"Think not to find one meant resemblance there;
We lash the vices, but the persons spare.
Prints should be priz'd, as authors should be read,
Who sharply smile prevailing Folly dead.
So Rabelais laught, and so Cervantes thought;
So Nature dictated what Art has taught."
[Illustration: MIDNIGHT MODERN CONVERSATION.]
Notwithstanding this inscription, which was engraved on the plate
some time after its publication, it is very certain that most of
these figures were intended for individual portraits; but Mr.
Hogarth, not wishing to be considered as a personal satirist, and
fearful of making enemies among his contemporaries, would never
acknowledge who were the characters. Some of them the world might
perhaps mistake; for though the author was faithful in delineating
whatever he intended to portray, complete intoxication so far
caricatures the countenance, that, according to the old though trite
proverb, "the man is not himself." His portrait, though given with
the utmost fidelity, will scarcely be known by his most intimate
friends, unless they have previously seen him in this degrading
disguise. Hence it becomes difficult to identify men whom the painter
did not choose to point out at the time; and sixty years having
elapsed, it becomes impossible,--for all who composed the group, with
the artist by whom it was delineated,
"Shake hands with dust, and call the worm their kinsman."
Mrs. Piozzi told me that the divine with a corkscrew,[114]
occasionally used as a tobacco-stopper, hanging upon his little
finger, was the portrait of Parson Ford, Dr. Johnson's uncle; though
upon the authority of Sir John Hawkins, of anecdotish memory, it has
been generally supposed to be intended for Orator Henley.[115]
As I have been told that both these worthies were distinguished by
that clerical rubicundity of face with which it is marked, the reader
may decree the honour of a sitting to which he pleases. We may say of
either one or the other:
"No loftier theme his thought pursues,
Than punch, good company, and dues.
Easy, and careless what may fall,
He hears, assents, and fills to all;
Proving it plainly by his face,
That cassocks are no signs of grace."[116]
The roaring Bacchanalian who stands next him, waving his glass in
the air, has pulled off his wig, and in the zeal of his friendship
crowns the divine's head. He is evidently drinking destruction to
fanatics and success to Mother Church, or a mitre to the jolly parson
whom he addresses.
The lawyer who sits near him is a portrait of one Kettleby, a
vociferous bar-orator, who, though an utter barrister, chose to
distinguish himself by wearing an enormous full-bottom wig, in which
he is here represented. He was further remarkable for a diabolical
squint and a Satanic smile. In the _Causidicade_ are a number of
lines dedicated to the honour of this amiable person. They begin
with--
"Up Kettleby starts with a horrible stare."
A poor maudlin miserable who is addressing him, when sober, must be
a fool; but, in this state, it would puzzle Lavater to assign him a
proper class. He seems endeavouring to demonstrate to the lawyer
that in a poi--poi--point of law he has been most cruelly cheated,
and lost a cau--cau--cause that he ought to have got,--and all this
was owing to his attorney being an infernal villain. This may very
probably be true; for the poor man's tears show that, like the
person relieved by the good Samaritan, he has been among thieves.
The barrister grins horribly at his misfortunes, and tells him he is
properly punished for not employing a gentleman.
Next to him sits a gentleman in a black periwig. He politely turns
his back to the company, that he may have the pleasure of smoking a
_sociable_ pipe.
The justice, "in fair round belly, with good capon lin'd,"--the
justice, having hung up his hat, wig, and cloak, puts on his
nightcap, and with a goblet of superior capacity before him, sits in
solemn cogitation. Meditating severe punishments on the dissolute
peasant who tipples ale or viler liquors, he resolves for the
future to act with magisterial harshness, that he may convince his
neighbours of his zeal for the law, and detestation of drunkenness.
His left elbow supported by the table and his right by a chair, with
a pipe in one hand and a stopper in the other, he puffs out the bland
vapour with the dignity of an alderman, and fancies himself as great
as Jupiter seated upon the summit of Mount Olympus, enveloped by the
thick cloud which his own breath has created.
