"One sultry Sunday, when no cooling breeze
Was borne on Zephyr's wing to fan the trees;
One sultry Sunday, when the torrid ray
O'er nature beam'd intolerable day;
When raging Sirius warn'd us not to roam,
And Galen's sons prescrib'd--cool draughts at home;
One sultry Sunday, near those fields of fame
Where weavers dwell, and Spital is their name,
A sober wight, of reputation high
For tints that emulate the Tyrian dye,
Wishing to take his afternoon's repose
In easy-chair, had just began to doze,
When, in a voice that sleep's soft slumbers broke,
His oily helpmate thus her wishes spoke:
"'Why, spouse, for shame!--my stars! what's this about?
You's ever sleeping!--come, we'll all go out;--
At that there garden,--pr'ythee, do not stare!--
We'll take a mouthful of the country air;
In the yew bower an hour or two we'll kill;
There you may smoke, and drink what punch you will.
Sophy and Billy each shall walk with me,
And you must carry little Emily.
Veny is sick, and pants, and loathes her food;
The grass will do the pretty creature good.
Hot rolls are ready as the clock strikes five--
And now 'tis after four, as I'm alive!'
"The mandate issued, see the tour begun,
And all the flock set out for Islington.
Now the broad sun, refulgent lamp of day,
To rest with Thetis, slopes his western way,
O'er every tree embrowning dust is spread,
And tipt with gold is Hampstead's lofty head.
The passive husband, in his nature mild,
To wife consigns his hat, and takes the child;
But she,--a day like this hath never felt--
'Oh! that this too, too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!'--
Such monstrous heat--dear me!--she never knew.
'Adown her innocent and beauteous face,
The big, round pearly drops each other chase;'
Thence trickling to those hills, erst white as snow,
That now like Ætna's mighty mountains glow,
They hang like dew-drops on the full-blown rose,
And to the ambient air their sweets disclose.
Fever'd with pleasure, thus she drags along;
Nor dares her antler'd husband say 'tis wrong;
The blooming offspring of this blissful pair,
In all their parents' attic pleasures share.
Sophy the soft, the mother's earliest joy,
Demands her froward brother's tinsell'd toy;
But he, enrag'd, denies the glittering prize,
And rends the air with loud and piteous cries.
Thus far we see the party on their way;
What dire disasters mark'd the close of day,
'Twere tedious, tiresome, endless to obtrude:
Imagination must the scene conclude."--E.
[Illustration: EVENING.]
It is not easy to imagine fatigue better delineated than in
the appearance of this amiable pair. In a few of the earliest
impressions, Mr. Hogarth printed the hands of the man in blue, to
show that he was a dyer, and the face and neck of the woman in red,
to intimate her extreme heat.[140] The lady's aspect lets us at once
into her character; we are certain that she was born to command. As
to her husband, "God made him, and he must pass for a man;" what
his wife has made him is indicated by the cow's horns, which are so
placed as to become his own. The hope of the family, with a cockade
in his hat, and riding upon papa's cane, seems much dissatisfied with
female sway. A face with more of the shrew in embryo than that of the
girl, it is scarcely possible to conceive. Upon such a character, the
most casual observer pronounces with the decision of a Lavater.
Nothing can be better imagined than the group in the alehouse. They
have taken a refreshing walk into the country, and, being determined
to have a cooling pipe, seat themselves in a chair-lumbered closet
with a low ceiling; where every man pulling off his wig, and throwing
a pocket-handkerchief over his head, inhales the fume of hot punch,
the smoke of half a dozen pipes, and the dust from the road. If this
is not rural felicity, what is? The old gentleman in a black bag-wig,
and the two women near him, sensibly enough, take their seats in the
open air.
From a woman milking a cow, we conjecture the hour to be about five
in the afternoon; and from the same circumstance, I am inclined to
think this agreeable party are going to their pastoral bower rather
than returning from it.
The cow and dog appear as much inconvenienced by heat as any of the
party: the former is whisking off the flies; and the latter creeps
unwillingly along, and casts a longing look at the crystal river in
which he sees his own shadow. A remarkably hot summer is intimated
by the luxuriant state of a vine creeping over an alehouse window.
On the side of the New River, where the scene is laid, lies one of
the wooden pipes employed in the waterworks. Opposite Sadler's Wells
there still remains a sign[141] of Sir Hugh Middleton's head, which
is here represented.
This print is engraved by Baron, but some touches of Mr. Hogarth's
_burin_ are visible on the faces.
Dr. Johnson, I think it is, who observes, that an ardent pursuit of
pleasure generally defeats its own purpose; for when we have wasted
days and nights, and exhausted our strength in the chase, it eludes
our grasp, and vanishes from our view.