Falls, like a tempest-riven tower,
From pomp, pride, circumstance, and power.—E.
THE ELECTION, PLATE IV. CHAIRING THE MEMBERS.
The polling being concluded, the books cast up, and the returning-officer having declared our candidate[80] duly elected, he is now exhibited in triumph. Seated in an arm-chair, and exalted upon the shoulders of four tried supporters of the constitution, he is borne through the principal streets, which are promiscuously crowded with enemies as well as friends. In this aerostatic voyage there seems to be some danger of a wreck; for a thresher having received an insult from a sailor, in the act of revenging it flourishes his flail in as extensive an orbit as if he were in his own barn. The end of this destructive instrument coming in contact with the skull of a bearer of our new-made member, the fellow's head rings with the blow, his eyes swim, his limbs refuse their office, and at this inauspicious moment the effects of the stroke, like an electric shock, extend to the exalted senator. He trembles in every joint; the hat flies from his head—and—without the intervention of Juno or Minerva, he must fall from the seat of honour to the bed of stone. Terrified at his impending danger, a nervous lady, who with her attendants is in the churchyard, falls back in a swoon. Regardless of her distress, two little chimney-sweepers upon the gate-post are placing a pair of gingerbread spectacles on a death's head. Their sportive tricks are likely to be interrupted by a monkey beneath, who, arrayed en militaire, is mounted upon a bear's back. The firelock slung over this little animal's shoulder, in a fray between the bear and a biped, is accidentally discharged in a direction that, if loaded, must carry leaden death to one of the gibing soot merchants above.[81]
The venerable musician, delighted with his own harmony, neither takes a part nor feels an interest in the business of the day. Let not his neutrality be attributed to a wrong cause; nor be it supposed that, in a country where every good citizen must espouse some party,[82] this ancient personage would remain an indifferent spectator were he not totally blind. At an opposite corner a naked soldier is taking a few refreshing grains of best Virginia, and preparing to dress himself after the performance of a pugilistic duet. On the other side of the rails a half-starved French cook, a half-bred English cook, and a half-roasted woman cook, are carrying three covers for the lawyers' table. Near them is a cooper inspecting a vessel that had been reported leaky, and must speedily be filled with home-brewed ale for the gratification of the populace. Two fellows are forcing their way through the crowd in the background with a barrel of the same liquor. Coming out of a street behind them, a procession of triumphant electors hail the other successful candidate, whose shadow appears on the wall of the court-house. In Mr. Attorney's[83] first floor are a group of the defeated party glorying in their security, and highly delighted with the confusion below. One of these, distinguished by a riband, is said to be intended for the late Duke of Newcastle, who was eminently active on these occasions. A poor old lady is unfortunately thrown down by a litter of pigs, which, followed by their mamma, rush through the crowd with as much impetuosity as if the whole herd were possessed. One of this agreeable party has leaped, not into the ocean, but the brook, and the whole family are on the point of following its example.
Hogarth had surely some antipathy to tailors; in the background he has introduced one of these knights of the needle disciplined by his wife for having quitted the shop-board to look at the gentlemen. In Le Brun's "Battle of the Granicus," an eagle is represented as hovering over the plumed helmet of Alexander; this thought is very happily parodied in a goose,[84] flying immediately over the tye-wig of our exalted candidate.
Mr. Nichols, in his Anecdotes of Hogarth, very shrewdly observes that "the ruined house adjoining to the attorney's is a stroke of satire that should not be overlooked, because," adds the same writer, "it intimates that nothing can thrive in the neighbourhood of such vermin."[85] In this inference I most sincerely join, but am afraid that in the present instance we cannot establish our data. The house is not in ruins from the inhabitant having been unable to keep it in repair, neither has it been torn by the teeth of time; for it is apparently the wreck of a modern edifice, which has been thus destroyed by a riotous mob, because it belonged to one of the opposite party.
An inscription on the sun-dial, when joined to the mortuary representation on the church gate-post, has been supposed to imply a pun hardly worthy of Hogarth, but which yet I am inclined to suspect he intended. "We must,"[86] on the sun-dial, say some of his illustrators, means—We must die all (dial).