"HOGARTH'S ORIGINAL WORKS.
"As an opinion generally prevails, that the genuine impressions of Hogarth's works are very bad, and the plates retouched; Mrs. Hogarth is under the necessity of acquainting the public in general, and the admirers of her deceased husband's works in particular, that it has been owing to a want of proper attention in the conducting this work for some years past, that the impressions in general have not done justice to the condition of the plates; and she has requested some gentlemen most eminent in the art of engraving, to inspect the plates, who have given the following opinion:
"London, Jan. 21, 1783.
"We, whose names are underwritten, having carefully examined the copper-plates published by the late Mr. Hogarth, are fully convinced that they have not been retouched since his death.
"FRANCIS BARTOLOZZI.
WM. WOOLLET.[1]
WM. WYNNE RYLAND.[2]
"N. B. All[3] the original works are now properly and well printed, and to be had of Mrs. Hogarth, at her house at The Golden Head, in Leicester-Fields."
This is one of the most extraordinary testimonials ever laid before the public. Hogarth died in 1764. Since that time his plates have been injudiciously and unmercifully worked, so as to leave no means of ascertaining, through any observation or process of art, the exact period when they were last repaired. Notwithstanding this difficulty, in the year 1783, we find several engravers of eminence declaring their full conviction on the subject. All we can do is, to suppose their confidence was grounded on the veracity of Mrs. Hogarth. I believe the parties as to the fact; and yet it was impossible for Messieurs B. W. and R. to be adequate judges of the truth to which they have set their names as witnesses.
[1] Died May 23, 1785.
[2] Executed Aug. 29, 1783.
[3] By "all the original works," Mrs. Hogarth means only such plates as are in her possession. See page [xx], where a great number of others, equally original, are found.
Prints published by Mr. Hogarth: Genuine Impressions[1] of which are to be had at Mrs. Hogarth's House in Leicester Fields, 1782.
| Size of the plates in inches | l. | s. | d. | |
| 16 by 14 | Frontispiece | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| 15½ by 12½ | Harlot's Progress, six prints | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 16 by 14 | Rake's Progress, eight prints | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| 18 by 15 | Marriage a-la-mode, six prints | 1 | 11 | 6 |
| 19 by 15½ | Four Times of the Day, four prints | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 16½ by 13 | Before and After, two prints | 0 | 5 | 0 |
| 18½ by 13½ | Midnight Conversation | 0 | 5 | 0 |
| 16 by 14 | Distress'd Poet | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| 16 by 14 | Enraged Musician | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| 18 by 14 | Southwark Fair | 0 | 5 | 0 |
| 20¾ by 16½ | Garrick in King Richard III. | 0 | 7 | 6 |
| 18 by 12 | Calais, or the Roast Beef of Old England | 0 | 5 | 0 |
| 20½ by 16 | Paul before Felix | 0 | 7 | 6 |
| Ditto, | Ditto, with Alterations | 0 | 6 | 0 |
| 20½ by 16½ | Moses brought to Pharaoh's Daughter | 0 | 7 | 6 |
| 22 by 17 | March to Finchley | 0 | 10 | 6 |
| Ditto, | Strolling Actresses dressing in a Barn | 0 | 5 | 0 |
| Ditto, | Four Prints of an Election | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| 19½ by 12 | Bishop of Winchester | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| 14 by 10½ | Idleness and Industry, 12 prints | 0 | 12 | 0 |
| 14 by 9 | Lord Lovat | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 10½ by 8½ | Sleeping Congregation | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 12 by 8½ | Country-Inn Yard | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 14 by 10½ | Paul before Felix, Rembrant | 0 | 5 | 0 |
| 9 by 8 | Various Characters of Heads | 0 | 2 | 6 |
| 6½ by 7½ | Columbus breaking the Egg | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 12 by 8½ | The Bench | 0 | 1 | 6 |
| 15 by 13 | Beer Street and Gin Lane, two prints | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| Ditto, | Four Stages of Cruelty, four prints | 0 | 6 | 0 |
| 15 by 12½ | Two Prints of an Invasion | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Ditto, | A Cock Match | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| 9 by 8 | The Five Orders of Periwigs | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 17 by 13 | The Medley | 0 | 5 | 0 |
| 12 by 9½ | The Times | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| 12¾ by 9 | Wilkes | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 10 by 11 | Bruiser | 0 | 1 | 6 |
| 9 by 7½ | Finis | 0 | 2 | 6 |
N. B. Any person purchasing the whole together may have them delivered bound, at the Price of Thirteen Guineas; a sufficient Margin will be left for framing.—The Analysis of Beauty, in Quarto, may also be had, with two explanatory Prints, Price 15 Shillings.
[1] Genuine impressions—Query, the meaning of such an epithet in this place?
[Credite Posteri!]
In the years 1781, 1782, &c. the following Pieces of Hogarth are known to have been sold at the prices annexed.
| Lord Boyne. | 5 | 5 | 0 |
| Charmers of the Age. | 5 | 5 | 0 |
| Booth, Wilks,&c. | 5 | 5 | 0 |
| Discovery. | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| Altar-piece. | 1 | 11 | 6 |
| Rich's Glory. | 4 | 4 | 0 |
| Beaver's Military Pun. | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| Blackwell's Figures. | 1 | 16 | 6 |
| Boys peeping, &c. | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Apuleius. | 1 | 16 | 6 |
| Cassandra. | 1 | 11 | 6 |
| Beer Street with Variat. | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Large Hudibras. | 5 | 5 | 0 |
| March to Finchley Aq. F. Proof. | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Do. finished, without letters. | 5 | 5 | 0 |
| Festoon. Rt for Rich. III. | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Power of Atty. F. Hosp. | 1 | 16 | 9 |
| Orator Henley. | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Huggins. | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| Witch. | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| Jacobite's Journal. | 2 | 11 | 6 |
| Judith and Holophernes. | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Sarah Malcolm. | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Large Masquerade. | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Small, first impression. | 1 | 16 | 6 |
| Scots Opera. | 0 | 15 | 0 |
| Woman swearing, &c. | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Lady Byron. | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Hogarth with Dog. | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Do. Serjeant Painter. | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Do. scratched over. | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Perseus and Andromeda. | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| First Distrest Poet. | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Do. Enraged Musician. | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Motraye. | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Bench, first impression. | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Burlington Gate. | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Sancho at Dinner. | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| First Election. | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| Fair. | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Farmer's Return. | 0 | 10 | 6 |
| Gulliver. | 0 | 10 | 6 |
| Hen. VIII. and A. Bullen | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Herring, proof impression. | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Hogarth, Engr, Shop Bill. | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Morell. | 0 | 10 | 6 |
| Pine. | 0 | 10 | 6 |
| Coat of Arms, Sir G. Page,&c. | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Times, first impression. | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Master of the Vineyard. | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Turk's Head. | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Harlot's Progress, first impression, red. | 10 | 10 | 0 |
| Marriage Alamode. | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| Rake's Progress. | 6 | 6 | 0 |
| Four Times. | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Prentices, 1st impression. | 4 | 4 | 0 |
| Elections, 1st impression. | 6 | 6 | 0 |
| Garrick in Rich. III. | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Gate of Calais. | 0 | 15 | 0 |
| Paul burlesqued. | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Strolling Actresses. | 1 | 12 | 6 |
| Three additional Prints to Beaver, &c. | 2 | 2 | 9 |
| Milward's Ticket. | 4 | 4 | 0 |
| Music introduced to Apollo. | 1 | 11 | 6 |
| Martin Folkes, mezzotinto | 0 | 10 | 6 |
| Spiller's Ticket. | 5 | 5 | 0 |
| Two plates to Milton. | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Frontispiece to Leveridge's Songs. | 1 | 12 | 6 |
| Concert. St. Mary's Chapel. | 5 | 5 | 0 |
[HOGARTH.]
This great and original Genius is said by Dr. Burn to have been the descendant of a family originally from Kirkby Thore,[1] in Westmoreland: and I am assured that his grandfather was a plain yeoman, who possessed a small tenement in the vale of Bampton, a village about 15 miles North of Kendal, in that county. He had three sons. The eldest assisted his father in farming, and succeeded to his little freehold. The second settled in Troutbeck, a village eight miles North West of Kendal, and was remarkable for his talent at provincial poetry.[2] The third, educated at St. Bee's, who had kept a school in the same county, and appears to have a man of some learning, went early to London, where he resumed his original occupation of a school-master in Ship Court in The Old Bailey, and was occasionally employed as a corrector of the press. A Latin letter, from Mr. Richard Hogarth, in 1697 (preserved among the MSS. in The British Museum, N° 4277. 50.) relates to a book which had been printed with great expedition. But the letter shall speak for itself.[3]
A Dictionary in Latin and English, which he composed for the use of schools,[4] still exists in MS. He married in London; and our Hero, and his sisters Mary and Anne, are believed to have been the only product of the marriage.
William Hogarth[5] it said (under the article Thornhill in the Biographia Britannica) to have been born in 1698, in the parish of St. Bartholomew,[6] London, to which parish, it is added, he was afterwards a benefactor. The outset of his life, however, was unpromising. "He was bound," says Mr. Walpole, "to a mean engraver of arms on plate." Hogarth probably chose this occupation, as it required some skill in drawing, to which his genius was particularly turned, and which he contrived assiduously to cultivate. His master, it since appears, was Mr. Ellis Gamble, a silversmith of eminence, who resided in Cranbourn-street, Leicester-fields. In this profession it is not unusual to bind apprentices to the single branch of engraving arms and cyphers on every species of metal; and in that particular department of the business young Hogarth was placed;[7] "but, before his time was expired, he felt the impulse of genius, and that it directed him to painting."
During his apprenticeship, he set out one Sunday, with two or three companions, on an excursion to Highgate. The weather being hot, they went into a public-house, where they had not been long, before a quarrel arose between some persons in the same room. One of the disputants struck the other on the head with a quart pot, and cut him very much. The blood running down the man's face, together with the agony of the wound, which had distorted his features into a most hideous grin, presented Hogarth, who shewed himself thus early "apprised of the mode Nature had intended he should pursue," with too laughable a subject to be overlooked. He drew out his pencil, and produced on the spot one of the most ludicrous figures that ever was seen. What rendered this piece the more valuable was, that it exhibited an exact likeness of the man, with the portrait of his antagonist, and the figures in caricature of the principal persons gathered round him. This anecdote was furnished by one of his fellow apprentices then present, a person of indisputable character, and who continued his intimacy with Hogarth long after they both grew up into manhood.
"His apprenticeship was no sooner expired," says Mr. Walpole, "than he entered into the academy in St. Martin's Lane, and studied drawing from the life, in which he never attained to great excellence. It was character, the passions, the soul, that his genius was given him to copy. In colouring he proved no greater a master: his force lay in expression, not in tints and chiaro scuro."
To a man who by indefatigable industry and uncommon strength of genius has been the artificer of his own fame and fortune, it can be no reproach to have it said that at one period he was not rich. It has been asserted, and we believe with good foundation, that the skill and assiduity of Hogarth were, even in his servitude, a singular assistance to his own family, and to that of his master. It happened, however, that when he was first out of his time, he certainly was poor. The ambition of indigence is ever productive of distress. So it fared with Hogarth, who, while he was furnishing himself with materials for subsequent perfection, felt all the contempt which penury could produce. Being one day distressed to raise so trifling a sum as twenty shillings, in order to be revenged of his landlady, who strove to compel him to payment, he drew her as ugly as possible, and in that single portrait gave marks of the dawn of superior genius.[8] This story I had once supposed to be founded on certainty; but since, on other authority, have been assured, that had such an accident ever happened to him, he would not have failed to talk of it afterwards, as he was always fond of contrasting the necessities of his youth with the affluence of his maturer age. He has been heard to say of himself, "I remember the time when I have gone moping into the city with scarce a shilling in my pocket; but as soon as I had received ten guineas there for a plate, I have returned home, put on my sword, and sallied out again, with all the confidence of a man who had ten thousand pounds in his pocket." Let me add, that my first authority may be to the full as good as my second.
How long he continued in obscurity we cannot exactly learn; but the first piece in which he distinguished himself as a painter, is supposed to have been a representation of Wanstead Assembly.[9] In this are introduced portraits of the first earl Tylney, his lady, their children, tenants, &c. The faces were said to be extremely like, and the colouring is rather better than in some of his late and more highly finished performances.
From the date of the earliest plate that can be ascertained to be the work of Hogarth, it may be presumed that he began business, on his own account, at least as early as the year 1720.
His first employment seems to have been the engraving of arms and shop-bills. The next step was to design and furnish plates for booksellers; and here we are fortunately supplied with dates.[10] Thirteen folio prints, with his name to each, appeared in "Aubry de la Motraye's Travels," in 1723; seven smaller prints for "Apuleius' Golden Ass" in 1724; fifteen head-pieces to "Beaver's Military Punishments of the Ancients," and five frontispieces for the translation of Cassandra, in five volumes, 12°, 1725; seventeen cuts for a duodecimo edition of Hudibras (with Butler's head) in 1726; two for "Perseus and Andromeda," in 1730; two for Milton [the date uncertain]; and a variety of others between 1726 and 1733.
"No symptom of genius," says Mr. Walpole, "dawned in those plates. His Hudibras was the first of his works that marked him as a man above the common; yet, what made him then noticed, now surprises us, to find so little humour in an undertaking so congenial to his talents."—It is certain that he often lamented to his friends the having parted with his property in the prints of the large Hudibras, without ever having had an opportunity to improve them. They were purchased by Mr. Philip Overton,[11] at the Golden Buck, near St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-Street; and still remain in the possession of his successor Mr. Sayer.
Mr. Bowles at the Black Horse in Cornhill was one of his earliest patrons. I had been told that he bought many a plate from Hogarth by the weight of the copper; but am only certain that this occurrence happened in a single instance, when the elder Mr. Bowles of St. Paul's Church-yard offered, over a bottle, half a crown a pound for a plate just then completed. This circumstance was within the knowledge of Dr. Ducarel.—Our artist's next friend in that line was Mr. Philip Overton, who paid him a somewhat better price for his labour and ingenuity.
When Mr. Walpole speaks of Hogarth's early performances, he observes, that they rose not above the labours of the people who are generally employed by booksellers. Lest any reader should inadvertently suppose this candid writer designed the minutest reflection on those artists to whom the decoration of modern volumes is confided, it is necessary to observe, that his account of Hogarth, &c. was printed off above ten years ago, before the names of Cipriani, Angelica, Bartolozzi, Sherwin, and Mortimer were found at the bottom of any plates designed for the ornament of poems, or dramatic pieces.
"On the success, however, of those plates," Mr. Walpole says, "he commenced painter, a painter of portraits; the most ill-suited employment imaginable to a man whose turn certainly was not flattery, nor his talent adapted to look on vanity without a sneer. Yet his facility in catching a likeness, and the method he chose of painting families and conversations in small, then a novelty, drew him prodigious business for some time. It did not last, either from his applying to the real bent of his disposition, or from his customers apprehending that a satirist was too formidable a confessor for the devotees of self-love." There are still many family pictures by Mr. Hogarth existing, in the style of serious conversation-pieces. He was not however lucky in all his resemblances, and has sometimes failed where a crowd of other artists have succeeded. The whole-length of Mr. Garrick sitting at a table, with his wife behind him taking the pen out of his hand,[12] confers no honour on the painter or the persons represented.[13] He has certainly missed the character of our late Roscius's countenance while undisturbed by passion; but was more lucky in seizing his features when aggravated by terror, as in the tent scene of King Richard III. It is by no means astonishing, that the elegant symmetry of Mrs. Garrick's form should have evaded the efforts of one to whose ideas la basse nature was more familiar than the grace inseparable from those who have been educated in higher life. His talents, therefore, could do little justice to a pupil of Lady Burlington.
What the prices of his portraits were, I have strove in vain to discover; but suspect they were originally very low, as the people who are best acquainted with them chuse to be silent on that subject.
In the Bee, vol. V. p. 552. and also in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. IV. p. 269. are the following verses to Mr. Hogarth, on Miss F.'s picture, 1734.
"To Chloe's picture you such likeness give,
The animated canvas seems to live;
The tender breasts with wanton heavings move,
And the soft sparkling eyes inspire with love:
While I survey each feature o'er and o'er,
I turn Idolater, and paint adore:
Fondly I here can gaze without a fear,
That, Chloe, to my love you'd grow severe;
That in your Picture, as in Life, you'd turn
Your eyes away, and kill me with your scorn:
No, here at least with transport I can see
Your eyes with softness languishing on me.
While, Chloe, this I boast, with scornful heart
Nor rashly censure Hogarth, or his art,
Who all your Charms in strongest Light has laid,
And kindly thrown your Pride and Scorn in Shade."
At Rivenhall, in Essex, the seat of Mr. Western, is a family picture, by Hogarth of Mr. Western and his mother (who was a daughter of Sir Anthony Shirley), Chancellor Hoadly, Archdeacon Charles Plumptre, the Rev. Mr. Cole of Milton near Cambridge, and Mr. Henry Taylor the Curate there,[14] 1736.
In the gallery of the late Mr. Cole of Milton, was also a small whole-length picture of Mr. Western,[15] by Hogarth, a striking resemblance. He is drawn sitting in his Fellow-Commoner's habit, and square cap with a gold tassel, in his chamber at Clare Hall, over the arch towards the river; and our artist, as the chimney could not be expressed, has drawn a cat sitting near it, agreeable to his humour, to shew the situation.
"When I sat to him," says Mr. Cole, "near fifty years ago, the custom of giving vails to servants was not discontinued. On my taking leave of our painter at the door, and his servant's opening it or the coach door, I cannot tell which, I offered him a small gratuity; but the man very politely refused it, telling me it would be as much as the loss of his place, if his master knew it. This was so uncommon, and so liberal in a man of Mr. Hogarth's profession at that time of day, that it much struck me, as nothing of the sort had happened to me before."
It was likewise Mr. Hogarth's custom to sketch out on the spot any remarkable face which particularly struck him, and of which he wished to preserve the remembrance. A gentleman still living informs me, that being once with our painter at the Bedford Coffee-house, he observed him to draw something with a pencil on his nail. Enquiring what had been his employment, he was shewn the countenance (a whimsical one) of a person who was then at a small distance.
It happened in the early part of Hogarth's life, that a nobleman, who was uncommonly ugly and deformed, came to sit to him for his picture. It was executed with a skill that did honour to the artist's abilities; but the likeness was rigidly observed, without even the necessary attention to compliment or flattery. The peer, disgusted at this counterpart of his dear self, never once thought of paying for a reflector that would only insult him with his deformities. Some time was suffered to elapse before the artist applied for his money; but afterwards many applications were made by him (who had then no need of a banker) for payment, without success. The painter, however, at last hit upon an expedient, which he knew must alarm the nobleman's pride, and by that means answer his purpose. It was couched in the following card:
"Mr. Hogarth's dutiful respects to Lord ——; finding that he does not mean to have the picture which was drawn for him, is informed again of Mr. H.'s necessity for the money; if, therefore, his lordship does not send for it in three days, it will be disposed of, with the addition of a tail, and some other little appendages, to Mr. Hare, the famous wild-beast man; Mr. H. having given that gentleman a conditional promise of it for an exhibition-picture, on his lordship's refusal."
This intimation had the desired effect. The picture was sent home, and committed to the flames.
To the other anecdotes of this comic Painter may be added the following. Its authenticity must apologize for its want of other merit.
A certain old Nobleman, not remarkably generous, having sent for Hogarth, desired he would represent, in one of the compartments on a staircase, Pharaoh and his Host drowned in the Red Sea; but at the same time gave our artist to understand, that no great price would be given for his performance. Hogarth agreed. Soon after, he waited on his employer for payment, who seeing that the space allotted for the picture had only been daubed over with red, declared he had no idea of paying a painter when he had proceeded no further than to lay his ground. "Ground!" said Hogarth, "there is no ground in the case, my lord. The red you perceive, is the Red Sea. Pharaoh and his Host are drowned as you desired, and cannot be made objects of sight, for the ocean covers them all."
Mr. Walpole has remarked, that if our artist "indulged his spirit of ridicule in personalities, it never proceeded beyond sketches and drawings," and wonders "that he never, without intention, delivered the very features of any identical person." But this elegant writer, who may be said to have received his education in a Court, perhaps had few opportunities of acquaintance among the low popular characters with which Hogarth occasionally peopled his scenes.[16] The Friend to whom I owe this remark was assured by an ancient gentleman of unquestionable veracity and acuteness of observation, that almost all the personages who attend the levee of the Rake were undoubted portraits; and that, in Southwark Fair and the Modern Midnight Conversation, as many more were discoverable. In the former plate he pointed out Essex the dancing-master; and in the latter, as well as in the second plate to the Rake's Progress, Figg the prize-fighter.[17] He mentioned several others by name, from his immediate knowledge both of the painter's design and the characters represented; but the rest of the particulars, by which he supported his assertions, have escaped the memory of my informant. I am also assured, that while Hogarth was painting the Rake's Progress, he had a summer residence at Isleworth; and never failed to question the company who came to see these pictures, if they knew for whom one or another figure was designed. When they guessed wrong, he set them right.
