1733.
1. The Laughing Audience. "1733. Recd. Decbr. 18 of the Right Honnble. Lord Biron Half a Guinea being the first Payment for nine Prints 8 of which Represent a Rakes Progress and the 9th a Fair, Which I promise to Deliver at Michaelmass Next on Receiving one Guinea more. Note the Fair will be Deliver'd next Christmass at Sight of this receipt the Prints of the Rakes. Progress alone will be 2 Guineas each set after the Subscription is over."
The words printed in Italicks are in the hand-writing of Hogarth.
2. The Fair[1] [at Southwark]. Invented, painted, and engraved by W. Hogarth.. The show-cloth, representing the Stage Mutiny, is taken from a large etching by John Laguerre (son of Louis Laguerre, the historical painter), who sung at Lincoln's-Inn Fields and Covent-Garden Theatres, painted some of their scenes, and died in 1748. The Stage-Mutineers, or A Playhouse to be let, a tragi-comi farcical-ballad-opera, which was published in 1733, will throw some light on the figures here represented by Hogarth. See also the Supplement to Dodsley's Preface to his Collection of Old Plays, and the "Biographia Dramatica, 1782."
It is remarkable that, in our artist's copy of this etching, he has added a paint-pot and brushes at the feet of the athletic figure with a cudgel in his hand, who appears on the side of Highmore.[2] From these circumstances it is evident that John Ellis the painter (a pupil of Sir James Thornhill, a great frequenter of Broughton's gymnasium, the stages of other prize-fighters, &c.) was the person designed. Ellis was deputy-manager for Mrs. Wilks, and took up the cudgels also for the new patentee. Mr. Walpole observes that Rysbrack, when he produced that "exquisite summary of his skill, knowledge, and judgment," the Hercules now in Mr. Hoare's Temple at Stourhead, modelled the legs of the God from those of Ellis. This statue was compiled from the various limbs and parts of seven or eight of the strongest and best-made men in London, chiefly the bruisers, &c. of the then famous amphitheatre in Tottenham Court road.
In Banks's Works, vol. I. p. 97. is a Poetical Epistle on this print, which alludes to the disputes between the managers of Drury-Lane, and such of the actors as were spirited up to rebellion by Theophilus Cibber, and seceded to The Haymarket in 1733. Cibber is represented under the character of Pistol;[3] Harper under that of Falstaff. The figure in the corner was designed for Colley Cibber the Laureat, who had just sold his share in the play-house to Mr. Highmore, who is represented holding a scroll, on which is written "it cost £.6000." A monkey is exhibited sitting astride the iron that supports the sign of The Rose, a well-known tavern. A label issuing from his mouth contains the words: "I am a gentleman."[4] The Siege of Troy, upon another show-cloth, was a celebrated droll, composed by Elkanah Settle, and printed in 1707; it was a great favourite at fairs. A booth was built in Smithfield this year for the use of T. Cibber, Griffin, Bullock, and H. Hallam; at which the Tragedy of Tamerlane, with The Fall of Bajazet, intermixed with the Comedy of The Miser, was actually represented. The figure vaulting on the rope was designed for Signor Violante, who signalized himself in the reign of Geo. I.; and the tall man exhibited on a show-cloth, was Maximilian, a giant from Upper Saxony. The man flying from the steeple was one Cadman, who, within the recollection of some persons now living, descended in the manner here described from the steeple of St. Martin's into The Mews. He broke his neck soon after, in an experiment of the like kind, at Shrewsbury, and lies buried there in the churchyard of St. Mary Friars, with the following inscription on a little tablet inserted in the church-wall just over his grave.[5] The lines are contemptible, but yet serve to particularize the accident that occasioned his death.
Let this small monument record the name
Of Cadman, and to future times proclaim
How, by an attempt to fly from this high spire
Across the Sabrine stream, he did acquire
His fatal end. 'Twas not for want of skill,
Or courage, to perform the task, he fell:
No, no,—a faulty cord, being drawn too tight,
Hurry'd his soul on high to take her flight,
Which bid the body here beneath, good night.
A prelate being asked permission for a line to be fixed to the steeple of a cathedral church, for this daring adventurer, replied, the man might fix to the church whenever he pleased, but he should never give his consent to any one's flying from it. It seems that some exhibitor of the same kind met with a similar inhibition here in London. I learn from Mist's Journal for July 8, 1727, that a sixpenny pamphlet, intituled, "The Devil to pay at St. James's, &c."[6] was published on this occasion, Again, in The Weekly Miscellany for April 17, 1736. "Thomas Kidman, the famous Flyer, who has flown from several of the highest precipices in England, and was the person that flew off Bromham steeple in Wiltshire when it fell down, flew, on Monday last, from the highest of the rocks near The Hot-well at Bristol, with fire-works and pistols; after which he went up the rope, and performed several surprising dexterities on it, in sight of thousands of spectators, both from Somersetshire and Gloucestershire." In this print also is a portrait which has been taken for that of Dr. Rock, but was more probably meant for another Quack, who used to draw a crowd round him by seeming to eat fire, which, having his checks puffed up with tow, he blew out of his mouth.[7] Some other particulars are explained in the notes to the poetical epistle already mentioned.
