STROLLING ACTRESSES DRESSING IN A BARN.
"Since Thespis, mighty father of the art,
Declaim'd, and rav'd, and ranted in a cart,
His wandering offspring, to their parent true,
Have kept their great original in view:
Patents they scorn, as modern innovation,
And here have humbly made a barn their station:
A barn!—in which though time has made a breach,
They cleave the general air with horrid speech.
"The wearied rustic now the flail suspends,
And the drum's thunder all the region rends;
Where erst the reapers sung their Harvest Home,
The martial trumpet echoes through the dome;
Remov'd, the chaff-dispersing, winnowing fly,
Lo! the Norwegian banners flout the sky:[145]
Where perch'd the moping owl, we now behold
The Roman eagle wave his wings in gold;
And where the circling bat each night was seen,
Medea's dragons draw their barbarous queen:
On that oak floor, once pil'd with sheaves of corn,
See Juliet's bier in sad procession borne;
Where the sleek rat was wont to pilfer grain,
The fiery Tibbald falls, and Hamlet's slain!
And where each night the cunning weazel crept,
Richard has roar'd, and Desdemona wept."—E.
STROLLING ACTRESSES DRESSING IN A BARN.
Mr. Horace Walpole thinks that this print, for wit and imagination, without any other end, ought to be ranked as the first of Hogarth's works; and Rouquet, in the only mention he makes of it, says: "Les comédiens de campagne sont représentés dans une grange, au milieu d'un mélange ridicule de misere et de pompe théatrale, se préparant à jouer une tragédie."
The scene is laid in a barn,[146] and intended to represent the state dressing-room of a strolling company. Here at one hour the gallant Hotspur laces on his leathern armour, and at another the lively Beatrice laces on her stays. The time is evening, and the actors from the London theatres are preparing to perform a farce, which, by the play-bill, is declared to be The Devil to pay in Heaven. The dramatis personæ are principally deities, and deities of the first order. On the bill are the names of Jupiter, Juno, Diana, Flora, Night, Siren, Aurora, Eagle, Cupid, two devils, a ghost, and attendants. To this divine catalogue is added rope-dancing, tumbling, etc. The inferior performers are: two musical kittens, a pair of fiery dragons, one Roman eagle, and though last mentioned, not least in consequence, a venerable monkey.
Seated upon an inverted wheel-barrow, which may occasionally serve for a triumphal car, a lady, who by her haughty demeanour and imperial crown we know to be the ox-eyed Juno, is majestically stretching out her leg, and pathetically rehearsing her part. Descended from her ebon car, with a sooty face, and star-bespangled robe sweeping the ground, the sable goddess Night is mending her majesty's stocking. The Star of Evening, which sheds its sober light above her head, is apparently formed of a brass instrument used in making pastry. A venerable female, with one eye, who by the dagger in her mantle we conjecture to be the Tragic Muse,[147] is cutting off a cat's tail, in order to extract a sanguine stream for some murderous representation, or that
"The mailed Mars may on his altar sit
Up to the ears in blood."
But this savage amputation, which seems to excite no emotion in the operator, is warmly resented by the feline sufferer, who, enraged at the pain, revenges this barbarous indignity by tearing, with teeth and talons, the female tumbler who holds her; and, could she speak, would vehemently exclaim, in the words of Shakspeare,
"Cursed the blood that let this blood from hence."
Two little devils, with horns just budded, are eagerly contesting the right in a flagon of ale, out of which one is drinking, and seems determined to get to the bottom, if it were a mile. The flagon has been placed on a Grecian altar, with a loaf of bread and a pipe of tobacco, which being still lighted, the smoke ascends in curling eddies; the grateful incense is inhaled by all present,
"And heavenly fragrance fills the circuit wide."
