THE MAN OF TASTE.
THE MAN OF TASTE.
The circumstance on which this print is built is thus described by Dr. Johnson:—
"Mr. Pope published in 1731 a poem called False Taste, in which he very particularly and severely criticises the house, the furniture, the gardens, and the entertainments of Timon, a man of great wealth and little taste. By Timon he was universally supposed, and by the Earl of Burlington, to whom the poem is addressed, was privately said, to mean the Duke of Chandos, a man perhaps too much delighted with pomp and show, but of a temper kind and beneficent, and who had consequently the voice of the public in his favour. A violent outcry was therefore raised against the ingratitude and treachery of Pope, who was said to have been indebted to the patronage of Chandos for a present of a thousand pounds, and who gained the opportunity of insulting him by the kindness of his invitation. The receipt of the thousand pounds Pope publicly denied; but from the reproach which the attack on a character so amiable brought upon him, he tried all means of escaping. The name of Cleland was employed in an apology[102] by which no man was satisfied; and he was at last reduced to shelter his temerity behind dissimulation, and endeavoured to make that disbelieved which he never had confidence openly to deny. He wrote an exculpatory letter to the Duke, which was answered with great magnanimity by a man who accepted his excuse without believing his professions. He said, that to have ridiculed his taste or his buildings had been an indifferent action in another man, but that in Pope, after the reciprocal kindness that had been exchanged between them, it had been less easily excused."—Johnson's Life of Pope.
Soon after the publication of the poem alluded to, Hogarth made this design, which presents a view of Burlington Gate. On the front, as a crooked compliment to the noble proprietor, he has inscribed the word "Taste;" and as a standing proof of the projector being entitled to the appellation, placed a statue of his grand favourite William Kent triumphantly brandishing his palette and pencils on the summit, with two reclining figures representing Raphael and Michael Angelo for his supporters.[103] Standing on a scaffold board beneath them, Mr. Pope, in the character of a plasterer, is whitewashing the front, and whirling his brush with a spirit that produces a shower of liquid pearl which dismays and defiles the passengers beneath; the principal of these, intended for the Duke of Chandos, holds his hat over his head to shelter himself in his retreat. The torrent is not confined to his Grace's person, but lavishly scattered over his carriage and attendants, among whom is a blackamoor in the way of being whitewashed. The clergyman, whom I believe intended for the duke's chaplain,[104] is escaping round the carriage.
An old military character, who as well as the chaplain is got out of the poet's vortex, is rubbing off the stains which he has previously contracted.
Climbing a ladder reared against the scaffold, we have Lord Burlington doing the office of a labourer, and arrayed in a tie-wig, with a pair of compasses[106] suspended to the riband of his order, and carrying to his little active workman a hand-hawk, on which is a portion of what I am told the bricklayers call "fine stuff," to mix up more whitening for beautifying the front of his own gate, and defiling the garments of every passenger. This, it must be acknowledged, our poetical plasterer performs with distinguished dexterity: he at the same time covers the corrosions in the front, dashes a plenteous shower on those that come near it, and so kicks the bottom of a pail which hangs to his short ladder, that a copious stream flows on the head of a gentleman beneath.
This double distribution of flattery and satire is amply exemplified in the Epistle to Lord Burlington; where the poet, by contrasting the feeble and imperfect efforts of those he abuses with the superior and superlative genius of the peer,[107] elevates the powers of his own patron, and sinks those of all his competitors.
The print from which this is copied was prefixed to a pamphlet, entitled A Miscellany of Taste, by Mr. Pope, etc., containing his epistles, with notes, etc. There are two other engravings from the same design, one larger and one smaller than the print annexed. In the former of these, Mr. Pope has a tie-wig on.[109]