The fourth plate, “Chairing the Members,” exhibits the last and apparently most trying episode as regards the successful candidate; the hero of the hour—the newly returned member, elected in the True Blue, or New Interest—occupies a position which may have its honours, but obviously has its perils. In place of the actually returned members, Hogarth seems to have selected the figure of the intriguing manager of the Leicester House party, Bubb Dodington (afterwards Lord Melcombe), for the hero of the chairing scene. He is elevated only to find himself surrounded with embarrassments: the dangers of his chairing are lost sight of momentarily, for his pale face is horror-stricken by being confronted with a fair lady of fashion; she is equally affected by the rencontre, for she is swooning away—it is presumed with apprehension—in the arms of her maids. Over Bubb’s head flies a goose—a happy conception, understood to be introduced as a parody of the “Triumph of Alexander,” by Le Brun, where that grandiose artist has suggestively made an eagle hover over the head of his hero. In the Blue procession following the chairmen are all the elements of an election triumph—rough music of marrow-bones and cleavers, True Blue flags,[48] plenty of bludgeon-men, while a “block head,” wearing the buff favour of their opponents, is carried to ridicule the opposition. Another humorous episode is shown in a vixenish dame sporting a buff cockade; she has boldly broken through the ranks of the Blues, and is driving from their midst her husband, a tailor, detected in his duplicity by the virago, who is soundly cuffing her crestfallen “inferior moiety,” lately deserted to the enemy. A barrel of beer has been placed in the street for public use; a pewter measure stands beside it; the mob seems to have used the opportunity, as a would-be drinker is discovering that the cask is already emptied. In the distance, a second chaired member is skilfully indicated, of whom the shadow only is seen, projected on a wall, while he is carried along to the evident risk of limb and life, as his gesticulations imply. Among other accessories may be noted a tar-barrel, in preparation for a bonfire later on. The sun-dial bears the date 1755 (when the picture was completed), and marks three o’clock, the quality dinner-hour. The bigwigs of the Court party are assembled at an adjacent mansion, at which a plentiful banquet is about to be served: a French chef, his long clubbed tail bound with an orange favour, a female cook, noblemen’s servants, and other retainers, all wearing the colours of the Old Interest, are carrying the silver-covered dishes in procession. The ministerial adherents are assembled on the first floor; a large handsome window—all the panes of which have been broken by the stones of the patriots, affords a good view of the guests; from the side window they are catching the prospect of the Blue demonstration, surveying with malicious delight the perilous situation of the alarmed chaired member, whose triumph seems, for the time being, the reverse of enviable.
It is said the figure of the chief personage is intended for that of the Duke of Newcastle; the Duke of Marlborough was also actively engaged on the Tory side: while the back of another, wearing a broad ribbon, is possibly meant for Lord Winchilsea. Among the artist’s fugitive sketches, as published at his widow’s, Leicester Fields, in 1781, are the two caricatures—engraved by Bartolozzi, from the Earl of Exeter’s collection of Hogarth’s originals—representing Bubb Dodington (very like “Punch”), and the back view of Lord Winchilsea; both these studies might have been made for the plate of “Chairing the Members.” These figures are also included in a caricature entitled “The Recruiting Sergeant” 1757 (the design of which was ascribed to the Hon. George Townshend), while that of Lord Winchilsea, who was at the head of the admiralty, is reproduced with scarcely any alteration, excepting the position of the paddle shown over his shoulder, in the “Triumph of Neptune.”
GEORGE BUBB DODINGTON (LORD MELCOMBE-REGIS) AND THE EARL OF WINCHILSEA. BY HOGARTH. 1753.
Other multifarious incidents are given in the fourth plate of the “Election.” A soldier with the Buff colours is washing the wound received on behalf of his employers; his sword is snapped across the blade. A pig-driver, flourishing a formidable flail, is doing battle with a bear-leader, who is armed with a bludgeon. The backward swing of the flail is imperilling the security of the new member’s seat, while wounding the chair-bearers. Bruin is helping himself from the offal pail of a passing ass—the patient animal stopping to munch a thistle by the wayside; the driver is belabouring the bear over the head, to the alarm of a monkey equipped à la militaire and riding on the brute’s shoulder. In the monkey’s fright, a musket at his side is discharged in the face of a little chimney-sweep, who, raised aloft on the wall, is stooping forward to ornament a sculptured skull or effigy of death, placed above the church gate, with a pair of huge round spectacles, in imitation of those worn by Lord Winchilsea. This burning of powder, like the other episodes, has its significance; for, according to the account of Nichols, who claims to have discussed the hidden meanings of these pictures with Hogarth himself, it was “during the contested Oxfordshire Election in 1754 an outrageous mob in the ‘Old Interest’ had surrounded a post-chaise, and were about to throw it into the river (occupant and all), when Captain T——, withinside, shot a chimney-sweeper who was most active in the assault. The captain was tried and acquitted.” Among the items in these election bills it will be observed that more or less mortality has generally to be reckoned, “death by misadventure” having been sufficiently prominent in most contests of the kind during the turbulent times of the past. Private property was held in small respect while rioting was rife; for instance, Hogarth has, in the scene of the chairing, shown a mansion partially demolished, intending to imply that the house had been wrecked by the riotous mob in the course of their eccentric diversions: it will be noted that the wilful destruction of houses and furniture was another recognized feature of election times.
