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 FOUNDLINGS.
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.
CAPTAIN THOMAS CORAM.
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.