THE FOUR TIMES OF THE DAY.
In the "Progress of an Harlot," and the "Adventures of a Rake," Mr. Hogarth displayed his powers of painting history. Holding the mirror up to Nature, he shows
"Virtue her own feature, Vice her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure."
Had he exhibited no other specimen of his art, these fourteen prints would have given him a right to the title of a moral painter; and thus was he denominated by the late Mr. Fielding, in his Adventures of Joseph Andrews.
In the series before us he treads poetic ground. A description of the day, particularly the morning, has been generally deemed the bard's peculiar province. Considering Homer as the father of poesy, the whole family of Apollo have echoed his notes, and run their divisions of fancy upon his scale. With one of them,
"The morn, wak'd by the circling hours,
Unbars the gates of light."
With another, she "sows the earth with orient pearl." At one time, with a star as her gentleman usher, she
"Draws night's humid curtains, and proclaims
The new-born day forth dawning from the east;"
is now the grey Aurora, then the meek-ey'd morn, array'd in a dewy robe, with saffron streamers, placed in a glittering chariot, and drawn by etherial coursers, where, holding the reins with her red hands, she drives the day.
These heathenish descriptions may be very beautiful in their way; but hear our own Shakspeare:
"Night's tapers are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain's top."
Again:
"The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
And 'gins to pale her ineffectual fire."
This comes home to all men's business and bosoms: it is picturesque, it is poetical; it is intelligible to the peasant or the philosopher, to the classic admirer of ancient mythology, or the man who never heard that the gates which Aurora unbars are made of the purest crystal.
The pictures drawn by Homer, and those feeble imitators who debase his splendid images by the mixture of their own dross, have their scenes laid in the country; but Hogarth has represented his dramatis personæ in the centre of a great city. Had the learned author of Hudibras been a painter, I believe he would have done the same. It will not be easy to select two lines that have more wit than his description of the morning:
"Now, like a lobster boil'd, the morn
From black to red began to turn."
This is appropriate to either city or country.
In Mr. Hogarth's "Four Times of the Day" there is only one scene laid out of town; and that may, I think, be properly enough called a London pastoral, for it is at the pleasant village of Islington. The three others are described as in the most public parts of the metropolis, and exhibit a picture which will give a very correct idea of the dresses and pursuits of the inhabitants of London in the year 1738.
MORNING.
"Keen blows the blast, and eager is the air;
With flakes of feather'd snow the ground is spread;
To step, with mincing pace, to early prayer,
Our clay-cold vestal leaves her downy bed.
. . . . . . .
And here the reeling sons of Riot see,
After a night of senseless revelry.
. . . . . . .
Poor,—trembling,—old,—her suit the beggar plies;
But frozen chastity the little boon denies."—E.
MORNING.
This withered representative of Miss Bridget Alworthy, with a shivering footboy carrying her prayer-book, never fails in her attendance at morning service. She is a symbol of the season,
"Chaste as the icicle
That's curdled by the frost from purest snow,
And hangs on Dian's temple,"
she looks with scowling eye, and all the conscious pride of severe and stubborn virginity, on the poor girls who are suffering the embraces of two drunken beaux that are just staggered out of Tom King's Coffeehouse. One of them, from the basket on her arm, I conjecture to be an orange girl: she shows no displeasure at the boisterous salute of her Hibernian lover. That the hero in a laced hat is from the banks of the Shannon, is apparent in his countenance. The female whose face is partly concealed, and whose neck has a more easy turn than we always see in the works of this artist, is not formed of the most inflexible materials.
An old woman, seated upon a basket; the girl, warming her hands by a few withered sticks that are blazing on the ground; and a wretched mendicant,[131] wrapped in a tattered and party-coloured blanket, entreating charity from the rosy-fingered vestal who is going to church, complete the group. Behind them, at the door of Tom King's Coffeehouse, are a party engaged in a fray likely to create business for both surgeon and magistrate; we discover swords and cudgels in the combatants' hands.
