2. Analysis of Beauty. Two plates. Mr. Walpole observes, that Hogarth's "samples of grace in a young lord and lady are strikingly stiff and affected. They are a Bath beau and a county beauty." The print is found in three different states. "In the original plate the principal figure represented the present king, then prince, but Hogarth was desired to alter it. The present figure was taken from the last duke of Kingston; yet, though like him, is stiff, and far from graceful."[1] In Plate I. Fig. 19. the fat personage drest in a Roman habit, and elevated on a pedestal, was designed, as Hogarth himself acknowledged, for a ridicule on Quin in the character of Coriolanus. Essex the dancing-master is also represented in the act of endeavouring to reduce the graceful attitude of Antinous to modern stiffness. Fig. 20. was likewise meant for the celebrated Desnoyer, dancing in a grand ballet.
Dr. Beattie, speaking of the modes of combination, by which incongruous qualities may be presented to the eye, or the fancy, so as to provoke laughter, observes "A country dance of men and women, like those exhibited by Hogarth in his Analysis of Beauty, could hardly fail to make a beholder merry, whether he believed their union to be the effect of design or accident. Most of those persons have incongruities of their own in their shape, dress, or attitude, and all of them are incongruous in respect of one another; thus far the assemblage displays contrariety or want of relation: and they are all united in the same dance; and thus far they are mutually related. And if we suppose the two elegant figures removed, which might be done without lessening the ridicule, we should not easily discern any contrast of dignity and meanness in the group that remains.
"Almost the same remarks might be made on The Enraged Musician, another piece of the same great master, of which a witty author quaintly says, that it deafens one to look at it. This extraordinary group forms a very comical mixture of incongruity and relation; of incongruity, owing to the dissimilar employment and appearances of the several persons, and to the variety and dissonance of their respective noises; and of relation, owing to their being all united in the same place, and for the same purpose of tormenting the poor fidler. From the various sounds co-operating to this one end, the piece becomes more laughable, than if their meeting were conceived to be without any particular destination; for the greater number of relations, as well as of contrarieties, that take place in any ludicrous assembly, the more ludicrous it will generally appear. Yet, though this group comprehends not any mixture of meanness and dignity, it would, I think, be allowed to be laughable to a certain degree, merely from the juxta-position of the objects, even though it were supposed to be accidental." Essay on Laughter and Ludicrous Composition, 4to Edit. 608.
"I have no new books, alas! to amuse myself or you; so can only return yours of Hogarth's with thanks. It surprized me agreeably; for I had conceived the performance to be a set of prints only, whereas I found a book which I did not imagine Hogarth capable of writing; for in his pencil I always confided, but never imagined his pen would have afforded me so much pleasure. As to his not fixing the precise degree of obliquity, which constitutes beauty, I forgive him, because I think the task too hard to be performed literally: but yet he conveys an idea between his pencil and his pen, which makes one conceive his meaning pretty well." Lady Luxborough's Letters, p. 380.
I shall here transcribe as much from the Analysis as is necessary to communicate our artist's design relative to the various figures that compose the country-dance in the second plate. The reader who neither possesses the book, nor wishes to accompany the author throughout his technical explanations, may desire some intelligence concerning the present subject.
"CHAP. XIV.
"Of Attitude.
"—As two or three lines at first are sufficient to shew the intention of an attitude, I will take this opportunity of presenting my reader with the sketch of a country-dance, in the manner I began to set out the design; in order to shew how few lines are necessary to express the first thoughts as to different attitudes [see fig. 71. T. p. 2.], which describe, in some measure, the several figures and actions, mostly of the ridiculous kind, that are represented in the chief part of plate II.
"The most amiable person may deform his general appearance by throwing his body and limbs into plain lines; but such lines appear still in a more disagreeable light in people of a particular make; I have therefore chose such figures as I thought would agree best with my first score of lines, fig. 71.