The very different position in which these three strongly contrasted characters place their legs and feet is worthy of observation.
CHARLES I., ITALIAN JUPITER, ETC.
I. CHARLES I. II. HENRIETTA MARIA. III. GROTESQUE ORNAMENT. IV. ITALIAN JUPITER.
These figures, as well as the preceding, are copied from sketches in the MS. of the Analysis; the Italian Jove, grasping a thunderbolt, is intended for Monsieur Desnoyer dancing in a grand ballet. A reduced copy of the figure is in the first plate to the Analysis, placed as a companion to Quin in the character of Brutus; and it must be acknowledged that the English actor, in a wig which Gorgon's self might own, is as fair a representative of a Roman general as the dancer is of a deity.
The figures 1 and 2 are from Vandyke's portraits of Charles I. and Henrietta Maria. The former is copied from one of that great painter's portraits, and almost wholly made up of straight lines; the latter, though drawn with an easy and elegant air, Hogarth considers as not composed on the principle of the waving line, which he says Vandyke seems never to have thought of. Thus does he characterize that artist in the page that faced the sketches:—
"Rubens knew the waving line, but his contours are rather overcharged. Vandyke, his scholar, perhaps for fear of running into what he might think gross in his master's manner, imitated nature just as it chanced to present itself; and having an exact eye, produced portraits which abound with delicacy and simplicity; but when nature flagged he was tame, not knowing that principle which might have raised his ideas. His best works are, however, marked with grace."
No. 3 is intended to represent one of those clumsy, grotesque ornaments with which our cathedrals abound, where a winged figure, perched in the niche of an arch behind a shield, seems intended as a guardian angel to the dust of the deceased hero, whose armorial bearing is sometimes displayed in the front.
The last engraving which I have taken from the manuscript of the Analysis, makes an easy and elegant form; and I have ventured to introduce it in the [title-page] to this volume. The original drawing is on the same leaf with two sketches of an ill-shaped candlestick and torch thistle (Nos. 40 and 42), in the first plate to the Analysis. I think it may be denominated "The Dolphin Candlestick," as it is composed of dolphins and snakes, so twisted as to combine his favourite serpentine line, and crowned with the iris and lily. In his MS., after remarking that "our furniture and utensils are generally as tasteless and inelegant as straight and unvaried lines can make them,"—and producing as examples the ill-shaped candlesticks, etc., which are engraved in his first plate,—he concludes by observing, "It is said in vindication of such forms, that they are adhered to for the sake of simplicity; but this might be preserved, and yet some portion of beauty introduced, did they combine their little variations by the proper rules."