1724.
1. Seven small prints to "The New Metamorphosis of Lucius Apuleius of Medaura. London, printed for Sam. Briscoe, 1724." 12mo. 2 vol. I. Frontispiece. II. Festivals of Gallantry, which the noblemen of Rome make in the churches for the entertainment of their mistresses. III. The banditti's bringing home a beautiful virgin, called Camilla, from her mother's arms, the night before she was to have been married. Vol. I. p. 113. No name to this plate. IV. Fantasio's arrival at the house of an old witch, who is afterwards changed into a beautiful young lady. V. The provincial of the Jesuits' recovery of his favourite dog from the cooper's wife. VI. Psyche's admission of her unknown husband in the dark, who always departed before the return of light. VII. Cardinal Ottoboni and his niece's visit to an Hermitage in the holy desart, called Camaldule; the Cardinal's discourse against solitude to the hermit, who had not been out of his cell, nor spoke a word, for forty years together. Plate IV. is the only one that has the least trait of character in it.
2. Masquerades and operas. Burlington-gate. W. Hogarth inv. & sculp. Of the three small figures in the center of this plate, the middle one is Lord Burlington, a man of considerable taste in Painting and Architecture, but who ranked Mr. Kent (an indifferent artist) above his merit. On one side of the peer is Mr. Campbell, the architect; on the other, his lordship's postilion. On a show-cloth in this plate is also supposed to be the portrait of King George II. who gave 1000 l. towards the masquerade; together with that of the Earl of Peterborough, who offers Cuzzoni, the Italian singer, 8000 l. and she spurns at him.[1] Mr. Heidegger, the regulator of the Masquerade, is also exhibited, looking out at a window, with the letter H. under him. The substance of the foregoing remarks is taken from a collection lately belonging to Captain Baillie,[2] where it is said that they were furnished by an eminent Connoisseur.[3] A board is likewise displayed, with the words—"Long Room. Fawks's dexterity of hand." It appears front the following advertisement in Mist's Weekly Journal for Saturday, December 25, 1725, that this artist was a man of great consequence in his profession. "Whereas the town hath lately been alarmed, that the famous Fawks was robbed and murdered, returning from performing at the Dutchess of Buckingham's house at Chelsea; which report being raised and printed by a person to gain money to himself, and prejudice the above mentioned Mr. Fawks, whose unparalleled performances have gained him so much applause from the greatest of quality, and most curious observers: We think, both in justice to the injured gentleman, and for the satisfaction of his admirers, that we cannot please our readers better than to acquaint them he is alive, and will not only perform his usual surprizing dexterity of hand, posture-master, and musical clock; but for the greater diversion of the quality and gentry, has agreed with the famous Powell of The Bath for the season, who has the largest, richest, and most natural figures, and finest machines in England, and whose former performances in Covent Garden were so engaging to the town, as to gain the approbation of the best judges, to show his puppet-plays along with him, beginning in the Christmas holidays next, at the old Tennis-court in James-Street, near The Haymarket; where any incredulous persons may be satisfied he has not left this world, if they please to believe their hands, though they can't believe their eyes."—May 25," indeed, "1731, died Mr. Fawkes, famous for his dexterity of hand, by which he had honestly acquired a fortune of above 10,000 l. being no more than he really deserved for his great ingenuity, by which he had surpassed all that ever pretended to that art." Political State, vol. XLI. p. 543.
This satirical performance of Hogarth, however, was thought to be invented and drawn at the mitigation of Sir James Thornhill, out of revenge, because Lord Burlington had preferred Mr. Kent before him to paint for the king at his palace at Kensington. Dr. Faustus was a pantomime performed to crowded houses throughout two seasons, to the utter neglect of plays, for which reason they are cried about in a wheel-barrow.[4] We may add that there are three prints of this small masquerade, &c. one a copy from the first. The originals have Hogarth's name within the frame of the plate, and the eight verses are different from those under the other. It is sometimes found without any lines at all; those in the first instance having been engraved on a separate piece of copper, so that they could either be retained, dismissed, or exchanged, at pleasure. In the first copy of this print, instead of Ben Jonson's name on a label, we have Pasquin, N° XI. This was a periodical paper published in 1722-3, and the number specified is particularly severe on operas, &c. The verses to the first impression of this plate, are,
Could now dumb Faustus, to reform the age,
Conjure up Shakespear's or Ben Johnson's ghost,
They'd blush for shame, to see the English stage
Debauch'd by fool'ries, at so great a cost.
What would their manes say? Should they behold
Monsters and masquerades, where useful plays
Adorn'd the fruitfull theatre of old,
And rival wits contended for the bays.
Price 1 shilling 1724.
To the second impression of it:
O how refin'd, how elegant we're grown!
What noble Entertainments charm the town!
Whether to hear the Dragon's roar we go,
Or gaze surpriz'd on Fawks's matchless show,
Or to the Operas, or to the Masques,
To eat up ortelans, and t' empty flasques,
And rifle pies from Shakespear's clinging page,
Good gods! how great's the gusto of the age.
