for his strictures on the genius of her husband:[81]--

_To Mrs. Hogarth._

"BERKELEY SQUARE, _October 4, 1780_.

"Mr. Walpole begs Mrs. Hogarth's acceptance of the volume that
accompanies this letter, and hopes she will be content with
his endeavours to do justice to the genius of Mr. Hogarth. If
there are some passages less agreeable to her than the rest,
Mr. Walpole will regard her disapprobation only as marks of
the goodness of her heart, and proofs of her affection to her
husband's memory; but she will, he is sure, be so candid as to
allow for the duty an historian owes to the public and himself,
which obliges him to say what he thinks, and which when he
obeys, his praise is corroborated by his censure. The first
page of his Preface will more fully make his apology;[82] and
his just admiration of Mr. Hogarth, Mr. W. flatters himself,
will, notwithstanding his impartiality, still rank him in Mrs.
Hogarth's mind as one of her husband's most zealous and sincere
friends."

In nine years after the receipt of this letter, Mrs. Hogarth died, bequeathing her property to her relation, Mrs. Mary Lewis of Chiswick, by whose kindness and friendship I am in possession of the manuscripts which form the basis of the foregoing sheets, the following most singular and curious print of "Enthusiasm Delineated," etc. etc. etc.

ENTHUSIASM DELINEATED,

CONTRASTED WITH THE PRINT ENTITLED

A MEDLEY;

TO WHICH HOGARTH AFTERWARDS ALTERED THE PLATE.[83]

"Idolatry is not only an accounting and worshipping that for God which is not God, but it is also a worshipping the true God in a way unsuitable to His nature, and particularly by the mediation of images and corporeal resemblances."--SOUTH.

Such was the opinion of Dr. South, and such the opinion of Hogarth, when he designed this very extraordinary print, the intention of which is to give "a lineal representation of the strange effects resulting from literal and low conceptions of sacred beings, as also of the idolatrous tendency of pictures in churches, and prints in religious books," etc. To exemplify this, he has parodied the productions of several eminent masters, whose works, having been generally painted under the direction of cardinals, popes, etc., are chiefly on religious subjects; and by the artists absurdly attempting to represent what are not properly objects of sight, that which they intended to be sublime is rendered in the highest degree ridiculous. To burlesque the idolatrous symbols with which they have peopled their canvas, place the popish doctrine of transubstantiation[84] in its true point of view, unmask hypocrisy, and check the progress of those enthusiastic delusions which Bishop Lavington properly terms "Religion run Mad,"[85] are the author's leading objects.

To effect these purposes, he has delineated what we may fairly denominate a powerful preacher, who from his countenance, and what is hinted at in the scale of vociferation at his left hand, seems treating his congregation with _a bull roar_. He may be considered as either a Methodistical Papist or a Popish Methodist, for his shaven crown intimates that he is a Jesuit; and the harlequin's jacket underneath his gown denotes the versatility of his religious professions. This Proteus of the pulpit poises a puppet in each hand; that in the left represents the devil grasping a gridiron; in his right he holds the triple figure with the triangular emblem, by which Raphael and some other painters have profanely presumed to personify the Deity.[86]

Exemplifying sacred mysteries by these absurd theorems is surely open to the severest satire; and to heighten his ridicule, the artist has, by adding three legs to the triangle, rendered it a complete trivet, and given to his jesuitical and theatrical declaimer (who, as his text intimates, "speaks as a fool") a pointed antithesis,--"If you do not believe in this trivet, you shall broil on that gridiron." Dangling on pegs around the pulpit, and to be exhibited as there shall be occasion, are six other puppets, copied from the absurd misrepresentations which some of the old masters have made of Adam and Eve, Peter and Paul, Moses and Aaron. Adam and Eve are a little caricatured, but evidently intended to hint at the dry designs of Albert Durer. Adam, though naked, has the air of a first-rate coxcomb. Eve, encircled with a zone of fig leaves, has neither grace in her step nor dignity in her gesture. Peter, displaying his ponderous key, and pulling off Paul's black periwig, is copied from Rembrandt, and to him referred in Hogarth's inscription. Paul, with a beard of Hudibrastic cut and dye, being low of stature, is elevated by high-heeled shoes, and armed with two swords: that in his hand, massy as the weapon wielded by John a Gaunt; the other, which, like the dagger of Hudibras, might serve as its page, tucked to his side.

