And when by holie church to one he's tied,
Then for his soule he cannot her abide.
Thus when a dogge first lighteth on a bone,
His taile he waggeth,—gladde thereof y-growne;
But if thilke bone untoe his taile thou tie,
Pardie, he fearing it, away doth flie."
[3] Hogarth might intend by this, and the improprieties and violations of order in the unfinished building seen out of a window, to hint at the absurdities of the then fashionable architect, William Kent. As a painter Kent was beneath satire, as an architect he was above it; but he was protected by Lord Burlington, patronized by Lord Pembroke, and employed by all who aspired to a character for virtu. Hogarth saw with disgust bordering upon indignation that his taste in one art, modern gardening (of which he was the acknowledged father), procured him the reputation of excellence in another, in which he was grossly ignorant and glaringly erroneous. In some of the grounds laid out by Kent's directions, he realized that Paradise which Milton had described; his patrons saw that he could improve nature in their plantations, and very kindly gave him credit for a power which he never possessed—that of giving an imitation of nature on his canvas. By the Dryades his sacrifice had been accepted; but the offering he laid upon the altar sacred to the fine arts was rejected with disdain. It was the praise of Hercules that he destroyed monsters and discomfited giants; it was the praise of William Kent that he cleared our gardens of their representatives. Before his time the plantations round the seats of our nobility were a kind of vernal menagerie: the lion shook his shaggy mane in yew; the dragon waved his wings in evergreen; and in box, the wild boar displayed his bristled neck and tusks terrific. Our disciple of true taste cleared away these fantastic forms, and in their place gave us nature,—"nature to advantage dressed." But when consulted about interior decorations, his taste evaporated. The heavy canopy over the nobleman's head, the ponderous chairs and massy frames which decorate the room, are from his designs. In some of the old houses of our ancient nobility we see furniture of a similar appearance, though the greatest part of it, after passing through the purgatory of a broker's shop, has either been placed in very inferior situations or consigned to the flames.
Of Kent's abilities as a painter the public thought so highly, that he was absurdly enough opposed to Sir James Thornhill. This circumstance might be one source of Hogarth's dislike; he, however, took an early opportunity of showing it, by what is called a "Burlesque of Kent's Altarpiece at St. Clement's Church," but which Hogarth declared to be a fair delineation of the original. A reduced copy is in vol. iii. of this work; see p. 17 of the 2d edition.
[4] Some of the portraits of Louis XIV. are quite as absurd. We are told that he once sent to Rome for Poussin, to paint him in the character of Jupiter. This great artist obeyed the summons, and prepared his canvas and colours; when, to his extreme astonishment, the monarch informed him that, although he was to be delineated as the representative of Jove, etiquette did not permit him to appear without his major peruke, and he must consequently be so painted. Poussin, not able to conceive any way of giving appropriate dignity to the thunderer of Olympus with this flowing appendage, declined beginning the picture, and returned to Rome without making his congé.
[5] By the loose negligence of her habit, and some circumstances, I am inclined to think the artist intended to represent her as pregnant. It has been said that after Baron had finished the plate, Mr. Hogarth added a lock of hair with Indian ink, but after a few impressions were taken off, inserted this supplemental ornament with the graver. In his Analysis of Beauty, he makes a remark which in some degree accounts for the introduction of this fascinating attraction:—