"No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear,
Pleas'd thy pale ghost, or grac'd thy mournful bier:
By harlots' hands thy dying eyes were clos'd;
By harlots' hands thy decent limbs compos'd;
By harlots' hands thy humble grave adorn'd;
By harlots honoured, and by harlots mourn'd."
[Illustration: THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS, PLATE VI.]
The adventures of our heroine are now concluded. She is no longer an
actor in her own tragedy; and there are those who have considered
this print as a farce at the end of it: but surely such was not the
author's intention.
The ingenious writer of _Tristram Shandy_ begins the life of his hero
before he is born; the picturesque biographer of Mary Hackabout has
found an opportunity to convey admonition, and enforce his moral,
after her death. A wish usually prevails, even among those who are
most humbled by their own indiscretion, that some respect should
be paid to their remains; that their eyes should be closed by the
tender hand of a surviving friend, and the tear of sympathy and
regret shed upon the sod which covers their grave; that those who
loved them living should attend their last sad obsequies, and a
sacred character read over them the awful service which our religion
ordains with the solemnity it demands. The memory of this votary of
prostitution meets with no such marks of social attention or pious
respect. The preparations for her funeral are as licentious as the
progress of her life, and the contagion of her example seems to reach
all who surround her coffin. One of them is engaged in the double
trade of seduction and thievery; a second is contemplating her own
face in a mirror. The female who is gazing at the corpse displays
some marks of concern, and feels a momentary compunction at viewing
the melancholy scene before her: but if any other part of the company
are in a degree affected, it is a mere maudlin sorrow, kept up by
glasses of strong liquor. The depraved priest does not seem likely
to feel for the dead that hope expressed in our liturgy.[63] The
appearance and employment of almost every one present at this mockery
of woe, is such as must raise disgust in the breast of any female who
has the least tincture of delicacy, and excite a wish that such an
exhibition may not be displayed at her own funeral.
In this plate there are some local customs which mark the manners
of the times when it was engraved, but are now generally disused,
except in some of the provinces very distant from the capital; sprigs
of rosemary were then given to each of the mourners: to appear at a
funeral without one, was as great an indecorum as to be without a
white handkerchief. This custom might probably originate at a time
when the plague depopulated the metropolis, and rosemary was deemed
an antidote against contagion. It must be acknowledged that there are
also in this print some things which, though they gave the artist an
opportunity of displaying his humour, are violations of propriety
and custom: such is her child, but a few removes from infancy, being
habited as chief mourner, to attend his parent to the grave; rings
presented, and an escutcheon hung up in a garret at the funeral of a
needy prostitute.[64] The whole may be intended as a burlesque upon
ostentatious and expensive funerals, which were then more customary
than they are now. Mr. Pope has well ridiculed the same folly:
"When Hopkins dies, a thousand lights attend
The wretch who, living, saved a candle's end."
The figures have much characteristic discrimination: the woman
looking into the coffin has more beauty than we generally see in
the works of this artist. The undertaker's gloating stare, his
companion's leer, the internal satisfaction of the parson and his
next neighbour, are contrasted by the Irish howl of the woman at the
opposite side, and evince Mr. Hogarth's thorough knowledge of the
operation of the passions upon the features. The composition forms a
good shape, has a proper depth, and the light is well managed.
Sir James Thornhill's opinion of this series may be inferred from
the following circumstance. Mr. Hogarth had without consent married
his daughter: Sir James, considering him as an obscure artist, was
much displeased with the connection. To give him a better opinion of
his son-in-law, a common friend one morning privately conveyed the
six pictures of the "Harlot's Progress" into his drawing-room. The
veteran painter eagerly inquired who was the artist; and being told,
cried out, "Very well! Very well indeed! The man who can paint such
pictures as these, can maintain a wife without a portion." This was
the remark of the moment; but he afterwards considered the union of
his daughter with a man of such abilities an honour to his family,
was reconciled, and generous.
When the publication was advertised, such was the expectation of
the town, that above twelve hundred names were entered in the
subscription book. When the prints appeared, they were beheld with
astonishment. A subject so novel in the idea, so marked with genius
in the execution, excited the most eager attention of the public.
At a time when England was coldly inattentive to everything which
related to the arts, so desirous were all ranks of people of seeing
how this little domestic story was delineated, that there were eight
piratical imitations,--besides two copies in a smaller size than
the original, published, by permission of the author, for Thomas
Bakewell. The whole series were copied on fan-mounts, representing
the six plates, three on one side, and three on the other. It was
transferred from the copper to the stage, in the form of a pantomime,
by Theophilus Cibber; and again represented in a ballad opera,
entitled, The Jew Decoyed, or the Harlot's Progress.
A Joseph Gay, and several other wretched rhymers, published what
they called poetical illustrations of Mr. Hogarth's six plates: but
these effusions of dulness do not deserve enumeration; nor would they
deserve mention, but as collateral proofs of the great estimation in
which these prints were held, when their popularity could force the
sale of such miserable productions. Happily they are now consigned to
those two high priests of the temple of oblivion, the trunkmaker and
the pastrycook.
The six original pictures were sold on the 25th of January 1744-5,
and produced eighty-eight pounds four shillings. Mr. Beckford, a late
Lord Mayor of London, was, I believe, the purchaser. At a fire which
burnt down his house at Fonthill, Wiltshire, in the year 1755, five
of them were consumed.
When a messenger brought him intelligence of this unfortunate event,
he said nothing, but took out his pocket-book, and wrote down a
number of figures, which he seemed inspecting with the cool precision
of a true disciple of Cocker, when a friend who was present,
expressing some surprise at his being so collected after so heavy a
loss, asked him what was the subject of his meditation? to which he
answered, with the most philosophical indifference, "I am calculating
how much it will cost me to rebuild my house."
[Illustration: (end of chapter floral icon)]