Of a favorite macaw which often appeared in his pictures, a story is told almost as wonderful, Sir Joshua thought, as that of the painted grapes which deceived the birds. For this bird instantly recognized the portrait of a servant whom he hated, and tried to bite the pictured face. Dr. Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith came several times to see this performance, and Reynolds declared that, in his opinion, “birds and beasts were as good judges of pictures as men are.”
“FRIENDS NOW, PUSSY!”
(From the painting by Angelica Kauffmann. )
There remains to us an affecting last glimpse of this famous painter after he had lost his sight and could no longer pursue the art he loved. In this premature night he found much comfort with a tame bird, until one morning the window was left open, and it flew away. His grief, though deep, was happily of short duration. Death came to his relief, and he escaped from the body, even as the bird from the house.
THE PAINTER HOGARTH AND HIS DOG TRUMP.
One of his favorite pupils, Angelica Kauffmann, painted a charming picture called “Friends now, Pussy.” It depicts a radiant little girl holding in her arms a kitten whose contented purr we cannot fail to hear, so perfectly is it suggested.
Hogarth was the painter of human life as it is; of people good, bad and indifferent—noble or base. But wherever man is, there also is the dog; and so throughout this artist’s work we find him—now a drawing-room pet, and now a vagabond; now man’s companion and now his victim. Hogarth’s own dog, Trump, surveys us rather sourly from the same canvas with his master. Very likely it was the curly tip of his tail that suggested the famous sketch in three lines of a sergeant with his pike going into a house, and his dog following him. Hogarth executed the picture thus: