[70] In Hogarth's time the forms of nature were tortured and disguised by stiff stays: the ladies of the present day are not guilty of this error. As to the bloom of Circassia, the less that is said about it the better.
[71] However unimportant Hogarth thought the cut of a coat, certain adepts in the art, about two years since, published a half-guinea book, on the scientific acquisitions necessary to make a perfect tailor!
"This day is published, price 10s. 6d., The Tailor's Complete Guide, or a Comprehensive Analysis of Beauty and Elegance of Dress; containing rules for cutting out garments of every kind, and fitting any person with the greatest accuracy and precision. Also plain directions how to avoid the errors of the trade in misfitting, and pointing out the method of rectifying what may be done amiss; to which is added a description to cut out and make the patent plastic habits and clothes without the usual seams, now in the highest estimation with the nobility and gentry, according to the patent granted by his Majesty; the whole concerted and devised by a society of adepts in the profession.
⁂ "This work was undertaken solely for the benefit of the trade, to instruct the rising generation, and perfectly to complete them in the art and science of cutting out clothes. The copperplates consist of each separated part, which will on the first view convince the uninformed mind that with a little attention he may be a complete tailor."
[72] Hogarth might conceive that, by rendering the habits of his early figures more conformable to the fashion of the times, when they were altered he improved them. Collectors are of a different opinion, though it must be acknowledged that, in Plate IV. of "The Rake's Progress," the humour is much heightened by introducing a group of vulgar minor gamblers in the place of the shoeblack.
[73] The picture was exhibited at Spring Gardens in the year 1761, with the title of "Piquet, or Virtue in Danger," and is still in the collection of the nobleman for whom it was painted.
It may fairly be considered as a moral lesson against gaming. The clock denotes five in the morning. The lady has lost her money, jewels, a miniature of her husband, and the half of a £500 bank note, which, by a letter lying on the floor, she appears to have recently received from him. In fine, all is lost except her honour; and in this dangerous moment she is represented perplexed, agitated, and irresolute. A print of it has lately been finely engraved by Mr. Cheesman.
[74] In the little memorandum book from which I extracted this, Hogarth has inserted the following note (without the translation) from Horace. I do not produce it as a proof that he was a Latin scholar, but suppose that the lines were pointed out by some literary friend, and he thus applied them:—
"Segnius irritant animos dimissa per aures,
Quam quæ sunt oculis commissa fidelibus."