Mr. Walpole has a sketch in oil, given to him by Hogarth, who intended to engrave it. It was done at the time when the House of Commons appointed a committee to inquire into the cruelties exercised on prisoners in the The Fleet, to extort money from them. "The scene," he says, "is the committee; on the table are the instruments of torture. A prisoner in rags, half-starved, appears before them; the poor man has a good countenance, that adds to the interest. On the other hand is the inhuman gaoler. It is the very figure that Salvator Rosa would have drawn for Iago in the moment of detection. Villainy, fear, and conscience, are mixed in yellow and livid on his countenance; his lips are contracted by tremor, his face advances as eager to lie, his legs step back as thinking to make his escape; one hand is thrust precipitately into his bosom, the fingers of the other are catching uncertainly at his button-holes. If this was a portrait, it is the most striking that ever was drawn; if it was not, it is still finer." The portrait was that of Bambridge[18] the warden of The Fleet; and the sketch was taken in the beginning of the year 1729, when Bambridge and Huggins (his predecessor)[19] were under examination. Both were declared "notoriously guilty of great breaches of trust, extortions, cruelties, and other high crimes and misdemeanors;" both were sent to Newgate; and Bambridge was disqualified by act of parliament.[20] The son[21] of Huggins was possessed of a valuable painting from this sketch, and also of a scene in the Beggar's Opera; both of them full of real portraits. On the dispersion of his effects, the latter was purchased by the Rev. Dr. Monkhouse of Queen's College, Oxford. It is in a gilt frame, with a bust of Gay at the top. It's companion, whose present possessor I have not been able to trace out, had, in like manner, that of Sir Francis Page, one of the judges, remarkable for his severity;[22] with a halter round his neck.
The Duke of Leeds has also an original scene in the Beggar's Opera, painted by Hogarth. It is that in which Lucy and Polly are on their knees, before their respective fathers, to intercede for the life of the hero of the piece. All the figures are either known or supposed to be portraits. If I am not misinformed, the late Sir Thomas Robinson (as well known by the name of Long Sir Thomas) is standing in one of the side-boxes. Macheath, unlike his spruce representative on our present stage, is a slouching bully; and Polly appears happily disencumbered of such a hoop as the daughter of Peachum within our younger memories has worn. His Grace gave 35 l. for this picture at Mr. Rich's auction. Another copy of the same scene was bought by the late Sir William Saunderson; and is now in the possession of Sir Henry Gough. Mr. Walpole has a painting of a scene in the same piece, where Macheath is going to execution. In this also the likenesses of Walker, and Miss Fenton afterwards Dutchess of Bolton (the original Macheath and Polly), are preserved.
In the year 1726, when the affair of Mary Tofts, the rabbit-breeder of Godalming, engaged the public attention, a few of our principal surgeons subscribed their guinea a-piece to Hogarth, for an engraving from a ludicrous sketch he had made on that very popular subject. This plate, amongst other portraits, contains that of the notorious St. André, the anatomist to the royal household, and in high credit as a surgeon. The additional celebrity of this man arose either from fraud or ignorance, perhaps from a due mixture of both. It was supported, however, afterwards, by the reputation of a dreadful crime. His imaginary wealth, in spite of these disadvantages, to the last insured him a circle of flatterers, even though, at the age of fourscore, his conversation was offensive to modest ears, and his grey hairs were rendered still more irreverend by repeated acts of untimely lewdness.[23] A particular description of this plate will be given in the future catalogue of Hogarth's works.
In 1727, Hogarth agreed with Morris, an upholsterer, to furnish him with a design on canvas, representing the element of Earth, as a pattern for tapestry. The work not being performed to the satisfaction of Morris, he refused to pay for it; and our artist sued him for the money. This suit (which was tried before Lord Chief Justice Eyre at Westminster, May 28, 1728) was determined in favour of Hogarth. The brief for the defendant in the cause, is preserved below.[24]
In 1730, Mr. Hogarth married the only daughter of Sir James Thornhill,[25] by whom he had no child. This union, indeed, was a stolen one, and consequently without the approbation of Sir James, who, considering the youth of his daughter, then barely eighteen, and the slender finances of her husband, as yet an obscure artist,[26] was not easily reconciled to the match. Soon after this period, however, he began his Harlot's Progress (the coffin in the last plate is inscribed September 2, 1731); and was advised by Lady Thornhill to have some of the scenes in it placed in the way of his father-in-law. Accordingly, one morning early, Mrs. Hogarth undertook to convey several of them into his dining-room. When he arose, he enquired from whence they came; and being told by whom they were introduced, he cried out, "Very well; the man who can furnish representations like these, can also maintain a wife without a portion." He designed this remark as an excuse for keeping his purse-strings close; but, soon after, became both reconciled and generous to the young couple.
Our artist's reputation was so far established in 1731, that it drew forth a poetical compliment from Mr. Mitchell, in the epistle already quoted.
An allegorical cieling by Sir James Thornhill is at the house of the late Mr. Huggins, at Headley Park, Hants. The subject of it is the story of Zephyrus and Flora; and the figure of a Satyr and some others were painted by Hogarth.
In 1732 (the year in which he was one of the party who made A Tour by land and Water, which will be duly noticed in the [Catalogue]) he ventured to attack Mr. Pope, in a plate called "The Man of Taste;" containing a view of the Gate of Burlington-house; with Pope whitewashing it, and bespattering the Duke of Chandos's coach.[27] This plate was intended as a satire on the translator of Homer, Mr. Kent the architect, and the Earl of Burlington. It was fortunate for Hogarth that he escaped the lash of the former. Either Hogarth's obscurity at that time was his protection, or the bard was too prudent to exasperate a painter who had already given such proof of his abilities for satire. What must he have felt who could complain of the "pictured shape" prefixed to Gulliveriana, Pope Alexander's Supremacy and Infallibility examined, &c. by Ducket, and other pieces, had our artist undertaken to express in colours a certain transaction recorded by Cibber?
Soon after his marriage, Hogarth had summer-lodgings at South-Lambeth; and being intimate with Mr. Tyers, contributed to the improvement of The Spring Gardens at Vauxhall, by the hint of embellishing them with paintings, some of which were the suggestions of his own truly comic pencil. Among these were the "Four parts of the Day," copied by Hayman from the designs of our artist. The scenes of "Evening" and "Night" are still there; and portraits of Henry VIII. and Anne Bullen once adorned the old great room on the right hand of the entry into the gardens. For his assistance, Mr. Tyers gratefully presented him with a gold ticket of admission for himself and his friends, inscribed
in perpetuam beneficii memoriam.
This ticket, now in the possession of his widow, is still occasionally made use of.
In 1733 his genius became conspicuously known. The third scene of his "Harlot's Progress" introduced him to the notice of the great. At a board of Treasury which was held a day or two after the appearance of that print, a copy of it was shewn by one of the lords, as containing, among other excellencies, a striking likeness of Sir John Gonson.[28] It gave universal satisfaction; from the Treasury each lord repaired to the print-shop for a copy of it, and Hogarth rose completely into fame. This anecdote was related to Mr. Huggins by Christopher Tilson, esq. one of the four chief clerks in the Treasury, and at that period under-secretary of state. He died August 25, 1742, after having enjoyed the former of these offices fifty-eight years. I should add, however, that Sir John Gonson is not here introduced to be made ridiculous, but is only to be considered as the image of an active magistrate identified.
The familiarity of the subject, and the propriety of it's execution, made the "Harlot's Progress" tasted by all ranks of people. Above twelve hundred names were entered in our artist's subscription-book. It was made into a pantomime by Theophilus Cibber; and again represented on the stage, under the title of The Jew decoyed, or a Harlot's Progress, in a Ballad Opera. Fan-mounts were likewise engraved, containing miniature representations of all the six plates. These were usually printed off with red ink, three compartments on one side, and three on the other.[29]
The ingenious Abbé Du Bos has often complained, that no history-painter of his time went through a series of actions, and thus, like an historian, painted the successive fortune of an hero, from the cradle to the grave. What Du Bos wished to see done, Hogarth performed. He launches out his young adventurer a simple girl upon the town, and conducts her through all the vicissitudes of wretchedness to a premature death. This was painting to the understanding and to the heart; none had ever before made the pencil subservient to the purposes of morality and instruction; a book like this is fitted to every soil and every observer, and he that runs may read. Nor was the success of Hogarth confined to his persons. One of his excellencies consisted in what may be termed the furniture[30] of his pieces; for as in sublime and historical representations the fewer trivial circumstances are permitted to divide the spectator's attention from the principal figures, the greater is their force; so in scenes copied from familiar life, a proper variety of little domestic images contributes to throw a degree of verisimilitude on the whole. "The Rake's levee-room," says Mr. Walpole, "the nobleman's dining-room, the apartments of the husband and wife in Marriage Alamode, the Alderman's parlour, the bed-chamber, and many others, are the history of the manners of the age."
It may also be observed, that Hogarth, both in the third and last plate of the Harlot's Progress, has appropriated a name to his heroine which belonged to a well-known wanton then upon the town. The Grub-street Journal for August 6, 1730, giving an account of several prostitutes who were taken up, informs us that "the fourth was Kate Hackabout (whose brother was lately hanged at Tyburn), a woman noted in and about the hundreds of Drury, &c."
In 1735 our artist lost his mother, as appears by the following extract from an old Magazine: "June 11, 1735. Died Mrs. Hogarth, mother to the celebrated painter, of a fright from the fire which happened on the 9th, in Cecil Court, St. Martin's Lane, and burnt thirteen houses;[31] amongst others, one belonging to John Huggins, esq. late Warden of The Fleet, was greatly damaged."
The "Rake's Progress" (published in the same year, and sold at Hogarth's house, the Golden Head in Leicester Fields), though "perhaps superior, had not," as Mr. Walpole observes, "so much success, from want of novelty; nor is the print of the arrest equal in merit to the others.[32]
"The curtain, however," says he, "was now drawn aside, and his genius stood displayed in its full lustre. From time to time our artist continued to give those works that would be immortal, if the nature of his art will allow it. Even the receipts for his subscriptions had wit in them. Many of his plates he engraved himself, and often expunged faces etched by his assistants, when they had not done justice to his ideas. Not content with shining in a path untrodden before, he was ambitious of distinguishing himself as a painter of history; and in 1736 presented to the hospital of St. Bartholomew, of which he had been appointed a governor,[33] a painting of the Pool of Bethesda, and another of the Good Samaritan. But the genius that had entered so feelingly into the calamities and crimes of familiar life, deserted him in a walk that called for dignity and grace. The burlesque turn of his mind mixed itself with the most serious subjects. In the Pool of Bethesda, a servant of a rich ulcerated lady beats back a poor man that sought the same celestial remedy; and in his Danae [for which the Duke of Ancaster paid 60 guineas] the old nurse tries a coin of the golden shower with her teeth, to see if it is true gold. Both circumstances are justly thought, but rather too ludicrous. It is a much more capital fault that Danae herself is a mere nymph of Drury. He seems to have conceived no higher degree of beauty." Dr. Parsons also, in his Lectures on Physiognomy, 410. p. 58, says, "Thus yielded Danae to the Golden Shower, and thus was her passion painted by the ingenious Mr. Hogarth."
The novelty and excellence of Hogarth's performances soon tempted the needy artist and print-dealer to avail themselves of his designs,[34] and rob him of the advantages which he was entitled to derive from them. This was particularly the case with the "Midnight Conversation," the "Harlot's" and "Rake's" Progresses,[35] and the rest of his early works. To put a stop to depredations like these on the property of himself and others, and to secure the emoluments resulting from his own labours, as Mr. Walpole observes, he applied to the legislature, and obtained an act of parliament, 8 George II. chap. 3°, to vest an exclusive right in designers and engravers, and to restrain the multiplying of copies of their works without the consent of the artist.[36]
This statute was drawn by his friend Mr. Huggins,[37] who took for his model the eighth of Queen Anne, in favour of literary property; but it was not so accurately executed as entirely to remedy the evil; for, in a cause founded on it, which came before Lord Hardwicke in Chancery, that excellent Lawyer determined that no assignee, claiming under an assignment from the original inventor, could take any benefit by it. Hogarth, immediately after the passing the act, published a small print, with emblematical devices, and the following inscription expressing his gratitude to the three branches of the legislature:
"In humble and grateful acknowledgment
Of the grace and goodness of the LEGISLATURE,
Manifested
In the ACT of PARLIAMENT for the Encouragement
Of the Arts of Designing, Engraving, &c.
Obtained
By the Endeavours, and almost at the sole Expence,
Of the Designer of this Print in the Year 1735;
By which
Not only the Professors of those Arts were rescued
From the Tyranny, Frauds, and Piracies
Of Monopolizing Dealers,
And legally entitled to the Fruits of their own Labours;
But Genius and Industry were also prompted
By the most noble and generous Inducements to exert themselves;
Emulation was excited,
Ornamental Compositions were better understood;
And every Manufacture, where Fancy has any concern,
Was gradually raised to a Pitch of Perfection before unknown;
Insomuch, that those of Great-Britain
Are at present the most Elegant
And the most in Esteem of any in Europe."
This plate he afterwards made to serve for a receipt for subscriptions, first to a print of an "Election Entertainment;" and afterwards for three prints more, representing the "polling for members for parliament, canvassing for votes, and chairing the members." The royal crown at the top of this receipt is darting its rays on mitres, coronets, the Chancellor's great seal, the Speaker's hat, &c. &c. and on a scroll is written, "An Act for the Encouragement of the Arts of Designing, Engraving, and Etching, by vesting the Properties thereof in the Inventors and Engravers, during the Time therein mentioned." It was "Designed, etched, and published as the Act directs, by W. Hogarth, March 20, 1754." After Hogarth's death, the legislature, by Stat. 7 Geo. III. chap. 38. granted to his widow a further exclusive term of twenty years in the property of her husband's works.
In 1736 he had the honour of being distinguished in a masterly poem of a congenial Humourist. The Dean of St. Patrick's, in his "Description of the Legion Club," after pourtraying many characters with all the severity of the most pointed satire, exclaims,
"How I want thee, humorous Hogarth!
Thou, I hear, a pleasant rogue art!
Were but you and I acquainted,
Every monster should be painted:
You should try your graving tools
On this odious group of fools;
Draw the beasts as I describe them;
Form their features, while I gibe them;
Draw them like, for I assure ye,
You will need no caricatura.
Draw them so, that we may trace
All the soul in every face."
An elegant compliment was soon after paid to Hogarth by Somervile, the author of The Chace, who dedicates his Hobbinol to him as to "the greatest master in the burlesque way." Yet Fielding, in the Preface to Joseph Andrews, says, "He who should call the ingenious Hogarth a burlesque painter, would, in my opinion, do him very little honour, for sure it is much easier, much less the subject of admiration, to paint a man with a nose, or any other feature of a preposterous size, or to expose him in some absurd or monstrous attitude, than to express the affections of men on canvas. It hath been thought a vast commendation of a painter, to say his figures seem to breathe; but surely it is a much greater and nobler applause, that they appear to think."[38]
Vincent Bourne, that classical ornament of Westminster School, addressed the following copy of hendecasyllables
"Ad Gulielmum Hogarth, Παρουνετικόν [Greek: Parounetikon]
"Qui mores hominum improbos, ineptos,
Incidis, nec ineleganter, æri,
Derisor lepidus, sed & severus,
Corrector gravis, at nec invenustus;
Seu pingis meretricios amores,
Et scenas miseræ vicesque vitæ;
Ut tentat pretio rudem puellam
Corruptrix anus, impudens, obesa;
Ut se vix reprimit libidinosus
Scortator, veneri paratus omni:
Seu describere vis, facete censor,
Bacchanalia sera protrahentes
Ad confinia crastinæ diei,
Fractos cum cyathis tubos, matellam
Non plenam modò sed superfluentem,
Et fortem validumque combibonem
Lætantem super amphorâ repletâ;
Jucundissimus omnium ferêris,
Nullique artificum secundus, ætas
Quos præsens dedit, aut dabit futura.
Macte ô, eja age, macte sis amicus
Virtuti: vitiique quod notâris,
Pergas pingere, & exhibere coràm,
Censura utilior tua æquiorque
Omni vel satirarum acerbitate,
Omni vel rigidissimo cachinno."
By printed proposals, dated Jan. 25, 1744-5, Hogarth offered to the highest bidder "the six pictures called The Harlot's Progress, the eight pictures called The Rake's Progress, the four pictures representing Morning, Noon, Evening, and Night, and that of A Company of Strolling Actresses dressing in a Barn; all of them his own original paintings, from which no other copies than the prints have ever been taken." The biddings were to remain open from the first to the last day of February, on these conditions: "1. That every bidder shall have an entire leaf numbered in the book of sale, on the top of which will be entered the name and place of abode, the sum paid by him, the time when, and for which picture.—That, on the last day of sale, a clock (striking every five minutes) shall be placed in the room; and when it hath struck five minutes after twelve, the first picture mentioned in the sale-book will be deemed as sold; the second picture when the clock hath struck the next five minutes after twelve; and so on successively till the whole nineteen pictures are sold. 3. That none advance less than gold at each bidding. 4. No person to bid on the last day, except those whose names were before entered in the book.—As Mr. Hogarth's room is but small, he begs the favour that no persons, except those whose names are entered in the book, will come to view his paintings on the last day of sale."
The pictures were sold for the following prices:
| Six Harlot's Progress, at 14 guineas each | £.88 | 4 | 0 |
| Eight Rake's Progress, at 22 guineas each | 184 | 16 | 0 |
| Morning, 20 guineas | 21 | 0 | 0 |
| Noon, 37 guineas | 38 | 17 | 0 |
| Evening, 38 guineas | 39 | 18 | 0 |
| Night, 26 guineas | 27 | 6 | 0 |
| Strolling Players, 26 guineas | 27 | 6 | 0 |
| 427 | 7 | 0 |
At the same time the six pictures of Marriage à-la-mode were announced as intended for sale as soon as the plates then taking from them should be completed. This set of Prints may be regarded as the ground-work of a novel called "The Marriage Act," by Dr. Shebbeare, and of "The Clandestine Marriage." In the prologue to that excellent comedy, Mr. Garrick thus handsomely expressed his regard for the memory of his friend:
"Poets and painters, who from nature draw
Their best and richest stores, have made this law:
That each should neighbourly assist his brother,
And steal with decency from one another.
To-night, your matchless Hogarth gives the thought,
Which from his canvas to the stage is brought.
And who so fit to warm the poet's mind,
As he who pictur'd morals and mankind?
But not the same their characters and scenes;
Both labour for one end, by different means:
Each, as it suits him, takes a separate road,
Their one great object, Marriage à la Mode!
Where titles deign with cits to have and hold,
And change rich blood for more substantial gold!
And honour'd trade from interest turns aside,
To hazard happiness for titled pride.
The painter dead, yet still he charms the eye;
While England lives, his fame can never die:
But he, 'who struts his hour upon the stage,'
Can scarce extend his fame for half an age;
Nor pen nor pencil can the actor save,
The art, and artist, share one common grave."[39]
Hogarth had projected a Happy Marriage, by way of counterpart to his Marriage à la Mode. A design for the first of his intended six plates he had sketched out in colours; and the following is as accurate an account of it as could be furnished by a gentleman who, long ago enjoyed only a few minutes' sight of so imperfect a curiosity.
The time supposed was immediately after the return of the parties from church. The scene lay in the hall of an antiquated country mansion. On one side, the married couple were represented sitting. Behind them was a group of their young friends of both sexes, in the act of breaking bride-cake over their heads. In front appeared the father of the young lady, grasping a bumper, and drinking, with a seeming roar of exultation, to the future happiness of her and her husband. By his side was a table covered with refreshments. Jollity rather than politeness was the designation of his character. Under the screen of the hall, several rustic musicians in grotesque attitudes, together with servants, tenants, &c. were arranged. Through the arch by which the room was entered, the eye was led along a passage into the kitchen, which afforded a glimpse of sacerdotal luxury. Before the dripping-pan stood a well-fed divine, in his gown and cassock, with his watch in his hand, giving directions to a cook, drest all in white, who was employed in basting a haunch of venison.
Among the faces of the principal figures, none but that of the young lady was completely finished. Hogarth had been often reproached for his inability to impart grace and dignity to his heroines. The bride was therefore meant to vindicate his pencil from so degrading an imputation. The effort, however, was unsuccessful. The girl was certainly pretty; but her features, if I may use the term, were uneducated. She might have attracted notice as a chambermaid, but would have failed to extort applause as a woman of fashion. The parson, and his culinary associate, were more laboured than any other parts of the picture. It is natural for us to dwell longest on that division of a subject which is most congenial to our private feelings. The painter sat down with a resolution to delineate beauty improved by art; but seems, as usual, to have deviated into meanness; or could not help neglecting his original purpose, to luxuriate in such ideas as his situation in early life had fitted him to express. He found himself, in short, out of his element in the parlour, and therefore hastened, in quest of ease and amusement, to the kitchen fire. Churchill, with more force than delicacy, once observed of him, that he only painted the backside of nature. It must be allowed, that such an artist, however excellent in his walk, was better qualified to represent the low-born parent, than the royal preserver of a foundling.
The sketch already described (which I believe is in Mrs. Garrick's possession) was made after the appearance of Marriage à la Mode, and many years before the artist's death. Why he did not persevere in his plan, during such an interval of time, we can only guess. It is probable that his undertaking required a longer succession of images relative to domestic happiness, than had fallen within his notice, or courted his participation. Hogarth had no children; and though the nuptial union may be happy without them, yet such happiness will have nothing picturesque in it; and we may observe of this truly natural and faithful painter, that he rarely ventured to exhibit scenes with which he was not perfectly well acquainted.
Let us, however, more completely obviate an objection that may be raised against the propriety of the foregoing criticism. Some reader may urge, that perhaps, all circumstances considered, a wedding celebrated at an old mansion-house did not require the appearance of consummate beauty, refined by the powers of education. The remark has seeming justice on its side; but Hogarth had previously avowed his intent to exhibit a perfect face, divested of vulgarity; and succeeded so well, at least in his own opinion, that he carried the canvas, of which we are now speaking, in triumph to Mr. Garrick, whose private strictures on it coincided with those of the person who furnishes this additional confirmation of our painter's notorious ignorance in what is styled—the graceful. From the account I have received concerning a design for a previous compartment belonging to the same story, there is little reason to lament the loss of it. It contained no appeal either to the fancy or to the heart. An artist, who, representing the marriage ceremony in a chapel, renders the clerk, who lays the hassocks, the principal figure in it, may at least be taxed with want of judgement.
