1755.
1. Four prints of an Election.[1] These, by Hogarth, came out at different times, viz. Plate I. Feb. 24, 1755 (inscribed to the Right Hon. Henry Fox); Plate II. Feb. 20, 1757, (to his Excellency Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, Ambassador to the Court of Russia); Plate III. Feb. 20, 1758, (to the Hon. Sir Edward Walpole, Knight of the Bath); Plate IV. Jan. 1, 1758, (to the Hon. George Hay,[2] one of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty). The original pictures are now in the possession of Mrs. Garrick, at Hampton. The inscription on the banner, "Give us our eleven days," alludes to the alteration of the Style in 1752; in which year, from the 2d to the 14th of September, eleven days were not reckoned by act of parliament. In the election-dinner, Mr. Hogarth assured the writer of this paragraph, that there is but one at table intended for a real portrait and that is the Irish gentleman [the present Sir John Parnell, nephew to the poet, and remarkable for a very flat nose], who is diverting the company by a face drawn with a burnt cork upon the back of his hand, while he is supposed to be singing—An old woman cloathed in grey. This gentleman (then an eminent attorney) begged it as a favour; declaring, at the same time, he was so generally known, that the introduction of his face would be of service to our artist in the sale of his prints at Dublin. Notwithstanding Hogarth's assertion, the handsome candidate is pronounced to be the late Thomas Potter, esq. and the effigy, seen through the window, with the words "No Jews" about its neck, to be meant for the late Duke of Newcastle. Of yet another real personage we receive notice, from a pamphlet intituled "The last Blow, or an unanswerable vindication of the Society of Exeter College, in reply to the Vice-chancellor Dr. King, and the writers of The London Evening Post." 4to. 1755. p. 21.—"The next character, to whose merits we would do justice, is the Rev. Dr. C—ff—t (Cofferat). But as it is very difficult to delineate this fellow in colours sufficiently strong and lively, it is fortunate for us and the Doctor, that Hogarth has undertaken that task. In the print of an Election Entertainment, the publick will see the Doctor represented sitting among the freeholders, and zealously eating and drinking for the sake of the New Interest. His venerable and humane aspect will at once bespeak the dignity and benevolence of his heart. Never did alderman at Guildhall devour custard with half such an appearance of love to his country, or swallow ale with so much the air of a patriot. These circumstances the pencil of Mr. Hogarth will undoubtedly make manifest; but it is much to be lamented, that his words also cannot appear in this print, and that the artist cannot delineate that persuasive flow of eloquence which could prevail upon Copyholders to abjure their base tenures, and swear themselves Freeholders. But this oratory (far different from the balderdash of Tully and Dr. King, concerning liberty and our country) as the genius of mild ale alone could inspire, this fellow alone could deliver."—The very paper of tobacco, inscribed "Kirton's Best," has its peculiar significance. This man was a tobacconist by St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-street, and ruined his health and constitution, as well as impaired his circumstances, by being busy in the Oxfordshire election of 1754. Plate II. In the painted cloth depending from the sign-post, the height of The Treasury is contrasted with the squat solidity of The Horse-Guards, where the arch is so low, that the state-coachman cannot pass through it with his head on; and the turret on the top is so drawn as to resemble a beer-barrel. Ware the architect very gravely remarked, on this occasion, that the chief defect would have been sufficiently pointed out by making the coachman only stoop. He was hurt by Hogarth's stroke of satire. Money is likewise thrown from The Treasury windows, to be put into a waggon, and carried into the country. George Alexander Stevens, in his celebrated "Lecture on Heads," exhibited the man with a pot of beer, explaining, with pieces of a tobacco-pipe, how Porto Bello was taken with six ships only. In Plate III. Dr. Shebbeare, with fetters on, is prompting the idiot; and in Plate IV. the old Duke of Newcastle appears at a window. A happy parody in the last of these plates may, perhaps, have escaped the notice of common observers. Le Brun, in his battle of the Granicus, has represented an eagle hovering above the laurel'd helmet of Alexander. Hogarth has painted a goose flying over the periwig'd head of the successful candidate. During the contested Oxfordshire election in 1754, an outrageous mob in the Old Interest had surrounded a post-chaise, and was about to throw it into the river; when Captain T——, within-side, shot a chimney-sweeper who was most active in the assault. The captain was tried and acquitted. To this fact Hogarth is supposed to allude in the Monkey riding on the Bear, with a cockade in his hat, and a carbine by his side, which goes off and kills the little sweep, who has clambered up on the wall. The member chaired is said to bear more than an accidental resemblance to Mr. Dodington, afterwards Lord Melcombe.
In 1759 appeared "A Poetical Description of Mr. Hogarth's Election Prints,[3] in four Cantos. Written under Mr. Hogarth's sanction and inspection," which I shall with the less scruple transcribe at large below,[4] as it was originally introduced by the following remarkable advertisement, dated Cheapside, March 1, 1759. "For the satisfaction of the reader, and in justice to the concealed author, I take the liberty, with the permission of Mr. Hogarth, to insert in this manner that gentleman's opinion of the following Cantos, which is, 'That the thoughts entirely coincide with his own; that there is a well-adapted vein of humour preserved through the whole; and that, though some of his works have been formerly explained by other hands, yet none ever gave him so much satisfaction as the present performance.' John Smith."
In the second state of the first of these plates few variations are discoverable. The perspective in the oval over the stag's horns is improved. A shadow on the wainscot, proceeding from a supposed window on the left side, is effaced; the hand of the beldam kissing the young candidate, is removed from under her apron, and now dangles by her side: a saltseller is likewise missing from the table. In the first impression also, the butcher who is pouring gin on the broken head of another man, has For our Country on his cockade; in the second we find Pro Patria in its stead. The lemons and oranges that once lay on a paper, by the tub in which the boy is making punch, are taken away; because Hogarth, in all probability, had been informed that vitriol, or cream of tartar, is commonly used, instead of vegetable acids, when a great quantity of such liquor is prepared at public houses on public occasions. In the third impression a hat is added to those before on the ground, and another on the bench. The whole plate has also lost much of its former clearness. The original inscription at one corner of it was—"Painted, and the whole engraved by Wm. Hogarth."[5] The two Words in Italicks were afterwards effaced.
I may here observe, that this performance, in its original state, is by far the most finished and laborious of all Hogarth's engravings. Having been two years on sale (from 1755 to 1757) it was considerably worn before the publication of Plate the second; and was afterwards touched and retouched till almost all the original and finer traces of the burin were either obliterated or covered by succeeding ones. In short, there is the same difference between the earliest and latest impressions, as there was between the first and second state of Sir John Cutler's stockings, which, by frequent mending, from silk degenerated into worsted.
I learn also, on the best authority, that our artist, who was always fond of trying to do what no man had ventured to do before him, resolved to finish this plate without taking a single proof from it as he proceeded in his operation. The consequence of his temerity was, that he almost spoiled his performance. When he discovered his folly, he raved, stamped, and swore he was ruined, nor could be prevailed on to think otherwise, till his passion subsided, and a brother artist assisted him in his efforts to remedy the general defect occasioned by such an attempt to perform an impossibility.