The diary of George Bubb Dodington, Baron of Melcombe-Regis, does not, it is true, contain any enlightenment upon the subject of the Oxfordshire election as depicted by Hogarth, yet the writer is circumstantial in his account of the elections of April, 1754. The records, however, deal with other contests in which the diarist was active, and notably one which brought Dodington much perplexity of mind and loss of cash. The accounts are nearly all set down as recitals of long interviews with the Duke of Newcastle, who was then trying to strengthen his hands by giving away places to those whose allegiance was doubtful; while Dodington, upon whose influence and assistance he could reckon, reaped nothing but mortification, being in fact an intriguer who was for once played upon for ends other than his own by a more astute and less scrupulous diplomatist than himself. The heads of the alliance are set down as under discussion. Bubb was to furnish his interest towards the electing the new parliament (the dissolution was then an affair of hours), claiming to return six members on his own account. “I did it,” he writes, “in the county of Dorset, as far as they pleased to push it. I engaged also specifically to choose two members for Weymouth, which he desired might be the son of the Duke of Devonshire and Mr. Ellis of the admiralty.” The candidates nominated by the Duke of Newcastle, Lord J. Cavendish and Mr. Ellis, were successfully returned by Dodington’s influence in the sequel. Further, there was opposition in Bridgwater, where Bubb was expected to return two members. Lord Egmont was putting up for that place against the Court, and it was the royal pleasure that Dodington should sacrifice himself to keep the Tory candidate out, as signified through Pelham; to which Bubb replied, “that I desired him, when next these matters came to be discussed, to lay me at the King’s feet, and tell him that, as I found it would be agreeable to his Majesty, I would spare neither pains nor expense to exclude him; and thus it became my engagement to do it if I can.” “Lord Egmont’s successful return,” he writes, “need not affect my election, though it might destroy the Whig interest in Bridgwater for ever.” Poor Bubb, oblivious of the royal antipathies to the friends of the Prince of Wales, was hoping to secure his old post of treasurer of the navy, but the leadership of the House of Commons had fallen upon the Pelhams, and, as the party must be strengthened there, it was hinted that the Duke of Newcastle would have to buy supporters by giving away to waverers the offices which rightly were due to his friends; to which Dodington replied without sophistication, “that he considered himself as useful there as his neighbours, and, considering his age, rank, the offices he had held,” and, “adding to that, choosing six members for them at my own expense, without the expense of one shilling from their side, I thought the world in general, and even the gentlemen themselves, could not expect that their pretensions should give me the exclusion.” The duke remarked that “the ease and cheapness of the election of Weymouth had surprised him, that they had nothing like it;” and Bubb considered again “that there were few who could give his Majesty six members for nothing.” Newcastle then took the stout future Baron Melcombe in his arms and kissed him twice (!) “with strong assurance of affection and service;” moreover, notes of all Bubb had said were written out for the king’s pleasure. A week later, Dodington sets down, “Dined at Lord Barrington’s, and found that, notwithstanding the fine conversation of last Thursday, all the employments are given away.”
Nevertheless, he valorously went to work to try and return two members for Bridgwater, though rather against his inclinations; unfortunately, although the doings of each day are set down, the details of the election have been abbreviated by the editor of the diary, Henry Wyndham.
“1754. April 8th. Arrived at Eastbury.
“11. Dr. Sharpe and I set out from Eastbury at four o’clock in the morning for Bridgwater, where, as I expected, I found things very disagreeably framed.
“12. Lord Egmont came, with trumpets, noise, etc.
“13. He and we walked the town: we found nothing unexpected as far as we went.
“14, 15, 16. Spent in the infamous and disagreeable compliance with the low habits of venal wretches.
“17. Came on the election, which I lost by the injustice of the Returning Officer. The numbers were—for Lord Egmont 119, for Mr. Balch 114, for me 105. Of my good votes 15 were rejected: 8 bad votes for Lord Egmont were received.
“18. Left Bridgwater for ever. Arrived at Eastbury in the evening.”
Altogether Dodington places his expenses at £2500, later on at £3400, and finally, when the king had thrown him over, at nearly £4000 spent in this affair. According to an accepted political axiom, what a man buys he may sell; Pelham admitted to Dodington that he possessed “a good deal of marketable ware (parliamentary interest), and that if I would empower him to offer it all to the king, without conditions, he would he answerable to bring the affair to a good account.” In this instance the vendor sold himself for “just nothing at all,” as is shown in the diary. The king disliked Bubb as the adviser of his son, whom he hated.
“April 26. I went to the Duke of Newcastle’s. Received with much seeming affection: thanks for Weymouth, where I had succeeded; sorrow for Bridgwater, where I had not.
“I began by telling him that I had done all that was in the power of money and labour, and showed him two bills for money remitted thither, before I went down, one of £1000, one of £500, besides all the money then in my steward’s hands, so that the election would cost me about £2500. In the next place, if this election stood, the borough was for ever in Tory hands; that all this was occasioned by want of proper support from the Court, and from the behaviour of the servants of the Crown.”