"At first the figures and groups, which rendered this manufacture popular, were copies of favourite paintings; but, as taste improved and skill increased, they showed more of originality in their conceptions, if not more of nature in their forms. They exhibited, in common with all other works of art, the mixed taste of the times—a grotesque union of classical and Hebrew history—of martial life and pastoral repose—of Greek gods and Romish saints. Absurd as such combinations certainly were, and destitute of those beauties of form and delicate gradations and harmony of colour which distinguish paintings worthily so called—still when the hall was lighted up, and living faces thronged the floor, the silent inhabitants of the walls would seem, in the eyes of our ancestors, something very splendid. As painting rose in fame, tapestry sunk in estimation. The introduction of a lighter and less massive mode of architecture abridged the space for its accommodation, and by degrees the stiff and fanciful creations of the loom vanished from our walls. The art is now neglected. I am sorry for this, because I cannot think meanly of an art which engaged the heads and hands of the ladies of England, and gave to the tapestried hall of elder days fame little inferior to what now waits on a gallery of paintings."
Passing over Holbein, Sir Antonio Moore, Vandyke, Lely, Kneller, and Thornhill, we come to the lives of Hogarth—Wilson—Reynolds and Gainsborough—from which we select a few characteristic anecdotes and sketches. In noticing Hogarth's early life, Mr. Cunningham has thrown some discredit on a book, which on its publication, made not a little chat among artists:—
"Of those early days I find this brief notice in Smith's Life of Nollekens the sculptor. 'I have several times heard Mr. Nollekens observe, that he had frequently seen Hogarth, when a young man, saunter round Leicester Fields with his master's sickly child hanging its head over his shoulder.' It is more amusing to read such a book than safe to quote it. Hogarth had ceased to have a master for seventeen years, was married to Jane Thornhill, kept his carriage, and was in the full blaze of his reputation, when Nollekens was born."
Among Hogarth's early labours are his Illustrations of Hudibras, published in 1726. These were seventeen plates; and we have lately seen in the possession of Mr. Britton, the architect, eleven original paintings illustrative of Butler's witty poem, and attributed to Hogarth.
From the notices of Hogarth's portraits we select the following:—
"Hogarth's Portrait of Henry Fielding, executed after death from recollection, is remarkable as being the only likeness extant of the prince of English novelists. It has various histories. According to Murphy, Fielding had made many promises to sit to Hogarth, for whose genius he had a high esteem, but died without fulfilling them; a lady accidentally cut a profile with her scissars, which recalled Fielding's face so completely to Hogarth's memory, that he took up the outline, corrected and finished it and made a capital likeness. The world is seldom satisfied with a common account of any thing that interests it—more especially as a marvellous one is easily manufactured. The following, then, is the second history. Garrick, having dressed himself in a suit of Fielding's clothes, presented himself unexpectedly before the artist, mimicking the step, and assuming the look of their deceased friend. Hogarth was much affected at first, but, on recovering, took his pencil, and drew the portrait. For those who love a soberer history, the third edition is ready. Mrs. Hogarth, when questioned concerning it, said, that she remembered the affair well; her husband began the picture—and finished it—one evening in his own house, and sitting by her side.
"Captain Coram, the projector of the Foundling Hospital, sat for his portrait to Hogarth, and it is one of the best he ever painted. There is a natural dignity and great benevolence expressed in a face which, in the original, was rough and forbidding. This worthy man, having laid out his fortune and impaired his health in acts of charity and mercy, was reduced to poverty in his old age. An annuity of a hundred pounds was privately purchased, and when it was presented to him, he said, 'I did not waste the wealth which I possessed in self-indulgence or vain expense, and am not ashamed to own that in my old age I am poor.'
"The last which I shall notice of this class of productions, is the portrait of the celebrated demagogue John Wilkes. This singular performance originated in a quarrel with that witty libertine, and his associate Churchill the poet: it immediately followed an article, from the pen of Wilkes, in the North Briton, which insulted Hogarth as a man, and traduced him as an artist. It is so little of a caricature, that Wilkes good humouredly observes somewhere in his correspondence, 'I am growing every day more and more like my portrait by Hogarth.' The terrible scourge of the satirist fell bitterly upon the personal and moral deformities of the man. Compared with his chastisement the hangman's whip is but a proverb, and the pillory a post of honour. He might hope oblivion from the infamy of both; but from Hogarth there was no escape. It was little indeed that the artist had to do, to brand and emblazon him with the vices of his nature—but with how much discrimination that little is done! He took up the correct portrait, which Walpole upbraids him with skulking into a court of law to obtain, and in a few touches the man sank, and the demon of hypocrisy and sensuality sat in his stead. It is a fiend, and yet it is Wilkes still. It is said that when he had finished this remarkable portrait, the former friendship of Wilkes overcame him, and he threw it into the fire, from which it was saved by the interposition of his wife."
All the criticisms on Hogarth's moral pictures have an air of originality and freshness of mind, which is so attractive, as to make us regret that we have not room for them. In proof of this, only let the reader turn to Mr. Cunningham's remarks on the Harlot and Rake's Progress, at pages 98 and 99. His descriptions too of the satirical pictures are extremely ludicrous, and in effect second only to painting itself. The following anecdote of the celebrated March to Finchley is curious, though well known:—
"The original painting was, on the publication of the print, disposed of by a kind of lottery. Seven shillings and sixpence were fixed as the price of a print; and every purchaser of a print was entitled to a chance in the lottery for the picture. Eighteen hundred and forty-three chances were subscribed for; a hundred and sixty-seven tickets, which remained, were presented to the Foundling Hospital. One of the Hospital's tickets drew the desired prize; and on the same night Hogarth delivered the painting to the governors, not a little pleased that it was to adorn a public place."