1753.
1. Columbus breaking the egg. "The subscription-ticket to his Analysis." First payment 5 s. Hogarth published this print as a sarcasm on those artists who had been inclined to laugh at his boasted line of beauty, as a discovery which every one might have made.
2. Analysis of Beauty. Two plates. Mr. Walpole observes, that Hogarth's "samples of grace in a young lord and lady are strikingly stiff and affected. They are a Bath beau and a county beauty." The print is found in three different states. "In the original plate the principal figure represented the present king, then prince, but Hogarth was desired to alter it. The present figure was taken from the last duke of Kingston; yet, though like him, is stiff, and far from graceful."[1] In Plate I. Fig. 19. the fat personage drest in a Roman habit, and elevated on a pedestal, was designed, as Hogarth himself acknowledged, for a ridicule on Quin in the character of Coriolanus. Essex the dancing-master is also represented in the act of endeavouring to reduce the graceful attitude of Antinous to modern stiffness. Fig. 20. was likewise meant for the celebrated Desnoyer, dancing in a grand ballet.
Dr. Beattie, speaking of the modes of combination, by which incongruous qualities may be presented to the eye, or the fancy, so as to provoke laughter, observes "A country dance of men and women, like those exhibited by Hogarth in his Analysis of Beauty, could hardly fail to make a beholder merry, whether he believed their union to be the effect of design or accident. Most of those persons have incongruities of their own in their shape, dress, or attitude, and all of them are incongruous in respect of one another; thus far the assemblage displays contrariety or want of relation: and they are all united in the same dance; and thus far they are mutually related. And if we suppose the two elegant figures removed, which might be done without lessening the ridicule, we should not easily discern any contrast of dignity and meanness in the group that remains.
"Almost the same remarks might be made on The Enraged Musician, another piece of the same great master, of which a witty author quaintly says, that it deafens one to look at it. This extraordinary group forms a very comical mixture of incongruity and relation; of incongruity, owing to the dissimilar employment and appearances of the several persons, and to the variety and dissonance of their respective noises; and of relation, owing to their being all united in the same place, and for the same purpose of tormenting the poor fidler. From the various sounds co-operating to this one end, the piece becomes more laughable, than if their meeting were conceived to be without any particular destination; for the greater number of relations, as well as of contrarieties, that take place in any ludicrous assembly, the more ludicrous it will generally appear. Yet, though this group comprehends not any mixture of meanness and dignity, it would, I think, be allowed to be laughable to a certain degree, merely from the juxta-position of the objects, even though it were supposed to be accidental." Essay on Laughter and Ludicrous Composition, 4to Edit. 608.
"I have no new books, alas! to amuse myself or you; so can only return yours of Hogarth's with thanks. It surprized me agreeably; for I had conceived the performance to be a set of prints only, whereas I found a book which I did not imagine Hogarth capable of writing; for in his pencil I always confided, but never imagined his pen would have afforded me so much pleasure. As to his not fixing the precise degree of obliquity, which constitutes beauty, I forgive him, because I think the task too hard to be performed literally: but yet he conveys an idea between his pencil and his pen, which makes one conceive his meaning pretty well." Lady Luxborough's Letters, p. 380.
I shall here transcribe as much from the Analysis as is necessary to communicate our artist's design relative to the various figures that compose the country-dance in the second plate. The reader who neither possesses the book, nor wishes to accompany the author throughout his technical explanations, may desire some intelligence concerning the present subject.
"CHAP. XIV.
"Of Attitude.
"—As two or three lines at first are sufficient to shew the intention of an attitude, I will take this opportunity of presenting my reader with the sketch of a country-dance, in the manner I began to set out the design; in order to shew how few lines are necessary to express the first thoughts as to different attitudes [see fig. 71. T. p. 2.], which describe, in some measure, the several figures and actions, mostly of the ridiculous kind, that are represented in the chief part of plate II.
"The most amiable person may deform his general appearance by throwing his body and limbs into plain lines; but such lines appear still in a more disagreeable light in people of a particular make; I have therefore chose such figures as I thought would agree best with my first score of lines, fig. 71.
"The two parts of curves next to 71, served for the old woman and her partner at the farther end of the room. The curve and two strait lines at right angles gave the hint for the fat man's sprawling posture. I next resolved to keep a figure within the bounds of a circle, which produced the upper part of the fat woman between the fat man and the aukward one in a bag-wig, for whom I had made a sort of an X. The prim lady, his partner, in the riding habit, by pecking back her elbows, as they call it, from the waist upwards, made a tolerable D, with a straight line under it, to signify the scanty stiffness of her petticoat; and a Z stood for the singular position the body makes with the legs and thighs of the affected fellow in the tye-wig; the upper part of his plump partner was confined to an O, and this, changed into a P, served as a hint for the straight lines behind.[2] The uniform diamond of a card was filled by the flying dress, &c. of the little capering fellow in the Spencer wig; whilst a double L marked the parallel position of his poking partner's hands and arms [N. B. This figure was copied from that of an uncouth young female whom Hogarth met with at Isleworth assembly]: and, lastly, the two waving lines were drawn for the more genteel turns of the two figures at the hither end.