On the opposite side of the print are two little schoolboys. That they have shining morning faces we cannot positively assert, but each has a satchel at his back, and, according with the description given by the poet of nature, is
"Creeping like snail unwillingly to school."
The lantern appended to the woman who has a basket on her head, proves that these dispensers of the riches of Pomona rise before the sun, and do part of their business by an artificial light. Near her, that immediate descendant of Paracelsus, Doctor Rock,[132] is expatiating to an admiring audience on the never-failing virtues of his wonder-working medicines. One hand holds a bottle of his miraculous panacea, and the other supports a board, on which is the king's arms, to indicate that his practice is sanctioned by royal letters patent. Two porringers and a spoon, placed on the bottom of an inverted basket, intimate that the woman seated near them is a vendor of rice-milk, which was at that time brought into the market every morning.
A fatigued porter leans on a rail; and a blind beggar is going towards the church: but whether he will become one of the congregation, or take his stand at the door, in the hope that religion may have warmed the hearts of its votaries to "pity the sorrows of a poor blind man," is uncertain.
The clock in the front of Inigo Jones' barn has the motto, "SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI." Had Mr. Hervey of Weston Favel written upon the works of Hogarth, he would have expatiated for ten pages upon the relation which this motto has to the smoke which is issuing from the chimney beneath; he would have written about it, and about it, and told his readers that the glory of this world is typified by the smoke, and like the smoke it passeth away; that man himself is a mere vapour, etc. etc. etc.
Snow on the ground, and icicles hanging from the pent-house, exhibit a very chilling prospect; but, to dissipate the cold, there is happily a shop where spirituous liquors are sold pro bono publico, at a very little distance. A large pewter measure is placed upon a post before the door, and three of a smaller size hung over the window of the house.
The character of the principal figure[133] is admirably delineated. She is marked with that prim and awkward formality which generally accompanies her order, and is an exact type of a hard winter; for every part of her dress, except the flying lappets and apron, ruffled by the wind, is as rigidly precise as if it were frozen. Extreme cold is very well expressed in the slipshod footboy,[134] and the girl who is warming her hands. The group of which she is a part is well formed, but not sufficiently balanced on the opposite side.
The church dial, a few minutes before seven; marks of little shoes and pattens in the snow; and various productions of the season in the market, are an additional proof of that minute accuracy with which this artist inspected and represented objects which painters in general have neglected.
Covent Garden is the scene, but in the print every building is reversed.[135] This was a common error with Hogarth; not from his being ignorant of the use of the mirror, but from his considering it as a matter of little consequence.
The propriety of exhibiting a scene of riot in Tom King's Coffeehouse is proved by the following quotation from the Weekly Miscellany for June 9, 1739:—"Monday, Mrs. Mary King, of Covent Garden, was brought up to the King's Bench bar, at Westminster, and received the following sentence for keeping a disorderly house, viz. to pay a fine of two hundred pounds, to suffer three months' imprisonment, to find security for her good behaviour for three years, and to remain in prison till the fine be paid." When her imprisonment ended, she retired from trade, built three houses on Haverstock Hill, near Hampstead, and in one of them, on the 10th of September 1747, she died. Her mansion was afterwards the residence of Nancy Dawson, and with the two others constitutes what is still distinguished by the appellation of Moll King's Row.
NOON.
"Hail, Gallia's daughters! easy, brisk, and free;
Good-humour'd, debonnaire, and degagée:
Though still fantastic, frivolous, and vain,
Let not their airs and graces give us pain:
Or fair, or brown, at toilet, prayer, or play,
Their motto speaks their manners,—'Toujours gai.'
But for that powder'd compound of grimace,
That capering he-she thing of fringe and lace;
With sword and cane, with bag and solitaire,
Vain of the full-dress'd dwarf,—his hopeful heir,
How does our spleen and indignation rise,
When such a tinsell'd coxcomb meets our eyes,
So twisted out of God and Nature's plan,—
Yet know that coxcomb must be call'd a man!"—E.
