17. A ticket for a burial.
For the same purpose our artist's contemporary Coypel likewise engraved a plate, which is still in use.
18. Two small for Milton. W. Hogarth inv. & sculp.
It is so singular, that only plates referring to the first and third books of Paradise Lost should be discovered with our artist's name subscribed to them, that I almost suspect they were not executed for any edition of that work, but rather for some oratorio or operatical performance founded thereon, though neither performed nor printed. An example of two prints by Hogarth to a single dramatic piece, we have already met with in [Perseus and Andromeda].
If the first of the present designs was made for the first book of Paradise Lost, one might almost swear that Hogarth had never read it, or he could not have fallen into the strange absurdities and incoherences that his engraving displays. We have on one side a Dæmon exalted in a kind of pulpit, at the foot of which another infernal spirit lies bound in chains, while a cannon is pointed at his head. At a distance, in the centre of an arcade adorned with statues, is a throne with a personage seated on it. Over his head are little beings supporting an emblem of eternity. Stars, &c. appear above them. Whether this dignified character was designed for "a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd," it would be difficult from his figure and attributes to determine. Perhaps several works of fancy might be named, with which the present representation would as naturally connect as with the first book of Milton's Poem.
The following plate exhibits two celestial characters of equal age. They sit aloft in the clouds, and listen to a concert of angels playing on various instruments, and, among the rest, on a clumsy organ. A ray of light darts down on a distant orb, designed, I suppose, for the new-created world, towards which the figure of a little being, scarce bigger than a bird, though meant for Satan, is seen directing its flight.[1]
A bookseller of common sagacity would have been justified in rejecting these designs, if prepared for Milton. Indeed, had I not been taught by Mr. Walpole's catalogue that such was their destination, I should not hastily have conjectured that the former of them had the least reference to the Poet's Pandæmonium. Let it be remembered, however, that these must have been among the earliest of Hogarth's performances, and, like his prints for Don Quixote, were in all probability thrown aside, as unsuited to the purpose for which they were engraved. I have been told, indeed, that a couple of plates, by our artist, to the comedy of The Spanish Friar, are still existing.[2] If Hogarth, therefore, was once employed in preparing cuts to the plays of Dryden, the designs already mentioned might have been intended for two different scenes in The State of Innocence, or the Fall of Man.
[1] In justice, however, to one of these designs, I transcribe part of a letter that appeared in The Gentleman's Magazine for March 1782.
"Twickenham, March 12.