[104] When Garrick first came on the stage, and one very sultry evening in the month of May performed the character of Lear, he in the first four acts received the customary tribute of applause. At the conclusion of the fifth, when he wept over the body of Cordelia, every eye caught the soft infection—the big round tear ran down every cheek. At this interesting moment, to the astonishment of all present, his face assumed a new character, and his whole frame appeared agitated by a new passion: it was not tragic, for he was evidently endeavouring to suppress a laugh. In a few seconds the attendant nobles appeared to be affected in the same manner; and the beauteous Cordelia, who was reclined upon a crimson couch, opening her eyes to see what occasioned the interruption, leapt from her sofa, and with the majesty of England, the gallant Albany, and tough old Kent, ran laughing off the stage. The audience could not account for this strange termination of a tragedy in any other way than by supposing the dramatis personæ were seized with a sudden frenzy; but their risibility had a different source. A fat Whitechapel butcher, seated on the centre of the front bench in the pit, was accompanied by his mastiff, who being accustomed to sit on the same seat with his master at home, naturally thought he might enjoy the like privilege here. The butcher sat very back, and the quadruped finding a fair opening, got upon the bench, and fixing his fore-paws on the rail of the orchestra, peered at the performers with as upright a head and as grave an air as the most sagacious critic of his day. Our corpulent slaughter-man was made of melting stuff, and not being accustomed to a playhouse heat, found himself much oppressed by the weight of a large and well-powdered Sunday peruke, which, for the gratification of cooling and wiping his head, he pulled off, and placed on the head of his mastiff. The dog being in so conspicuous, so obtrusive a situation, caught the eye of Mr. Garrick and the other performers. A mastiff in a churchwarden's wig (for the butcher was a parish officer) was too much: it would have provoked laughter in Lear himself, at the moment he was most distressed; no wonder, then, that it had such an effect on his representative.
[105] In the second canto of a poem entitled The Gamblers, are the following notes:—
"By the cockpit laws, the man who cannot or who will not pay his debts of honour, is liable to exaltation in a basket."
"Stephen's exaltation in a basket, and his there continuing to bet though unable to pay, is taken from a scene in one of Hogarth's prints, humorously setting forth that there are men whom a passion for gaming does not forsake, even in the very hour that they stand proclaimed insolvents."
[106] Frequently called Deptford Nan, and sometimes dignified with a title—Duchess of Deptford! She was a famous cock-feeder, well known at Newmarket, and did the honours of the gentlemen's ordinary at Northampton, while a bachelor presided at the table appropriated to the ladies.
[107] A small print published in the year 1732, of which there are three copies.
[108] I have inserted the name of Gay on the authority of Mr. Nichols' Anecdotes, in page 177 of which is the following remark from a correspondent:—
"That Pope was silent on the merits of Hogarth (as one of your readers has observed) should excite little astonishment, as our artist's print on the South Sea exhibits the translator of Homer in no very flattering point of view. He is represented with one of his hands in the pocket of a fat personage, who wears a horn-book at his girdle. For whom this figure was designed is doubtful; perhaps it was meant for Gay, who was a fat man, and a loser in the scheme, etc. The horn-book he wears at his girdle perhaps refers to the fables he wrote for the Duke of Cumberland. The conclusion to the inscription under this plate—'Guess at the rest, you'll find out more'—seems also to imply a consciousness of such personal satire as it was not prudent to explain."
The conjecture that this is designed for Gay is fair, but I think not quite conclusive. Hogarth would not have represented the translator of Homer diving into the coat pocket of a brother bard for coin, and Gay could not be robbed of anything else. May not the label with A—B—, etc., be intended to point out Arbuthnot: he also was a fat man, and so careless of fame, that he suffered Pope, and some other eminent contemporary authors, to plunder him of the best part of his writings, which they afterwards modestly published as their own; vide a very large portion of Martinus Scriblerus, particularly Pope's own edition, published in 1742.
Pope is again introduced in a print published about the year 1728, entitled "Rich's Glory, or The Triumphant Entry into Covent Garden," improperly said to be the production of Hogarth.