The fascinating female stripped to her chemise, her head decorated with feathers and flowers, is marked by her crescent to be the goddess of the silver bow—the chaste Diana. A principal figure in the picture, with one foot resting upon her hoop, the other behind the altar,
"She stands like feather'd Mercury
New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;"
impressed with the dignity of her character, and inspired with divine fervour, she is rehearsing her part. At her right hand the blooming Flora is seated at her toilet: and the toilet of Flora is a wicker hamper, to which is appended a label inscribed Jewels; from whence we may naturally infer that it contains the glittering regalia of the company. "Her robe of various dyes" is carelessly thrown over it as a veil; and placed upon it is somewhat like part of a coffee-mill with a candle in it, a broken looking-glass, a broken ivory comb, and an oyster-shell, containing what Mr. Warren emphatically calls "love-inspiring rouge," "to dye the white rose to a bloody red." One hand holds a candle, with which she delicately pastes up her hair—"sweets to the sweet!" the other grasps a dredger to powder her head.
Apollo and Cupid are jointly engaged in reaching down a pair of stockings that are hung to dry on a cloud. The little archer—
"Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,
The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,
Liege of all loiterers and malcontents"—
the little archer has wings, but they will not exalt him to the clouded canopy; he is obliged to mount a ladder.
On the ground, beneath him, is Aurora, designated by "the bright morning star, day's harbinger," glittering in her hair. Her rosy fingers are employed in the service of the charming though intoxicated siren, who offers the hero (that is perhaps intended to personate Ganymede) a glass of spirits. This the cupbearer of Jupiter very gladly accepts, in the hope of relief from an aching tooth, the agony of which is intimated by his countenance, and the handkerchief, which was once lost by the chaste Desdemona, being held up to his face:
"There was never yet philosopher
That could endure the toothache patiently;
However they have writ the style of gods,
And made a pish at chance and sufferance."
In one corner a lady, who personates Jove's eagle, is feeding a child.
"Within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king,"
is placed a tin saucepan with the infant's food. The child, terrified with the enormous beak hanging over its head, refuses the proffered nourishment. This crown once pressed the brow of haughty Bolingbroke:
"And when young Harry did the crown purloin,
He wept—because it was not current coin."
In the other corner, a monkey, in a long cloak, a bag-wig, and solitaire, is degrading the plumed helmet of Alexander.
Two kittens seem happily engaged: one of them, in a style that shows she has a fine finger, "touches the trembling lyre;" the other rolls an orb imperial. Near them are a number of balls,[148] and two cups; which intimate that this company of comedians practise sleight of hand, and to fill their house will sometimes condescend to play legerdemain tricks. In the same part of the print are three emblems of the law—two judges' periwigs, and a halter.
A mitre filled with tragedies and farces, and a dark lantern, are placed upon a pulpit-cushion. Whether the artist intended these for symbols of the church, and designed to hint at the dark cloud which long enveloped the mysteries of religion, or had any other meaning, must be determined by those who have studied polemic divinity, and considered ecclesiastical history.
A trunk, which has occasionally served for the concealment of Iachimo, and been displayed as the coffin of Juliet, is now placed with the end upwards, and become the reading-desk of the ox-eyed Juno. Upon it is a tinder-box, and the thunderbolt of Jove, a salt-box, and a rolling-pin. The two last articles have much importance in the catalogue of the properties of their orchestra. Their leading musical instrument, the sonorous bass-viol, leans against the altar, and the sweet-sounding lyre lies on the floor.
Ten small tallow candles, stuck in clay, will be fastened to a hoop, which, suspended by a packthread over the centre of the stage, must form a most magnificent chandelier.
On that bed which has been pressed by the gentle Desdemona, and softened the sleep of beauteous Imogen, are two play-bills and four eggs. One of the eggs is broken: the others may perhaps be intended to render the silver-toned siren's voice more softly musical.
Two sets of waves, which gave the tempest-tossed vessel an appearance of being suspended
"'Twixt the green sea and cloudy canopy
Of o'er-arching heaven,"
are in a dead calm, resting against the wall. One of them is become the roosting place of a hen and chickens.
The frieze, festooned column, and arched door, form part of their grand scene; but they, as well as the vase with flowers, are in too elegant a style for their accompaniments.
The spirit-stirring drum, martial trumpet, and enchanted besom, make an admirable trophy. The two first may serve to call the shallow Richmond to arms, or rouse Macbeth to more than mortal deeds; the latter is unquestionably used in the incantations of Hecate, and may be sometimes bestrid by one of the weird sisters, to "ride in the whirlwind, and direct the storm."
