THE KENDAL ARMS.
CHAPTER II.
MARRIES. PAINTS SMALL CONVERSATIONS, WHICH SUBJECTS HE QUITS FOR FAMILIAR PRINTS. ATTEMPTS HISTORY; BUT FINDING IT IS NOT ENCOURAGED IN ENGLAND, RETURNS TO ENGRAVING FROM HIS OWN DESIGNS. OCCASIONALLY TAKES PORTRAITS LARGE AS LIFE, FOR WHICH HE INCURS MUCH ABUSE. TO PROVE HIS POWERS AND VINDICATE HIS FAME, PAINTS THE ADMIRABLE PORTRAIT OF CAPTAIN CORAM, AND PRESENTS IT TO THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL.
"I then married, and commenced painter of small conversation pieces, from twelve to fifteen inches high. This having novelty, succeeded for a few years. But though it gave somewhat more scope to the fancy, was still but a less kind of drudgery; and as I could not bring myself to act like some of my brethren, and make it a sort of a manufactory to be carried on by the help of background and drapery painters, it was not sufficiently profitable to pay the expenses my family required. I therefore turned my thoughts to a still more novel mode, viz. painting and engraving modern moral subjects, a field not broken up in any country or any age.
"The reasons which induced me to adopt this mode of designing were, that I thought both writers and painters had, in the historical style, totally overlooked that intermediate species of subjects which may be placed between the sublime and grotesque; I therefore wished to compose pictures on canvas, similar to representations on the stage, and further hope that they will be tried by the same test, and criticised by the same criterion. Let it be observed, that I mean to speak only of those scenes where the human species are actors, and these I think have not often been delineated in a way of which they are worthy and capable.
"In these compositions, those subjects that will both entertain and improve the mind bid fair to be of the greatest public utility, and must therefore be entitled to rank in the highest class. If the execution is difficult (though that is but a secondary merit), the author has a claim to a higher degree of praise. If this be admitted, comedy in painting as well as writing ought to be allotted the first place, as most capable of all these perfections, though the sublime, as it is called, has been opposed to it. Ocular demonstration will carry more conviction to the mind of a sensible man, than all he would find in a thousand volumes; and this has been attempted in the prints I have composed. Let the decision be left to every unprejudiced eye; let the figures in either pictures or prints be considered as players dressed either for the sublime,—for genteel comedy,[15] or farce,—for high or low life. I have endeavoured to treat my subjects as a dramatic writer: my picture is my stage, and men and women my players, who by means of certain actions and gestures are to exhibit a dumb show.