With folded arms and open mouth another leans back in his chair.[117]
His wig is dropped from his head, and he is asleep: but though
speechless, he is sonorous; for you clearly perceive that where nasal
sounds are the music, he is qualified to be leader of the band.
The fallen hero, who with his chair and goblet has tumbled to the
floor, by the cockade in his hat we suppose to be an officer. His
forehead is marked, perhaps with honourable scars. To wash his wounds
and cool his head, the staggering apothecary bathes it with brandy.
A gentleman in the corner, who, from having the _Craftsman_ and
_London Evening_ in his pocket, we determine to be a politician, very
unluckily mistakes his ruffle for the bowl of his pipe, and sets fire
to it.
The person in a bag-wig and solitaire, with his hand upon his
head,[118] would not now pass for a fine gentleman, but in the year
1735 was a complete beau. Unaccustomed to such joyous company, he
appears to have drank rather more than agrees with him.
The company consists of eleven,[119] and on the chimney-piece, floor,
and table, are three-and-twenty empty flasks. These, added to a
bottle which the apothecary holds in his hand, prove that this select
society have not lost a moment. The overflowing bowl, full goblets,
and charged glasses, prove that they think "'tis too early to part,"
though the dial points to four in the morning!
"What have we with day to do?
Sons of Care, Sons of Care, 'twas made for you."
The clock, like the company, is irregular; for the minute finger and
hour hand do not agree. Over the chimney-piece is a picture, of which
we can discover enough to guess that it has once been a landscape;
but, like the understandings of the gentlemen present, is so obscured
by smoke and vapour as to appear a mere chaos, without one clear and
distinct form. The fumes of punch, the smoke of pipes, and effluvia
of candles sunk into the sockets, must render the air delightfully
balmy, and produce ambrosial fragrance.
The different degrees of drunkenness are well discriminated, and
its effects admirably described. The poor simpleton who is weeping
out his woes to honest lawyer Kettleby, it makes mawkish; the beau
it makes sick; and the politician it stupifies. One is excited to
roaring, and another lulled to sleep. It half closes the eyes of
justice, renders the footing of physic unsure, and lays prostrate the
glory of his country and the pride of war.
On the 22d of March 1742, for the benefit of Mr. Hippisley, was acted
at Covent Garden Theatre a new scene, called _A Modern Midnight
Conversation_, taken from Hogarth's print, in which was introduced
Hippisley's Drunken Man, with a comic tale of what really passed
between him and his old aunt, at her house on Mendip Hills, in
Somersetshire.
Having described the individuals of which this print is composed, let
us for a moment reflect upon the vice it is intended to satirize; and
considered in a moral point of view, it may have as good an effect as
the sight of an intoxicated slave had upon the young men of Sparta.
This people sometimes made a slave drunk, that their sons, disgusted
by the sight, might avoid the practice.
In a book published about a century and a half ago, I remember to
have read a tale, which recounteth that, "Once uponne a tyme, the
Divelle was permitted to tempte a yonge manne. Sathanne had noe
sooner power gyven hym, than hee didde appeere in the guyze of a
grave bencher of Graie's Inne, and didde tell himme that hee was
impoweryd to compelle hys doing one of these three thynges: eyther he
shoulde morthere his fathere, lie wythe his mothere, or gette dronke.
The young manne," saith my author, "shockyd atte the two first
proposycyons, didde ymbrace the laste. He gotte verie dronke, and in
thatte state, havying neyther the use of reasonne nor the dredde of
sinne, hee was guyltie offe bothe the unaturalle deedes hee hadde
before soe shudderydde atte, and for hys naughtinesse and wyckednesse
hee was hangydde."
I have been told that the original picture was some years since found
at an inn in Gloucestershire, and is now in the possession of J.
Calverley, Esq., of Leeds, in Yorkshire.
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