The two dragons will astonish a rustic audience; and the rattling car, rolled over elastic planks, will make dreadful thunder.[149]
The British flag must wave for every nation upon earth;[150] may be borne before Macedonia's madman in his triumphal entry, or wave upon the battlements of Macbeth's castle. It is either the ensign of Henry or the standard of Coriolanus.
The straw deposited in a corner may serve for the bed of Lear, the head of Edgar, or the hands of the fair Ophelia.
Canopied by an opaque cloud, inscribed "Oedipus" and "Jocasta," and evidently intended as a scene in Lee's mad play,[151] we discover the heads of two figures reposing in the straw, instead of the garden, "as was their custom in the afternoon."
A fellow, clambered to the top of the barn, is profanely prying into the hallowed mysteries of the green-room. A little lower is the Roman eagle and standard; close to them a paint-pot, palette, and pencils. The very natural appearance of two rural scenes which lean against the wooden wall, evince that some eminent artist has united the two professions, and is both painter and hero to the company. "Hills and dales are of his dressing." He can delineate the blasted oak or nodding turret, the lofty castle or humble cottage, with such brilliancy of colouring and splendour of effect, that the astonished connoisseur sometimes exclaims,
"There is something in this more than nature,
If philosophy could find it out."
A target, close to the altar, is richly embossed with Medusa's head. A salt-box, before the divine Juno, is chalked with hieroglyphic marks that might have been originally made by this sovereign daughter of the drama as a check upon an alehouse score. This economical attention to Cocker's Arithmetic is very necessary with even a royal revenue; for
"He who to-night is seated on a throne,
Calls subjects, empires, kingdoms, all his own,
Who wears the diadem and regal robe,
Next morning shall awake as poor as Job.
"Hard is the fortune of a strolling player,
Necessity's rough burden doom'd to bear;
And scanty is the pittance he can earn,
Wandering from town to town, from barn to barn.
Where are my forty knights? cries frantic Lear.
A page replies, Your majesty, they're here,—
When, lo! two bailiffs, and a writ appear."[152]
The chemise, apron, cap, and ruffles, hanging upon a rope to dry, display marks of a laudable industry, and prove that these dignified personages, maugre their exalted rank, wash their own linen. The gridiron, close to the bed, intimates that they are not above broiling their own beefsteaks.
The expression of the figures in this print is admirable. Nothing can exceed the mock-heroic dignity of Juno;[153] she is as haughty as one of her own peacocks. The Tragic Muse has been so frequently up to the ears in blood, that she laughs at the tortures of the poor quadruped whose tail she is cutting off. The faces of the tumbler, the cat, and the Medusa, in beauty and character, "contend for mastery."
A little devil, who has his fist clenched, and threatens the other for drinking so deep, is admirably marked; from the eyes of his twin-brother, with the vessel to his mouth, we see that he highly relishes and greedily inhales the delicious draught.
The group, formed by the five preceding characters, is well composed, and their various dispositions most forcibly delineated. In the ranting representative of the pale moon, unblushing, unabashed impudence; in the siren, mawkish intoxication; and in Ganymede, an appearance of that agony which arises from the toothache.
Notwithstanding the candle that is near setting fire to the hamper of jewels, we see through a breach in the thatch that this is a daylight picture; in so shattered a tenement, it is not easy to determine from what source the figures are illuminated.
From the Act of Parliament which lies upon the bed, we learn that this diabolical drama will be their last performance; and when this abstract and brief chronicle of the times have fretted their little hour upon the stage, and made their exit, the barn will be appropriated to its proper uses:
"Rich harvests bury all their pride has plann'd,
And laughing Ceres reassume the land."
That time come,
"This glittering show
Of canvas, paint, and plaister shall lie low;
These gorgeous palaces, yon cloud-capt scene—
This barn itself will be a barn again:
The spirit-stirring drum will cease to roar,
The prompter's whistle will be heard no more;
But echoing sounds of rustic toil prevail,
The winnowing hiss, and clapping of the flail:
Hither once more may unhous'd vagrants fly,
To shun the inclement blast and pelting sky:
On Lear's own straw gipsies may rest their head,
And trulls lie snug in Desdemona's bed."
The original picture is in the possession of Mr. Wood of Lyttlecote, who purchased it for twenty-six guineas!
