In the fourth of these plates[4] are the following portraits: Mrs. Lane (afterwards Lady Bingley) adoring Carestini; her husband Fox Lane asleep. Rouquet only calls him "Un gentilhomme campagnard, fatigué d'une course après quelque renard ou quelque cerf, s'endort." This idea seems to be countenanced by the whip in his hand. The same explainer adds, speaking of the two next figures, "Ici on voit en papillotes un de ces personages qui passent toute leur vie à tâcher de plaire sans y reüssir; la, un eventail au poing, on reconnoît un de ces hérétiques en amour, un sectateur d'Anacreon." The former of these has been supposed to represent Monsieur Michel, the Prussian ambassador. Weideman is playing on the German flute.—The pictures in the room are properly suited to the bed-chamber of a profligate pair—Jupiter and Io, Lot with his Daughters, Ganymede and the Eagle, and the Young Lawyer who debauches the Countess. The child's coral, hanging from the back of the chair she sits in, serves to shew she was already a mother; a circumstance that renders her conduct still more unpardonable. Some of her new-made purchases, exposed on the floor, bear witness to the warmth of her inclinations. These will soon be gratified at the fatal masquerade, for which her paramour is offering her a ticket.
The pompous picture on the right hand of the window in the nobleman's apartment, Plate I. also deserves attention. It appears to be designed as a ridicule on the unmeaning flutter of French portraits, some of which (particularly those of Louis XIV.) are painted in a style of extravagance equal at least to the present parody by Hogarth. This ancestor of our peer is invested with several foreign orders. At the top of one corner of the canvas, are two winds blowing across each other, while the hero's drapery is flying quite contrary directions. A comet is likewise streaming over his head. In his hand he grasps the lightning of Jove, and reposes on a cannon going off, whose ball is absurdly rendered an object of sight. A smile, compounded of self-complacency and pertness, is the characteristic of his face.
On the cieling of this magnificent saloon is a representation of Pharaoh and his Host drowned in the Red Sea. The pictures underneath are not on the most captivating subjects—David killing Goliath—Prometheus and the Vulture—the Murder of the Innocents—Judith and Holofernes—St. Sebastian shot full of Arrows—Cain destroying Abel—and St. Laurence on the Gridiron.
Among such little circumstances in this plate as might escape the notice of a careless spectator, is the Thief in the Candle, emblematic of the mortgage on his Lordship's estate.
When engravings on a contracted scale are made from large pictures, a few parts of them will unavoidably become so small, as almost to want distinctness. It has fared thus with a number of figures that appear before the unfinished edifice,[5] seen through a window in the first plate of this work. Hogarth designed them for the lazy vermin of his Lordship's hall, who, having nothing to do, are sitting on the blocks of stone, or staring at the building;[6] for thus Rouquet has described them, "Une troupe de lacquais oisifs, qui sont dans le cour de ce batiment, acheve de caracteriser le faste ruineux qui environne le comte." The same illustrator properly calls the Citizen Echevin (i. e. sheriff) of London, on account of the chain he wears.
Plate II. From the late Dr. Ducarel I received the following anecdote; but there must be some mistake in it, as Herring was not archbishop till several years after the designs for Marriage à la Mode were made.
"Edward Swallow, butler to Archbishop Herring, had an annuity of ten pounds given to him in his Grace's will. For the honesty and simplicity of his physiognomy, this old faithful servant was so remarkable, that Hogarth, wanting such a figure in Marriage à la Mode, accompanied the late dean of Sarum, Dr. Thomas Greene, on a public day, to Lambeth, on purpose to catch the likeness. As they were coming away, he whispered, 'I have him!' And he may now be seen to the life preserved in the old steward, in Plate II. with his hands held up, &c."
In Plate V. the back ground, which is laboured with uncommon delicacy (a circumstance that will be remarked by few except artists), was the work of Mr. Ravenet's wife. Solomon's wise judgement is represented on the tapestry. When Ravenet's two plates were finished, Hogarth wanted much to retouch the faces,[7] and many disputes happened between him and the engraver on this subject. The first impressions, however, escaped without correction. Those who possess both copies, may discover evident marks of Hogarth's hand in the second. See particularly the countenance of the dying nobleman, which is fairly ploughed up by his heavier burin.
I have been told that our artist took the portrait of the female, who is so placed, that the legs of a figure in the tapestry supply the want of her own, from a coarse picture of a woman called Moll Flanders.
Plate the sixth of this set, affords Rouquet an opportunity of illustrating the following remark, which he had made at the outset of his undertaking: "Ce qu'un Anglois lit, pour ainsi dire, en jettant les yeux sur ces estampes, va exiger de vous la lecture de plusieurs pages." Speaking of our citizen's parsimony, says he—"Voyez-vous ces pipes conservées dans le coin d'un armoire? Vous ne devineriez pas, vous qui n'êtes pas jamais venu en Angleterre, qu'elles sont aussi une marque d'economie; mais il faut vous dire que les pipes sont si communes ici, qu'on ne fume jamais deux fois dans la même. La païsan, l'artizan le plus vil prend une pipe gratis dans le premier cabaret où il arrête: il continue son chemin en achevant de la fumer, et la jette à ses pieds."