Now breaks or now directs th' intending lines,
Paints as you plant, and as you work designs."
THE NOTE!
"First, the Genius of the place 'tells the waters,' or only simply gives directions: then he 'helps the ambitious hill,' or is a fellow-labourer: then again, he 'scoops the circling theatre,' or works alone, or in chief. Afterwards, rising fast in our idea of dignity, he 'calls in the country,' alluding to the orders of princes in their progress, when accustomed to display all their state and magnificence. His character then grows sacred, 'he joins willing woods,' a metaphor taken from one of the offices of the priesthood, till at length he becomes a divinity, and creates, and presides over the whole."—Warburton's edit. of Pope, 1752, vol. iii. p. 285.
Would the reader wish a better specimen of the Bishop's taste!
[109] An artist in the year 1762 stole Hogarth's thunder, and aimed the bolt at the head of him who had forged it. In a print entitled "The Butifyer, or a Touch upon the Times," he is represented in the character of a shoeblack, blackening a great jack-boot, and bespattering the surrounding crowd.
Beneath is inscribed, "With what judgment ye judge, shall ye be judged."—Matt. chap. vii. ver. 2; and,
"In justice to Mr. Hogarth, the engraver of this plate declares to the public he took the hint of 'The Butifyer' from a print of Mr. Pope whitewashing Lord Burlington's gate, and at the same time bespattering the rest of the nobility."
[110] Fielding and Hogarth had in some respects similar powers and similar want of success in things for which they seemed peculiarly gifted. Admirable as was the dialogue of the comic characters in Fielding's novels, he was unable to give them stage effect; and though Hogarth saw nature in all her varieties, and gave to every face the index of their mind, he rarely succeeded in historical pictures.