NOON.
Among the figures who are coming out of church, an affected, flighty Frenchwoman, with her fluttering fop of an husband, and a boy, habited à-la-mode de Paris, claim our first attention. In dress, air, and manner, they have a national character. The whole congregation, whether male or female, old or young, carry the air of their country in countenance, dress, and deportment. Like the three principal figures, they are all marked with some affected peculiarity. Affectation in a woman is supportable upon no other ground than that general indulgence we pay to the omnipotence of beauty, which in a degree sanctifies whatever it adopts. In a boy, when we consider that the poor fellow is attempting to copy what he has been taught to believe praiseworthy, we laugh at it—the largest portion of ridicule falls upon his tutors; but in a man, it is contemptible!
The old fellow in a black periwig has a most vinegar-like aspect, and looks with great contempt at the frippery gentlewoman immediately before him. The woman with a demure countenance seems very piously considering how she can contrive to pick the embroidered beau's pocket. Two old sibyls joining their withered lips in a chaste salute, is nauseous enough, but, being a national custom, must be forgiven. The divine seems to have resided in this kingdom long enough to acquire a roast-beef countenance. A little boy, whose woollen night-cap is pressed over a most venerable flowing periwig, and the decrepid old man, leaning upon a crutch-stick, who is walking before him, I once considered as two vile caricatures, out of nature, and unworthy the artist. Since I have seen the peasantry of Flanders and the plebeian youth of France, I have in some degree changed my opinion, but still think them rather outré.
Under a sign of the Baptist's Head is written, "Good Eating;" and on each side of the inscription is a mutton chop. In opposition to this head without a body, unaccountably displayed as a sign at an eating-house, there is a body without a head, hanging out as the sign of a distiller's. This, by common consent, has been quaintly denominated "The Good Woman."[136] At a window above, one of the softer sex proves her indisputable right to the title by her temperate conduct to her husband, with whom having had a little disagreement, she throws their Sunday's dinner into the street.
A girl, bringing a pie from the bakehouse, is stopped in her career by the rude embraces of a blackamoor, who eagerly rubs his sable visage against her blooming cheek.
Good eating is carried on to the lower part of the picture. A boy,[137] placing a baked pudding upon a post with rather too violent an action, the dish breaks, the fragments fall to the ground; and while he is loudly lamenting his misfortune, and with tears anticipating his punishment, the smoking remnants are eagerly snatched up by a poor girl. Not educated according to the system of Jean Jacques Rousseau, she feels no qualms of conscience about the original proprietor, and destitute of that fastidious delicacy which destroys the relish of many a fine lady, eagerly swallows the hot and delicious morsels with all the concomitants.
The scene is laid at the door of a French chapel in Hog Lane,—a part of the town at that time almost wholly peopled by French refugees or their descendants.
A kite blown from an adjacent field,[138] being entangled on the roof of the chapel, hangs pendant on the wall. One of Mr. Hogarth's commentators asserts, that "this is introduced only to break the disagreeable uniformity of a wall."[139] It certainly has that effect; but Hogarth so rarely presents any object without a particular and pointed allusion, that I am inclined to think he had some other meaning. May it not be designed to intimate that the good people who compose the congregation, after being blown out of their own country by a religious storm, found a peaceful harbour under this roof, safely sheltered from the hurricanes of enthusiasm and the blasts of superstition?
By the dial of St. Giles' Church, in the distance, we see that it is only half-past eleven. At this early hour, in those good times, there was as much good eating as there is now at six o'clock in the evening. From twenty pewter measures, which are hung up before the houses of different distillers, it seems that good drinking was considered as equally worthy of their serious attention.
The dead cat and choked kennels mark the little attention shown to the streets by the scavengers of St. Giles'. At that time noxious effluvia was not peculiar to this parish. The neighbourhood of Fleet Ditch, and many other parts of the city, were equally polluted.
