Plate II.—Noon.—The boy who has had the misfortune to break the baked pudding, a commentator on Hogarth asserts was the late Mr. Henderson the player, who often sportively assured his friends that he stood to Hogarth for the sketch when he was with Fournier the drawing-master. But this is impossible, as the prints in the receipt are promised to be delivered by Lady-day 1738, several years before Henderson was born. A correspondent has assured us that he has repeatedly heard his grandfather, an individual unknown to the public, refer to that figure in the print as a portrait of himself, asserting that he had just such an accident when a boy on the very spot, and was at that period remarkable for such a head of hair (which was of a very light colour) as is shown in the print.
But query.—With more certainty we may venture to suggest, that the idea of the woman throwing the shoulder of mutton out of the window is borrowed from the old song:
"Now John he was no great eater, and Joan she was no great glutton,
So the better to pamper their stomachs, they bought them a shoulder of mutton:
But Joan in an angry mood took the shoulder of mutton in hand,
And out of the window she threw it,—poor John, he was at a stand," etc.
Plate III.—Evening.—The scene of this picture is laid at Islington, near Sadlers Wells, which was then a famous place for tea-drinking, and the antitype for low dissipation of the late "Dog and Duck." The view represents it correctly previous to its being rebuilt in its present form, and exactly similar to a small copperplate delineation of it over an old song, called "A Song in praise of Sadlers Wells," in which its various amusements are described. The adjoining alehouse window, in which we behold a group enveloped in their own smoke, is the "Sir Hugh Middleton's Head," a sign still remaining. A celebrated knot of drinkers and smokers actually met at this place about the period alluded to, at the head of which was old Rosamond, the proprietor of the Wells; and it is not improbable but that Hogarth might have known and meant to satirize this fraternity. The portraits of these gentlemen are still preserved in a large painting at the very same public-house, under the name of the "Sadlers Wells Club."
ENRAGED MUSICIAN.
Cervetto, well known by the name of "Nosee," has been generally supposed to be intended by the character of the musician; but there are others who apply it to Dr. Arne; for though not a strict likeness of that great composer, the figure and face bear so near a resemblance (and he was extremely remarkable) as fully to authorize the application. The known irritability of the Doctor in musical business might not have been the only cause of Hogarth's placing him in this ludicrous situation; his habits of intrigue, and singularly plain person, made him so fair an object for caricature, that one of his portraits, printed with a song of his composing, has ironically written under it, "Beauty and Virtue." This song, with the portrait, was eagerly purchased up, and is now very scarce. Some years since Mr. Colman got up a little interlude at the Haymarket Theatre from the idea of this print, called "Ut Pictura Poesis, or the Enraged Musician," when the character of the musician was purposely given to a performer who was thought in figure and face to resemble Dr. Arne.