Soon after the peace of Aix la Chapelle, he went over to France, and was taken into custody at Calais, while he was drawing the gate of that town, a circumstance which he has recorded in his picture, intituled, "O the Roast Beef of Old England!" published March 26, 1749. He was actually carried before the governor as a spy, and, after a very strict examination, committed a prisoner to Grandsire, his landlord, on his promising that Hogarth should not go out of his house till it was to embark for England. This account, I have good authority for saying, he himself gave to his friend Mr. Gostling at Canterbury, at whose house he lay the night after his arrival.
The same accident, however, has been more circumstantially related by an eminent English engraver, who was abroad when it happened. Hayman, and Cheere the statuary, were of the same party.
While Hogarth was in France, wherever he went, he was sure to be dissatisfied with all he saw. If an elegant circumstance either in furniture, or the ornaments of a room, was pointed out as deserving approbation, his narrow and constant reply was, "What then? but it is French! Their houses are all gilt and b—t." In the streets he was often clamourously rude. A tatter'd bag, or a pair of silk stockings with holes in them, drew a torrent of imprudent language from him. In vain did my informant (who knew that many Scotch and Irish were often within hearing of these reproaches, and would rejoice at least in an opportunity of getting our painter mobbed) advise him to be more cautious in his public remarks. He laughed at all such admonition, and treated the offerer of it as a pusillanimous wretch, unworthy of a residence in a free country, making him the butt of his ridicule for several evenings afterwards. This unreasonable pleasantry was at length completely extinguished by what happened while he was drawing the Gate at Calais; for though the innocence of his design was rendered perfectly apparent on the testimony of other sketches he had about him, which were by no means such as could serve the purpose of an engineer, he was told by the Commandant, that, had not the peace been actually signed, he should have been obliged to have hung him up immediately on the ramparts. Two guards were then provided to convey him on shipboard; nor did they quit him till he was three miles from the shore. They then spun him round like a top, on the deck; and told him he was at liberty to proceed on his voyage without farther attendance or molestation. With the slightest allusion to the ludicrous particulars of this affair, poor Hogarth was by no means pleased. The leading circumstance in it his own pencil has recorded.
Soon after this period he purchased a little house at Chiswick; where he usually passed the greatest part of the summer season, yet not without occasional visits to his dwelling in Leicester Fields.
In 1753, he appeared to the world in the character of art author, and published a quarto volume, intituled, "The Analysis of Beauty, written with a view of fixing the fluctuating Ideas of Taste." In this performance he shews, by a variety of examples, that a curve is the line of beauty, and that round swelling figures are most pleasing to the eye; and the truth of his opinion has been countenanced by subsequent writers on the subject.
Among the letters of Dr. Birch is the following short one, sent with the "Analysis of Beauty," and dated Nov. 25, 1753; "Sir, I beg the favour of you to present to the Royal Society the enclosed work, which will receive great honour by their acceptance of it. I am, Sir, your most obedient humble servant, Wm. Hogarth."
In this book, the leading idea of which was hieroglyphically thrown out in a frontispiece to his works in 1745, he acknowledges himself indebted to his friends for assistance, and particularly to one gentleman for his corrections and amendments of at least a third part of the wording. This friend, I am assured, was Dr. Benjamin Hoadly the physician, who carried on the work to about a third part, Chap. IX. and then, through indisposition, declined the friendly office with regret. Mr. Hogarth applied to his neighbour, Mr. Ralph; but it was impossible for two such persons to agree, both alike vain and positive. He proceeded no farther than about a sheet, and they then parted friends, and seem to have continued such. In the Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times, vol. I. p. 47, published in 1757 by Dr. Brown, that author pays a compliment to Mr. Hogarth's genius. Mr. Ralph, animadverting on the work, amongst other things, says, "It is happy for Mr. Hogarth, in my humble opinion, that he is brought upon the stage in such company, rather for the sake of fastening some additional abuse upon the public, than of bestowing any special grace upon him. 'Neither the comic pencil, nor the serious pen of our ingenious countrymen (so the Estimator or Appraiser's Patent of Allowance runs) have been able to keep alive the taste of Nature or of Beauty.' For where he has chosen to be a niggard of his acknowledgements, every other man would chuse to be a prodigal: Nature had played the Proteus with us, had invited us to pursue her in every shape, but had never suffered us to overtake her: Beauty all had been smitten with, but nobody had been able to assign us a rule by which it might be defined: This was Mr. Hogarth's task; this is what he has succeeded in; composition is at last become a science; the student knows what he is in search of; the connoisseur what to praise; and fancy or fashion, or prescription, will usurp the hacknied name of taste no more. So that, whatever may be said in disparagement of the age on other accounts, it has more merit and honour to claim on this, than any which preceded it. And I will venture for once to prophesy, from the improvements already manifested, that we shall have the arts of designing to value ourselves upon, when all our ancient virtues are worn out."
The office of finishing the work, and superintending the publication, was lastly taken up by Dr. Morell, who went through the remainder of the book.[40] The preface was in like manner corrected by the Rev. Mr. Townley. The family of Hogarth rejoiced when the last sheet of the Analysis was printed off; as the frequent disputes he had with his coadjutors, in the progress of the work, did not much harmonize his disposition.
This work was translated into German by Mr. Mylins, when in England, under the author's inspection; and the translation, containing twenty-two sheets in quarto, and two large plates, was printed in London, price five dollars.
Of the same performance a new and correct edition was (July 1, 1754) proposed for publication at Berlin, by Ch. Fr. Vok, with an explanation of Mr. Hogarth's satirical prints, translated from the French; the whole to subscribers for one dollar, but after six weeks to be raised to two dollars.
An Italian translation was also published at Leghorn in 1761, 8vo, dedicated "All' illustrissime Signora Diana Molineux, Dama Inglese."
"This book," Mr. Walpole observes, "had many sensible hints and observations; but it did not carry the conviction, nor meet the universal acquiescence he expected. As he treated his contemporaries with scorn, they triumphed over this publication,[41] and irritated him to expose him. Many wretched burlesque prints came out to ridicule his system. There was a better answer to it in one of the two prints that he gave to illustrate his hypothesis. In the ball, had he confined himself to such outlines as compose awkwardness and deformity, he would have proved half his assertion; but he has added two samples of grace in a young lord and lady, that are strikingly stiff and affected. They are a Bath beau and a county Beauty."
Hogarth had one failing in common with most people who attain wealth and eminence without the aid of liberal education. He affected to despise every kind of knowledge which he did not possess. Having established his fame with little or no obligation to literature, he either conceived it to be needless, or decried it because it lay out of his reach. His sentiments, in short, resembled those of Jack Cade, who pronounced sentence on the clerk of Chatham, because he could write and read. Till, in evil hour, this celebrated artist commenced an author, and was obliged to employ the friends already mentioned to correct his Analysis of Beauty,[42] he did not seem to have discovered that even spelling was a necessary qualification; and yet he had ventured to ridicule[43] the late Mr. Rich's deficiency as to this particular, in a note which lies before the Rake whose play is refused while he remains in confinement for debt. Previous to the time of which we are now speaking, one of our artist's common topicks of declamation was the uselessness of books to a man of his profession. In Beer-street, among other volumes consigned by him to the pastry cook, we find Turnbull on ancient Painting, a treatise which Hogarth should have been able to understand, before he ventured to condemn. Garrick himself, however, was not more ductile to flattery. A word in favour of Sigismunda, might have commanded a proof print, or forced an original sketch out of our artist's hands. The furnisher of this remark owes one of his scarcest performances to the success of a compliment, which might have stuck even in Sir Godfrey Kneller's throat.
The following authenticated story of our artist will also serve to shew how much more easy it is to detect ill-placed or hyperbolical adulation respecting others, than when applied to ourselves. Hogarth being at dinner with the great Cheselden, and some other company, was told that Mr. John Freke, surgeon of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, a few evenings before at Dick's Coffee-house, had asserted, that Greene was as eminent in composition as Handel. "That fellow Freke," replied Hogarth, "is always shooting his bolt absurdly one way or another! Handel is a giant in music; Greene only a light Florimel kind of a composer."—"Ay," says our artist's informant, "but at the same time Mr. Freke declared you were as good a portrait-painter as Vandyck."—"There he was in the right," adds Hogarth; "and so by G— I am, give me my time, and let me choose my subject!"
With Dr. Hoadly, the late Chancellor of Winchester, Mr. Hogarth was always on terms of the strictest friendship, and frequently visited him at Winchester, St. Cross, and Alresford. It is well known, that Dr. Hoadly's fondness for theatrical exhibitions was so great, that few visitors were ever long in his house before they were solicited to accept a part in some interlude or other. He himself, with Garrick and Hogarth, once performed a laughable parody on the scene in Julius Cæsar, where the Ghost appears to Brutus. Hogarth personated the spectre; but so unretentive was his memory, that, although his speech consisted only of two lines, he was unable to get them by heart. At last they hit on the following expedient in his favour. The verses he was to deliver were written in such large letters, on the outside of an illuminated paper-lanthorn, that he could read them when he entered with it in his hand on the stage. Hogarth painted a scene on this occasion, representing a sutling booth, with the Duck of Cumberland's head by way of sign. He also prepared the play-bill, with characteristic ornaments. The original drawing is still preserved, and we could wish it were engraved; as the slightest sketch from the design of so grotesque a painter would be welcome to the numerous collectors of his works.
Hogarth was also the most absent of men. At table he would sometimes turn round his chair as if he had finished eating, and as suddenly would return it, and fall to his meal again. I may add, that he once directed a letter to Dr. Hoadly, thus,—"To the Doctor at Chelsea." This epistle, however, by good luck, did not miscarry; and was preserved by the late Chancellor of Winchester, as a pleasant memorial of his friend's extraordinary inattention.
Another remarkable instance of Hogarth's absence was told me, after the first edition of this work, by one of his intimate friends. Soon after he set up his carriage, he had occasion to pay a visit to the lord-mayor (I believe it was Mr. Beckford). When he went, the weather was fine; but business detained him till a violent shower of rain came on. He was let out of the Mansion-house by a different door from that at which he entered; and, seeing the rain, began immediately to call for a hackney-coach. Not one was to be met with on any of the neighbouring stands; and our artist sallied forth to brave the storm, and actually reached Leicester-fields without bestowing a thought on his own carriage, till Mrs. Hogarth (surprized to see him so wet and splashed) asked where he had left it.
Mr. Walpole, in the following note, p. 69, is willing to expose the indelicacy of the Flemish painters, by comparing it with the purity of Hogarth. "When they attempt humour," says our author, "it is by making a drunkard vomit; they take evacuations for jokes; and when they make us sick, think they make us laugh. A boor hugging a frightful frow is a frequent incident, even in the works of Teniers." Shall we proceed to examine whether the scenes painted by our countryman are wholly free from the same indelicacies? In one plate of Hudibras, where he encounters a Skimmington, a man is making water against the end of a house, while a taylor's wife is most significantly attending to the dirty process. In another plate to the same work, a boy is pissing into the shoe of Ralpho, while the widow is standing by. Another boy in the Enraged Musician is easing nature by the same mode; and a little miss is looking earnestly on the operation. In the March to Finchley, a diseased soldier has no better employment; and a woman is likewise staring at him out of a window. This circumstance did not escape the observation of Rouquet the enameller, whose remarks[44] on the plates of our artist I shall have more than once occasion to introduce. "Il y a," says he, "dans quelques endroits de cet excellent tableau, des objets peut être plus propres à peindre qu'à décrire. D'ou vient que les oreilles sont plus chaste que les yeux? Ne seroit ce pas parce qu'on peut regarder certains objets dans un tableau, et feindre de ne pas les voir; et qu'il n'est pas si aisé d'entendre une obscénité, et de feindre de ne l'entendre pas! L'objet, dont je veux parler, est toutefois peu considérable; il s'agit seulement d'un soldat à qui le voyage de Montpelier conviendroit mieux que celui d'Ecosse. L'amour lui a fait une blessure, &c." Was this occurrence delicate or precious enough to deserve such frequency of repetition? In the burlesque Paul before Felix, when the High Priest applies his fingers to his nose, we have reason to imagine that his manœuvre was in consequence of some offensive escape during the terrors of the pro-consul of Judea, who, as he is here represented, conveys no imperfect image of a late Lord Mayor, at the time of the riots in London. In this last instance, indeed, I ought to have observed that Hogarth meant to satirize, not to imitate, the painters of Holland and Flanders. But I forbear to dwell any longer on such disgusting circumstances; begging leave only to ask, whether the canvas of Teniers exhibits nastier objects than those of the woman cracking a louse between her nails in the fourth plate of the Harlot's Progress; a Scotch bag-piper catching another in his neck while he is performing at the Election feast; Aurora doing the same kind office for a Syren or Nereid, in the Strollers, &c.; the old toothless French beldams, slobbering (Venus forbid we should call it kissing) each other in the comic print entitled Noon; the chamber-pot emptied on the Free Mason's head, in the Rejoicing Night; or the Lilliputians giving a clyster to Gulliver? In some of these instances, however, the humour may compensate for the indelicacy, which is rarely the case with such Dutch pictures as have justly incurred the censure of Mr. Walpole. Let us now try how far some of the compositions of Hogarth have befriended the cause of modesty. In the Harlot's Progress, Plate VI. we meet with a hand by no means busied in manner suitable to the purity of its owner's function. Hogarth indeed, in three different works, has delineated three clergymen; the one as a drunkard; the second as a glutton; and the third as a whoremaster, who (I borrow Rouquet's words) "est plus occupé de sa voisine que de son vin, qu'il repand par une distraction qu'elle lui cause." He who, in the eyes of the vulgar, would degrade our professors of religion, deserves few thanks from society. In the Rake's Progress, Plate the last, how is the hand of the ideal potentate employed, while he is gazing with no very modest aspect on a couple of young women who pass before his cell numbered 55? and to what particular object are the eyes of the said females supposed to be directed?[45] Nay, in what pursuit is the grenadier engaged who stands with his face toward the wall in Plate 9. of Industry and Idleness? May we address another question to the reader? Is the "smile of Socrates," or the "benevolence of the designer," very distinguishable in the half dozen last instances? It has been observed indeed by physiognomists, that the smile of the real Socrates resembled the grin of a satyr; and perhaps a few of the particulars here alluded to, as well as the prints entitled Before and After, ought to be considered as a benevolence to speculative old maids, or misses not yet enfranchised from a boarding school. Had this truly sensible critic, and elegant writer, been content to observe, that such gross circumstances as form the chief subject of Flemish pictures, are only incidental and subordinate in those of our artist, the remark might have escaped reprehension. But perhaps he who has told us that "St. Paul's hand was once improperly placed before the wife of Felix" should not have suffered more glaring insults on decency to pass without a censure. On this occasion, though I may be found to differ from Mr. Walpole, I am ready to confess how much regard is due to the opinions of a gentleman whose mind has been long exercised on a subject which is almost new to me; especially when I recollect that my present researches would have had no guide, but for the lights held out in the last volume of the Anecdotes of Painting in England.
Hogarth boasted that he could draw a Serjeant with his pike, going into an alehouse, and his Dog following him, with only three strokes;—which he executed thus:
A. The perspective line of the door.
B. The end of the Serjeant's pike, who is gone in.
C. The end of the Dog's tail, who is following him.
There are similar whims of the Caracci.
A specimen of Hogarth's propensity to merriment, on the most trivial occasions, is observable in one of his cards requesting the company of Dr. Arnold King to dine with him at the Mitre.[46] Within a circle, to which a knife and fork are the supporters, the written part is contained. In the center is drawn a pye, with a mitre on the top of it; and the invitation of our artist concludes with the following sport on three of the Greek letters—to Eta Beta Pi.[47] The rest of the inscription is not very accurately spelt. A quibble by Hogarth is surely as respectable as a conundrum by Swift.
"Some nicer virtuosi have remarked, that in the serious pieces, into which Hogarth has deviated from the natural biass of his genius, there are some strokes of the ridiculous discernible, which suit not with the dignity of his subject. In his preaching of St. Paul, a dog snarling at a cat;[48] and in his Pharaoh's Daughter, the figure of the infant Moses, who expresses rather archness than timidity; are alledged as instances, that this artist, unrivalled in his own walk, could not resist the impulse of his imagination towards drollery. His picture, however, of Richard III. is pure and unmixed, without any ridiculous circumstances, and strongly impresses terror and amazement." As these observations are extracted from the first edition of Dr. Warton's "Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope," it would be uncandid if we did not accompany them with the following note from a subsequent edition of that valuable performance: "The author gladly lays hold of the opportunity of this third edition of his work to confess a mistake he had committed with respect to two admirable paintings of Mr. Hogarth, his Paul Preaching, and his Infant Moses; which, on a closer examination, are not chargeable with the blemishes imputed to them. Justice obliges him to declare the high opinion he entertains of the abilities of this inimitable artist, who shines in so many different lights, and on such very dissimilar subjects; and whose works have more of what the ancients called the ΗθΟΣ [Greek: Ethos] in them, than the compositions of any other Modern. For the rest, the author begs leave to add, that he is so far from being ashamed of retracting his error, that he had rather appear a Man of Candour, than the best Critic that ever lived."[49]
In one of the early exhibitions at Spring Gardens, a very pleasing small picture by Hogarth made its first appearance. It was painted for the earl of Charlemont, in whose collection it remains.[50] It was intituled, Picquet, or Virtue in Danger, and shews us a young lady, who, during a tête-à-tête, had just lost all her money to a handsome officer of her own age. He is represented in the act of returning her a handful of bank bills, with the hope of exchanging them for a softer acquisition, and more delicate plunder. On the chimney piece is a watch-case and a figure of Time over it, with this motto—NUNC. Hogarth has caught his heroine during this moment of hesitation, this struggle with herself, and has marked her feelings with uncommon success. Wavering chastity, as in this instance, he was qualified to display; but the graceful reserve of steady and exalted virtue he would certainly have failed to express. He might have conveyed a perfect idea of such an Iphigenia as is described by Mr. Hayley, in one of the cantoes of his beautiful poem on the Triumphs of Temper; but the dignity of the same female at the Tauric altar would have baffled the most vigorous efforts of his pencil.
Hogarth's Picquet, or Virtue in Danger, when exhibited at Spring Gardens, in May, 1761, produced the following explanation:
Ye fair, be warn'd, and shun those arts,
That faithless men do use for hearts:
Weigh o'er and o'er the destin'd man,
And oft this little lesson scan;
If he his character don't fear,
For yours he'll very little care:
With scorn repulse the wretch so bold,
Nor pawn your virtue for his gold!
Of gaming (cards or not) beware,
'Tis very often found a snare;
But, lest my precept still should fail,
Indulge me—whilst I tell a tale:
Dorinda, chearful, young, and gay,
Oft shone at Balls, at Park, and Play;
Blest with a free, engaging air,
In short, throughout quite debonnair;
(Excuse me—shall I tell the truth?)
That bane of misled, heedless youth,
Gaming—had quite possess'd her mind,
To this (no other vice) inclin'd:
She oft would melancholy sit,
No partner near for dear Picquet!
"At last a cruel spoiler came,"
And deeply learn'd in all the game;
A son of Mars, with iron face,
Adorn'd with impudence and lace!
Acquaintance with her soon he gains,
He thinks her virtue worth his pains:
Cards (after nonsense) came in course,
By sap advances, not by force.
The table set, the cards are laid,
Dorinda dreams not she's betray'd;
The cards run cross, she fumes and frets,
Her brilliant necklace soon she betts,
She fears her watch, but can't resist,
A miniature can scarce be mist!
At last both watch and trinkets go,
A prey to the devouring foe:
Nay more (if fame but tells us true),
She lost her di'mond buckles too!
Her bracelets next became his prize,
And in his hat the treasure lies.
Upon her Virtue next he treats,
And Honour's sacred name repeats:
Tenders the trinkets, swears and lies,
And vows her person is a prize!
Then swears (with hand upon his breast)
That he without her can't be blest!
Then plies her with redoubled pains,
T' exchange her virtue for his gains:
Shame's purple wings o'ershade her face,
He triumphs over her disgrace;
Soon turns to jest her scruples nice,
In short, she falls!—a sacrifice!
Spoil'd of her virtue in her prime,
And, knowing Heaven detests the crime,
Is urg'd, perhaps, to dare his rod,
"And rush unsummon'd to her God!"
Ye fair, if happiness ye prize,
Regard this rule, Be timely wise.
In the "Miser's Feast," Mr. Hogarth thought proper to pillory Sir Isaac Shard, a gentleman proverbially avaricious. Hearing this, the son of Sir Isaac, the late Isaac Pacatus Shard,[51] esq. a young man of spirit, just returned from his travels, called at the painter's to see the picture; and, among the rest, asking the Cicerone "whether that odd figure was intended for any particular person;" on his replying, "that it was thought to be very like one Sir Isaac Shard;" he immediately drew his sword, and slashed the canvas. Hogarth appeared instantly in great wrath; to whom Mr. Shard calmly justified what he had done, saying, "that this was a very unwarrantable licence; that he was the injured party's son, and that he was ready to defend any suit at law;" which, however, was never instituted.
About 1757, his brother-in-law, Mr. Thornhill, resigned the place of king's serjeant-painter in favour of Mr. Hogarth; who soon after made an experiment in painting, which involved him in some disgrace. The celebrated collection of pictures belonging to Sir Luke Schaub was in 1758 sold by public auction;[52] and the admired picture of Sigismunda (purchased by Sir Thomas Sebright for 404. l. 5 s.) excited Mr. Hogarth's emulation.