Even at this refined period, there would be some use in a more strict attention to the medical police of a city so crowded with inhabitants. We ridicule the people of Paris and Edinburgh for neglecting so essential and salutary a branch of delicacy, while the kennels of a street in the vicinity of St. Paul's Church are floated with the blood of slaughtered animals every market day. Moses would have managed these things better: but in those days there was no physician in Israel!
EVENING.
"One sultry Sunday, when no cooling breeze
Was borne on Zephyr's wing to fan the trees;
One sultry Sunday, when the torrid ray
O'er nature beam'd intolerable day;
When raging Sirius warn'd us not to roam,
And Galen's sons prescrib'd—cool draughts at home;
One sultry Sunday, near those fields of fame
Where weavers dwell, and Spital is their name,
A sober wight, of reputation high
For tints that emulate the Tyrian dye,
Wishing to take his afternoon's repose
In easy-chair, had just began to doze,
When, in a voice that sleep's soft slumbers broke,
His oily helpmate thus her wishes spoke:
"'Why, spouse, for shame!—my stars! what's this about?
You's ever sleeping!—come, we'll all go out;—
At that there garden,—pr'ythee, do not stare!—
We'll take a mouthful of the country air;
In the yew bower an hour or two we'll kill;
There you may smoke, and drink what punch you will.
Sophy and Billy each shall walk with me,
And you must carry little Emily.
Veny is sick, and pants, and loathes her food;
The grass will do the pretty creature good.
Hot rolls are ready as the clock strikes five—
And now 'tis after four, as I'm alive!'
"The mandate issued, see the tour begun,
And all the flock set out for Islington.
Now the broad sun, refulgent lamp of day,
To rest with Thetis, slopes his western way,
O'er every tree embrowning dust is spread,
And tipt with gold is Hampstead's lofty head.
The passive husband, in his nature mild,
To wife consigns his hat, and takes the child;
But she,—a day like this hath never felt—
'Oh! that this too, too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!'—
Such monstrous heat—dear me!—she never knew.
'Adown her innocent and beauteous face,
The big, round pearly drops each other chase;'
Thence trickling to those hills, erst white as snow,
That now like Ætna's mighty mountains glow,
They hang like dew-drops on the full-blown rose,
And to the ambient air their sweets disclose.
Fever'd with pleasure, thus she drags along;
Nor dares her antler'd husband say 'tis wrong;
The blooming offspring of this blissful pair,
In all their parents' attic pleasures share.
Sophy the soft, the mother's earliest joy,
Demands her froward brother's tinsell'd toy;
But he, enrag'd, denies the glittering prize,
And rends the air with loud and piteous cries.
Thus far we see the party on their way;
What dire disasters mark'd the close of day,
'Twere tedious, tiresome, endless to obtrude:
Imagination must the scene conclude."—E.
EVENING.
It is not easy to imagine fatigue better delineated than in the appearance of this amiable pair. In a few of the earliest impressions, Mr. Hogarth printed the hands of the man in blue, to show that he was a dyer, and the face and neck of the woman in red, to intimate her extreme heat.[140] The lady's aspect lets us at once into her character; we are certain that she was born to command. As to her husband, "God made him, and he must pass for a man;" what his wife has made him is indicated by the cow's horns, which are so placed as to become his own. The hope of the family, with a cockade in his hat, and riding upon papa's cane, seems much dissatisfied with female sway. A face with more of the shrew in embryo than that of the girl, it is scarcely possible to conceive. Upon such a character, the most casual observer pronounces with the decision of a Lavater.
Nothing can be better imagined than the group in the alehouse. They have taken a refreshing walk into the country, and, being determined to have a cooling pipe, seat themselves in a chair-lumbered closet with a low ceiling; where every man pulling off his wig, and throwing a pocket-handkerchief over his head, inhales the fume of hot punch, the smoke of half a dozen pipes, and the dust from the road. If this is not rural felicity, what is? The old gentleman in a black bag-wig, and the two women near him, sensibly enough, take their seats in the open air.
