No. 205. An Old Maid and her Page.
No. 206. Loss and Gain.
In the interval between these three great monuments of his talent, Hogarth had published various other plates, belonging to much the same class of subjects, and displaying different degrees of excellence. His engraving of “Southwark Fair,” published in 1733, which immediately preceded the “Harlot’s Progress,” may be regarded almost as an attempt to rival the fairs of Gallot. “The Midnight Modern Conversation” appeared in the interval between the “Harlot’s Progress” and the “Rake’s Progress;” and three years after the series last mentioned, in 1738, the engraving, remarkable equally in design and execution, of the “Strolling Actresses in a Barn,” and the four plates of “Morning,” “Noon,” “Evening,” and “Night,” all full of choicest bits of humour. Such is the group of the old maid and her footboy in the first of this series (cut No. 205)—the former stiff and prudish, whose religion is evidently not that of charity; while the latter crawls after, shrinking at the same time under the effects of cold and hunger, which he sustains in consequence of the hard, niggardly temper of his mistress. Among the humorous events which fill the plate of “Noon,” we may point to the disaster of the boy who has been sent to the baker’s to fetch home the family dinner, and who, as represented in our cut No. 206, has broken his pie-dish, and spilt its contents on the ground; and it is difficult to say which is expressed with most fidelity to nature—the terror and shame of the unfortunate lad, or the feeling of enjoyment in the face of the little girl who is feasting on the fragments of the scattered meal. In 1741 appeared the plate of “The Enraged Musician.” During this period Hogarth appears to have been hesitating between two subjects for his third grand pictorial drama. Some unfinished sketches have been found, from which it would seem that, after depicting the miseries of a life of dissipation in either sex, he intended to represent the domestic happiness which resulted from a prudent and well-assorted marriage; but for some reason or other he abandoned this design, and gave the picture of wedlock in a less amiable light, in his “Marriage à la mode.” The title was probably taken from that of Dryden’s comedy. In 1750 appeared “The March to Finchley,” in many respects one of Hogarth’s best works. It is a striking exposure of the want of discipline, and the low morale of the English army under George II. Many amusing groups fill this picture, the scene of which is laid in Tottenham Court Road, along which the guards are supposed to be marching to encamp at Finchley, in consequence of rumours of the approach of the Pretender’s army in the Rebellion of ’45. The soldiers in front are moving on with some degree of order, but in the rear we see nothing but confusion, some reeling about under the effects of liquor, and confounded by the cries of women and children, camp-followers, ballad-singers, plunderers, and the like. One of the latter, as represented in our cut No. 207, is assisting a fallen soldier with an additional dose of liquor, while his pilfering propensities are betrayed by the hen screaming from his wallet, and by the chickens following distractedly the cries of their parent.
No. 207. A brave Soldier.
No. 208. A Painter’s Amusements.
Hogarth presents a singular example of a satirist who suffered under the very punishment which he inflicted on others. He made many personal enemies in the course of his labours. He had begun his career with a well-known personal satire, entitled “The Man of Taste,” which was a caricature on Pope, and the poet is said never to have forgiven it. Although the satire in his more celebrated works appears to us general, it told upon his contemporaries personally; for the figures which act their parts in them were so many portraits of individuals who moved in contemporary society, and who were known to everybody, and thus he provoked a host of enemies. It was like Foote’s mimicry. He was to an extraordinary degree vain of his own talent, and jealous of that of others in the same profession; and he spoke in terms of undisguised contempt of almost all artists, past or present. Thus, the painter introduced into the print of “Beer Street,” is said to be a caricature upon John Stephen Liotard, one of the artists mentioned in the last chapter. He thus provoked the hostility of the greatest part of his contemporaries in his own profession, and in the sequel had to support the full weight of their anger. When George II., who had more taste for soldiers than pictures, saw the painting of the “March to Finchley,” instead of admiring it as a work of art, he is said to have expressed himself with anger at the insult which he believed was offered to his army; and Hogarth not only revenged himself by dedicating his print to the king of Prussia, by which it did become a satire on the British army, but he threw himself into the faction of the prince of Wales at Leicester House. The first occasion for the display of all these animosities was given in the year 1753, at the close of which he published his “Analysis of Beauty.” Though far from being himself a successful painter of beauty, Hogarth undertook in this work to investigate its principles, which he referred to a waving or serpentine line, and this he termed the “line of beauty.” In 1745 Hogarth had published his own portrait as the frontispiece to a volume of his collected works, and in one corner of the plate he introduced a painter’s palette, on which was this waving line, inscribed “The line of beauty.” For several years the meaning of this remained either quite a mystery, or was only known to a few of Hogarth’s acquaintances, until the appearance of the book just mentioned. Hogarth’s manuscript was revised by his friend, Dr. Morell, the compiler of the “Thesaurus,” whose name became thus associated with the book. This work exposed its author to a host of violent attacks, and to unbounded ridicule, especially from the whole tribe of offended artists. A great number of caricatures upon Hogarth and his line of beauty appeared during the year 1754, which show the bitterness of the hatred he had provoked; and to hold still further their terror over his head, most of them are inscribed with the words, “To be continued.” Among the artists who especially signalised themselves by their zeal against him, was Paul Sandby, to whom we owe some of the best of these anti-Hogarthian caricatures. One of these is entitled, “A New Dunciad, done with a view of [fixing] the fluctuating ideas of taste.” In the principal group (which is given in our cut No. 208), Hogarth is represented playing with a pantin, or figure which was moved into activity by pulling a string. The string takes somewhat the form of the line of beauty, which is also drawn upon his palette. This figure is described underneath the picture as “a painter at the proper exercise of his taste.” To his breast is attached a card (the knave of hearts), which is described by a very bad pun as “the fool of arts.” On one side “his genius” is represented in the form of a black harlequin; while behind appears a rather jolly personage (intended, perhaps, for Dr. Morell), who, we are told, is one of his admirers. On the table are the foundations, or the remains, of “a house of cards.” Near him is Hogarth’s favourite dog, named Trump, which always accompanies him in these caricatures. Another caricature which appeared at this time represents Hogarth on the stage as a quack doctor, holding in his hand the line of beauty, and recommending its extraordinary qualities. This print is entitled “A Mountebank Painter demonstrating to his admirers and subscribers that crookedness is ye most beautifull.” Lord Bute, whose patronage at Leicester House Hogarth now enjoyed, is represented fiddling, and the black harlequin serves as “his puff.” In the front a crowd of deformed and hump-backed people are pressing forwards (see our cut No. 209), and the line of beauty fits them all admirably.
