1737.
1. The Lecture. "Datur vacuum." The person reading is well known to be the late Mr. Fisher, of Jesus College, Oxford, and Registrar of that University. This portrait was taken with the free consent of Mr. Fisher; who died March 18, 1761. There are some impressions in which "Datur vacuum" is not printed, that leaf being entirely blank; published January 20, 1736-7; the other March 3, 1736. Hogarth at first marked these words in with a pen and ink.
2. Æneas in a Storm. The following advertisement appeared in The London Daily Post, January 17, 1736-7.
"This day is published, price sixpence, a hieroglyphical print called Æneas in a Storm.
"Tanta hæc mulier potuit suadere malorum.
"Sold by the booksellers and printsellers in town and country. Of whom may be had, a print called Tartuff's Banquet, or Codex's Entertainment. Price one shilling.
"—populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo
Ipse domi."
The same paper mentions the King's arrival at Loestoff on the 16th of January, and afterwards at St. James's on the 17th.
The author of this print, whoever he was, did not venture to put his name to so ludicrous a representation of the tempest which happened on King George the Second's return from Hanover. His Majesty is supposed to have kicked his hat overboard. This, it seems, was an action customary to him when he was in a passion. To the same circumstance Loveling has alluded in his Sapphic Ode ad Carolum B——.[1]
Concinet majore poeta plectro
Georgium,[2] quandoque calens furore
Gestiet circa thalamum ferire
Calce galerum.
I have been told, that Mr. Garrick, when he first appeared in the character of Bayes, taking the same liberty, received instantly such a message from one of the stage boxes, as prevented him from practising so insolent a stroke of mimickry a second time.
In spite of the confidence with which this plate has been attributed to Hogarth, I by no means believe it was his performance. It more resembles the manner of Vandergucht, who was equally inclined to personal satire, however his talents might be inadequate to his purposes. Witness several scattered designs of his in the very same style of engraving. I may add, that he always exerted his talents in the service of the Tory faction. Besides, there is nothing in the plate before us which might not have been expected from the hand of any common artist. The conceit of the blasts issuing from the posteriors of the Æolian tribe, is borrowed from one of the prints to Scarron's Travesty of Virgil; and the figure of Britannia is altogether insipid and unworthy of Hogarth. Our artist also was too much accustomed to sailing parties, and too accurate an observer of objects on The Thames, not to have known that our Royal Yachts are vessels without three masts, &c.
[1] Bunbury.
[2] The author had here left a blank, which I have ventured to fill up with the royal name.