From a woman milking a cow, we conjecture the hour to be about five in the afternoon; and from the same circumstance, I am inclined to think this agreeable party are going to their pastoral bower rather than returning from it.
The cow and dog appear as much inconvenienced by heat as any of the party: the former is whisking off the flies; and the latter creeps unwillingly along, and casts a longing look at the crystal river in which he sees his own shadow. A remarkably hot summer is intimated by the luxuriant state of a vine creeping over an alehouse window. On the side of the New River, where the scene is laid, lies one of the wooden pipes employed in the waterworks. Opposite Sadler's Wells there still remains a sign[141] of Sir Hugh Middleton's head, which is here represented.
This print is engraved by Baron, but some touches of Mr. Hogarth's burin are visible on the faces.
Dr. Johnson, I think it is, who observes, that an ardent pursuit of pleasure generally defeats its own purpose; for when we have wasted days and nights, and exhausted our strength in the chase, it eludes our grasp, and vanishes from our view.
NIGHT.
"Now burst the blazing bonfires on the sight,
Through the wide air their coruscations play;
The windows beam with artificial light,
And all the region emulates the day.
"The moping mason, from yon tavern led,
In mystic words doth to the moon complain
That unsound port distracts his aching head,
And o'er the waiter waves his clouded cane."—E.
NIGHT.
Mr. Walpole very truly observes, that this print is inferior to the three others; there is, however, broad humour in some of the figures.
The wounded freemason, who, in zeal of brotherly love, has drank his bumpers to the craft till he is unable to find his way home, is under the guidance of a waiter. This has been generally considered as intended for Sir Thomas de Veil, and, from an authenticated portrait which I have seen, I am inclined to think it is, notwithstanding Sir John Hawkins asserts that "he could discover no resemblance." When the knight saw him in his magisterial capacity, he was probably sober and sedate: here he is represented a little disguised. The British Xantippe showering her favours from the window upon his head, may have its source in that respect which the inmates of such houses as the Rummer Tavern had for a justice of peace.[142]
The waiter who supports his worship seems, from the patch upon his forehead, to have been in a recent affray; but what use he can have for a lantern it is not easy to divine, unless he is conducting his charge to some place where there is neither moonlight nor illumination.
The Salisbury flying coach oversetting and broken, by passing through the bonfire, is said to be an intended burlesque upon a right honourable peer, who was accustomed to drive his own carriage over hedges, ditches, and rivers; and has been sometimes known to drive three or four of his maid-servants into a deep water, and there leave them in the coach to shift for themselves.
The butcher and little fellow who are assisting the terrified passengers, are possibly free and accepted masons. One of them seems to have a mop in his hand;—the pail is out of sight!
To crown the joys of the populace, a man with a pipe in his mouth is filling a capacious hogshead with British Burgundy.
The joint operation of shaving and bleeding, performed by a drunken 'prentice on a greasy oilman, does not seem a very natural exhibition on a rejoicing night.
The poor wretches under the barber's bench display a prospect of penury and wretchedness which I hope is not so common now as it was then.
In the distance is a cart laden with furniture, which some unfortunate tenant is removing out of the reach of his landlord's execution.
There is humour in the barber's sign and inscription: "Shaving, bleeding, and teeth drawn with a touch. Ecce signum!"
The Rummer Tavern still retains its old situation. It was then quaintly distinguished as the New Bagnio.
By the oaken boughs on the sign, and the oak leaves in the freemasons' hats, it seems that this rejoicing night is the 29th of May, the anniversary of our second Charles's restoration; that happy day when, according to our excellent old ballad, "the king enjoyed his own again." This might be one reason for the artist choosing a scene contiguous to the beautiful equestrian statue[143] of Charles I.
In the distance we see a house on fire,—an accident very likely to happen on such a night as this.
The original pictures of "Morning" and "Noon" were sold to the Duke of Ancaster for fifty-seven guineas; "Evening" and "Night" to Sir William Heathcote for sixty-four guineas.
