[21] It is said to be copied from the frontispiece to a twopenny history of the notified Moll Flanders; but I do not remember seeing it among Mr. Gulston's two-and-twenty thousand portraits of illustrious characters.
[22] This is one among many proofs of Mr. Hogarth's close attention to those little markings which have been generally disregarded by other artists. By a fire in the room he fixes the time to be winter,—a season in which those exotic amusements, masquerades, are most frequent in the metropolis.
[23] "If he do not become a cart as well as another man—a plague on his bringing up!"
[24] A brawn's head, with an orange in its mouth, was at that time a fashionable winter dish; and it was a standing dish which might be marched from the pantry to the parlour, and give the semblance of plenty for forty days. This was perhaps one reason for our votary of Mammon making it the leading article in his bill of fare; the rest and residue of his feast is made up by a solitary egg.
A boiled egg was the usual dinner of Sir Hans Sloane. When he once complained to Dr. Mortimer that all his friends had deserted him, the Doctor observed that Chelsea was a considerable distance from the residence of most of them, and therefore they might be disappointed when they came to find he had so slight a dinner. This gentle remonstrance put the old Baronet in a rage, and he exclaimed, "Keep a table! Invite people to dinner! Would you have me ruin myself? Public credit totters already, and if (as has been presaged) there should be a national bankruptcy, or a sponge to wipe out the national debt, you may yet see me in a workhouse." His landed estate was at that time very considerable, and his museum worth much more than the twenty thousand pounds which was, however, given for it by Parliament.
Scanty as is our citizen's dinner, his table-cloth is ample. The founder of Guy's Hospital, which is the first private foundation in the world, was not so extravagant. His constant substitute for a table-cloth was either a dirty proof sheet of some book or an old newspaper.
[25] Let not any censure fall upon Mr. Hogarth for these indelicate representations. He evidently means to burlesque the gross and ridiculous absurdities of the Dutch painters.
[26] These canine unfortunates are not only useful when living, but frequently die for the good of mankind. Some have their throats cut, to prove the efficacy of a styptic; others are bled to death for a philosophical transfusion; and very many resign their breath in the receiver of an air-pump. Unhappy Dogs!
[27] "It appears to have been a part of that curse which the disobedience of the first man brought upon his posterity, that we were compelled to stain our hands in blood, and to subsist on the destruction of other animals. But surely, if the necessity of our nature obliges us to deprive an innocent being of life, it ought to be done in the easiest and speediest manner! and such was the custom among the peculiar people of God. What shall we say to that luxury which, for a momentary gratification of appetite, condemns a creature endued with feeling, perhaps with mind, to languish in torments, and expire by a protracted and cruel death?"—Sermons by George Gregory, D.D., F.A.S., 2d edit. p. 100.
[28] How much are we the creatures of habit! Those who would shudder at tying a lobster to a wooden spit, and roasting it alive, will coolly place a dozen oysters between the bars of a slow fire; and yet these oysters, notwithstanding their supposed torpor, may have an equal degree of feeling with their armoured brother.