PAUL BEFORE FELIX.
Designed and etched in the ridiculous manner of Rembrandt, by William Hogarth. Published according to the Act of Parliament, May 1, 1751.
"Each hero is a pillar of darkness, and the sword a beam of fire."[47]—Fingal, Book I. p. 21.
PAUL BEFORE FELIX.
For the etchings of Rembrandt, and a herd of servile imitators who, without any of his genius, copied his defects, Hogarth had the most sovereign contempt. He considered their productions as unmeaning scratches, as dingy and violent combinations of light and darkness, which would not bear to be tried by the criterion of either nature or art. How far he was right in his opinion is not my inquiry; but certain it is, that at the time of this publication they had the sanction of those who were deemed good judges, and produced most enormous prices. To correct this vitiated taste, and bring men back to reason and common sense, our whimsical artist etched this very grotesque print.
The Apostle, conformable to the general practice of the Flemish school, is represented as a mean and vulgar character. Among the Lilliputians he might have been a giant; among the Romans he must have been a dwarf. In the true spirit of Dutch allegory, a figure fat enough for a burgomaster, invested with wings "that clad each shoulder broad," is seated on the floor behind him as a guardian angel. At this unpropitious moment the guardian angel is asleep, and a little imp of darkness,[48] ever active in mischief, is busily employed with a hand-saw cutting through the leg of the Apostle's stool, which falling, must inevitably bring the orator to the ground, where he will probably be seized by the snarling dog on whose collar is engraved "Felix," and who seems to have an eye to the saint, though his nose is evidently pointed at his appalled master. Seated in a wicker chair, with the Roman eagle over his head, and the fasces at his left hand, Felix indeed trembles. On an adjoining seat is the all-accomplished Drusilla and her lap-dog. Her olfactory nerves, as well as those of her companion, are violently affected. With a sacrificing knife in his right hand, his left clenched, and a countenance irritated almost to madness, the High Priest appears ready to leap from the bench and put the Apostle to death, but is prevented by a more prudent senator. The audience are worthy of the judges; male and female, young and old, are in dress, deportment, and feature, perfectly Dutch. Of the same school is the statue of Justice, with a bandage over one eye, and grasping, in the place of a flaming sword, a butcher's knife.[49] She stands in awful state, laden with bags of gold, the rewards of legal decisions.
At a table beneath the bench are five curious characters. The first, maugre the thundering eloquence of St. Paul, is asleep; the next, mending a pen; two adjoining are highly offended with a noxious effluvia, while their bearded associate is grinning and pointing at the cause from which it emanates. Regardless of all other objects, an Hebrew counterpart of Shylock is expanding his hands in astonishment at the unguarded vehemence of the preacher. Not less exasperated is Tertullus, who, arrayed in the habit of an English serjeant-at-law,[50] has nothing Roman but his nose. Boiling with rage, and irritated almost to madness, he tears his brief: this, a devil, who to give him peculiar distinction has three horns, is carefully picking up and joining the remnants together.[51] The vase, and silver plates in a recess, the violent stream of light which dazzles the eyes of a priest who stands with his back to it, the boat, bark, and white sail glittering in the wave, and a village and windmill in the distance, are all of Rembrandt's school.
The plate was originally intended as a receipt-ticket to the large "Paul before Felix," and "Pharaoh's Daughter;" and the artist stained many early impressions with that yellow tint which time gives to old prints. For the Paul, and Moses, he afterwards engraved another design, and presented this to any of his friends who requested it; but finding applications increase, he fixed the price at five shillings.[52]
PLATE I.
Engraved by William Hogarth, from his original painting in Lincoln's-Inn Hall, and published as the Act directs, Feb. 5, 1752.
"And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled."
PAUL PREACHING BEFORE FELIX.
This print Mr. Hogarth intended as a serious and sublime representation of the scene which he had so inimitably burlesqued; yet so little are we qualified to judge of our own powers, that he has here produced a print as destitute of elevation and sentiment as are the works of those masters he so successfully ridiculed. With the Roman eagle he could not soar, and has drawn the royal bird like a sparrow-hawk, nailed to the bottom of a writing-desk. The Apostle, with his right foot resting on a lower step than the left, has neither grace, dignity, nor firmness. Felix has the appearance of a vinegar-faced apothecary feeling the pulse of a nervous female patient, and shocked at the velocity of our circulation, dropping the prescription from his left hand. The haughty High Priest biting his nails, is deficient in everything except his drapery: the Jew immediately behind him bears a strong resemblance to an old-clothes-man. The standard-bearer, and woman with her hands closed, are a degree better; but the Herculean advocate, with a brief in his right hand, looks like a journeyman hatter that has drank porter till he is drowsy; by the strength of his muscles and the stupidity of his countenance, he seems better fitted for a bruiser than a pleader.
The listening soldier, at the opposite corner, is meanly conceived and ill drawn.
At the bottom of one of the copies I once saw the following memorandum in the handwriting of Hogarth: "A print of the plate that was set aside as insufficient. Engraved by W. H."
PLATE II.
From the original painting in Lincoln's-Inn Hall, painted by Wm. Hogarth.
PAUL PREACHING BEFORE FELIX.
This is engraved from the same design as the former, but the situation of the figures is reversed, and Drusilla omitted, it being thought that St. Paul's hand was rather improperly placed.
It is somewhat superior to the former, but the light is ill distributed, and the characters too individual for the dignity of historical composition.
Upon this and the following print Doctor Joseph Warton, in his Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope, made the following remark. Trusting to his memory, he confounded two prints together, and remembering to have seen a dog snarling at a cat in the fourth print of "Industry and Idleness," from an error in recollection, transferred them to the "Paul before Felix:"—
"Some nicer virtuosi have remarked, that in the serious pieces into which Hogarth has deviated from the natural bias of his genius there are some strokes of the ridiculous discernible, which suit not with the dignity of his subject. In his Preaching of St. Paul, a dog snarling at a cat; and in his Pharaoh's Daughter, the figure of the infant Moses, who expresses rather archness than timidity, are alleged as instances that this artist, unrivalled in his walk, could not resist the impulse of his imagination towards drollery. His picture, however, of Richard III. is pure and unmixed, without any ridiculous circumstances, and strongly impresses terror and amazement."
On the publication of this criticism, Hogarth engraved the whole quotation under the two prints alluded to without any comment; but on the appearance of the following very ample and candid apology, erased them:—
"The author gladly lays hold of the opportunity of this third edition of his work to confess a mistake he had committed with respect to two admirable paintings of Mr. Hogarth,—his Paul Preaching, and his Infant Moses,—which on a closer examination are not chargeable with the blemishes imputed to them. Justice obliges him to declare the high opinion he entertains of the abilities of this inimitable artist, who shines in so many different lights and on such very dissimilar subjects, and whose works have more of what the ancients called the ΗΘΟΣ in them than the compositions of any other modern. For the rest, the author begs leave to add, that he is so far from being ashamed of retracting his error, that he had rather appear a man of candour than the best critic that ever lived."
Hogarth did not understand Greek, and was for some time doubtful whether the ΗΘΟΣ was meant as complimentary or satirical.
If the original painting in Lincoln's-Inn Hall were destroyed, Hogarth's reputation would not be diminished.
