"Simplicity, little as it is attended to, is the most attractive principle of beauty. By this I mean that the habit should not be divided into too many parts, like an old-fashioned furbelowed and flounced petticoat: this preposterous mode confounds the eye, and gives an idea of rags and tatters. The plain unadorned dress of a country girl is often more engaging than the richest court habit, in which beauty is frequently obscured, overwhelmed, and buried by gaudy and heavy ornaments that totally destroy the effect they are intended to produce. Yet here, as in composition, simplicity must be corrected by intricacy, to prevent its degenerating into meanness. Parts of every dress should be loose, and at liberty to play into folds, some of which will move with the figure; nay, it sometimes produces grace to contrive things to rest in winding forms, as is demonstrated by the figure of a sphinx.
"Quantity, as I have before remarked, adds dignity; robes of state are always made large and full; the long sweeping trains of queens have a majestic effect. To attain this, the ladies endure great fatigue, and encumber themselves with an enormous hoop petticoat, as much as they would by carrying a pair of panniers on their hips. While they preserve the figure of the pyramid, this produces some degree of dignity, but excess renders it ridiculous.
"The horse-grenadier, mounted, caparisoned with his sword and other accoutrements, gives a good example of the noble effect of quantity, so combined as to come within pyramidal lines. What a contrast would it produce, to see the little jockey fitted, trimmed, and pared down for a race, riding by the side of him!"
Hogarth concludes with a remark, which intimates that he had originally intended to have inserted the preceding chapter in his Analysis, but altered his plan and reserved it for his intended Supplement:—
"The even and uniform colour of the hair, by encompassing the face as a frame doth a picture, contrasts with harmonious colour its variegated and enclosed composition, and adds more or less beauty thereto, according to the manner it is disposed. This graceful ornament may, with some propriety, be called the head-dress, and comes under that class; but as dress in general is a matter of no small importance to a great part of the world, it deserves to be treated more copiously than this volume will admit of. It shall therefore be deferred till a more convenient opportunity offers, when the Supplement shall be published."
CHAPTER V.
HOGARTH'S INDUCEMENT TO PAINTING THE PICTURE OF SIGISMUNDA. HIS CORRESPONDENCE WITH LORD GROSVENOR ON THIS SUBJECT, CONTRASTED BY TWO LETTERS FROM LORD CHARLEMONT, FOR WHOM HE HAD PREVIOUSLY PAINTED AN INTERESTING SCENE. ORIGIN OF THE QUARREL WITH WILKES AND CHURCHILL, WHICH GAVE RISE TO THE PRINT OF THE BEAR, ETC.; AND THE ARTIST'S DEATH.