Moses and Aaron, one bearing the tables and the other an incense pot, are retreating to the other side. The Jewish lawgiver's having made many ordinances concerning food, may be hinted at by his being crowned with a porridge pot; the two feet may serve for horns. The bells on the hem of Aaron's garments are sufficiently obvious, and, as saith Master Thomas Goodwin, in his _Civil and Ecclesiastical Rites_--"By the bells are typed the sound of his doctrine."

The nobleman in a pew beneath, unquestionably refers to some known character; but for whom it is meant I am unable to determine. He may either be a peer who was at that time very constant in his attendance at the Tabernacle, or a wolf who has found his way into the fold, and is prowling among the lambs of the flock. His face presents the index of a mind in which hypocrisy is united with another passion, and is in an eminent degree characteristic. The holy fervour[87] of the female, who, seduced by the tender touches of an earthly lover, lets her celestial model fall to the ground, is equally remarkable. A ragged figure[88] in the same pew, dropping his tears into a bottle, we know, by his rueful countenance, his handcuffs, and the letter T marked on his cheek, to be a repentant thief. A tattered and coal-black proselyte at the foot of the reading-desk, inspired with the epidemical enthusiasm of the place, is embracing the idolatrous image of her adoration, which in colour is similar to herself.

As sculptors and painters have thought fit to denominate a child's head, with duck wings, "Cherubin;"[89] Hogarth, to one of these infantine fancies, has whimsically enough added a pair of duck's feet. The well-fed figure in the desk may perhaps be meant as an overcharged portrait of Whitfield. The fainting female in the corner of the print was intended for Mrs. Douglas of the Piazza, who, after a most licentious life, became a rigid devotee, and was Sam. Foote's original for Mother Cole. The Jew, with an insect between his nails, has a fine air of head. On the book open before him is a print of "Abraham offering up Isaac."[90]

The figures in the background it is not necessary to enumerate: they are sighing, weeping, groaning! The four most obtrusive convey a severe satire on transubstantiation. A Turk looking through the window, is evidently laughing at their absurdities, and thanking Mahomet that he has been early initiated in the Koran. A dog, with "Whitfield" on his collar, seated upon a hassock, and howling in concert with the preacher, is admirably designed.

The figure of a pigeon impressed on the Methodist's brain, is intended to intimate that if the Holy Spirit gets into the head instead of the heart, it will create that confusion of intellect described in the mental thermometer which rises out of it, and which is crowned by a dove on the point of a triangle.

Thus did this great artist express his "First Thought," but afterwards erased, or essentially altered every figure except two, and _on the same piece of copper_: we find his variations so multifarious as to render it nearly a new print, which he entitled

CREDULITY, SUPERSTITION, AND FANATICISM.

A MEDLEY.

The preacher and the devil, except in a few shadows added to a handkerchief, are left as in the first state, and these are the only figures that are so left; from them and the background it is positively ascertained that the first and second engravings are on the same copperplate. Raphael's strange symbol of the Deity the artist has struck out, and in the place of it inserted a witch upon a broomstick; instead of the puppets representing Adam and Eve, Peter and Paul, Moses and Aaron, we have Mrs. Veale's ghost, Julius Cæsar's apparition, and the shade of Sir George Villiers.