In this print our artist has imitated the engraving of Callot.
To the third impression, i. e. the copy:
Long has the stage productive been
Of offsprings it could brag on,
But never till this age was seen
A Windmill and a Dragon.
O Congreve, lay thy pen aside,
Shakespear, thy works disown,
Since monsters grim, and nought beside,
Can please this senseless town.
I should have observed, that the idea of the foregoing plate was stolen from an anonymous one on the same subject. It represents Hercules chaining follies and destroying monsters. He is beating Heidegger, till the money he had amassed falls out of his pocket. The situation of the buildings, &c. on the sides, &c. has been followed by our artist. Mercury aloft sustains a scroll, on which is written "The Mascarade destroy'd." The inscription under this print is "Hei Degeror. O! I am undone." Price One Shilling.
[1] She is rather drawing the money towards her with a rake.
[2] This collection, consisting of 241 prints, in three portfeuilles, was sold at Christie's, April 7, 1781, for 59 guineas, to Mr. Ingham Foster, a wealthy ironmonger, since dead. A set, containing only 100 prints, had been sold some time before, at the same place, for 47 guineas. The Hon. Topham Beauclerk's set, of only 99 prints, was sold in 1781 (while this note was printing off for the first edition) for 34l. 10s.
[3] It is not, indeed, inconvenient for the reputation of this famous connoisseur, that his name continues to be a secret. Either he could not spell, or his copier was unable to read what he undertook to transcribe. Postilion must be a mistake for some other word. The whole note, in the original, appears to have been the production of a male Slip-slop, perhaps of high fashion. His petulant invective against Lord Burlington is here omitted.
[4] Dr. Faustus was first brought out at Lincoln's-Inn Fields in 1723, and the success of it reduced the rival theatre to produce a like entertainment at their house in 1725. From a scarce pamphlet in octavo, without date, called "Tragi-comical Reflections, of a moral and political Tendency, occasioned by the present State of the two Rival Theatres in Drury-Lane and Lincoln's-Inn Fields, by Gabriel Rennel, Esq." I shall transcribe an illustration of these plates: "A few years ago, by the help of Harleykin, and Dr. Faustus, and Pluto and Proserpine, and other infernal persons, the New-House was raised to as high a pitch of popularity and renown as ever it had been known to arrive at. Tho' the actors there consisted chiefly of Scotch, and Irish, and French Strollers, who were utterly unacquainted with the English Stage, and were remarkably deficient in elocution and gesture: yet so much was the art of juggling at that time in vogue, and so extreamly was the nation delighted with Raree-Shows, and foreign representations, that all people flocked to the New-House, whilst the Old one was altogether deserted, tho' it then could glory in as excellent a set of English actors as ever had trod upon any stage. In the midst of this joyful prosperity and success, the Managers of the New-House were not without secret uneasiness and discontent, whenever they considered how slippery a ground they stood upon, and how much a juster title their rivals had to the favour and affections of the people. They were therefore always intent upon forming designs and concerting measures for the entire subversion of the Old-House. For this purpose, they constantly kept in pay a standing army of Scaramouches, who were sent about the town to possess it with aversion and resentment against the Old Players, whose virtues had rendered them formidable, and whose merit was their greatest crime. These Scaramouches, in so corrupt and degenerate a time, when blindness and folly, and a false taste every where reigned, were every where looked on as men of a superior skill to all other actors, and consequently had a greater influence than the rest, and could lead after them a larger number of followers. It was by means of the incessant clamour and outcry that these miscreants raised, and of the lies and forgeries which they scattered about the nation, that the common people were spirited up to commit the most extravagant acts of insolence and outrage on the Managers of the Old-House. They were made the sport and derision of fools, and were delivered up to an enraged and deluded populace, as a prey to the fury of wild beasts. Their enemies were continually plotting and conspiring their destruction, and yet were continually prosecuting them for Sham-Plots and pretended Conspiracies, and suborning witnesses to prove them guilty of attempts to undermine and blow up the New-House.
"During the course of those violent and illegal proceedings, the New Actors were not wanting in any pains or expence to gratify and increase the then popular taste for Raree-Shows, and Hocus-Pocus Tricks. Scenes and Machines, and Puppets, and Posture-Masters, and Actors, and Singers, with a new set of Heathen Gods and Goddesses, and several other foreign Decorations and Inventions, were sent for from France and Italy, and were ready to be imported with the first fair wind. But quarrels falling out among the Managers of the House, and one or two of the principal Actors happening to quit the Stage, and the people growing tired with so much foul play, and with the same deceptio visus so often repeated, the scene changed at once, the vox populi turned against the New-House, which sunk under a load of infamy and contempt, and was deserted not only by the Spectators, but even by its Actors, who, to save themselves from the justice of an abused and enraged people, were forced to fly out of the nation, and to beg for protection and subsistence from their wicked Confederates and Fellow-Jugglers abroad."