H.—Yes; T. M. told a person I know that that was the cause of all his misanthropy—he wanted to be an Adonis, and could not.
N.—Aye, and of his genius too; it made him write verses in revenge. There is no knowing the effect of such sort of things, of defects we wish to balance. Do you suppose we owe nothing to Pope’s deformity? He said to himself, ‘If my person be crooked, my verses shall be strait.’ I myself have felt this in passing along the street, when I have heard rude remarks made on my personal appearance. I then go home and paint: but I should not do this, if I thought all that there is in art was contained in Hogarth—I should then feel neither pride nor consolation in it. But if I thought, instead of his doll-like figures cut in two with their insipid, dough-baked faces, I should do something like Sir Joshua’s Iphigene, with all that delights the sense in richness of colour and luxuriance of form; or instead of the women spouting the liquor in one another’s faces, in the Rake’s Progress, I could give the purity, and grace, and real elegance (appearing under all the incumbrance of the fashionable dresses of the day) of Lady Sarah Bunbury or of the Miss Hornecks, sacrificing to the Graces, or of Lady Essex, with her long waist and ruffles, but looking a pattern of the female character in all its relations, and breathing dignity and virtue, then I should think this an object worth living for; or (as you have expressed it very properly) should even be proud of having failed. This is the opinion the world have always entertained of the matter. Sir Joshua’s name is repeated with more respect than Hogarth’s. It is not for his talents, but for his taste and the direction of them. In meeting Sir Joshua (merely from a knowledge of his works) you would expect to meet a gentleman—not so of Hogarth. And yet Sir Joshua’s claims and possessions in art were not of the highest order.
H.—But he was decent, and did not profess the arts and accomplishments of a Merry-Andrew.
N.—I assure you, it was not for want for [of] ability either. When he was young, he did a number of caricatures of different persons, and could have got any price for them. But he found it necessary to give up the practice. Leonardo da Vinci, a mighty man, and who had titles manifold, had a great turn for drawing laughable and grotesque likenesses of his acquaintances; but he threw them all in the fire. It was to him a kind of profanation of the art. Sir Joshua would almost as soon have forged as he would have set his name to a caricature. Gilray (whom you speak of) was eminent in this way; but he had other talents as well. In the Embassy to China, he has drawn the Emperor of China a complete Eastern voluptuary, fat and supine, with all the effects of climate and situation evident upon his person, and Lord Macartney is an elegant youth, a real Apollo; then, indeed, come Punch and the puppet-show after him, to throw the whole into ridicule. In the Revolutionists’ Jolly-boat, after the Opposition were defeated, he has placed Fox, and Sheridan, and the rest escaping from the wreck: Dante could not have described them as looking more sullen and gloomy. He was a great man in his way. Why does not Mr. Lamb write an essay on the Two-penny Whist? Yet it was against his conscience, for he had been on the other side, and was bought over. The minister sent to ask him to do them half a dozen at a certain price, which he agreed to, and took them to the treasury; but there being some demur about the payment, he took them back with some saucy reply. He had not been long at home, before a messenger was sent after him with the money.
CONVERSATION THE TWENTY-FIRST
N.—G. and I had a dispute lately about the capacity of animals. He appeared to consider them as little better than machines. He made it the distinguishing mark of superiority in man that he is the only animal that can transmit his thoughts to future generations. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘for future generations to take no sort of notice of them.’ I allowed that there were a few extraordinary geniuses that every one must look up to—and I mentioned the names of Shakspeare and Dryden. But he would not hear of Dryden, and began to pull him in pieces immediately. ‘Why then,’ I answered, ‘if you cannot agree among yourselves even with respect to four or five of the most eminent, how can there be the vast and overwhelming superiority you pretend to?’ I observed that instinct in animals answered very much to what we call genius. I spoke of the wonderful powers of smell, and the sagacity of dogs, and the memory shown by horses in finding a road that they have once travelled; but I made no way with G—; he still went back to Lear and Othello.
H.—I think he was so far right; for as this is what he understands best and has to imitate, it is fit he should admire and dwell upon it most. He cannot acquire the smell of the dog or the sagacity of the horse, and therefore it is of no use to think about them; but he may, by dint of study and emulation, become a better poet or philosopher. The question is not merely what is best in itself (of that we are hardly judges) but what sort of excellence we understand best and can make our own; for otherwise, in affecting to admire we know not what, we may admire a nonentity or a deformity. Abraham Tucker has remarked very well on this subject, that a swine wallowing in the mire may, for what he can tell, be as happy as a philosopher in writing an essay, but that is no reason why he (the philosopher) should exchange occupations or tastes with the brute, unless he could first exchange natures. We may suspend our judgments in such cases as a matter of speculation or conjecture, but that is different from the habitual or practical feeling. So I remember W— being nettled at D— (who affected a fashionable taste) for saying, on coming out of the Marquis of Stafford’s gallery, ‘A very noble art, very superior to poetry!’ If it were so, W— observed, he could know nothing about it, who had never seen any fine pictures before. It was like an European adventurer saying to an African chieftain, ‘A very fine boy, Sir, your black son—very superior to my white one!’ This is mere affectation; we might as well pretend to be thrown into rapture by a poem written in a language we are not acquainted with. We may notwithstanding believe that it is very fine, and have no wish to hang up the writer, because he is not an Englishman. A spider may be a greater mechanic than Watt or Arkwright; but the effects are not brought home to us in the same manner, and we cannot help estimating the cause by the effect. A friend of mine teazes me with questions, ‘Which was the greatest man, Sir Isaac Newton or a first-rate chess-player?’ It refers itself to the head of the Illustrious Obscure. A club of chess-players might give it in favour of the Great Unknown; but all the rest of the world, who have heard of the one and not of the other, will give it against him. We cannot set aside those prejudices which are founded on the limitation of our faculties or the constitution of society; only that we need not lay them down as abstract or demonstrable truths. It is there the bigotry and error begin. The language of taste and moderation is, I prefer this, because it is best to me; the language of dogmatism and intolerance is, Because I prefer it, it is best in itself, and I will allow no one else to be of a different opinion.
N.—I find in the last conversation I saw, you make me an admirer of Fielding, and so I am; but I find great fault with him too. I grant he is one of those writers that I remember; he stamps his characters, whether good or bad, on the reader’s mind. This is more than I can say of every one. For instance, when G— plagues me about my not having sufficient admiration of W—’s poetry, the answer I give is, that it is not my fault, for I have utterly forgotten it; it seemed to me like the ravelings of poetry. But to say nothing of Fielding’s immorality, and his fancying himself a fine gentleman in the midst of all his coarseness, he has oftener described habits than character. For example, Western is no character; it is merely the language, manners, and pursuits of the country-squire of that day; and the proof of this is, that there is no ‘Squire Western now. Manners and customs wear out, but characters last forever. I remember making this remark to Holcroft, and he asked me, What was the difference? Are you not surprised at that?
H.—Not in him. If you mentioned the word character, he stopped you short by saying, that it was merely the difference of circumstances; or if you hinted at the difference of natural capacity, he said, ‘Then, Sir, you must believe in innate ideas.’ He surrendered his own feelings and better judgment to a set of cant-phrases, called the modern philosophy.
N.—I need not explain the difference to you. Character is the ground-work, the natural stamina of the mind, on which circumstances only act. You see it in St. Giles’s—there are characters there that in the midst of filth, and vice, and ignorance, retain some traces of their original goodness, and struggle with their situation to the last: as in St. James’s, you will find wretches that would disgrace a halter. Gil Blas has character.