The nobleman, and lady dropping her deified image in the pew beneath the pulpit, are discarded, and a pair of vulgar and uninteresting characters put in their room. The handcuffed felon is obliterated, and his place supplied by two figures, one weeping, the other asleep. The ragged woman hugging a model is altered to the boy of Bilson; and on the hassock, where was the howling dog, is a shoeblack's basket, with Whitfield's _Journal_ placed upon King James's _Demonology_. The characters of cherubin and seraph are changed; and though the duck's wings are left, the legs are lopped off. In the place of the corpulent and consequential clerk, the artist has inserted a meagre and moon-eyed monster, with wings that either grow out of his shoulders, or appertain to a foul fiend planted behind him and acting as his prompter. Mother Douglas is beaten out of the copper, and in her room Hogarth has introduced Mrs. Tofts and her rabbits, one of the popular impositions of his own day. The smelling-bottle applied to recover Mrs. Douglas from fainting, is with Mrs. Tofts very properly changed to a dram glass. The Jew is altered, and altered for the worse: the print of "Abraham and Isaac," in a book before him, is obliterated, and a knife inscribed "bloody," and laid upon an altar, supplies its place. In the characters of the common people of the congregation there are several variations; the models which some of them held in their arms are totally changed. The pigeon in the Methodist's brain is discarded; in the place of the inscription in the top division of the thermometer he has inserted the Cock Lane ghost; and instead of the glory, which in the "First Thought" crowned the whole, we have the Tedworth Drummer, a tale which, had it not given the subject for Addison's comedy, would have been long since forgotten. On the scale of vociferation and the chandelier, the names of W--d and Romaine are only to be found in the present state of the plate; in the scale of the thermometer there are numerous alterations. In "The Medley," the artist has made an addition, and placed Wesley's _Sermons_ and Glanville's book _On Witches_ as supporters to the Methodist's brain. To do this, and introduce the rabbits on the foreground, he has brought his work so near the bottom of his plate as not to leave room for a title, which, with the quotation from St. John, "Believe not every spirit," etc., is, in the present state of the plate, engraven on another piece of copper.

Many little variations besides those I have noted will appear by a comparison of the two designs; one is worthy of particular attention. In the print of "Enthusiasm Delineated," the inscriptions on the thermometer, etc., are evidently from the burin of Hogarth; in the print of "The Medley," every inscription, even those which in each impression contain the same words, are the work of a writing engraver, from which I am inclined to believe, that in the first state the artist never trusted the plate out of his own hands.

With respect to the comparative merit of the two prints, I think of the "First Thought" what Mr. Walpole in his _Anecdotes_ asserts of the "Second," that "for useful and deep satire, it is the most sublime of all his works." It forms one great whole; and the skill with which he has appropriated the absurd symbols of painters, and combined the idolatrous emblems of Popery with the mummery of modern enthusiasts, presents a trait of his genius hitherto unknown; displays the powers of his mind on subjects new to his pencil, and shows an extent of information and depth of thought that is not to be found in any of his other works.

In "The Medley" the artist has changed his ground, attacked follies of another description, and in the place of Enthusiasm introduced Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism. In his management of them he has shown much genius, and by his transition from one object to another, and the many metamorphoses of his characters, displayed a power of assimilating, aptness of appropriating, and versatility of pencil hardly to be paralleled, and proved that his invention was inexhaustible. With all this, it must be acknowledged that some of the local credulities which he has there depicted were of so temporary and trifling a nature, that even now they are hardly recollected by any other circumstances than having been introduced in this print.

Ten or twelve figures engraved on the background are not in the "First Thought:" two of them, viz. a crazed convert terrified by a lay preacher, are admirably descriptive; but as to the residue of this half-price audience, met together to be miserable, they add to the number without much increasing the force, destroy the pyramid, and hurt the general effect;--if they are intended to stand on the floor, they are too high; if on benches, too low. The effect of this print is further injured by the alteration of the clerk. In the first state, his ample breadth of face and black periwig render him a leading character, and give him the rank of principal figure. The thin-visaged, hungry harpy in "The Medley" has no importance, neither is there any principal figure in that print. A little cherub Mercury, crowned with a postilion's cap, and bearing in his mouth a letter directed to St. Moneytrap, is an afterthought, and only to be found in the second impression.

If I am asked what were the artist's inducements for making so many alterations, I can account for it in no other way than by supposing some friend suggested that the satire would be mistaken, and that there might be those who would suppose his arrows were aimed at religion, though every shaft is pointed at the preposterous masquerade habit in which it has been frequently disguised.

Considering the time that must have been employed in beating out the old figures, the trouble of polishing the copper, etc., it seems rather extraordinary that he should not have wholly discarded his plate of the "First Thought," and taken another piece of copper for the second. It is probable that the alterations were made by degrees, and before the author was fully satisfied with his design, became much more numerous than he had at first intended.[91]

TASTE IN HIGH LIFE

IN THE YEAR 1742.

The picture from which this print was copied, Hogarth painted by the order of Miss Edwards, a woman of large fortune, who, having been laughed at for some singularities in her manners, requested the artist to recriminate on her opponents, and paid him sixty guineas for his production.

