Having disposed of the substances, let us now attend to the shadow on the cockpit, and this it seems is the reflection of a man drawn up to the ceiling in a basket, and there suspended[105] as a punishment for having betted more money than he can pay. Though suspended, he is not reclaimed; though exposed, not abashed; for in this degrading situation he offers to stake his watch against money in another wager on his favourite champion.
The decorations of this curious theatre are, a portrait of Nan Rawlins,[106] and the King's arms.
In the margin at the bottom of the print is an oval, with a fighting cock, inscribed "Royal sport," and underneath it is written, "Pit ticket."
Of the characteristic distinctions in this heterogeneous assembly, it is not easy to speak with sufficient praise. The chimney-sweeper's absurd affectation sets the similar airs of the Frenchman in a most ridiculous point of view. The old fellow with a trumpet at his ear has a degree of deafness that I never before saw delineated; he might have lived in the same apartment with Xantippe, or slept comfortably in Alexander the coppersmith's first floor. As to the nobleman in the centre, in the language of the turf, he is a mere pigeon; and the Peer, with a star and garter, in the language of Cambridge, we must class as—a mere quiz. The man sneezing, you absolutely hear; and the fellow stealing a bank note has all the outward and visible marks of a perfect and accomplished pickpocket; Mercury himself could not do that business in a more masterly style.
I hope it will not be thought irrelevant to my subject if I here name a man whose periods have polished the English language, and given to poesy a harmony before unknown.
To Alexander Pope, Hogarth had an early dislike. Pope was the friend of Lord Burlington,—Lord Burlington was the patron of Kent, and Kent was the rival of Sir James Thornhill, who was the father-in-law of William Hogarth. In two of his miscellaneous prints, our mellifluous poet is exhibited in very degrading situations. In one[107] he is represented as whitewashing the gate of Burlington House, and in the violence of his operation bespattering the carriage of his Grace of Chandos, etc.; and in the other, picking John Gay's[108] pocket.
Had the artist been acquainted with a circumstance mentioned by Mr. Tyers in his Rhapsody, our British Horace would very probably have had a place in this group. Tyers tells us that "Pope, while living with his father at Chiswick, before he went to Binfield, took great delight in cock-fighting, and laid out all his schoolboy money, and little perhaps it was, in buying fighting cocks. From this passion, but surely not the play of a child, his mother had the dexterity to wean him."
Admitting the fact, for which I have no other authority than the pamphlet above quoted, it does not tell in favour of that delicate and tender humanity which this elegant poet so much affected. On his conduct to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Lord Bolingbroke, Mr. Addison, and Mr. Broome, I will make no comment; but his bitter satire on the Duke of Chandos,[109] while it exalts his poetical powers, dishonours his moral character. The animation, energy, and elegance of the stanzas would atone for almost anything—but ingratitude!