"The drawing-room is also ornamented purposely with such statues and pictures as may serve to a farther illustration. Henry VIII. [Fig. 72. P. 2] makes a perfect X with his legs and arms; and the position of Charles [Fig. 51. P. 2.] is composed of less-varied lines than the statue of Edward VI. [Fig. 73. P. 2.]; and the medal over his head is in the like kind of lines; but that over Q. Elizabeth, as well as her figure, is in the contrary; so are also the two other wooden figures at the end. Likewise the comical posture of astonishment expressed by following the direction of one plain curve, as the dotted line in a French print of Sancho, where Don Quixote demolishes the puppet-show [Fig. 75. R. P. 2], is a good contrast to the effect of the serpentine lines in the fine turn of the Samaritan woman [Fig. 75. L. p. 2.] taken from one of the best pictures Annibal Carache ever painted."
Respecting the plate numbered I. there are no variations. In its companion the changes repeatedly made as to the two principal figures are more numerous than I had at first observed. It may, however, be sufficient for me to point out some single circumstance in each, that may serve as a mark of distinction. In the first, the principal female has scarce any string to her necklace; in the second it is lengthened; and still more considerably increased in the third. In the first and second editions also of this plate, between the young lord and his partner (and just under the figure of the man who is pointing out the stateliness of some of K. Henry VIIIth's proportions to a lady), is a vacant easy chair. In the third impression this chair is occupied by a person asleep. I have lately been assured that this country-dance was originally meant to have formed one of the scenes in the Happy Marriage. The old gentleman hastening away his daughter, while the servant is putting on his spatter-dashes, seems to countenance the supposition; and having since examined the original sketch in oil, which is in Mr. Ireland's possession, I observe that the dancing-room is terminated by a large old-fashioned bow-window, a circumstance perfectly consistent with the scenery of the wedding described in p. [46], &c.
I may add, that in this picture, the couple designed for specimens of grace, appear, not where they stand in the print, but at the upper end of the room: and so little versed was our painter in the etiquette of a wedding-ball, that he has represented the bride dancing with the bridegroom.[3]
When Hogarth shewed the original painting, from which this dance has been engraved, to my informant, he desired him to observe a pile of hats in the corner, all so characteristic of their respective owners, that they might with ease be picked out, and given to the parties for whom they were designed.
[1] Anecdotes of Painting, 8vo. vol. IV. p. 166.
[2] The idea of making human figures conform to the shape of capital letters, is by no means new. Several alphabets of this kind were engraved above 150 years ago.
[3] As different fashions, however, prevail at different times, this observation may be wrong.
3. The Political Clyster. Nahtanoi Tfiws.[1] Dr. O'Gearth sculp. Nll Mrrg. Cht Nf. ndw Lps ec ple &c. &c. shd b. Prgd. See Gulliver's Speech to the Honble. House of Vulgaria in Lilliput.
This was originally published about 1727, or 1728, under the title of "The punishment inflicted on Lemuel Gulliver, by applying a Lilypucian Fire Engine to his posteriors for his urinal profanation of the Royal Pallace at Mildendo; which was intended as a Frontispiece to his first volume, but omitted. HogEarth sculp." The superiority of the impressions thus inscribed is considerable.[2]
More than the general idea of this print is stolen from another by Hellish Breugel, whom I have already mentioned in a remark on Beer-street, and Gin-lane. The Dutchman has represented a number of pigmies delivering a huge giant from a load of fæces. His postern is thrust out, like that of Gulliver, to favour their operations. Breugel has no less than three prints on this subject, with considerable variations from each other.
"When Hogarth's topics were harmless," says Mr. Walpole, "all his touches were marked with pleasantry and fun. He never laughed, like Rabelais, at nonsense that he imposed for wit; but, like Swift, combined incidents that divert one from their unexpected encounter, and illustrate the tale he means to tell. Such are the hens roosting on the upright waves in the scene of the Strollers, and the devils drinking porter on the altar." The print now before us is, however, no very happy exemplification of our critick's remark.
[1] Originally mistaken by Mr. Walpole for the name of a Lilliputian painter, but put right in his new edition.
[2] The present unmeaning title of this plate, was bestowed on it by its owner, Mr. Sayer.