It is professedly intended to ridicule the reigning fashions of high life in the year 1742. To do this the painter has brought into one group an old beau and an old lady of the Chesterfield school, a fashionable young lady, a little black boy, and a full-dressed monkey. The old lady, with a most affected air, poises between her finger and thumb a small tea-cup, with the beauties of which she appears to be highly enamoured.

The gentleman, gazing with vacant wonder at that and the companion saucer which he holds in his hand, joins in admiration of its astonishing beauties!

"Each varied colour of the brightest hue,
The green, the red, the yellow, and the blue,
In every part their dazzled eyes behold,
Here streak'd with silver--there enrich'd with gold."

This gentleman is said to be intended for Lord Portmore, in the habit he first appeared at Court on his return from France. The cane dangling from his wrist, large muff, long queue, black stock, feathered _chapeau_, and shoes, give him the air of

"An old and finish'd fop,
All cork at heel, and feather all at top."

The old lady's habit, formed of stiff brocade, gives her the appearance of a squat pyramid, with a grotesque head at the top of it. The young one is fondling a little black boy, who on his part is playing with a _petite_ pagoda. This miniature Othello has been said to be intended for the late Ignatius Sancho, whose talents and virtues were an honour to his colour. At the time the picture was painted he would have been rather older than the figure; but as he was then honoured by the partiality and protection of a noble family, the painter might possibly mean to delineate what his figure had been a few years before.

The little monkey, with a magnifying glass, bag-wig, solitaire, laced hat, and ruffles, is eagerly inspecting a bill of fare, with the following articles _pour_ dinner: cocks' combs, ducks' tongues, rabbits' ears, fricasey of snails, _grande d'œuts beurre_.[92]

In the centre of the room is a capacious china jar; in one corner a tremendous pyramid composed of packs of cards; and on the floor, close to them, a bill inscribed, "Lady Basto D^r to John Pip, for cards--£300."

The room is ornamented with several pictures; the principal represents the Medicean Venus on a pedestal, in stays and high-heeled shoes, and holding before her a hoop petticoat somewhat larger than a fig-leaf; a Cupid paring down a fat lady to a thin proportion, and another Cupid blowing up a fire to burn a hoop petticoat, muff, bag, and queue wig, etc. On the dexter side is another picture representing Monsieur Desnoyer, operatically habited, dancing in a grand ballet, and surrounded by butterflies, etc., inscribed "Insects," and evidently of the same genus with this deity of dance. On the sinister is a drawing, denominated "Exotics," consisting of queue and bag-wigs, muffs, solitaires, petticoats, French-heeled shoes, and other fantastic fripperies.

Beneath this is a lady in a pyramidical habit walking the park; and, as the companion picture, we have a blind man walking the streets.

The fire-screen is adorned with a drawing of a lady in a sedan chair--

"To conceive how she looks, you must call to your mind
The lady you've seen in a lobster confin'd,
Or a pagod in some little corner enshrin'd."

As Hogarth made this design from the ideas of Miss Edwards, it has been said that he had no great partiality for his own performance, and that, as he never would consent to its being engraved, the drawing from which the print is copied was made by the connivance of one of her servants.[93] Be that as it may, his ridicule on the absurdities of fashion,--on the folly of collecting old china,--cookery,--card-playing, etc., is pointed, and highly wrought.

At the sale of Miss Edwards' effects at Kensington, the original picture was purchased by the father of Mr. Birch, surgeon, of Essex Street, Strand.

FARINELLI, CUZZONI, AND SENESINO,

IN THE CHARACTERS OF

PTOLEMY, CLEOPATRA, AND JULIUS CÆSAR.

"To banish nature and to vary art,
To fix the ear but never reach the heart,
To mangle sense and dress up meagre sound,
While the same tasteless unison goes round;
And still the point of excellence to place
In execution, cadence, and grimace;
To ravish with unnatural sounds the ear,
While beaux applaud and belles with rapture hear,[94]
The song we raise."

This dignified heroine and the two heroes--of a class--

"By their smooth chins and simple simper known,"

are here the representatives of "the majesty of Egypt, a morsel for a monarch," and "the foremost man of all this world;"[95] they were the three principal performers in Handel's opera of _Ptolomeo_, performed in the year 1728. There have been some suspicions of its not being Hogarth's design, and from the characters more than bordering on caricature, etc., I once inclined to that opinion; but from the general spirit of the satire, and the same figures being introduced in nearly the same attitudes in the first print Hogarth ever published (see p. 22), there is little doubt of its being his production.

