The burlesque Paul, &c. being the current receipt for these two prints, I know not why our artist should have altered and vamped up his Boys peeping at Nature (see p. [188].) for the same purpose. This plate was lately found at Mrs. Hogarth's, but no former impressions from it appear to have been circulated. It might have been a first thought, before the idea of its ludicrous successor occurred. Hogarth, however, with propriety, effaced all the wit in his original design, before he meant to offer it as a prologue to his uninteresting serious productions.
4. Paul before Felix, designed and scratched in the true Dutch taste, by W. Hogarth. This was the receipt for Pharaoh's daughter, and for the serious Paul and Felix; and is a satire on Dutch pictures. It also contains, in the character of a serjeant tearing his brief, a portrait of Hume Campbell, who was not over-delicate in the language he used at the bar to his adversaries and antagonists. This, however, is said by others to be the portrait of William King,[1] LL. D. Principal of St. Mary Hall, Oxford. In a variation of this print, the Devil is introduced sawing off a leg of the stool on which Paul stands. In the third impression, as is noted in the collection sold last at Christie's, "Hogarth has again taken out the Devil. By these variations of Devil and no Devil, he glances at Collectors, who give great prices for such rarities; and perhaps he had in his eye the famous print of the Shepherd's Offering by Poilly, after Guido, which sells very dear, without the Angels." This, however, is erroneous. After the dæmon was once admitted, he was never discarded. The plate in Mrs. Hogarth's keeping confirms my assertion. In the first proof of Poilly's Shepherd's Offering, the angels are lightly sketched in; in the finished proof they are totally omitted; but were afterwards inserted. There are similar variations relative to the arms at the bottom of it.
Of this burlesque Paul, &c. none were originally intended for sale; but our artist gave them away to such of his acquaintance, &c. as begged for them. The number of these petitioners, however, increasing every day, he resolved at last to part with no copies of it at a less price than five shillings.[2] All the early proofs were stained by himself, to give them that tint of age which is generally found on the works of Rembrandt. Of this plate, however, there are two impressions. The inscription under the first is "Paul before Felix. Design'd and scratch'd in the true Dutch taste by &c." Under the second, "Designed and etch'd in the ridiculous manner of Rembrant, &c." From the former of these Hogarth took off a few reverses. He must have been severely mortified when he found his ludicrous representation of Paul before Felix was more coveted and admired than his serious painting on the same subject.
[1] Of Dr. King, who was "a tall, lean, well-looking man," there is a striking likeness in Worlidge's View of the Installation of Lord Westmoreland as chancellor of Oxford in 1761. Some particulars of his life and writings may be seen in the "Anecdotes of Mr. Bowyer," p. 594.
[2] Mr. Walpole has honoured a passage in the first edition of this hasty work, with the following stricture: (see Anecdotes of Painting, vol. IV. p. 149).
"I have been blamed for censuring the indelicacies of Flemish and Dutch painters, by comparing them with the purity of Hogarth, against whom are produced many instances of indelicacy, and some repetitions of the same indelicacy. I will not defend myself by pleading that these instances are thinly scattered through a great number of his works, and that there is at least humour in most of the incidents quoted, and that they insinuate some reflection, which is never the case of the foreigners—but can I chuse but smile when one of the nastiest examples specified is from the burlesque of Paul before Felix, professedly in ridicule of the gross images of the Dutch?"
In consequence of private remarks from Mr. W. this questionable position, as well as a few others, had been obviated in my second impression of the trifling performance now offered to the public: but as our author cannot chuse but smile, when the occasion of his mirth was no longer meant to be in his way, I would ask, in defence of my former observation, if moralists usually attempt to reform profligates by writing treatises of profligacy? or, if painters have a right to chastise indelicacy, by exhibiting gross examples of it in their own performances? To become indecent ourselves, is an unwarrantable recipe for curing indecency in others. The obscenities of Juvenal have hitherto met with no very successful vindication: "Few are the converts Aretine has made." According to our critic's mode of reasoning, a homicide might urge that the crime of which he stands accused was committed only as a salutary example of the guilt of murder; nay, thus indeed every human offence might be allowed to bring with it its own apology.—I forbear to proceed in this argument, or might observe in behalf of our "foreigners," that their incidents insinuate some reflections as well as Hogarth's. The evacuations introduced in Dutch pictures, most certainly inculcate the necessity of temperance, for those only who eat and drink too much at fairs, or in ale-houses, are liable to such public and unseemly accidents as Heemskirk, Ostade, and Teniers, have occasionally represented. If we are to look for "Sermons in stones, and good in everything," this inference is as fair as many which Mr. W. seems inclined to produce in honour of poor Hogarth, who, like Shakspeare, often sought to entertain, without keeping any moral purpose in view. But was there either wit or morality in Hogarth's own evacuation against the door of a church, a circumstance recorded by Mr. Forrest in his MS. tour, though prudently suppressed in his printed copy of it? Perhaps, following Uncle Toby's advice, he had better have wiped the whole up, and said nothing about the matter. Our worthy Tour-writer, however, was by no means qualified to be the author of a Sentimental Journey. He rather (and purposely, as we are told) resembles Ben Jonson's communicative traveller, who says to his companion,
——I went and paid a moccinigo
For mending my silk stockings; by the way
I cheapen'd sprats, and at St. Mark's I urin'd.
Faith, these are politic notes!