"From a contempt of the ignorant virtuosi of the age," says Mr. Walpole, "and from indignation at the impudent tricks of picture-dealers, whom he saw continually recommending and vending vile copies to bubble collectors, and from having never studied, indeed having seen, few good pictures of the great Italian masters, he persuaded himself that the praises bestowed on those glorious works were nothing but the effects of prejudice. He talked this language till he believed it; and having heard it often asserted, as is true, that time gives a mellowness to colours and improves them, he not only denied the proposition, but maintained that pictures only grew black and worse by age, not distinguishing between the degrees in which the proportion might be true or false. He went farther: he determined to rival the ancients—and unfortunately chose one of the finest pictures in England as the object of his competition. This was the celebrated Sigismunda of Sir Luke Schaub, now in the possession of the Duke of Newcastle, said to be painted by Correggio, probably by Furino, but no matter by whom. It is impossible to see the picture, or read Dryden's inimitable tale, and not feel that the same soul animated both. After many essays, Hogarth at last produced HIS Sigismunda—but no more like Sigismunda, than I to Hercules. Not to mention the wretchedness of the colouring, it was the representation of a maudlin strumpet just turned out of keeping, and, with eyes red with rage and usquebaugh, tearing off the ornaments her keeper had given her. To add to the disgust raised by such vulgar expression, her fingers were bloodied by her lover's heart,[53] that lay before her, like that of a sheep, for her dinner.[54] None of the sober grief, no dignity of suppressed anguish, no involuntary tear, no settled meditation on the fate she meant to meet, no amorous warmth turned holy by despair; in short, all was wanting that should have been there, all was there that such a story would have banished from a mind capable of conceiving such complicated woe; woe so sternly felt, and yet so tenderly. Hogarth's performance was more ridiculous than any thing he had ever ridiculed. He set the price of 400 l. on it, and had it returned on his hands by the person for whom it was painted. He took subscriptions for a plate of it; but had the sense, at last, to suppress it. I make no more apology for this account than for the encomiums I have bestowed on him. Both are dictated by truth, and are the history of a great man's excellencies and errors. Milton, it is said, preferred his Paradise Regained to his immortal poem."[55]
Hogarth, however, gave directions before his death that the Sigismunda should not be sold under 500 l. and, greatly as he might have been mortified by Churchill's invective, and the coldness with which the picture was received by the rest of the world,[56] he never wholly abandoned his design of having a plate prepared from it. Finding abundant consolation in the flattery of self-love, he appealed from the public judgement to his own, and had actually talked with the celebrated Mr. Hall about the price of the engraving, which was to have been executed from a smaller painting,[57] copied by himself from the large one. Death alone secured him from the contempt such obstinacy would have riveted on his name. To express a sorrow like that of Tancred's daughter, few modern artists are fully qualified. We must except indeed Sir Joshua Reynolds, with whose pencil Beauty in all her forms, and the passions in all their varieties, are equally familiar.
Since the preceding paragraph was written, the compiler of this volume has seen an unfinished plate of Sigismunda, attempted after the manner of Edelinck, etched by Mr. Basire, but not bit-in, and from which consequently no proof can have been taken. The size of the plate is 18 inches by 16½. The outlines in general, and particularly of the face, were completed under the immediate direction of Mr. Hogarth.[58] It was intended to be published by subscription.[59] The plate itself is still in the hands of Mr. Basire.
This unfortunate picture, which was the source of so much vexation to Mr. Hogarth, at least made a versifier of him, and furnished vent to his anger in the following lines; which, as I know of no other specimen of his poetry,[60] may serve to gratify the curiosity of the reader. The old adage facit indignatio versum, seems scarcely to have been realised in this splenetic effusion, which is intituled "An Epistle to a Friend," occasioned by Sir Richard Grosvenor (now lord) returning the picture of Sigismunda on our artist's hands:
"To your charge, the other day
About my picture and my pay,
In metre I've a mind to try,
One word by way of a reply.
"To risque, you'll own, 'twas most absurd,
Such labour on a rich man's word;
To lose at least an hundred days
Of certain gain, for doubtful praise;
Since living artists ne'er were paid;
But then, you know, it was agreed,
I should be deem'd an artist dead.
Like Raphael, Rubens, Guido Rene,
This promise fairly drew me in;
And having laid my pencil by,[61]
What painter was more dead than I?
But dead as Guido let me be,
Then judge, my friend, 'twixt him and me
If merit crowns alike the piece,
What treason to be like in price;
Because no copied line you trace,
The picture can't be right, you're sure;
But say, my critic connoisseur,
Moves it the heart as much or more
Than picture ever did before?
This is the painter's truest test,
And this Sir Richard's self confess'd.
Nay, 'tis so moving, that the knight
Can't even bear it in his sight;
Then who would tears so dearly buy,
As give four hundred pounds to cry?
I own, he chose the prudent part,
Rather to break his word than heart;
And yet, methinks, 'tis ticklish dealing,
With one so delicate—in feeling.
"However, let the picture rust,
Perhaps time's price-enhancing dust,
As statues moulder into earth,
When I'm no more, may mark its worth;
And future connoisseurs may rise,
Honest as ours, and full as wise,
To puff the piece and painter too,
And make me then what Guido's now."
"The last memorable event in our artist's life," as Mr. Walpole observes, "was his quarrel with Mr. Wilkes, in which, if Mr. Hogarth did not commence direct hostilities on the latter, he at least obliquely gave the first offence, by an attack on the friends and party of that gentleman. This conduct was the more surprizing, as he had all his life avoided dipping his pencil in political contests, and had early refused a very lucrative offer that was made to engage him in a set of prints against the head of a court-party. Without entering into the merits of the cause, I shall only state the fact. In September 1762, Mr. Hogarth published his print of The Times. It was answered by Mr. Wilkes in a severe North Briton.[62] On this the painter exhibited the caricatura of the writer. Mr. Churchill, the poet, then engaged in the war, and wrote his epistle to Hogarth, not the brightest of his works,[63] in which the severest strokes fell on a defect that the painter had neither caused nor could amend—his age;[64] and which, however, was neither remarkable nor decrepit; much less had it impaired his talents, as appeared by his having composed but six months before one of his most capital works, the satire on the Methodists. In revenge for this epistle, Hogarth caricatured Churchill, under the form of a canonical bear, with a club and a pot of porter—et vitulá tu dignus & hic—never did two angry men of their abilities throw mud with less dexterity."
The concluding observation of Mr. Walpole is mortifyingly true. It may be amusing to compare the account given of this squabble, which long engrossed the attention of the town, with the narrative of it printed by Mr. Wilkes; who states the circumstances of it in the following manner:
"Mr. Hogarth was one of the first who, in the paper war begun by lord Bute on his accession to the Treasury, sacrificed private friendship at the altar of party madness. In 1762, the Scotch minister took a variety of hirelings into his pay, some of whom were gratified with pensions, others with places and pensions. Mr. Hogarth was only made serjeant-painter to his majesty, as if it was meant to insinuate to him, that he was not allowed to paint any thing but the wainscot of the royal apartments. The term means no more than house-painter, and the nature of the post confined him to that business. He was not employed in any other way. A circumstance can scarcely be imagined more humiliating to a man of spirit and genius, who really thought that he more particularly excelled in portrait-painting.
"The new minister had been attacked in a variety of political papers. The North Briton in particular, which commenced the week after The Briton, waged open war with him. Some of the numbers had been ascribed to Mr. Wilkes, others to Mr. Churchill, and Mr. Lloyd. Mr. Hogarth had for several years lived on terms of friendship and intimacy with Mr. Churchill and Mr. Wilkes. As the Buckinghamshire militia, which this gentleman had the honour of commanding, had been for some months at Winchester guarding the French prisoners, the Colonel was there on that duty. A friend wrote to him, that Mr. Hogarth intended soon to publish a political print of The Times, in which Mr. Pitt, Lord Temple, Mr. Churchill, and himself, were held out to the public as objects of ridicule. Mr. Wilkes, on this notice, remonstrated by two of their common friends to Mr. Hogarth, that such a proceeding would not only be unfriendly in the highest degree, but extremely injudicious; for such a pencil ought to be universal and moral, to speak to all ages, and to all nations, not to be dipt in the dirt of the faction of a day, of an insignificant part of the country, when it might command the admiration of the whole. An answer was sent, that neither Mr. Wilkes nor Mr. Churchill were attacked in The Times, though Lord Temple and Mr. Pitt were, and that the print should soon appear. A second message soon after told Mr. Hogarth, that Mr. Wilkes should never believe it worth his while to take notice of any reflections on himself; but if his friends were attacked, he should then think he was wounded in the most sensible part, and would, as well as he was able, revenge their cause; adding, that if he thought the North Briton would insert what he sent, he would make an appeal to the public on the very Saturday following the publication of the print. The Times soon after appeared, and on the Saturday following [Sept. 25, 1762,] N° 17, of the North Briton, which is a direct attack on the king's serjeant-painter.[65] If Mr. Wilkes did write that paper, he kept his word better with Mr. Hogarth, than the painter had done with him.
"It is perhaps worth remarking, that the painter proposed to give a series of political prints, and that The Times were marked Plate I. No farther progress was however made in that design. The public beheld the first feeble efforts with execrations, and it is said that the caricaturist was too much hurt by the general opinion of mankind, to possess himself afterwards sufficiently for the execution of such a work.
"When Mr. Wilkes was the second time brought from the Tower to Westminster-hall, Mr. Hogarth skulked behind in a corner of the gallery of the Court of Common Pleas; and while the Chief Justice Pratt,[66] with the eloquence and courage of old Rome, was enforcing the great principles of Magna Charta, and the English constitution, while every breast from him caught the holy flame of liberty, the painter was wholly employed in caricaturing the person of the man; while all the rest of his fellow citizens were animated in his cause, for they knew it to be their own cause, that of their country, and of its laws. It was declared to be so a few hours after by the unanimous sentence of the judges of that court, and they were all present.
"The print of Mr. Wilkes was soon after published, drawn from the life by William Hogarth. It must be allowed to be an excellent compound caricatura, or a caricatura of what nature had already caricatured. I know but one short apology can be made for this gentleman, or, to speak more properly, for the person of Mr. Wilkes. It is, that he did not make himself, and that he never was solicitous about the case of his soul, as Shakspeare calls it, only so far as to keep it clean and in health. I never heard that he once hung over the glassy stream, like another Narcissus, admiring the image in it, nor that he ever stole an amorous look at his counterfeit in a side mirrour. His form, such as it is, ought to give him no pain, because it is capable of giving pleasure to others. I fancy he finds himself tolerably happy in the clay-cottage, to which he is tenant for life, because he has learnt to keep it in good order. While the share of health and animal spirits, which heaven has given him, shall hold out, I can scarcely imagine he will be one moment peevish about the outside of so precarious, so temporary a habitation, or will even be brought to own, ingenium Galbæ male habitat. Monsieur est mal logé.
"Mr. Churchill was exasperated at this personal attack on his friend. He soon after published the Epistle to William Hogarth,[67] and took for the motto, ut pictura poesis. Mr. Hogarth's revenge against the poet terminated in vamping up an old print of a pug-dog and a bear, which he published under the title of The Bruiser C. Churchill (once the Revd.!) in the character of a Russian Hercules, &c."
The Editor of the Monthly Review for November, 1769, in an account of Mr. Wilkes's correspondence, remarks, "The writer of this article had in substance the same relation from the mouth of Mr. Hogarth himself, but a very little while before his death;[68] and the leading facts appeared, from his candid representation, in nearly the same light as in this account which our readers have been just perusing."
I have been assured by the friend[69] who first carried and read the invective of Churchill to Hogarth, that he seemed quite insensible to the most sarcastical parts of it. He was so thoroughly wounded before by the North Briton, especially with regard to what related to domestic happiness, that he lay no where open to a fresh stroke. Some readers, however, may entertain a doubt on this subject. A man feels most exquisitely when the merit of which he is proudest is denied him; and it might be urged, that Hogarth was more solicitous to maintain the character of a good painter, than of a tender husband.
One quotation, however, from Churchill's Epistle the warmest admirers of our matchless artist must be pleased with:
"In walks of humour, in that cast of style,
Which, probing to the quick, yet makes us smile;
In Comedy, his natural road to fame,
Nor let me call it by a meaner name,
Where a beginning, middle, and an end,
Are aptly join'd; where parts on parts depend,
Each made for each, as bodies for their soul,
So as to form one true and perfect whole,
Where a plain story to the eye is told,
Which we conceive the moment we behold;[70]
Hogarth unrival'd stands, and shall engage
Unrival'd praise to the most distant age."
Hogarth having been said to be in his dotage when, he produced his print of the Bear, it should seem as if he had been provoked to make the following additions to this print, in order to give a further specimen of his still existing genius.
In the form of a framed picture on the painter's palette, he has represented an Egyptian pyramid, on the side of which is a Cheshire cheese,[71] and round it 3000 l. per annum; and at the foot a Roman Veteran in a reclining posture, designed as an allusion to Mr. Pitt's resignation. The cheese is meant to allude to a former speech of his, wherein he said that he would rather subsist a week on a Cheshire cheese and a shoulder of mutton, than submit to the implacable enemies of his country.
But to ridicule this character still more, he is, as he lies down, firing a piece of ordnance at the standard of Britain, on which is a dove with an olive-branch, the emblem of peace. On one side of the pyramid is the City of London, represented by the figure of one of the Guildhall giants, going to crown the reclining hero. On the other side is the king of Prussia, in the character of one of the Cæsars, but smoking his pipe. In the center stands Hogarth himself, whipping a Dancing Bear (Churchill) which he holds in a string. At the side of the Bear is a Monkey, designed for Mr. Wilkes. Between the legs of the little animal is a mop-stick, on which he seems to ride, as children do on a hobby-horse: at the top of the mop-stick is the cap of liberty. The Monkey is undergoing the same discipline as the Bear. Behind the Monkey is the figure of a man, but with no lineaments of face, and playing on a fiddle. This was designed for Earl Temple.
At the time these hostilities were carrying on in a manner so virulent and disgraceful to all the parties, Hogarth was visibly declining in his health. In 1762, he complained of an inward pain, which, continuing, brought on a general decay that proved incurable.[72] This last year of his life he employed in retouching his plates with the assistance of several engravers whom he took with him to Chiswick. On the 25th of October, 1764, he was conveyed from thence to Leicester-fields, in a very weak condition, yet remarkably chearful; and, receiving an agreeable letter from the American Dr. Franklin, drew up a rough draught of an answer to it; but going to bed, he was seized with a vomiting, upon which he rung his bell with such violence that he broke it, and expired about two hours afterwards in the arms of Mrs. Mary Lewis, who was called up on his being taken suddenly ill. To this lady, for her faithful services, he bequeathed 100 l. After the death of Hogarth's sister, Mrs. Lewis succeeded to the care of his prints; and, without violation of truth, it may be observed, that her good nature and affability recommend these performances which she continues to dispose of at Mrs. Hogarth's house in Leicester-square. Before our artist went to bed, he boasted of having eaten a pound of beef-steaks for his dinner,[73] and was to all appearance heartier than he had been for a long time before. His disorder was an aneurism; and his corpse was interred in the church-yard at Chiswick, where a monument is erected to his memory, with this inscription, under his family arms:
"Here lieth the body
Of William Hogarth, Esq.
Who died October the 26th, 1764;
Aged 67 years."
On another side, which is ornamented with a masque, a laurel wreath, a palette, pencils, and a book, inscribed "Analysis of Beauty," are the following verses by his friend Mr. Garrick:
"Farewell, great painter of mankind,
Who reach'd the noblest point of art;
Whose pictur'd morals charm the mind,
And through the eye correct the heart.
If genius fire thee, reader, stay,
If nature touch thee, drop a tear;
If neither move thee, turn away,
For Hogarth's honoured dust lies here."
On a third side is this inscription:
"Here lieth the body
Of Dame Judith Thornhill,
Relict of Sir James Thornhill, knight,
Of Thornhill in the county of Dorset.
She died November the 12th, 1757,
Aged 84 years."
And on the fourth side:
"Here lieth the body
Of Mrs. Anne Hogarth, sister
to William Hogarth, Esq.
She died August the 13th, 1771,
Aged 70 years."
Mr. Hayley, in his justly admired Epistle to an Eminent Painter (Mr. Romney), has since expressed himself concerning our artist in terms that confer yet higher honours on his comic excellence:
"Nor, if her favour'd hand may hope to shed
The flowers of glory o'er the skilful dead,
Thy talents, Hogarth! will she leave unsung;
Charm of all eyes, and Theme of every tongue!
A separate province 'twas thy praise to rule;
Self-form'd thy Pencil! yet thy works a School,
Where strongly painted, in gradations nice,
The Pomp of Folly, and the Shame of Vice,
Reach'd thro' the laughing Eye the mended Mind,
And moral Humour sportive Art refin'd.
While fleeting Manners, as minutely shown
As the clear prospect on the mirror thrown;
While Truth of Character, exactly hit,
And drest in all the dyes of comic wit;
While these, in Fielding's page, delights supply,
So long thy Pencil with his Pen shall vie.
Science with grief beheld thy drooping age
Fall the sad victim of a Poet's rage:
But Wit's vindictive spleen, that mocks controul,
Nature's high tax on luxury of soul!
This, both in Bards and Painters, Fame forgives
Their Frailty's buried, but their Genius lives."
Thus far the encomiast, who seeks only for opportunities of bestowing praise. A more impartial narrative will be expected from the biographer.
It may be truly observed of Hogarth, that all his powers of delighting were restrained to his pencil.[74] Having rarely been admitted into polite circles, none of his sharp corners had been rubbed off, so that he continued to the last a gross uncultivated man. The slightest contradiction transported him into rage. To be member of a Club consisting of mechanics, or those not many removes above them, seems to have been the utmost of his social ambition; but even in these assemblies he was oftener sent to Coventry for misbehaviour, than any other person who frequented them. To some confidence in himself he was certainly entitled; for, as a comic painter, he could have claimed no honour that would not most readily have been allowed him;[75] but he was at once unprincipled and variable in his political conduct and attachments. He is also said to have beheld the rising eminence and popularity of Sir Joshua Reynolds with a degree of envy; and, if I am not misinformed, frequently spoke with asperity both of him and his performances. Justice, however, obliges me to add, that our artist was liberal, hospitable, and the most punctual of pay-masters; so that, in spite of the emoluments his works had procured to him, he left but an inconsiderable fortune to his widow. His plates indeed are such resources as may not speedily be exhausted. Some of his domestics had lived many years in his service, a circumstance that always reflects credit on a master. Of most of these he painted strong likenesses on a canvas still in Mrs. Hogarth's possession.
His widow has also a portrait of her husband, and an excellent bust of him by Roubilliac, a strong resemblance; and one of his brother-in-law Mr. Thornhill, much resembling the countenance of Mrs. Hogarth. Several of his portraits also remain in her possession: viz. a finished portrait of Mrs. Mary Lewis; Thomas Coombes of Dorsetshire, aged 108; Lady Thornhill; Mrs. Hogarth herself, &c. &c.
A portrait of Hogarth with his hat on, painted for the late Rev. Mr. Townley by Weltdon, and said to be finished by himself, is in the possession of Mr. James Townley, proctor in Doctors Commons. A mezzotinto print from it will be mentioned under the year 1781 in the [Catalogue].
Mr. Edwards, of Beaufort Buildings, has the portrait of Sir George Hay, The Savoyard Girl, The Bench, and Mary Queen of Scots,[76] by Hogarth.
A conversation-piece by him is likewise at Wanstead in Essex, the seat of Earl Tylney.[77] And Mrs. Hoadly has a scene of Ranger and Clarinda in The Suspicious Husband; and the late Chancellor Hoadly repeating a song to Dr. Greene, for him to compose; both by Hogarth. The first of these is an indifferent picture, and contains very inadequate likenesses of the persons represented.
One of the best portraits Hogarth ever painted, is at Lichfield. It is of a gentleman with whom he was very intimate, and at whose houses at Mortlake and in Ironmongers-Lane he spent much of his time—Mr. Joseph Porter, of London, merchant, who died April 7, 1749. Mrs. Porter the sister of this gentleman (who was daughter of Dr. Johnson's wife by a former husband) is in possession of the picture.—John Steers, esq. (of The Paper Buildings in The Temple) has an auction by Hogarth, in which Dr. Chauncey, Dr. Snagg, and others, are introduced; and the Earl of Exeter has a butcher's shop, with Slack fighting, &c.
Of Hogarth's lesser plates many were destroyed. When he wanted a piece of copper on a sudden, he would take any from which he had already worked off such a number of impressions as he supposed he should sell. He then sent it to be effaced, beat out, or otherwise altered to his present purpose.
The plates which remained in his possession were secured to Mrs. Hogarth by his will, dated August 12, 1764, chargeable with an annuity of 80 l. to his sister Anne,[78] who survived him. When, on the death of his other sister, she left off the business in which she was engaged (see, in the Catalogue, the first article among the "[Prints of uncertain date],") he kindly took her home, and generously supported her, making her, at the same time, useful in the disposal of his prints. Want of tenderness and liberality to his relations was not among the failings of Hogarth.
Of Hogarth's drawings and contributions towards the works of others, perhaps a number, on enquiry, might be found. An acquaintance of his, the late worthy Mr. John Sanderson, architect, who repaired Woburn Abbey, as well as Bedford House in Bloomsbury-square, possessed several of his curiosities. One was a sketch in black-lead of a celebrated young engraver (long since dead) in a salivation. The best that can be said of it is, that it was most disgustingly natural. Even the coarse ornaments on the corners of the blankets which enwrapped him, were characteristically expressed. Our artist seems to have repeated the same idea, though with less force, and fewer adjuncts, in the third of his Election prints, where a figure swaddled up in flannel is conveyed to the hustings. Two other works, viz. a drawing in Indian ink, and a painting in oil colours, exhibited Bedford House in different points of view; the figures only by Hogarth. Another represented the corner of a street, with a man drinking under the spout of a pump, and heartily angry with the water, which, by issuing out too fast, and in too great quantities, had deluged his face. Our great painter had obliged Mr. Sanderson with several other comic sketches, &c. but most of them had been either begged or stolen, before the communicator of these particulars became acquainted with him.
