"If the Comic Poet who draws the characters of the age he lives in, by keeping strictly up to their manners in their speeches and expressions; if satirizing vice and encouraging virtue in dialogue, to render it familiar, is always reckoned amongst the liberal arts; and the authors, when dead, dignified with busts and monuments sacred to their memory; sure the master of the pencil, whose traits carry, not only a lively image of the persons and manners, but whose happy genius has found the secret of so disposing the several parts, as to convey a pleasing and instructive moral through the history he represents, may claim a rank in the foremost class, and acquire, if the term is allowable, the appellation of the Dramatic Painter.
"The Modish Husband, incapable of relishing the pleasures of true happiness, is here depicted in his full swing of vice, 'till his mistaken conduct drives his wife to be false to his bed, and brings him to a wretched end; killed in revenging the loss of that virtue which he would never cherish. The Lady is equally represented as a true copy of all the fine ladies of the age, who, by indulging their passions, run into all those extravagances, that at last occasion a shameful exit. If the gentlemen of the long robe, who ought to know the consequences, are guilty of committing such a breach of hospitality as is here described, they are properly reprimanded: the penurious Alderman, and the profligate old Nobleman, are a fine contrast; the Quack Doctor, the Italian Singer, &c. are proofs of the Inventor's judgement and distinction, both in high and low life.
"Though these images are pleasing to the eye, yet many have complained that they wanted a proper explanation, which we hope will plead an excuse for publication of the following Canto's, as the desire to render these pieces more extensive may atone for the many faults contained in this poem, for which the Hudibrastic style was thought most proper."
The ARGUMENTS.
CANTO I.
"The joys and plagues that wedlock brings,
The Limner paints, the Poet sings;
How the old dads weigh either scale,
And set their children up to sale;
How, void of thought, the Viscount weds
The nymph, who such a marriage dreads;
And, whilst himself the Fop admires,
M——y with love her soul inspires."
CANTO II.
"The wedding o'er, the ill-match'd pair
Are left at large, their fate to share;
All public places he frequents,
Whilst she her own delight invents;
And, full of love, bewails her doom,
When drunk i'th' morning he comes home;
The pious stew'rd, in great surprize,
Runs from them with uplifted eyes."
CANTO III.
"My Lord now keeps a common Miss,
Th' effects describ'd of amorous bliss,
Venereal taints infect their veins,
And fill them full of aches and pains;
Which to an old French Doctor drives 'em,
Who with his pill, a grand p—x gives 'em;
A scene of vengeance next ensues,
With which the Muse her tale pursues."
CANTO IV.
"Fresh honours on the Lady wait,
A Countess now she shines in state;
The toilette is at large display'd,
Where whilst the morning concert's play'd,
She listens to her lover's call,
Who courts her to the midnight-ball."
CANTO V.
"The dismal consequence behold,
Of wedding girls of London mould;
The Husband is depriv'd of life,
In striving to detect his Wife;
The Lawyer naked, in surprize,
Out of the Bagnio window flies:
Whilst Madam, leaping from the bed,
Doth on her knee for pardon plead."
CANTO VI.
"The Lawyer meets his just reward,
Nor from the triple tree is spar'd;
The Father takes my Lady home,
Where, when she hears her Lover's doom,
To desperate attempts she flies,
And with a dose of poison dies."
In these plates only a single variation is detected. In the very first impressions of the second of them (perhaps a few only were taken off) a lock of hair on the forehead of the lady is wanting. It was added by our artist, after Baron had finished the plate. In the early copies he inserted it with Indian ink. A passage in the Analysis[2] will perhaps account for this supplemental ornament: "A lock of hair falling cross the temples, and by that means breaking the regularity of the oval, has an effect too alluring to be strictly decent." The room represented in this plate is adorned with a melange of pictures on wanton and devotional subjects.
Mr. Walpole has remarked, that the works of Hogarth have little obscurity. This position is true in general, though Marriage à la Mode may supply an exception to it; no two persons, perhaps, having hitherto agreed in their explanation of Plate the third.[3]
When this set of plates was to be engraved, Ravenet, a young artist, then just coming into employ, was recommended to Mr. Hogarth; and a hard bargain was made. Ravenet went through two of the plates, but the price proved far inadequate to the labour. He remonstrated, but could obtain no augmentation. When the Sigismunda was to be engraved, Mr. Ravenet was in a different sphere of life. The painter, with many compliments, solicited his assistance as an engraver, but Ravenet indignantly declined the connexion.