The position (for it can hardly be called an attitude) in which the painter has placed Farinelli, is fully warranted by the writer of a pamphlet, entitled _Reflections on Theatrical Expression in Tragedy, etc._, published in 1755. These _Reflections_ are admirably contrasted by the exaggerated compliment with which the author of the _Divine Legation_ honours the divine Senesino. The two quotations follow:--

"I shall therefore, in my further remarks on this article, go back to the old Italian theatre, when Farinelli drew everybody to the Haymarket. What a pipe! what modulation! what ecstasy to the ear!--but, heavens! what clumsiness! what stupidity! what offence to the eye! Reader, if of the city, thou mayst probably have seen in the fields of Islington or Mile-End, or if thou art in the environs of St. James's, thou must have observed in the park, with what ease and agility a cow, heavy with calf, has rose up at the command of the milkwoman's foot. Thus from the mossy bank sprung up the divine Farinelli. Then with long strides, advancing a few paces, his left hand settled upon his hip in a beautiful bend, like that of an old-fashioned caudle-cup, his right hand remained immoveable across his manly breast till numbness called its partner to supply its place, when it relieved itself in the position of the other handle to the caudle-cup, etc."--_Reflections, etc._

With respect to the other genius of Italian song, Mr. Nichols very justly observes that his dignity must have been wonderful, or the following passage in Dr. Warburton's _Inquiry into the Causes of Prodigies and Miracles_ (printed in 1727) affords a most notorious example of the bathos:--

"Observe," says he (p. 60), "Sir Walter Raleigh's great manner of ending the first part of the _History of the World_: 'By this, which we have already set down, is seen the beginning and end of the three first monarchies of the world, whereof the founders and erectors thought that they never could have ended; that of Rome, which made the fourth, was also at this time almost at the highest. We have left it flourishing in the middle of the field, have rooted up or cut down all that kept it from the eyes and admiration of the world; but after some continuance it shall begin to lose the beauty it had, the storms of ambition shall beat the great boughs and branches one against another, her leaves shall fall off, her limbs wither, and a rabble of barbarous nations enter the field and cut her down.' What strength of colouring! what grace, what nobleness of expression! with what a majesty does he close his immortal labour! It puts one in mind of the so much admired exit of the late famed Italian singer!" (Senesino.[96]) What a climax!

A WOMAN SWEARING HER CHILD TO A GRAVE CITIZEN.

"Here Justice triumphs in his elbow chair,
And makes his market of the trading fair;
His office shelves with parish laws are grac'd,
But spelling-books and guides between 'em plac'd.[97]
Here pregnant madam screens the real sire,
And falsely swears her bastard child for hire
Upon a rich old leecher, who denies
The fact, and vows the naughty hussif lies.
His wife enrag'd, exclaims against her spouse,
And swears she'll be reveng'd upon his brows;
The jade, the justice, and churchward'ns agree,
And force him to provide security."

These curious rhymes, engraven under the original print, in a degree describe the plot of the play, and the characters of the performers in this religious ceremony; for as such does Picart class a copy which he has introduced in the fourth volume of his work,[98] accompanied with the following explanation:--

"Many other customs might find a place here, and delight the readers by their comical singularity, but we dare not crowd in too great a number of those trifles, as not being properly religious ceremonies; which therefore, till approved of by the church, or by the governor of it, prescribed by ecclesiastical laws or formularies, we shall omit, except two or three of the most remarkable. The first is what the description here annexed calls the breeding woman's oath,--a custom not to be met with in other countries,--which is so fantastical, or rather unjust, that it would be a prejudice to the laws of England if we were to judge of their equity by that practice. Suppose any of these girls, which may be called amphibious (being neither wives nor virgins), is found to be with child. She does not, or will not, pretend to know the father of this child. In order to free herself from the trouble of maintaining it when born, she looks out for some rich man, upon whom she intends to father it. Generally they say she pitches upon some good citizen, though she does not know him, or maybe has never seen him. Then she goes before a Justice of the Peace, summons the pretended father to appear before him, and in his presence swears upon the Bible, which the clerk holds to her, that she owns and declares that such a one whom she has summoned to appear is the father of the child. How far the equivocal expressions and restrictions of that oath may excuse her from perjury, let a good casuist be the judge. However, the man thus named and sworn to by this formality of law is obliged to pay an arbitrary fine, and to agree upon a sum of money for the maintenance of the child."--Picart's _Religious Ceremonies_, p. 83.