In the year 1745, Launcelot Burton was appointed naval officer at Deal. Hogarth had seen him by accident; and on a piece of paper, previously impressed by a plain copper-plate, drew his figure with a pen, in imitation of a coarse etching. He was represented on a lean Canterbury hack, with a bottle sticking out of his pocket; and underneath was an inscription, intimating that he was going down to take possession of his place. This was inclosed to him in a letter; and some of his friends, who were in the secret, protested the drawing to be a print which they had seen exposed to sale at the shops in London; a circumstance that put him in a violent passion, during which he wrote an abusive letter to Hogarth, whose name was subscribed to the work. But, after poor Burton's tormentors had kept him in suspence throughout an uneasy three weeks, they proved to him that it was no engraving, but a sketch with a pen and ink. He then became so perfectly reconciled to his resemblance, that he shewed it with exultation to Admiral Vernon, and all the rest of his friends.
In 1753, Hogarth returning with Dr. Morell from a visit to Mr. Rich at Cowley, stopped his chariot, and got out, being struck by a large drawing (with a coal) on the wall of an alehouse. He immediately made a sketch of it with triumph; it was a St. George and the Dragon, all in strait lines.
Hogarth made one essay in sculpture. He wanted a sign to distinguish his house in Leicester-fields; and thinking none more proper than the Golden Head, he, out of a mass of cork made up of several thicknesses compacted together, carved a bust of Vandyck, which he gilt and placed over his door. It is long since decayed, and was succeeded by a head in plaster, which has also perished; and is supplied by a head of Sir Isaac Newton. Hogarth modelled another resemblance of Vandyck in clay; which is likewise destroyed.
It is very properly observed by Mr. Walpole, that "If ever an author wanted a commentary, that none of his beauties might be lost, it is Hogarth; not from being obscure (for he never was that but in two or three of his first prints, where transient national follies, as Lotteries, Free-masonry, and the South Sea, were his topics) but for the use of foreigners, and from a multiplicity of little incidents, not essential to, but always heightening the principal action. Such is the spider's web extended over the poor's box in a parish church; the blunders in architecture in the nobleman's seat, seen through the window, in the first print of Marriage à la Mode; and a thousand in the Strollers dressing in a barn, which, for wit and imagination, without any other aid, is perhaps the best of all his works; as, for useful and deep satire, that on the Methodists is the most sublime. Rouquet, the enameller, published a French explanation, though a superficial one, of many of his prints, which, it was said, he had drawn up for the use of Marshal Belleisle, then a prisoner in England."
However great the deficiencies in this work may be, it was certainly suggested by Hogarth, and drawn up at his immediate request. I receive this information from undoubted authority. Some of the circumstances explanatory of the plates, he communicated; the rest he left to be supplied by Rouquet his near neighbour, who lived in the house at which Gardelle the enameller afterwards lodged, and murdered his landlady Mrs. King. Rouquet, who (as I learn from Mr. Walpole) was a Swiss of French extraction, had formerly published a small tract on the state of the Arts in England, and another, intituled "L'Art de peinture en fromage ou en ramequin, 1755;" 12mo. (V. "La France litteraire, ou Dictionaire des Auteurs François vivans, par M. Formey, 1757.") On the present occasion he was liberally paid by Hogarth, for having cloathed his sentiments and illustrations in a foreign dress. This pamphlet was designed, and continues to be employed, as a constant companion to all such sets of his prints as go abroad. Only the letter descriptive of the March to Finchley was particularly meant for the instruction of Marshal Belleisle.[79]
It was added after the three former epistles had been printed off, and before the plate was published. The entire performance, however, in my opinion, exhibits very strong marks of the vivacious compiler's taste, country, and prejudices. Indeed many passages must have been inserted without the privity of his employer, who had no skill in the French language. That our clergy always affect to ride on white horses, and other remarks of a similar turn, &c. &c. could never have fallen from the pen of Hogarth, or any other Englishman.
This epistle bears also internal evidence to the suggestions Rouquet received from Hogarth. Are not the self-congratulations and prejudices of our artist sufficiently visible in the following passage?
"Ce Tableau dis-je a le defaut d'etre encore tout brillant de cette ignoble fraîcheur qu'on decouvre dans la nature, et qu'on ne voit jamais dans les cabinets bien célèbres. Le tems ne l'a point encore obscurci de cette decte fumée, de ce usage sacré, qui le cachera quelque jour aux yeux profanes du vulgaire, pour ne laisser voir ses beautés qu'aux initiés."
The title of this performance, is, "Lettres de Monsieur * * à un de ses Amis à Paris, pour lui expliquer les Estampes de Monsieur Hogarth.—Imprimé à Londres: et se vend chez R. Dodsley, dans Pall Mall; et chez M. Cooper, dans Paternoster Row, 1746." (Le prix est de douze sols.)
I should here observe, that this pamphlet affords only descriptions of the Harlot's and Rake's Progress, Marriage à la Mode, and the March to Finchley. Nine other plates, viz. the Modern Midnight Conversation, the Distressed Poet, the Enraged Musician, the Fair, Strolling Actresses dressing in a Barn, and the Four Times of the Day, are enumerated without particular explanation.
I am authorized to add, that Hogarth, not long before his death, had determined, in compliance with the repeated solicitations of his customers, to have this work enlarged and rendered into English, with the addition of ample comments on all his performances undescribed by Rouquet.
"Hogarth Moralised"[80] will however in some small degree (a very small one) contribute to preserve the memory of those temporary circumstances which Mr. Walpole is so justly apprehensive will be lost to posterity. Such an undertaking indeed, requires a more intimate acquaintance with fleeting customs, and past occurrences, than the compiler of this work can pretend to. Yet enough has been done by him to awaken a spirit of enquiry, and point out the means by which it may be farther gratified.
The works of Hogarth, as his elegant biographer has well observed, are his history;[81] and the curious are highly indebted to Mr. Walpole for a catalogue of prints, drawn up from his own valuable collection, in 1771. But as neither that catalogue, nor his appendix to it in 1780, have given the whole of Mr. Hogarth's labours, I hope that I shall not be blamed if, by including Mr. Walpole's catalogue, I have endeavoured from later discoveries of our artist's prints in other collections, to arrange them in chronological order. It may not be unamusing to trace the rise and progress of a Genius so strikingly original.
Hogarth gave first impressions of all his plates to his late friends the Rev. Mr. Townley and Dr. Isaac Schomberg.[82] Both sets were sold since the death of these gentlemen. That which was Dr. Schomberg's became the property of the late Sir John Chapman, baronet; and passed after his death into the hands of his brother, the late Sir William Chapman. I should add, indeed, that our artist never sorted his impressions, selecting the slight from the strong ones: so that they who wish to possess any equal series of his prints, must pick it out of different sets.
A portrait of Samuel Martin, esq. the antagonist of Mr. Wilkes, which Mr. Hogarth had painted for his own use, he gave as a legacy to Mr. Martin.
Mrs. Baynes, of Kneeton-Hall, near Richmond, Yorkshire, has an original picture by Hogarth, four feet two inches long, by two feet four inches wide. It is a landscape, with several figures; a man driving sheep; a boat upon a piece of water, and a distant view of a town. This picture was bought in London, by her father, many years ago.
At Lord Essex's sale, in January 1777, Mr. Garrick bought a picture by Hogarth, being the examination of the recruits before the justices Shallow and Silence. For this, it was said in the news-papers, he gave 350 guineas. I have since been told, that remove the figure 3, and the true price paid by the purchaser remains. In private he allowed that he never gave the former of these sums, though in the public prints he did not think such a confession necessary. It was in reality an indifferent performance, as those of Hogarth commonly were, when he strove to paint up to the ideas of others.
Mr. Browning, of King's College, Cambridge, has a small picture by Hogarth, representing Clare-Market. It seems to have been one of our artist's early performances.
There are three large pictures by Hogarth, over the altar in the church of St. Mary Redcliff at Bristol; the sealing of the sacred Sepulchre, the Ascension, and the three Maries, &c. A sum of money was left to defray the expence of these ornaments, and it found its way into Hogarth's pocket. The original sketches in oil for these performances, are now at Mrs. Hogarth's house in Leicester-fields.
In Lord Grosvenor's house, at Milbank, Westminster, is a small painting by our artist on the following subject. A boy's paper-kite in falling become entangled with furze: the boy arrives just as a crow is tearing it in pieces. The expression in his face is worthy of Hogarth.
Hogarth was also supposed to have had some hand in the exhibition of signs,[83] projected above 20 years ago by Bonnel Thornton, of festive memory; but I am informed, that he contributed no otherwise towards this display, than by a few touches of chalk. Among the heads of distinguished personages, finding those of the King of Prussia and the Empress of Hungary, he changed the cast of their eyes so as to make them leer significantly at each other. This is related on the authority of Mr. Colman.
Mr. Richardson ("now," as Dr. Johnson says, "better known by his books than his pictures," though his colouring is allowed to be masterly) having accounted for some classical quotations in his notes on Milton, unlearned as he was, by his son's assisting him as a telescope does the eye in astronomy; Hogarth shewed him with a telescope looking through his son (in no very decent attitude) at a Virgil aloft on a shelf; but afterwards destroyed the plate, and recalled the prints. Qu. if any remain, and what date?—I much question whether this subject was ever thrown upon copper, or meant for the public eye.
In the "Nouveau Dictionnaire Historique, Caen, 1783," our artist is thus characterized: "Ses compositions sont mal dessinées & foiblement colories; mais ce sont des tableaux parlans de diverses scènes comiques ou morales de la vie. Il avoit négligé le méchanisme de son art, c'est à-dire, les traits du pinceau, le rapport des parties entr'elles, l'effèt du clare obscure, l'harmonie du coloris, &c. pour s'élever jusqu'à la perfection de ce méchanisme, c'est à-dire, au poétique & au moral de la peinture. 'Je reconnois,' disoit-il, 'tout le monde pour juge compétent de mes tableaux, excepté les connoisseurs de profession.' Un seul exemple prouvera combien réussit. Il avoit fait graver une estampe, dans laquelle il avoit exprimé avec énergie les différens tourmens qu'on fait éprouver aux animaux. Un charrier fouettoit un jour ses chevaux avec beaucoup de dureté; un bon homme, touché de pitié, lui dit, 'Miserable! tu n'as donc pas vu l'estampe d'Hogarth?' Il n'étoit pas seulement peintre, il fut écrivain. Il publia en 1750 un traité en Anglois, intitulé, 'Analyse de la Beauté.' L'auteur pretend que les formes arrondies constituent la beauté du corps: principe vrai à certains égards, faux a plusieurs autres. Voy. sur cet artiste, la sécond volume du 'Mercure de France,' Janvier, 1770."
Mr. Peter Dupont, a merchant, had the drawing of Paul before Felix, which he purchased for 20 guineas, and bound up with a set of Hogarth's prints. The whole set was afterwards sold by auction, at Baker's, for 17 l. to Mr. Ballard of Little Britain, in whose catalogue it stood some time marked at 25 l. and was parted with for less than that sum.
The following original drawings, by Hogarth, are now in the collection of the Rev. Dr. Lort:
A coloured sketch of a Family Picture, with ten whole-length figures, most insipidly employed. A Head of a Sleeping Child, in colours, as large as life, &c. &c. &c.
When Hogarth designed the print intituled Morning, his idea of an Old Maid appears to have been adopted from one of that forlorn sisterhood, when emaciated by corroding appetites, or, to borrow Dryden's more forcible language, by "agony of unaccomplished love." But there is in being, and perhaps in Leicester-fields, a second portrait by our artist, exhibiting the influence of the same misfortune on a more fleshy carcase. The ancient virgin[84] now treated of, is corpulent even to shapelessness. Her neck resembles a collar of brawn; and had her arms been admitted on the canvas, they must have rivalled in magnitude the thighs of the Farnesian god. Her bosom, luckily for the spectator, is covered; as a display of it would have served only to provoke abhorrence. But what words can paint the excess of malice and vulgarity predominant in her visage!—an inflated hide that seems bursting with venom—a brow wrinkled by a Sardonic grin that threatens all the vengeance an affronted Fury would rejoice to execute. Such ideas also of warmth does this mountain of quaggy flesh communicate, that, without hyperbole, one might swear she would parch the earth she trod on, thaw a frozen post-boy, or over-heat a glasshouse. "How dreadful," said a bystander, "would be this creature's hatred!" "How much more formidable," replied his companion, "would be her love!"—Such, however, was the skill of Hogarth, that he could impress similar indications of stale virginity on features directly contrasted, and force us to acknowledge one identical character in the brim-full and exhausted representative of involuntary female celibacy.
Mr. S. Ireland has likewise a sketch in chalk, on blue paper, of Falstaff and his companions; two sketches intended for the "Happy Marriage;" a sketch for a picture to shew the pernicious effects of masquerading; sketch of King George II. and the royal family; sketch of his present Majesty, taken hastily on seeing the new coinage of 1764; portrait of Hogarth by himself, with a palette; of Justice Welsh;[85] of Sir James Thornhill; of Sir Edward Walpole;[86] of his friend George Lambert, the landscape-painter; of a boy; of a girl's head, in the character of Diana, finished according to Hogarth's idea of beauty; of a black girl; and of Governor Rogers and his family, a conversation-piece; eleven Sketches from Nature, designed for Mr. Lambert; four drawings of conversations at Button's Coffee-house; Cymon and Iphigenia; two black chalk drawings (landscapes) given to Mr. Kirby in 1762; three heads, slightly drawn with a pen by Hogarth, to exemplify his distinction between Character and Caricature, done at the desire of Mr. Townley, whose son gave them to Dr. Schomberg; a landscape in oil: with several other sketches in oil.
The late Mr. Forrest, of York Buildings, was in possession of a sketch in oil of our Saviour (designed as a pattern for painted glass), together with the original portrait of Tibson the Laceman,[87] and several drawings descriptive of the incidents that happened during a five days tour by land and water. The parties were Messieurs Hogarth, Thornhill (son of the late Sir James), Scott (the ingenious landscape-painter of that name), Tothall,[88] and Forrest. They set out at midnight, at a moment's warning, from the Bedford Arms Tavern, with each a shirt in his pocket. They had particular departments to attend to; Hogarth and Scott made the drawings; Thornhill the map; Tothall faithfully discharged the joint office of treasurer and caterer; and Forrest wrote the journal. They were out five days only; and on the second night after their return, the book was produced, bound, gilt, and lettered, and read at the same tavern to the members of the club then present. Mr. Forrest had also drawings of two of the members (Gabriel Hunt and Ben Read), remarkable fat men, in ludicrous situations. Etchings from all these having been made in 1782, accompanied by the original journal in letter-press, an account of them will appear in the Catalogue under that year.
A transcript of the journal was left in the hands of Mr. Gostling,[89] who wrote an imitation of it in Hudibrastic verse; twenty copies only of which having been printed in 1781, as a literary curiosity,[90] I was requested by some of my friends to reprint it at the end of the second edition of this work. It had originally been kept back, in compliment to the writer of the prose journey; but, as that in the mean time had been given to the public by authority, to preserve the Tour in a more agreeable dress cannot, it is presumed, be deemed an impropriety. See the [Appendix, N° III].
[1] History of Westmoreland, Vol. I. p. 479.
[2] "I must leave you to the annals of Fame," says Mr. Walker, the ingenious Lecturer on Natural Philosophy, who favoured me with these particulars, "for the rest of the anecdotes of this great Genius; and shall endeavour to shew you, that his family possessed similar talents, but they were destined, like the wild rose,
"'To waste their sweetness in the desart air.'
"Happy should I be to rescue from oblivion the name of Ald Hogart, whose songs and quibbles have so often delighted my childhood! These simple strains of this mountain Theocritus were fabricated while he held the plough, or was leading his fewel from the hills. He was as critical an observer of nature as his nephew, for the narrow field he had to view her in: not an incident or an absurdity in the neighbourhood escaped him. If any one was hardy enough to break through any decorum of old and established repute; if any one attempted to over-reach his neighbour, or cast a leering eye at his wife; he was sure to hear himself sung over the whole parish, nay, to the very boundaries of the Westmoreland dialect: so that his songs were said to have a greater effect on the manners of his neighbourhood, than even the sermons of the parson himself.
"But his poetical talents were not confined to the incidents of his village. I myself have had the honour to bear a part in one of his plays (I say one, for there are several of them extant in MS. in the mountains of Westmoreland at this hour). This play was called 'The Destruction of Troy.' It was written in metre, much in the manner of Lopez de Vega, or the ancient French drama; the unities were not too strictly observed, for the siege of ten years was all represented; every hero was in the piece; so that the Dramatis Personæ consisted of every lad of genius in the whole parish. The wooden horse—Hector dragged by the heels—the fury of Diomed—the flight of Æneas—and the burning of the city, were all represented. I remember not what Fairies had to do in all this; but as I happened to be about three feet high at the time of this still-talked-of exhibition, I personated one of these tiny beings. The stage was a fabrication of boards placed about six feet high, on strong posts; the green-room was partitioned off with the same materials; it's cieling was the azure canopy of heaven; and the boxes, pit, and galleries, were laid into one by the Great Author of Nature, for they were the green slope of a fine hill. Despise not, reader, this humble state of the provincial drama; let me tell you, there were more spectators, for three days together, than your three theatres in London would hold; and let me add, still more to your confusion, that you never saw an audience half so well pleased.
"The exhibition was begun with a grand procession, from the village to a great stone (dropt by the Devil about a quarter of a mile off, when he tried in vain to erect a bridge across Windermere; so the people, unlike the rest of the world, have remained a very good sort of people ever since). I say the procession was begun by the minstrels of five parishes, and were followed by a yeoman on bull-back—you stare!—stop then till I inform you that this adept had so far civilised his bull, that he would suffer the yeoman to mount his back, and even to play upon his fiddle there. The managers besought him to join the procession; but the bull, not being accustomed to much company, and particularly so much applause; whether he was intoxicated with praise; thought himself affronted, and made game of; or whether a favourite cow came across his imagination; certain it was, that he broke out of the procession; erected his tail, and, like another Europa, carried off the affrighted yeoman and his fiddle, over hedge and ditch, till he arrived at his own field. This accident rather inflamed than depressed the good humour arising from the procession; and the clown, or jack-pudding of the piece, availed himself so well of the incident, that the lungs and ribs of the spectators were in manifest danger. This character was the most important personage in the whole play: for his office was to turn the most serious parts of the drama into burlesque and ridicule: he was a compound of Harlequin and the Merry Andrew, or rather the Arch-fool of our ancient kings. His dress was a white jacket, covered with bulls, bears, birds, fish, &c. cut in various coloured cloth. His trowsers were decorated in like manner, and hung round with small bells; and his cap was that of Folly, decorated with bells, and an otter's brush impending. The lath sword must be of great antiquity in this island, for it has been the appendage of a jack-pudding in the mountains of Westmoreland time out of mind.
"The play was opened by this character with a song, which answered the double purpose of a play-bill and a a prologue, for his ditty gave the audience a foretaste of the rueful incidents they were about to behold; and it called out the actors, one by one, to make the spectators acquainted with their names and characters, walking round and round till the whole Dramatis Personæ made one great circle on the stage. The audience being thus become acquainted with the actors, the play opened with Paris running away with Helen, and Menelaus scampering after them; then followed the death of Patroclus, the rage of Achilles, the persuasions of Ulysses,&c. &c. and the whole interlarded with apt songs, both serious and comic, all the production of Ald Hogart. The bard, however, at this time had been dead some years, and I believe this Fete was a Jubilee to his memory; but let it not detract from the invention of Mr. Garrick, to say that his at Stratford was but a copy of one forty years ago on the banks of Windermere. Was it any improvement, think you, to introduce several bulls into the procession instead of one? But I love not comparisons, and so conclude. Yours, &c. Adam Walker."
However Ald Hogart might have succeeded in the dramatic line, and before a rustic audience, his poems of a different form are every way contemptible. Want of grammar, metre, sense, and decency, are their invariable characteristics. This opinion is founded on a thorough examination of a whole bundle of them, transmitted by a friend since the first publication of this work.
[3] Vir Clarissime, Excusso Malpighio intra sex vel plurimum septem septimanas te tamen per totum inconsulto, culpa est in Bibliopolam conferenda, qui adeo festinanter urgebat opus ut moras nectere nequivimus. Utut sit, tamen mihimet adulor me satis recte authoris & verba & mentem cepisse (diligenter enim noctes atque dies opere incubui ne tibi vel ulli regiorum tuorum sodalium molestus forem). Rudiora tamen quorum specimen infra exhibere placuit, & Italico-Latina, juxta præceptum tuum, similia feci aliter si fecissem, totus fere liber mutationem sul iisset. Authorem tam pueriliter & barbare loquentem nunquam antehac evolvi quod meminerim; faciat ergo lector, ut solent nautæ, qui dum fœtet aqua, nares pilissando comprimunt, spretis enim verbis sensum, si quis est, attendat. Multa (infinita pœnè dixerim) authoris errata emendavi, quædam tamen non animadversa vereor; Augeæ enim stabulum non nisi Hercules repurgavit. Partem Italico sermone conscriptam præetermitto, istam enim provinciam adornare suscepit Doctor Pragestee Italus; quam bene rem gessit, ipse viderit. Menda Typographica, spero, aut nulla, aut levia apparebunt. Tuam tamen & Regiæ Societatis censuram exoptat facilem, Tibi omni studio addictissimus,
"RICHARDUS HOGARTH, ...Preli Curator."
