Plate 4. One of the newspapers of March 1798, in a critique upon the opera, remarked, that "in playing upon the pianoforte, the celebrated Dusek displayed a brilliancy of finger which no eulogium could do justice to!" This is lofty language, and might be very properly applied to the figure of Carestini in this print, for that mountain of mummy displays a glittering ring upon every finger of his left hand. His face, as well as that of the Countess, is in the third impression essentially altered; the curtains, frames, etc. are also of a much darker hue. Engraved by S. Ravenet.
Plate 5. Second state—All the lights, figures on the tapestry, etc., are kept down, and the whole print brought to a more still and sombre hue. Woman's eye, eyebrow, and neck strengthened: nostril made wider. Counsellor's leg and thigh intersected with black lines, instead of the delicate marks and dots first inserted. Third state—Bears evident marks of a coarser burin than that of Ravenet. Engraved by R. F. Ravenet.[124]
Mr. Nichols states that this background was engraved by Ravenet's wife; but I am informed by Mr. Charles Grignion, who at that period knew the family intimately, that she could not engrave. That, concerning the background of this print, Ravenet had a violent quarrel with Hogarth; who, thinking the figures in the tapestry, etc. too obtrusive, obliged him to bring them to a lower tone (without any additional remuneration), a process that must have taken him up a length of time, which no man but an engraver can form an idea of.
Plate 6. With a slight alteration, the crying old woman would be very like one of the laughing old women in the Laughing Audience. Second state—The whole of the print rendered less brilliant, but more in harmony. Drapery of the dying woman improved. Third state—The shadows of this, as of the other five, were rendered still stronger by the last alterations, made a short time before Hogarth's death.
Of the original pictures, now in Mr. Angerstein's collection, I have already spoken. If considered in the various relations of invention, composition, drawing, colouring, character, and moral tendency, I do not think it will be easy to point out any series of six pictures, painted by any artist of either ancient or modern times, from which they will not bear away the palm.
Among Mr. Lane's papers was found a written description of Marriage à la Mode, which the family believe to be Hogarth's explanation, either copied from his own handwriting, or given verbally to Mr. Lane at the time he purchased the pictures. This was copied and inserted in the second edition of Hogarth Illustrated, and may be had gratis by any of the purchasers of the first.
Messrs. Boydell have employed Mr. Earlom to engrave the whole series, in the same size as the original pictures.
2. A small portrait of Archbishop Herring, surrounded with a trophy, placed as a headpiece to the printed speech addressed to the Clergy of York, September 24th, 1745. William Hogarth, pinx.; C. Mosely, sculp.
3. The same head was afterwards cut off the plate, and printed without the speech.
A larger portrait was in the year 1750 engraved by Baron.