The original picture from which this print was engraven was one of Hogarth's early productions, and is in the possession of the Rev. Mr. Whalley, at Ecton, Northamptonshire. In the disposition of the figures, etc., it has a more than accidental resemblance to a picture by Heemskirk, which was in the possession of Mr. Watson, surgeon, Rathbone Place, where all the male figures are monkeys; all the females, cats; and which in the year 1772 was engraved in mezzotinto by Dickinson, and entitled "The Village Magistrate."

A small copy from Hogarth's print is introduced as the headpiece to a tale printed in Banks' _Works_, vol. i. p. 248, entitled "The Substitute Father."

THE FOUNDLINGS.

"No mother's care
Shielded our infant innocence with prayer;
No father's guardian hand our youth maintain'd,
Call'd forth our virtues, and from vice restrain'd;
But strangers,--pitying strangers,--hear our cry,
And with parental care each want supply."

The last print represented what Mr. Picart chose to call a religious ceremony,--in this we have a scene which may properly be so denominated; for surely rescuing deserted, unoffending, and helpless innocence from destruction, providing an asylum for childhood, initiating youth in habits of industry, and rendering those whose parents were unable to protect them useful members of society, is a religious as well as a political institution.

"Cold on Canadian hills or Minden's[99] plain,
Perhaps the mother mourn'd her soldier slain,
Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolv'd in dew,
The big drop mingling with the milk it drew;
Gave the sad presage of his future years,
The child of misery, baptiz'd in tears."

Hogarth, by presenting some of his works to the Foundling Hospital, was in fact an early benefactor to the charity. He made the annexed design for the use of this institution; it was engraved by F. Morellon la Cave, as the headpiece to a power of attorney from the trustees of the charity to those gentlemen who were appointed to receive subscriptions towards the building, etc.

The artist has made his old friend Captain Coram a principal figure; and as this excellent and venerable man was in fact the founder of the charity, it is with great propriety he is introduced. Before him the beadle of the Hospital carries an infant, whose mother, having dropped a dagger with which she might have been momentarily tempted to destroy her child, kneels at his feet; while he, with that benevolence with which his countenance was so eminently marked, bids her be comforted, for her babe will be nursed and protected.

On the dexter side of the print is a new-born infant, left close to a stream of water, which runs under the arch of a bridge. Near a gate, on a little eminence in the pathway above, a woman leaves another child to the casual care of the next person who passes by. In the distance is a village with a church.

In the other corner are three boys coming out of a door with the king's arms over it; as emblems of their future employments, one of them poises a plummet, a second holds a trowel, and a third, whose mother is fondly pressing him to her bosom, has in his hand a card for combing wool. The next group, headed by a lad elevating a mathematical instrument, are in sailors' jacket and trousers; those on their right hand, one of whom has a rake, are in the uniform of the school.

The attributes of the three little girls in the foreground--a spinning-wheel, sampler, and broom--indicate female industry and ingenuity.

It must be admitted that the scene here represented is a painter's anticipation, for the charter was not granted until October 1739, and this design was made only three years afterwards; but the manner in which the charity has been since conducted has realized the scene.

FRONTISPIECE TO TERRÆ FILIUS.

The work to which this is a frontispiece was written by Nicholas Amhurst, author of the _Craftsman_, and published in the year 1726. The leading object of this writer is to satirize the Tory principles of the University of Oxford; but as the book does not abound in subjects for the pencil, Hogarth has selected a scene described in No. 33, published 8th May 1721, which contains "Advice to all gentlemen schoolboys, etc., who are designed for the University of Oxford." In the part which forms the subject for this print, the writer thus cautions them:--

"Have a particular regard how you speak of those gaudy things which flutter about Oxford in prodigious numbers in summer time, called 'Toasts;' take care how you reflect on their parentage, their condition, their virtue, or their beauty,--ever remembering that

'Hell has no fury like a woman scorn'd;'

especially when they have spiritual bravoes on their side, to revenge their cause on every audacious contemner of Venus and her altars.