[1] In the Craftsman, 1733, was this advertisment; "Mr. Hogarth being now engraving nine copper-plates from pictures of his own painting, one of which represents the Humours of a Fair, the other eight the Progress of a Rake, intends to publish the prints by subscription, on the following terms: each subscription to be one guinea and a half: half-a-guinea to be paid at the time of subscribing, for which a receipt will be given on a new-etched print, and the other payment of one guinea on delivery of all the prints when finished, which will be with all convenient speed, and the time publicly advertised. The Fair, being already finished, will be delivered at the time of subscribing. Subscriptions will be taken in at Mr. Hogarth's, the Golden Head, in Leicester Fields, where the pictures are to be seen."
[2] Highmore was originally a man of fortune; but White's gaming-house, and the patent of Drury-Lane theatre, completely exhausted his finances. Having proved himself an unsuccessful actor as well as manager, in 1743 he published Dettingen, a poem which would have disgraced a Bell-man. In 1744 he appeared again in the character of Lothario, for the benefit of Mrs. Horten. From this period his history is unknown. If Hogarth's representation of him, in the print entitled The Discovery, was a just one, he had no external requisites for the stage.
[3] In a two-shilling pamphlet, printed for J. Mechell at The King's Arms in Fleet street, 1740, entitled "An Apology for the life of Mr. T—— C——, comedian; being a proper sequel to the apology for the life of Mr. Colley Cibber, comedian; with a historical view of the stage to the present year; supposed to be written by himself in the stile and manner of the Poet Laureat," but in reality the work of Harry Fielding; the following passages, illustrative of our subject, occur. "In that year when the stage fell into great commotions, and the Drury Lane company, asserting the glorious cause of liberty and property, made a stand against the oppressions in the patentees—in that memorable year when the Theatric Dominions fell in labour of a revolution under the conduct of myself, that revolt gave occasion to several pieces of wit and satirical flirts at the conductor of the enterprize. I was attacked, as my father had been before me, in the public papers and journals; and the burlesque character of Pistol was attributed to me as a real one. Out came a Print of Jack Laguerre's, representing, in most vile designing, this expedition of ours, under the name of The Stage Mutiny, in which, gentle reader, your humble servant, in the Pistol character, was the principal figure. This I laughed at, knowing it only a proper embellishment for one of those necessary structures to which persons out of necessity repair." p. 16, &c.—Again, p. 88.—"At the Fair of Bartholomew, we gained some recruits; but, besides those advantages over the enemy, I myself went there in person, and publickly exposed myself. This was done to fling defiance in the Patentee's teeth; for, on the booth where I exhibited, I hung out The Stage Mutiny, with Pistol at the head of his troop, our standard bearing this motto,—We eat."—Whether this account which Cibber is made to give of his own conduct is entirely jocular, or contains a mixture of truth in it, cannot now be ascertained. Hogarth might have transplanted a circumstance from Bartholomew to Southwark Fair; or Fielding, by design, may have misrepresented the matter, alluding at the same time to Hogarth's print.
[4] Mr. Victor, speaking of this transaction, observes, that "the general observation was, what business had a gentleman to make the purchase?"
[5] In The Gentleman's Magazine for 1740, p. 89, is no bad copy of verses "on the death of the famous Flyer on the Rope at Shrewsbury". It is therefore here inserted.
—————-Magnis tamen excidit ausis.
Fond Icarus of old, with rash essay,
In air attempted a forbidden way;
Too thin the medium for so cumb'rous freight,
Too weak the plumage to support the weight.
Yet less he dar'd who soar'd on waxen wing,
Than he who mounts to æther on a string.
Just as Arachne, when the buzzing prey
Entangled flutter, and would wing away,
From watchful ambuscade insidious springs,
And to a slender twine, ascending, clings.
So on his rope, th' advent'rer climbs on high,
Bounds o'er cathedral heights, and seeks the sky;
Fix but his cable, and he'll tell you soon,
What sort of natives cultivate the moon.
An army of such wights to cross the main,
Sooner than Haddock's fleet, shou'd humble Spain.
As warring cranes on pigmies thund'ring fall,
And, without scaling ladders, mount the wall,
The proudest spire in Salop's lofty town
Safely he gains, and glides as safely down;
Then soars again aloft, and downward springs,
Swift as an eagle, without aid of wings;
Shews anticks, hangs suspended by his toe;
Undazzled, views th' inverted chasm below.