[4] He published "Grammar Disputations; or, an Examination of the eight parts of speech by way of question and answer, English and Latin, whereby children in a very little time will learn, not only the knowledge of grammar, but likewise to speak and write Latin; as I have found by good experience. At the end is added a short Chronological index of men and things of the greatest note, alphabetically digested, chiefly relating to the Sacred and Roman History, from the beginning of the World to the Year of Christ 1640, and downwards. Written for the use of schools of Great-Britain, by Richard Hogarth Schoolmaster, 1712." This little book has also a Latin title-page to the same purpose, "Disputationes Grammaticales, &c." and is dedicated, "Scholarchis, Ludimagistris, et Hypodidascalis Magnæ Britanniæ."
[5] Hogart was the family name, probably a corruption of Hogherd, for the latter is more like the local pronunciation than the first. This name disgusted Mrs. Hogart; and before the birth of her son, she prevailed upon her husband to liquify it into Hogarth. This circumstance was told to me by Mr. Walker, who is a native of Westmoreland. By Dr. Morell, I was informed that his real name was Hoggard, or Hogard, which, himself altered, by changing d into ð, the Saxon th.
[6] On what authority this is said, I am yet to learn. The registers of St. Bartholomew the Great, and of St. Bartholomew the Less, have both been searched for the same information, with fruitless solicitude. The school of Hogarth's father, in 1712, was in the parish of St. Martin's Ludgate. In the register of that parish, therefore, the births of his children, and his own death, may probably be found.[A]
[A] The register of St. Martin's Ludgate, has also been searched to no purpose.
[7] This circumstance has, since it was first written, been verified by a gentleman who has often heard a similar account from one of the last Head Assay-Masters at Goldsmiths-Hall, who was apprentice to a silversmith in the same street with Hogarth, and intimate with him during the greatest part of his life.
[8] Universal Museum, 1764. p. 549. The same kind of revenge, however, was taken by Verrio, who, on the cieling of St. George's Hall at Windsor, borrowed the face of Mrs. Marriot, the housekeeper, for one of the Furies.
[9] This picture is noticed in the article Thornhill, in the Biographia Britannica, where, instead of Wanstead, it is called the Wandsworth assembly. There seems to be a reference to it in "A Poetical Epistle to Mr. Hogarth, an eminent History and Conversation Painter," written June 1730, and published by the author (Mr. Mitchell), with two other epistles, in 1731, 4to.
"Large families obey your hand;
Assemblies rise at your command."
Mr. Hogarth designed that year the frontispiece to Mr. Mitchell's Opera, The Highland Clans.
[10] Of all these a more particular account will be given in the Catalogue annexed.
[11] Brother to Henry Overton, the well-known publisher of ordinary prints, who lived over against St. Sepulchre's Church, and sold many of Hogarth's early pieces coarsely copied, as has since been done by Dicey in Bow Church-yard.
[12] This conceit is borrowed from Vanloo's picture of Colley Cibber, whose daughter has the same employment.
[13] It appears that Mr. G. was dissatisfied with his likeness, or that some dispute arose between him and the painter, who then struck his pencil across the face, and damaged it. The picture was unpaid for at the time of his death. His widow then sent it home to Mr Garrick, without any demand.
[14] Afterwards rector of Crawley in Hampshire; author of "Ben Mordecai's Letters," "Confusion worse confounded," and many other celebrated works.
[15] He died of the small-pox, Aug. 12, 1729, and is said, in the "Political State," to have possessed 5000 l. a year. He married a sister of lord Bateman, by whom he left a son and two daughters.
[16] I have heard that he continually took sketches from nature as he met with them, and put them into his works; and it is natural to suppose he did so.
[17] See the [Catalogue] at the end of these Anecdotes. A very considerable number of personalities are there pointed out under the account of each plate in which they are found.
[18] The late Mr Cole, of Milton, in his copy of these Memoirs, had written against the name of Bambridge, "Father to the late attorney of that name, a worthy son of such a father. He lived at Cambridge." And in a copy of the first edition on occasion of a note (afterwards withdrawn) which mentioned "Mr. Baker's having quarrelled with Hearne;" Mr. Cole wrote, "Mr. Baker quarrelled with no man: he might coolly debate with Mr. Hearne on a disputable point. It is, therefore, a misrepresentation of Mr. Baker's private character, agreeable to the petulance of this age."
[19] The wardenship of The Fleet, a patent office, was purchased of the earl of Clarendon, for 5000 l. by John Huggins, esq. who was in high favour with Sunderland and Craggs, and consequently obnoxious to their successors. Huggins's term in the patent was for his own life and his son's. But, in August 1728, being far advanced in years, and his son not caring to take upon him so troublesome an office, he sold their term in the patent for the same sum it had cost him, to Thomas Bambridge and Dougal Cuthbert. Huggins lived to the age of 90.
[20] Mr. Rayner, in his reading on Stat. 2 Geo. II. chap. 32. whereby Bambridge was incapacitated to enjoy the office of warden of The Fleet, has given the reader a very circumstantial account, with remarks, on the notorious breaches of trust, &c. committed by Bambridge and other keepers of The Fleet-Prison. For this publication, see Worral's Bibliotheca Legum by Brooke, 1777, p. 16.
"A report from the Committee appointed to enquire into the State of the Gaols of this Kingdom, relating to the Marshalsea prison; with the Resolutions of the House of Commons thereupon," was published in 4to. 1729; and reprinted in 8vo, at Dublin the same year. It appears by a MS. note of Oldys, cited in British Topography, vol. I. p. 636, that Bambridge cut his throat 20 years after.
[21] William Huggins, esq. of Headly Park, Hants, well-known by his translation of the Orlando Furioso of Ariosto. Being intended for holy orders, he was sent to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he took the degree of M. A. April 30, 1761; but, on the death of his elder brother in 1756, declined all thoughts of entering into the church. He died July 2, 1761; and left in MS. a tragedy, a farce, and a translation of Dante, of which a specimen was published in the British Magazine, 1760. Some flattering verses were addressed to him in 1757, on his version of Ariosto; which are preserved in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. XXVII. p. 180; but are not worth copying. The last Mr. Huggins left an estate of 2000 l. a year to his two sons-in-law Thomas Gatehouse, Esq; and Dr. Musgrave of Chinnor.
[22] Sir Francis Page's, "Character," by Savage, thus gibbets him to public detestation:
"Fair Truth, in courts where Justice should preside,
Alike the Judge and Advocate would guide;
And these would vie each dubious point to clear,
To stop the widow's and the orphan's tear;
Were all, like Yorke,[A] of delicate address,
Strength to discern, and sweetness to express,
Learn'd, just, polite, born every heart to gain,
Like Comyns[B] mild; like Fortescue[C] humane,
All-eloquent of truth, divinely known,
So deep, so clear, all Science is his own.
"Of heart impure, and impotent of head,
In history, rhetoric, ethics, law, unread;
How far unlike such worthies, once a drudge,
From floundering in low cases, rose a Judge.
Form'd to make pleaders laugh, his nonsense thunders,
And on low juries breathes contagious blunders.
His brothers blush, because no blush he knows,
Nor e'er 'one uncorrupted finger shows.'[D]
See, drunk with power, the circuit-lord exprest!
Full, in his eye, his betters stand confest;
Whose wealth, birth, virtue, from a tongue so loose,
'Scape not provincial, vile, buffoon abuse.
Still to what circuit is assigned his name,
There, swift before him, flies the warner—Fame.
Contest stops short, Consent yields every cause
To Cost; Delay endures them, and withdraws.
But how 'scape prisoners? To their trial chain'd,
All, all shall stand condemn'd, who stand arraign'd,
Dire guilt, which else would detestation cause,
Prejudg'd with insult, wondrous pity draws.
But 'scapes e'en Innocence his harsh harangue?
Alas!—e'en Innocence itself must hang;
Must hang to please him, when of spleen possest,
Must hang to bring forth an abortive jest.
"Why liv'd he not ere Star-chambers had fail'd,
When fine, tax, censure, all but law prevail'd;
Or law, subservient to some murderous will,
Became a precedent to murder still?
Yet e'en when portraits did for traitors bleed,
Was e'er the jobb to such a slave decreed,
Whose savage mind wants sophist-art to draw,
O'er murder'd virtue, specious veils of law?
"Why, Student, when the bench your youth admits,
Where, though the worst, with the best rank'd he sits;
Where sound opinions you attentive write,
As once a Raymond, now a Lee to cite,
Why pause you scornful when he dins the court?
Note well his cruel quirks, and well report.
Let his own words against himself point clear,
Satire more sharp than verse when most severe."
Nor was Savage less severe in his prose. On the trial of this unfortunate poet, for the murder of James Sinclair in 1727, Judge Page, who was then on the bench, treated him with his usual insolence and severity; and, when he had summed up the evidence, endeavoured to exasperate the jury, as Mr. Savage used to relate it, with this eloquent harangue: "Gentlemen of the Jury, you are to consider that Mr. Savage is a very great man, a much greater man than you or I, gentlemen of the jury; that he wears very fine cloaths, much finer cloaths than you or I, gentlemen of the jury; that he has abundance of money in his pocket, much more money than you or I, gentlemen of the jury: but, gentlemen of the jury, is it not a very hard case, gentlemen of the jury, that Mr. Savage should therefore kill you or me, gentlemen of the jury?"
Pope also, Horace, B. II. Sat. r, has the following line:
"Hard words or hanging, if your judge be Page."
And Fielding, in Tom Jones, makes Partridge say, with great naiveté, after premising that judge Page was a very brave man, and a man of great wit, "It is indeed charming sport to hear trials on life and death!"
[A] Sir Philip Yorke, chief justice of the King's Bench, afterwards lord-chancellor and earl Hardwicke.
[B] Sir John Comyns, chief baron of the Exchequer.
[C] Hon. William Fortescue, then one of the justices of the court of Common Pleas, afterwards master of the Rolls.
[D] "When Page one uncorrupted finger shows." D. of Wharton.
[23] The truth and propriety of these strictures having been disputed by an ingenious correspondent in the Public Advertiser, his letter, with remarks on it, is subjoined by way of appendix to the present work. In this place performances of such a length would have interrupted the narrative respecting Hogarth and his productions. See [Appendix I].
[24] In co'i Banco.
William Hogarth, Plaintiff. Joshua Morris, Defendant.
Middlesex.
The Plaintiff declares, that on the 20th of December, 1727, at Westminster aforesaid, Defendant was indebted to him 30 l. for painter's work, and for divers materials laid out for the said work; which Defendant faithfully promised to pay when demanded.
Plaintiff also declares, that Defendant promised to pay for the said work and other materials, as much as the same was worth; and Plaintiff in fact says the same was worth other 30 l.
Plaintiff also declares for another sum of 30 l for money laid out and expended for Defendant's use, which he promised to pay.
The said Defendant not performing his several promises, the Plaintiff hath brought this action to his damage 30 l. for which this action is brought.
To which the Defendant hath pleaded non assumpsit and thereupon issue is joined.
CASE.
The Defendant is an upholsterer and tapestry-worker, and was recommended to Plaintiff as a person skilful in painting patterns for that purpose; the Plaintiff accordingly came to Defendant, who informing him that he had occasion for a tapestry design of the Element of Earth, to be painted on canvas, Plaintiff told Defendant he was well skilled in painting that way, and promised to perform it in a workmanlike manner; which if he did, Defendant undertook to pay him for it twenty guineas.
Defendant, soon after, hearing that Plaintiff was an engraver, and no painter, was very uneasy about the work, and ordered his servant to go and acquaint Plaintiff what he had heard; and Plaintiff then told the said servant, 'that it was a bold undertaking, for that he never did any thing of that kind before; and that, if his master did not like it, he should not pay for it.'
That several times sending after Plaintiff to bring the same to Defendant's house, he did not think fit so to do; but carried the same to a private place where Defendant keeps some people at work, and there left it. As soon as Defendant was informed of it, he sent for it home, and consulted with his workmen whether the design was so painted as they could work tapestry by it, and they were all unanimous that it was not finished in a workmanlike manner, and that it was impossible for them to work tapestry by it.
Upon this, Defendant sent the painting back to Plaintiff by his servant, who acquainted him, 'that the same did not answer the Defendant's purpose, and that it was of no use to him; but if he would finish it in a proper manner, Defendant would take it, and pay for it.'
Defendant employs some of the finest hands in Europe in working tapestry, who are most of them foreigners, and have worked abroad as well as here, and are perfect judges of performances of this kind.
The Plaintiff undertook to finish said piece in a month, but it was near three months before he sent to the Defendant to view it; who, when he saw it, told him that he could not make any use of it, and was so disappointed for want of it, that he was forced to put his workmen upon working other tapestry that was not bespoke, to the value of 200 l. which now lies by him, and another painter is now painting another proper pattern for the said piece of tapestry.
To prove the case as above set forth, call Mr. William Bradshaw.
To prove the painting not to be performed in a workmanlike manner, and that it was impossible to make tapestry by it, and that it was of no use to Plaintiff, call Mr. Bernard Dorrider, Mr. Phillips, Mr. De Friend, Mr. Danten, and Mr. Pajon.
By the counsel's memoranda on this brief it appears, that the witnesses examined for the Plaintiff were Thomas King, Vanderbank, Le Gard, Thornhill, and Cullumpton.
[25] James Thornhill, esq. serjeant-painter and history-painter to King George I. In June 1715, he agreed to paint the cupola of St. Paul's church for 4000 l. and was knighted in April 1720. In a flattering account given of him immediately after his death, which happened May 13, 1734, in his 57th year, he is said to have been "the greatest history-painter this kingdom ever produced, witness his elaborate works in Greenwich-Hospital, the cupola of St. Paul's, the altar-pieces of All-Souls College in Oxford, and in the church of Weymouth, where he was born; a cieling in the palace of Hampton-Court, by order of the late Earl of Halifax: his other works shine in divers noblemens' and gentlemens' houses. His later years were employed in copying the rich cartoons of Raphael in the gallery of Hampton-Court, which, though in decay, will be revived by his curious pencil, not only in their full proportions, but in many other sizes and shapes, he in a course of years had drawn them. He was chosen representative in the two last parliaments for Weymouth, and having, by his own industry, acquired a considerable estate, re-purchased the seat of his ancestors, which he re-edified and embellished. He was not only by patents appointed history-painter to their late and present majesties, but serjeant-painter, by which he was to paint all the royal palaces, coaches, barges, and the royal navy. This late patent he surrendered in favour of his only son John Thornhill, Esq. He left no other issue but one daughter, now the wife of Mr Wm. Hogarth, admired for his curious miniature conversation paintings. Sir James has left a most valuable Collection of pictures and other curiosities."
[26] He was called on this occasion, in the Craftsman, "Mr. Hogarth, an ingenious designer and engraver."
[27] "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 shew, but of a temper kind and beneficent, and who had consequently the voice of the publick 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 publickly 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, by which no man was satisfied; and he was at last reduced to shelter his temerity behind dissimulation, and endeavour 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, as 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." Dr. Johnson, in his Life of Pope.
[28] That Sir John Gonson took a very active part against the Ladies of Pleasure, is recorded by more than one of their votaries: In "A View of the Town, 1735," by Mr. T. Gilbert, a fellow of Peter House Cambridge, and an intimate companion of Loveling,[A] I meet with these lines:
"Though laws severe to punish guilt were made,
What honest man is of these laws afraid?
All felons against judges will exclaim,
As harlots startle at a Gonson's name."
The magistrate entering with his myrmidons was designed as the representative of this gentleman, whose vigilance on like occasions is recorded in the following elegant Sapphic Ode, by Mr. Loveling. This gentleman was educated at Winchester-school, became a commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, was ordained deacon, lived gaily, and died young. His style, however, appears to have been formed on a general acquaintance with the language of Roman poetry; nor do any of his effusions betray that poverty of expression so conspicuous in the poems of Nicholas Hardinge, esq. who writes as if Horace was the only classic author he had ever read.
Ad Johannem Gonsonum, Equitem.
Pellicum, Gonsone, animosus hostis,
Per minus castas Druriæ tabernas
Lenis incedens, abeas Diones
Æquus alumnis!
Nuper (ah dictu miserum!) Olivera
Flevit ereptas viduata mœchas,
Quas tuum vidit genibus minores
Ante tribunal.
Dure, cur tantâ in Veneris ministras
Æstuas irâ? posito furore
Huc ades, multà & prece te vocantem
Gratior audi!
Nonne sat mœchas malè feriatas
Urget infestis fera sors procellis?
Adderis quid tu ulterior puellis
Causa doloris?
Incolunt, eheu! thalamos supernos,
Nota quæ sedes fuerat Poetis;
Nec domum argento gravis, ut solebat,
Dextra revertit.
Nympha quæ nuper nituit theatro,
Nunc stat obscuro misera angiportu,
Supplici vellens tunicam rogatque
Voce Lyæum.
Te voco rebus Druriæ mentis;
Voci communi Britonum Juventus
Te vocat, nunc ô! dare te benignum
Incipe votis.
Singulum tunc dona feret lupanar:
Liberum mittet Rosa Lusitanum,
Gallici Haywarda et generosa mittet
Munera Bacchi.
Sive te forsan moveat libido,
Aridis pellex requiescet ulnis,
Callida effœtas renovare lento
Verbere vires.
The same poet, speaking of the exhilarating effects of Gin, which had just been an object of Parliamentary notice, has the following stanza:
Utilis mœchae fuit & Poetæ;
Sprevit hinc Vates Dolopum catervas,
Mœcha Gonsonum tetricâ minantem
Fronte laborem.
Thus, between the poet and the painter, the fame of our harlot-hunting Justice is preserved. But as a slave anciently rode in the same chariot with the conqueror, the memory of a celebrated street-robber and highwayman will descend with that of the magistrate to posterity, James Dalton's wig-box being placed on the tester of the Harlot's bed. I learn from the Grubstreet Journal, that he was executed on the 12th of May, 1730. Sir John Gonson died January 9, 1765. He was remarkable for the charges which he used to deliver to the grand juries, which are said to have been written by Orator Henley. The following puffs, or sneers, concerning them, are found in the first number of the Grubstreet Journal, dated January 8, 1730. "Yesterday began the General Quarter Sessions, &c. when Sir John Gonson, being in the chair, gave a most incomparable, learned, and fine charge to the Grand Jury." Daily Post.
"The Morning Post calls Sir John's charge excellent, learned and loyal. The Evening Post calls it an excellent lecture and useful charge."
Three of these performances had been published in 1728.[B] Sir John's name is also preserved in Mr Pope's works:
"Talkers I've learn'd to bear: Motteux I knew;
Henley himself I've heard, and Budgell too.
The Doctor's wormwood style, the hash of tongues
A pedant makes, the storm of Gonson's lungs."
Fourth Sat. of Dr. Donne versified.
[A] In the collection of Loveling's Poems, 1741, are two by Gilbert. Loveling also addressed a poem, not printed in his works, "Gilberto suo," and in Gilbert's Poems, published 1747, is "A familiar Epistle to my friend Ben Loveling."
[B] One charge by Sir John Gonson is in the Political State, vol. XXXV. p. 50; and two others in vol. XXXVI. pp 314. 333.
[29] It was customary in Hogarth's family to give these fans to the maids.
[30] Among the small articles of furniture in the scenes of Hogarth, a few objects may speedily become unintelligible, because their archetypes, being out of use, and of perishable natures, can no longer be found. Such is the Dare for Larks (a circular board with pieces of looking-glass inserted in it), hung up over the chimney-piece of the Distress'd Poet; and the Jews Cake (a dry tasteless biscuit perforated with many holes, and formerly given away in great quantities at the Feast of Passover), generally used only as a fly-trap, and hung up as such against the wall in the sixth plate of the Harlot's Progress. I have frequently met with both these articles in mean houses.
[31] The fire began at the house of Mrs. Calloway, who kept a brandy-shop. This woman was committed to Newgate, it appearing among other circumstances, that she had threatened "to be even with the landlord for having given her warning, and that she would have a bonfire on the 20th of June, that should warm all her rascally neighbours."
[32] Hogarth attempted to improve it, but without much success. The additional figures are quite episodical. See the [Catalogue].
[33] In Seymour's history of London, vol. II. p. 883. is the following notice of our artist:
"Among the Governors of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, was lately chosen Mr. William Hogarth the celebrated printer, who, we are told, designs to paint the stair-case of the said hospital, and thereby become a benefactor to it, by giving his labour gratis."
[34] He bought up great quantities of the copies of his works; and they still remain in possession of his widow. The "Harlot's" and the "Rake's" Progress, in a smaller size than the original, were published, with his permission, by Thomas Bakewell, a printseller, near the Horn Tavern, Fleet-street.
[35] Of the Harlot's Progress I have seen no less than eight piratical imitations.
[36] Lord Gardenston, one of the lords of session in Scotland, on delivering his opinion in the court of session upon the question of literary property, in the cause of Hinton and Donaldson and others, all booksellers, in July 1773 thus introduced the works of Hogarth: "There is nothing can be more similar than the work of engraving is to literary composition. I will illustrate this proposition by the works of Mr Hogarth, who, in my humble opinion, is the only true original artist which this age has produced in England. There is hardly any character of an excellent author, which is not justly applicable to his works. What composition, what variety, what sentiment, what fancy, invention, and humour, we discover in all his performances! In every one of them an entertaining history, a natural description of characters, and an excellent moral. I can read his works over and over, Horace's characteristic of excellency in writing, decies repetita placebit; and every time I peruse them, I discover new beauties, and feel fresh entertainment: can I say more in commendation of the literary compositions of a Butler or a Swift? There is great authority for this parallel; the legislature has considered the works of authors and engravers in the same light; they have granted the same protection to both; and it is remarkable, that the act of parliament for the protection of those who invent new engravings, or prints, is almost in the same words with the act for the protection and encouragement of literary compositions." This is taken from a 4to pamphlet, published in 1774 by James Boswell, esq. advocate, one of the counsel in the cause.