Invites with beat of drum brave voluntiers,
Defies Jack Spaniard, nor invasion fears,
Land when they will, they ne'er cou'd hurt his ears.
Methink I see as yet his flowing hair
And body, darting like a falling star:
Swifter than what "with fins or feathers fly
Thro' the ærial or the wat'ry sky."
Once more he dares to brave the pathless way,
Fate now pursuing, like a bird of prey;
And, comet-like, he makes his latest tour,
In air excentric (oh! ill-omen'd hour!)
Bar'd in his shirt to please the gazing crowd,
He little dreamt, poor soul! of winding shroud!
Nothing could aught avail but limbs of brass,
When ground was iron, and the Severn glass.
As quick as lightning down his line he skims,
Secure in equal poize of agile limbs.
But see the trusted cordage faithless prove!
Headlong he falls, and leaves his soul above:
The gazing town was shock'd at the rebound
Of shatter'd bones, that rattled on the ground;
The broken cord rolls on in various turns,
Smokes in the whirl, and as it runs it burns.
So when the wriggling snake is snatch'd on high
In eagle's claws, and hisses in the sky,
Around the foe his twirling tail he flings,
And twists her legs, and writhes about her wings.
Cadman laid low, ye rash, behold and fear,
Man is a reptile, and the ground his sphere.
Unhappy man! thy end lamented be;
Nought but thy own ill fate so swift as thee,
Were metamorphoses permitted now,
And tuneful Ovid liv'd to tell us how;
His apter Muse shou'd turn thee to a daw,
Nigh to the fatal steeple still to kaw;
Perch on the cock, and nestle on the ball,
In ropes no more confide, and never fall. J. A.
[6] Supposed to have been written by Dr. Arbuthnot, and as such preserved in the Collection of his Works. The full title is, "The Devil to pay at St. James's: or, a full and true Account of a most horrid and bloody Battle between Madam Faustina and Madam Cuzzoni. Also of a hot Skirmish between Signor Boschi and Signor Palmerini. Moreover, how Senesino has taken Snuff, is going to leave the Opera, and sings Psalms at Henley's Oratory. Also about the Flying Man, and how the Doctor of St. Martin's has very unkindly taken down the Scaffold, and disappointed a World of good Company. As also how a certain Great Lady is gone mad for the Love of William Gibson, the Quaker. And how the Wild Boy is come to Life again, and has got a Dairy Maid with Child. Also about the great Mourning, and the Fashions, and the Alterations, and what not. With other material Occurrences, too many to insert."
In this pamphlet our artist is incidentally mentioned, but in such a manner as shews that he had attained some celebrity so early as 1727. Speaking of some Lilliputian swine, supposed to be in the possession of Dean Swift, Dr. Arbuthnot adds, "But Hogarth the Engraver is making a print after them, which will give a juster idea of them than I can."
[7] Perhaps he was only a fire-eater.
[3.] Judith and Holofernes. "Per vulnera servor, morte tuâ vivens." W. Hogarth inv. Ger. Vandergucht sc. A frontispiece to the Oratorio of Judith.—Our heroine, instead of holding the sword by its handle, grasps it by its edge, in such a manner as should seem to have endangered her fingers. (Judith was an Oratorio by William Huggins, Esq. set to musick by William De Fesch[1] late Chapel-master of the cathedral church of Antwerp. This piece was performed with scenes and other decorations, but met with no success. It was published in 8vo, 1733.)—The original plate of the frontispiece is in the possession of Dr. Monkhouse. This design has little of Hogarth; yet if he furnished other engravers with such slight undetermined sketches as he himself is sometimes known to have worked from, we cannot wonder if on many occasions his usual characteristics should escape our notice. Whoever undertakes to perfect several of his unpublished drawings, will be reduced to the necessity of inventing more than presents itself for imitation.
[1] William Defesch, a German, and some time chapel-master at Antwerp, was in his time a respectable professor on the violin, and leader of the band for several seasons at Marybone-gardens. His head was engraved as a frontispiece to some musical compositions published by him; and his name is to be found on many songs and ballads to which he set the tunes for Vauxhall and Marybone-gardens. He died, soon after the year 1750, at the age of 70.
The following lines were written under a picture of Defesch, painted by Soldi, 1751.
Thou honor'st verse, and verse must lend her wing,
To honor thee, the priest of Phœbus' quire,
That tun'st her happiest lines in hymn or song. Milton.
Defesch was the patriotic Mr. Hollis's music-master.
4. Boys peeping at Nature. "The subscription-ticket to the Harlot's Progress." A copy in aqua-tinta from this receipt was made by R. Livesay in 1781, and is to be had at Mrs. Hogarth's house in Leicester-square.