[37] "That Huggins penned the statute, I was told by Mr. Hogarth himself. The determination of Lord Hardwicke was thus occasioned. Jefferys, the printseller at the corner of St. Martin's Lane, had employed an artist to draw and engrave a print representing the British Herring Fishery; and, having paid him for it, took an assignment of the right to the property in it accruing to the artist by the act of parliament. The proprietors of one of the magazines pirated it in a similar size, and Jefferys brought his bill for an injunction, to which the defendants demurred: and, upon argument of the demurrer, the same was allowed, for the reason abovementioned, and the bill dismissed. Hogarth attended the hearing; and lamented to me that he had employed Huggins to draw the act, adding, that, when he first projected it, he hoped it would be such an encouragement to engraving and printselling, that printsellers would soon become as numerous as bakers' shops; which hope, notwithstanding the above check, does at this time seem to be pretty nearly gratified." For this note my readers are indebted to Sir John Hawkins.
[38] "What Caricatura is in painting," says Fielding, "Burlesque is in writing; and in the same manner the comic writer and painter correlate to each other. And here I shall observe, that as in the former the painter seems to have the advantage; so it is in the latter infinitely on the side of the writer: for the Monstrous is much easier to paint than describe, and the Ridiculous to describe than paint. And though perhaps this latter species doth not in either science so strongly affect and agitate the muscles as the other; yet it will be owned, I believe, that a more rational and useful pleasure arises to us from it."
[39] This idea originally occurred in Colley Cibber's Apology. From thence it was transplanted by Lloyd into his celebrated poem intituled The Actor. Lying thus in the way of Garrick, he took it up for the use of the prologue already quoted. Lastly, Mr. Sheridan, in his beautiful Monody, condescended to borrow it, only because it spared him the labour of unlocking the richer storehouse of his own imagination.
I may however remark that Cibber, when he suggested this mortifying reflection, had more reason on his side than some of his successors who have indulged themselves in the same dolorous strain of complaint. To whatever oblivion the celebrated actors of the last age have been resigned, the pencil of Hogarth, Dance, Zoffani, and Reynolds, had left Mr. Garrick not the slightest reason to be apprehensive that, in his own particular case, the art and the artist would alike be forgotten. Meanwhile, let our heroes of the stage be taught to moderate their anxiety for posthumous renown, by a recollection that their peculiar modes of excellence will, at least, be as well preserved to futurity as those of the lords Chatham and Mansfield, whose talents, perhaps, might support an equal claim to perpetuation.
[40] Dr. M. once observed to J. N. in a letter on this subject, "In the 13th chapter I was somewhat puzzled with the flat and round, or the concave and convex, appearing the reverse; till the sun happily shining in upon the cornice, I had a fair example of what he intended to express. The next chapter, with regard to colouring, did not go on quite so smooth; for, if I satisfied him, I was not satisfied myself with his peculiar principles; nor could I relish his laying the blame on the colourmen, &c."
[41] One exception to this remark occurs in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1754, p. 14; where the reviewer of the Analysis observes, that it is "a book written with that precision and perspicuity which can only result from a perfect knowledge of his subject in all its extent. His rules are illustrated by near two hundred figures, engraved by himself; the knowledge which it contains is universally useful, and as all terms of art are avoided, the language will be universally understood. The player and the dancing-master, whom others consider as patterns of just action and genteel deportment, are not less instructed than the statuary and the painter; nor is there any species of beauty or elegance that is not here investigated and analysed.
"A book, by which the author has discovered such superiority, could scarce fail of creating many enemies; those who admit his Analysis to be just, are disposed to deny that it is new. Though in the year 1745, having drawn a serpentine line on a painter's pallet, with these words under it, 'the line of beauty,' as a frontispiece to his prints, no Egyptian hieroglyphic ever produced greater variety of speculation; both painters and sculptors then came to enquire the meaning of a symbol, which they soon pretended to have been their old acquaintance; though the account they could give of its properties were scarce so satisfactory as that of a day-labourer, who constantly uses the lever, could give of that instrument, as a mechanical power. The work, however, will live when these cavils are forgotten; and except the originals, of which it is pretended to be a copy, are produced, there is no question but that the name of the author will descend to posterity with that honour which competitors only can wish to withhold."
It should be observed, however, that the general decision on Hogarth's performance may be just. Certain we are, that it has not been reversed by the opinion of the First of our Modern Painters.
[42] The Analysis itself however affords sufficient specimens of inaccuracy in spelling. Thus we have (pref. p. xix.) Syclamen instead of Cyclamen; (p. 44.) calcidonian for Chalcedonian; (p. 65.) nuckles for knuckles; (p. 97.) Irish-stitch for Iris-stitch, &c. &c. In the sheets that contain these errors, it is easy to conceive that Hogarth must have been his own corrector of the press.
[43] It is so extraordinary for an illiterate person to ridicule inaccuracy of spelling, that this might probably be a real blunder.
[44] Some account of this work will be given in a [future page].
[45] See a [note] on Marriage-a-la-Mode (under the year 1745); from whence it sufficiently appears, that indelicacies, &c. had been imputed to Hogarth's performances, and that, therefore, when he advertised the six plates of Marriage-a-la-Mode, he thought it necessary to assure the public that no indelicacy, indecency, or personality, would be found in any of these representations.
[46] The exigence of this card having been doubted, it is engraved in our title-page, from the original now in Charles Street, Grosvenor Square, in the possession of Dr. Wright.
[47] This pun reminds us of a similar one from Garth to Rowe, who making repeated use of his snuff-box, the Doctor at last sent it to him with the two Greek letters written on the lid, Φ, ρ, (Phi, Ro). At this the sour Dennis was so provoked, as to declare, that "a man who could make such a vile pun, would not scruple to pick a pocket."
[48] The cat spitting at the dog is a circumstance in the fourth plate of Industry and Idleness, where it is naturally introduced. The dog attends on a porter who is bringing in goods; and the warehouse cat, who considers this animal as an invader, is preparing to defend her person and premises.
[49] When this ample, nay, redundant, apology by Dr. Joseph Warton first made its appearance, Hogarth was highly delighted with as much of it as he understood. But, not knowing the import of the word ΗθΟΣ [Greek: Ethos], he hastened to his friends for information. All, in their turn, sported with his want of skill in the learned languages; first telling him it was Greek for one strange thing, and then for another, so that his mind remained in a state of suspence; as, for aught he knew to the contrary, some such meaning might lie under these crooked letters, as would overset the compliments paid him in the former parts of the paragraph. No short time, therefore, had passed before he could determine whether he ought to retract or continue his charge against his adversary: but it was at last obliterated. For several months afterwards, however, poor Hogarth never praised his provision or his wine, without being asked what proportion of the ΗθΟΣ [Greek: Ethos] he supposed to be in either.
[50] An engraving from this picture may be expected from Mr. Livesay.
[51] A polite gentleman, of great learning, and much esteemed. He had some good pictures, and a very fine library, in the great house at Peckham (formerly inhabited by Lord Trevor), which, together with a considerable estate there, was bequeathed to him by his aunt Mrs. Hill.
[52] See the names of the purchasers, and prices of this collection, in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1758, p. 225.
[53] He painted the heart from an injected one provided for him by Cæsar Hawkins the surgeon; and, on the authority of repeated inspection, I venture to affirm, that the fingers of Sigismunda are unstained with blood, and that neither of her hands is employed in rending ornaments from her head, or any other part of her person. In this instance Mr. Walpole's memory must have failed him, as I am confident that his misrepresentation was undesigned. It is whispered (we know not with how much truth) that Mrs. H. was hurt by this description of the picture, and that she returned no thanks for the volume that contains it, when it was sent to her as a present by its author. It should seem that she still designs to dispose of this ill-fated performance, and thinks that its reputation required no additional blast.
I have reprinted this note, without correction, that I might thereby obtain the fairer opportunity of doing justice to Mr. Walpole, concerning the faithfulness of whose memory I had ventured to express a doubt. Genuine information is not always to be had; nor shall I hesitate a moment to apologize for the fallaciousness of mine. The fingers of Sigismunda were originally stained with blood. This indelicate and offensive circumstance was pointed out by some intelligent friend to Hogarth, who reluctantly effaced it.
A correspondent, however, on reading this work, has furnished an additional reason why the lady already mentioned may be offended by the severity of Mr. Walpole's strictures on Sigismunda. "It has been whispered that Count Guiscard's widow was a copy from the daughter of Sir James Thornhill. If this circumstance be true, the very accomplished Critick of Strawberry Hill will own at least that her wrath and Juno's had the same provocation, 'Judiciam Paridis, spretæque injuria formæ.' Impartiality, however, obliges us to add, that Mrs. Hogarth, though in years, is still a very fine woman; and that Mr. Walpole's idea of what a picture of Sigismunda ought to express, is poetically conceived, and delivered with uncommon elegance and force of language. The sober grief, the dignity of suppressed anguish, the involuntary tear, the settled meditation on the fate she meant to meet, and the amorous warmth turned holy by despair, are words that fill the place of colours, supply all the imperfections of Hogarth's design, and succeed even where a Furino or a Correggio may have failed."
[54] This circumstance was ridiculed in a grotesque print, called A Harlot blubbering over a bullock's heart. By William Hogart.
[55] "Many causes may vitiate a writer's judgement of his own works. On that which has cost him much labour he sets a high value, because he is unwilling to think that he has been diligent in vain; what has been produced without toilsome efforts is considered with delight, as a proof of vigorous faculties and fertile invention; and the last work, whatever it be, has necessarily most of the grace of novelty. Milton, however it happened, had this prejudice, and had it to himself." Dr. Johnson.
[56] Sigismunda, however, though she missed of judicious admirers, had, at least, the good fortune to meet with a flatterer in the late Mr. Robert Lloyd, whose poem intituled Genius, Envy, and Time, addressed to William Hogarth, esq. has the following lines. Time is the speaker.
"While Sigismunda's deep distress
Which looks the soul of wretchedness,
When I, with slow and softening pen,
Have gone o'er all the tints agen,
Shall urge a bold and proper claim,
To level half the ancient fame;
While future ages, yet unknown,
With critic air shall proudly own
Thy Hogarth first of every clime
For humour keen, or strong sublime, &c."
It is but justice, on one hand, to add, that when Lloyd wrote this eulogium, he was not yet enlisted under the banners of fashion; but impartiality, on the other hand, requires we should observe that, having, like Hogarth, seen few pictures by the best masters, he was treating of an art he did not understand.
The authors of the Monthly Review are of opinion, that Mr. Walpole speaks too contemptuously of Sigismunda, and that there is no ground for the insinuation that the person for whom it was painted thought meanly of it. "We have in our possession (say they) a letter to Hogarth from the noble person referred to, in which he expresses himself in the following terms;—I really think the performance so striking and inimitable, that the constantly having it before one's eyes, would be often occasioning melancholy ideas to arise in one's mind, which, a curtain being drawn before it, would not diminish in the least." Surely this epistle, if genuine, was ironical. Or shall we suppose that, afterwards, his lordship only saw the picture through the disgusting medium of the price? Mr. Wilkes's opinion of the piece will be best conveyed in his own words, which are therefore copied in note [65], below.
Dr. Morell, an intimate friend of Mr. Hogarth, who was applied to for information, returned for answer: "His excellencies, as well as his foibles, are so universally known, that I cannot add to the former, and would not, if I could, to the latter. I should think we lived in a very ill-natured world, if the whims and follies in a man's life were to be exposed, and his oddities and mistakes, ubi plura nitent, seriously condemned. But the unhappy affair of Sigismunda requires animadversion. And I will venture to say that even this Sigismunda would not have deserved so many hard things as have been said of it, if Mr. Hogarth had timely and properly observed the caution—Manum de Tabula. But it was so altered, upon the criticism of one Connoisseur or another; and especially when, relying no longer upon strength of genius, he had recourse to the feigned tears and fictitious woe of a female friend; that, when it appeared at the exhibition, I scarce knew it again myself, and from a passable picture it became little better than the wretched figure here represented. In my opinion, I never saw a finer resemblance of flesh and blood, while the canvas was warm, I mean wet; but, like that of real flesh, as soon as it was chilled, the beauty wore off. And this, he said, could not be helped, as no colours, but those of pure nature, as ultramarine, &c. would keep their natural brightness. But it is granted that colouring was not Mr. Hogarth's forte; and the subject we are upon is a disagreeable one."
[57] The first sketch in oil for Sigismunda, and a drawing from the finished picture, are in the possession of Mr. Samuel Ireland.
[58] At the Club of Artists, it was not unusual to reproach Hogarth with want of due attention to the Ancients, whom he always affected to despise. It accidentally happened that Mr. Basire, whilst this plate was in hand, was employed likewise in engraving, for the Society of Antiquaries, two plates of an antique bronze from the collection of Mr. Hollis, so remarkably grotesque, that Mr. Hogarth very readily consented that his plate should be postponed, and declared, "he could not have imagined that the Ancients had possessed so much humour."
[59] Some subscriptions were actually received, and the money returned. The munificient Mr. Hollis, who was one of the subscribers, refused to take back what he had paid; and it was given by Mr. Basire to a public charity.
[60] Two other little pieces are ascribed to him; the distich under the subscription-ticket for his Sigismunda, 1761,
'To Nature and yourself appeal;
Nor learn of others how to feel.'
And the following well-known Epigram:
"Your servant, Sir," says surly Quin,
"Sir, I am yours," replies Macklin,
"Why, you're the very Jew you play,
Your face performs the task well."
"And you are Sir John Brute, they say,
And an accomplished Maskwell."
Says Rich, who heard the sneering elves,
And knew their horrid hearts;
"Acting too much your very selves,
You overdo your parts."[A]
[A] The censure contained in these poor lines is eminently unjust. Macklin is known to have been an anxious and affectionate parent, and Quin a benevolent and liberal friend.
[61] On what account I know not, but he had then forborn painting for more than a year.
[62] See hereafter, note [65].
[63] In the Beauties of all the Magazines, 1773, p. 440, is a droll "Epistle from Jacob Henriques, born anno Domini, &c. to Messieurs Hogarth and Churchill greeting."
[64] For this the Satirist unmercifully apologizes in the conclusion of his poem, which may be seen in the Catalogue, under the year 1763, in a [note] on N° 2.
[65] As much of this paper as relates to our artist is here subjoined:
"The humourous Mr. Hogarth, the supposed author of the Analysis of Beauty, has at last entered the list of politicians, and given us a print of The Times. Words are man's province, says Pope; but they are not Mr. Hogarth's province. He somewhere mentions his being indebted to a friend for a third part of the wording: that is his phrase. We all titter the instant he takes up a pen, but we tremble when we see the pencil in his hand. I will do him the justice to say, that he possesses the rare talent of gibbetting in colours, and that in most of his works he has been a very good moral satirist. His forte is there, and he should have kept it. When he has at any time deviated from his own peculiar walk, he has never failed to make himself perfectly ridiculous. I need only make my appeal to any one of his historical or portrait pieces, which are now considered as almost beneath all criticism. The favourite Sigismunda, the labour of so many years, the boasted effort of his art, was not human. If the figure had a resemblance of any thing ever on earth, or had the least pretence to meaning or expression, it was what he had seen, or perhaps made, in real life, his own wife in an agony of passion; but of what passion no connoisseur could guess. All his friends remember what tiresome discourses were held by him day after day about the transcendent merit of it, and how the great names of Raphael, Vandyke, and others, were made to yield the palm of beauty, grace, expression, &c. to him, for this long laboured, yet still, uninteresting, single figure. The value he himself set on this, as well as on some other of his works, almost exceeds belief; yet from politeness or fear, or some other motives, he has actually been paid the most astonishing sums, as the price, not of his merit, but of his unbounded vanity.
"The darling passion of Mr. Hogarth is to shew the faulty and dark side of every object. He never gives us in perfection the fair face of nature, but admirably well holds out her deformities to ridicule. The reason is plain. All objects are painted on his retina in a grotesque manner, and he has never felt the force of what the French call la belle nature. He never caught a single idea of beauty, grace, or elegance; but, on the other hand, he never missed the least flaw in almost any production of nature or of art. This is his true character. He has succeeded very happily in the way of humour, and has miscarried in every other attempt. This has arisen in some measure from his head, but much more from his heart. After Marriage à la Mode, the public wished for a series of prints of a happy marriage. Hogarth made the attempt, but the rancour and malevolence of his mind made him very soon turn with envy and disgust from objects of so pleasing contemplation, to dwell and feast a bad heart on others of a hateful cast, which he pursued, for he found them congenial, with the most unabating zeal, and unrelenting gall.
"I have observed some time his setting sun. He has long been very dim, and almost shorn of his beams. He seems so conscious of this, that he now glimmers with borrowed light. John Bull's house in flames has been hackney'd in fifty different prints; and if there is any merit in the figure on stilts, and the mob prancing around, it is not to be ascribed to Hogarth, but to Callot. That spirited Italian, whom the English painter has so carefully studied, has given us in the Balli di Sfessania di Jacomo Callot, the very same ideas, but infinitely more ludicrous in the execution. The piece is Smaraolo cornuto. Ratsa di Boio. The Times must be confessed destitute of every kind of original merit. The print at first view appears too much crouded with figures; and is in every part confused, perplexed, and embarrassed. The story is not well told to the eye; nor can we any where discover the faintest ray of that genius, which with a few strokes of the pencil enabled us to penetrate into the deepest recesses of thought, and even caprice, in a rake, a harlot, and a profligate young man of quality.
"I own too that I am grieved to see the genius of Hogarth, which should take in all ages and countries, sunk to a level with the miserable tribe of party-etchers, and now, in his rapid decline, entering into the poor politics of the faction of the day, and descending into low personal abuse, instead of instructing the world, as he could once, by manly moral satire. Whence can proceed so surprizing a change? Is it the frowardness of old age? Or is it that envy and impatience of resplendent merit in every way, at which he has always sickened? How often has he been remarked to droop at the fair and honest applause given even to a friend, though he had particular obligations to the very same gentleman! What wonder then that some of the most respectable characters of the age become the objects of his ridicule? It is sufficient that the rest of mankind applaud; from that moment he begins the attack, and you never can be well with him, till he hears an universal outcry against you, and till all your friends have given you up. There is besides a silly affectation of singularity, joined to a strong desire of leading the rest of the world: when that is once found impracticable, the spleen engendered on such an occasion is discharged at a particular object, or ends in a general misanthropy. The public never had the least share of Hogarth's regard, or even good-will. Gain and vanity have steered his little bark quite through life. He has never been consistent but with respect to those two principles. What a despicable part has he acted with regard to the society of Arts and Sciences! How shuffling has his conduct been to the whole body of Artists! Both these useful societies have experienced the most ungenteel and offensive behaviour from him. There is at this hour scarcely a single man of any degree of merit in his own profession, with whom he does not hold a professed enmity. It is impossible the least degree of friendship could ever subsist in this intercourse of the arts with him; for his insufferable vanity will never allow the least merit in another, and no man of a liberal turn of mind will ever condescend to feed his pride with the gross and fulsome praise he expects, or to burn the incense he claims, and indeed snuffs like a most gracious god. To this he joins no small share of jealousy; in consequence of which, he has all his life endeavoured to suppress rising merit, and has been very expert in every mean underhand endeavour, to extinguish the least spark of genuine fire. Rut all genius was not born, nor will die, with Mr. Hogarth: and notwithstanding all his ungenerous efforts to damp or chill it in another, I will trust to a discerning and liberal spirit in the English nation, to patronize and reward all real merit. It will in the end rise superior to the idle laugh of the hour, which these triflers think it the highest praise to be able to raise. For my part, I scarcely know a more profligate principle, than the indiscriminately sacrificing every thing, however great or good, to the dangerous talent of ridicule; and a man, whose sole object is dummodo risum excutiat, ought to be avoided as the worst pest of society, as the enemy most to be feared, I mean a treacherous friend. Such a man will go all lengths to raise a laugh at your expence, and your whole life will be made miserable from his ambition of diverting the company for half an hour.
"I love to trace the ideas of a Genius, and to mark the progress of every art. Mr. Hogarth has heard much of the cobwebs of the law, and the spinning fine spider-webs, &c. This is thrown on paper, and the idea carefully treasured. Lord Hardwicke being at the head of the law, and deservedly in as high esteem with his countrymen as any man who ever held the seals, unspotted in life, and equally revered by prince and people, becomes an excellent subject for the satirical pencil of a malevolent painter. He is accordingly emblematically represented by Mr. Hogarth as a great spider in a large, thick web, with myriads of the carcases of flies, clients I suppose, sucked to death by the gloomy tyrant. Mr. Hogarth had heard of Mr. Pitt's being above all his fellow-citizens, and of his superior virtue having raised him to an envied and dangerous height of grandeur. Now this he has taken literally, and, with the kind aid of Callot, has put Mr. Pitt on stilts, and made the people look up to him; which, after all this insipid ridicule, they will continue to do, as a kind of tutelar deity, from whom they expect that security and those blessings they despair of from others. As to the conceit of the bellows, to signify, I suppose, Mr. Pitt's endeavours to blow up the flames of war and discord, it is at once very poor and very false. His whole conduct the last session in parliament, and out of the house ever since, has demonstrated the contrary: neque vero hoc oratione solum, sed multo magis vitâ et moribus comprobavit. Cic. de Fin.
"Lord Temple is a nobleman of fine parts and unsullied honour, who has shewn a thorough disinterestedness, a great love of liberty, and a steady attachment to the public, in every part of his conduct through life. It was impossible such a character could be missed by the poisonous shafts of envy, which we see pointed at all superior virtue.... Mr. Hogarth's wit on this noble lord is confined to the wretched conceits of the Temple Coffee-house, and a squirt to signify the playing on the ministry. I really believe this wit is all Mr. Hogarth's own.
"When a man of parts dedicates his talents to the service of his country, he deserves the highest rewards: when he makes them subservient to base purposes, he merits execration and punishment. Among the Spartans, music and poetry were made to serve the noblest purposes of the Lacedemonian state. A manly courage and great contempt of death were inspired by them; and the poet, musician, soldier, and patriot, were often the same good citizen, who despised the low mechanic lucre of the profession, and was zealous only for the glory of his country. In the year 1746, when the Guards were ordered to march to Finchley, on the most important service they could be employed in, the extinguishing a Scottish rebellion, which threatened the intire ruin of the illustrious family on the throne, and, in consequence, of our liberties, Mr. Hogarth came out with a print to make them ridiculous to their countrymen and to all Europe; or perhaps it rather was to tell the Scots in his way how little the Guards were to be feared, and that they might safely advance. That the ridicule might not stop here, and that it might be as offensive as possible to his own sovereign, he dedicated the print to the king of Pruia[A] as an encourager of arts. Is this patriotism! In old Rome, or in any of the Grecian states, he would have been punished as a profligate citizen, totally devoid of all principle. In England he is rewarded, and made serjeant painter to that very king's grandson. I think the term means the same as what is vulgarly called house-painter; and indeed he has not been suffered to caricature the royal family. The post of portrait-painter is given to a Scotsman, one Ramsay. Mr. Hogarth is only to paint the wainscot of the rooms, or, in the phrase of the art, may be called their pannel-painter. But how have the Guards offended Mr. Hogarth, for he is again attacking them in The Times? Lord Harrington's second troop of grenadier guards is allowed to be very perfect in every part of military discipline; and Hogarth's friend, the king of Prussia, could have shewn him the real importance of it. He had heard them much applauded, and therefore must abuse them. The ridicule ends however in airs composed by Harrington, and in a piece of clock-work; but he ought to have known, that though l'homme machine is not sound philosophy, it is the true doctrine of tactics.
"The Militia has received so many just testimonies of applause, both from their king and country, that the attack of envy and malevolence was long expected. But I dare say this poor jester will have Mr. George Townshend's free consent to vent his spleen upon him and the gentlemen of Norfolk. I believe he may ever go on in this way almost unnoticed; at one time ridiculing the Guards for a disorderly, and at another the Militia for an exact and orderly march. Mr. Townshend will still have the warm applause of his country, and the truest satisfaction, that of an honest heart, for his patriot labours in establishing this great plan of internal defence, a Militia, which has delivered us from the ignominy of foreign hirelings, and the ridiculous fears of invasion, by a brave and well-disciplined body of Englishmen, at all times ready and zealous for the defence of their country, and of its laws and constitution."
[A] This is the orthography of Mr. Hogarth. See the [print].
[66] The present Lord Camden.
[67] This gave rise to a catchpenny, intituled, "Pug's Reply to Parson Bruin; or, a Political Conference, occasioned by an Epistle to William Hogarth, Esq;" 4to.
[68] "Which was probably accelerated by this unlucky (we had almost said unnatural) event; for Wilkes, Churchill, and Hogarth, had been intimate friends, and might have continued such as long as they lived, had not the dæmon of politics and party sown discord among them, and dissolved their union."
[69]—the friend——Dr. Morell. The conduct of this gentleman cannot fail to put the reader in mind of Sir Fretful Plagiary's complaint in Mr. Sheridan's Critic: "—if it is abuse, why one is always sure to hear of it from one damn'd good-natured friend or another."
"While thinking figures from the canvas start,
And Hogarth is the Garrick of his art,"
is a couplet in Smart's Hilliad.
The compliment from the Hilliad to Mr. Hogarth, Mr. Smart observes, "is reciprocal, and reflects a lustre on Mr. Garrick, both of them having similar talents, equally capable of the highest elevation, and of representing the ordinary scenes of life with the most exquisite humour."
[71] The pyramid, &c. This stroke of satire was retorted on Hogarth, and employed to express his advanced age and declining abilities; while the Cheshire cheese, with 3000 l. on it, seemed to imply that he himself merited an annual pension.
I received this explanation from an ingenious friend.—The late Mr. Rogers explained it thus: "Mr. Pitt is represented in it sitting at his ease [in the position of the great Sir Isaac Newton in Westminster-Abbey], with a mill-stone hanging over his head, on which is written 3000 l. in allusion to his saying, that Hanover was a mill-stone round the neck of England, on account of the expences attending it; and his afterwards adding himself to the public expences by accepting a pension of 3000 l. a year. He is firing a mortar-piece levelled at a Dove bearing an olive-branch (the symbol of peace) perched on the standard of England; and is supported by the City of London, denoted by the two Giants in Guildhall. Hogarth is flogging Wilkes and Churchill, and making them dance to the scrapings of a fidler; designed to represent a Nobleman [Earl Temple], who patronized them in 1763, and who, for his unmeaning face, has ever been described without a feature. See Trusler's Preface, p. vii."
[72] It may be worth observing, that in "Independence," a poem which was not published by Churchill till the last week of September, 1764, he considers his antagonist as a departed Genius:
"Hogarth would draw him (Envy must allow)
E'en to the life, was Hogarth living now."
How little did the sportive Satirist imagine that the power of pleasing was so soon to cease in both! Hogarth died in four weeks after the publication of this poem; and Churchill survived him but nine days. In some lines which were printed in November 1764, the compiler of these Anecdotes took occasion to lament that
"——Scarce had the friendly tear,
For Hogarth shed, escap'd the generous eye
Of feeling Pity, when again it flow'd
For Churchill's fate. Ill can we bear the loss
Of Fancy's twin-born offspring, close ally'd
In energy of thought, though different paths
They sought for fame! Though jarring passions sway'd
The living artists, let the funeral wreath
Unite their memory!"
[73] The Monthly Reviewer unintentionally reads supper, instead of dinner. As to this article of minute intelligence, whether it be true or false, it was communicated by Mrs. Lewis.
[74] Mr. Walpole once invited Gray the Poet and Hogarth to dine with him; but what with the reserve of the one, and a want of colloquial talents in the other, he never passed a duller time than between these representatives of Tragedy and Comedy, being obliged to rely entirely on his own efforts to support conversation.
[75] The most solid praise, perhaps, that ever was given to our artist, was a legacy of 100 l. "for the great pleasure the testator had received from his works."
[76] Originally begun for a portrait of Mrs. Cholmondeley, but altered, after one or two sittings, to the Queen.
[78] To whom, in case of Mrs. Hogarth's marrying again, he gave the plates of Marriage à la Mode, and of the Harlot's and Rake's Progress.
[79] Whilst the Marshal was a prisoner in England, Monsieur Coetlagon opened a subscription at two guineas, one to be paid on subscribing, the other on the delivery of "A Dictionary of Arts and Sciences," in two large folio volumes. Many of the nobility, as well as gentry subscribed; but very few of them made good their second payments, or had the work; and the author dedicated it (in gratitude, it is supposed, for the generous patronage he received from the English) to Marshal Belleisle; whose place of confinement was in The Round Tower at Windsor Castle; where the large dining-room is still ornamented with a variety of humourous French engravings; and a small library of French books.
[80] In the year 1768 was published a work, intituled, "Hogarth Moralised. Being a complete Edition of Hogarth's Works. Containing near Fourscore Copper-Plates, most elegantly engraved. With an Explanation, pointing out the many Beauties that may have hitherto escaped Notice, and a Comment on their Moral Tendency, &c. With the Approbation of Jane Hogarth, Widow of the late Mr. Hogarth."
The history of the work is as follows: The Rev. John Trusler engaged with some engravers in this design, after Hogarth's death, when they could carry it into execution with impunity. Mrs. Hogarth, finding her property would be much affected by it, was glad to accept an offer they made her, of entering into partnership with them; and they were very glad to receive her, knowing her name would give credit to the publication, and that she would certainly supply many anecdotes to explain the plates. Such as are found in the work are probably all hers. The other stuff was introduced by the editor to eke out the book. We are informed, that, when the undertaking was completed, in order to get rid of her partners, she was glad to buy out their shares, so that the whole expence which fell on her amounted to at least 700 l.
[81] "They abound," says an excellent judge, "in true humour; and satire, which is generally well-directed: they are admirable moral lessons, and afford a fund of entertainment suited to every taste: a circumstance, which shews them to be just copies of nature." We may consider them too as valuable repositories of the manners, customs, and dresses of the present age. What amusement would a collection of this kind afford, drawn from every period of the history of Britain!—How far the works of Hogarth will bear a critical examination, may be the subject of a little more enquiry. In design Hogarth was seldom at a loss. His invention was fertile, and his judgement accurate. An improper incident is rarely introduced; a proper one rarely omitted. No one could tell a story better; or make it, in all its circumstances, more intelligible. His genius, however, it must be owned, was suited only to low, or familiar subjects. It never soared above common life: to subjects naturally sublime, or which from antiquity, or other accidents, borrowed dignity, he could not rise. In composition we see little in him to admire. In many of his prints, the deficiency is so great, as plainly to imply a want of all principle; which makes us ready to believe, that when we do meet with a beautiful group, it is the effect of chance. In one of his minor works, the Idle Prentice, we seldom see a crowd more beautifully managed, than in the last print. If the sheriff's officers had not been placed in a line, and had been brought a little lower in the picture, so as to have formed a pyramid with the cart, the composition had been unexceptionable: and yet the first print of this work is so striking an instance of disagreeable composition, that it is amazing, how an artist, who had any idea of beautiful forms, could suffer so unmasterly a performance to leave his hands. Of the distribution of light Hogarth had as little knowledge as of composition. In some of his pieces we see a good effect; as in the execution just mentioned; in which, if the figures at the right and left corners had been kept down a little, the light would have been beautifully distributed on the fore-ground, and a little fine secondary light spread over part of the crowd: but at the same time there is so obvious a deficiency in point of effect, in most of his prints, that it is very evident he had no principles. Neither was Hogarth a master in drawing. Of the muscles and anatomy of the head and hands he had perfect knowledge; but his trunks are often badly moulded, and his limbs ill set on. I tax him with plain bad drawing; I speak not of the niceties of anatomy, and elegance of outline: of these indeed he knew nothing; nor were they of use in that mode of design which he cultivated: and yet his figures, upon the whole, are inspired with so much life and meaning, that the eye is kept in good humour, in spite of its inclination to find fault. The author of the Analysis of Beauty, it might be supposed, would have given us more instances of grace, than we find in the works of Hogarth; which shews strongly that theory and practice are not always united. Many opportunities his subjects naturally afford of introducing graceful attitudes; and yet we have very few examples of them. With instances of picturesque grace his works abound. Of his expression, in which the force of his genius lay, we cannot speak in terms too high. In every mode of it he was truly excellent. The passions he thoroughly understood, and all the effects which they produce in every part of the human frame: he had the happy art also of conveying his ideas with the same precision with which he conceived them.—He was excellent too in expressing any humorous oddity, which we often see stamped upon the human face. All his heads are cast in the very mould of nature. Hence that endless variety, which is displayed through his works: and hence it is, that the difference arises between his heads, and the affected caricaturas of those masters, who have sometimes amused themselves with patching together an assemblage of features from their own ideas. Such are Spagniolet's; which, though admirably executed, appear plainly to have no archetypes in nature. Hogarth's, on the other hand, are collections of natural curiosities. The Oxford-heads, the physicians-arms, and some of his other pieces, are expressly of this humorous kind. They are truly comic; though ill-natured effusions of mirth: more entertaining than Spagniolet's, as they are pure nature; but less innocent, as they contain ill-directed ridicule.—But the species of expression, in which this master perhaps most excels, is that happy art of catching those peculiarities of air, and gesture, which the ridiculous part of every profession contract; and which, for that reason, become characteristics of the whole. His counsellors, his undertakers, his lawyers, his usurers, are all conspicuous at sight. In a word, almost every profession may see, in his works, that particular species of affectation which they should most endeavour to avoid. The execution of this master is well-suited to his subjects, and manner of treating them. He etches with great spirit; and never gives one unnecessary stroke. For myself, I greatly more value the works of his own needle, than those high-finished prints on which he employed other engravers. For as the production of an effect is not his talent; and as this is the chief excellence of high finishing; his own rough manner is certainly preferable; in which we have most of the force and spirit of his expression. The manner in none of his works pleases me so well as in a small print of a corner of a play-house. There is more spirit in a work of this kind, struck off at once, warm from the imagination, than in all the cold correctness of an elaborate engraving. If all his works had been executed in this style, with a few improvements in the compositions, and the management of light, they would certainly have been a much more valuable collection of prints than they are. The Rake's Progress, and some of his other works, are both etched and engraved by himself: they are well done; but it is plain he meant them as furniture. As works designed for a critick's eye, they would certainly have been better without the engraving, except a few touches in a very few places. The want of effect too would have been less conspicuous, which in his highest-finished prints is disagreeably striking." Gilpin, Essay on Prints, p. 165.
[82] To whom Hogarth bequeathed ten guineas for a ring.
[83] It having been requested in the Catalogue of this exhibition (which was in Bow-Street, Covent-Garden) that all remarks on the artists, or their performances, might be sent to The St. James's Chronicle; the compiler of these Anecdotes transmitted a few hasty lines, which were printed in that paper April 29, 1762. They are not worth transcribing: but a short extract will preserve the assumed names of some of the artists—
"And Masmore, Lester's, Ward's, and Fishbourne's name,
With thine, Vandyck, shall live to endless fame;
In your collection Wit and Skill combine,
And Humour flows in every well-chose Sign."
[84] She is still living, and has been loud in abuse of this work, a circumstance to which she owes a niche in it.
[85] Among the compliments Hogarth was disposed to pay his own genius, he asserted his ability to take a complete likeness in three quarters of an hour. This head of Mr. Welsh was painted within the compass of the time prescribed, but had afterwards the advantage of a second sitting.
[86] Mr. Walpole is now possessed of the portrait of his brother Sir Edward.
[87] This, and the preceding article, are now in the possession of Peter Coxe, esq. of College Hill, in the city, executor to Mr. Forrest, and brother to the Rev. William Coxe, who has obliged the world with his Travels through Poland, Russia, &c.
[88] The following brief Memoirs of Mr. William Tothall, F. A. S. were communicated by Dr. Ducarel, who was personally acquainted with Mr. Tothall, and received the intelligence in a letter from the Rev. Mr. Lyon, Minister of St. Mary's at Dover, to whom the particulars in it were related by Captain Bulstrode of that town.
"Dover, June 11, 1781.
"Sir,
"The following narrative of your friend Tothall may be depended upon, as Captain Bulstrode informs me he frequently heard it from Tothall himself. His father was an apothecary in Fleet-street; but dying, as Captain Bulstrode thinks, while his son was young, and in but indifferent circumstances (as his mother afterwards practised as a midwife), he was taken by an uncle, who was a fishmonger. He lived with his uncle some time; but, not approving of the business, ran away from him, and entered on board a merchant-ship going to The West Indies. He also went several times to Newfoundland. During the time of his being in The West Indies, though so early in life, he was indefatigable in the collecting of shells, and brought home several utterly unknown in England. He continued at sea till he was almost 30 years of age. In one of his voyages he was taken by the Spaniards, and marched a considerable way up the country, without shoe or stocking, with only a woollen cap on his head, and a brown waistcoat on, with a large staff in his hand. He had afterwards his picture drawn in this dress. He continued a prisoner till exchanged.
"When he was about 30 years of age, he went as shopman to a woollen-draper at the corner of Tavistock Court, Covent Garden, with whom he continued some years; and his master, finding him a faithful servant, told him, 'as he dealt only in cloth, and his customers were taylors, he would lend him money to buy shalloons and trimmings, and recommend him to his chapmen, if he liked to take the trouble and the profit of the branch upon himself.' He readily accepted the proposal.
"About the same time an acquaintance in The West Indies sent him a puncheon of rum. Before he landed it, he consulted his master what he should do with it; who advised him to sell it out in small quantities, and lent him a cellar in his house. He followed this advice; and, finding the profits considerable, wrote to his correspondent in The West Indies to send him another supply; and from this time he commenced rum, brandy, and shalloon merchant.
"I cannot learn how long he continued in this way; but his master having acquired a fortune, and being desirous of retiring from business, left him in possession of his whole stock at prime cost, and he was to pay him as he sold it. He now commenced woollen-draper, and continued in this business till he acquired a sum sufficient, as he thought, to retire upon; and he left his business to his shopman, the late Mr. Job Ray, on the same conditions his master left it to him.
"During his residence in Covent Garden, he became a member of the club at the Bedford Coffee-house, and of course contracted an acquaintance with Hogarth, Lambert, and other men eminent in their way; and Hogarth lived some time in his house on the footing of a most intimate friend.
"On quitting his business (being troubled with an asthmatical complaint) he came and settled at Dover; where, soon becoming connected with certain persons in the smuggling branch, he fitted out a bye-boat, which was designed (as is supposed) to promote their business; but in this branch Fortune, which had hitherto smiled upon his endeavours, now frowned upon his attempts. The vessel, in going over with horses either to Ostend or Flushing, was lost. This, with some other losses, so reduced him, that he was rather straitened in his circumstances, and he could not live as he had done previous to the losses he sustained.
"His residence was near the Rope-walk at Dover (since pulled down), where his old friend Hogarth frequently visited him: but being in a decline, and his asthma increasing, he bought a very small cottage at West Langdon, about three miles from Dover, to which he used to go on horseback. Digging in a very small garden belonging to this cottage, he had the good fortune to find some valuable fossils; which to a man of his taste was a singular treasure. He died January 9, 1768, at the age of 70 (possessed of about 1500 l.), and was buried at St. Mary's Church at Dover. His collection of shells and fossils were sold by auction at Longford's, the following year.
"The foregoing is the substance of what I have gathered from Capt. Bulstrode. If there should be any other particular which you are desirous of knowing, I shall be happy to make the inquiry, and to communicate it; and am, Sir, your most obedient humble servant,
"J. Lyon."
[89] William Gostling, M. A. a minor canon of Canterbury cathedral for fifty years, and vicar of Stone in the isle of Oxney, Kent, well known to all lovers of antiquity by his truly original "Walk in and about Canterbury," first printed in 1774, of which there have been three editions. He died March 9, 1777, in the 82d year of his age. Of his father, who was first a minor canon of Canterbury, and afterwards one of the priests of the chapel-royal and sub-dean of St. Paul's, there are several anecdotes, communicated by his son, in Sir John Hawkins's "History of Music." To which may be added what King Charles II. is reported to have said of him, "You may talk as much as you please of your nightingales, but I have a Gostling who excels them all." Another time, the same merry monarch presented him with a silver egg filled with guineas, saying, "that he had heard that eggs were good for the voice."
[90] See the [Catalogue], under the year 1782.
[CATALOGUE] OF HOGARTH'S PRINTS.[1]
I am now engaged in an undertaking, which from its nature will be imperfect. While Hogarth was yet an apprentice, and worked on his master's account, we may suppose he was not at liberty to affix his name to his own performances. Nay, afterwards, when he appeared as an independent artist, he probably left many of them anonymous, being sometimes obliged to measure out his exertions in proportion to the scanty prices paid for them. For reasons like these, we may be sure that many of his early plates must have eluded search; and, if gradually discovered, will serve only to swell the collections they will not adorn.—The judicious connoisseur, perhaps, would be content to possess the pictures of Raffaelle, without aiming at a complete assemblage of the Roman Fayence that passes under his name.
In settling the dates of his pieces there is also difficulty. Sometimes, indeed, they have been inferred from circumstances almost infallible; as in respect to the Rabbit-breeder,&c. which would naturally have been published in the year 1726. On other occasions they are determined within a certain compass of time. Thus the Ticket for Milward, then a player at Lincoln's-Inn Fields, must have preceded 1733, when he removed with Rich to Covent Garden; and it is equally sure, that Orator Henley christening an Infant, and A Girl swearing a child to a grave citizen, came out before 1735, in which year we know that J. Y. Schley, one of Picart's coadjutors, had re-engraved them both for the use of the fourth volume of the Religious Ceremonies, published at Amsterdam in 1736. But how are we to guess at the period that produced Sancho at Dinner, or The Discovery?
The merits and demerits of his performances would prove deceitful guides in our researches. As our artist grew older, he did not regularly advance in estimation; for neither the frontispieces to Tristram Shandy, the Times, the Bathos, or the Bear, can be said to equal many of his earliest productions.—Under such difficulties is the following chronological list of our author's pieces attempted.
The reader is likewise entreated to observe, that throughout the annexed catalogue of plates, variations, &c. J. N. has mentioned only such as he has seen. Alike unwilling to deceive or be deceived, he has suppressed all intelligence he could not authenticate from immediate inspection. He might easily have enlarged his work by admitting particulars of doubtful authority, sometimes imperfectly recollected by their several communicators, and sometimes offered as sportive impositions on an author's credulity. Of this weakness every one possesses some; but perhaps no man more than he who ambitiously seeks opportunities to improve on the labours of another. J. N. is sure, however, that Mr. Walpole, whom none can exceed in taste and judgment, will be little concerned about the merits of a performance that founds its claim to notice only on the humbler pretences of industry and correctness.
[1] It is proper to acknowledge, that all such short strictures and annotations on these performances as are distinguished by being printed both in Italics and between inverted commas, are copied from the list of Hogarth's works published by Mr. Walpole.