[70] This has been generally said to be intended for Handel, and
bears a strong resemblance to his portrait.
[71] Old Bridgeman, eminent for his taste in the plans of gardens
and plantations. As he was a worshipper of the modern style, scorned
the square precision of the old school, and attempted to "create
landscape, to realize painting, and improve nature," Hogarth might
have given him a better design than that which he holds in his hand;
it has all the regular formality that distinguishes the aquatic
froggery of a Dutch burgomaster:
"Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother,
And half the platform just reflects the other."
[72] A bravo is more properly an Italian than an English character;
but even in England, the aid of an assassin may be useful, when a man
dare not resent an affront in _propria persona_.
This gunpowder hero being introduced, and evidently waiting for
orders, seems covertly to intimate that Thomas Rakewell, Esq., in
addition to his other excellent qualities, is a coward.
[73] On the silver cup which the jockey is presenting, we see
inscribed, "Won at Epsom by Silly Tom." Our sagacious esquire seems
to have lent his own name to his favourite horse.
[74] The attitude of Venus is graceful; but the cool indifference
and _sang froid_ of the Trojan shepherd, carelessly and coolly
seated while the fair competitors for the prize are standing up, is
intolerable.
[75] The Reverend Mr. Gilpin.
[76] This is the portrait of one Leathercoat, many years a porter at
the Rose Tavern, and remarkable for his universal knowledge of women
of the town.
[77] Hogarth seems to have had a great fancy for bringing King
David into bad company. He is in the second plate of the "Harlot's
Progress" depicted in the bed-room of a prostitute, and here
represented as perched on a harp, at a brothel in Drury Lane.
[78] It was further commemorated as the anniversary of Queen
Caroline's birthday.
[79] The chief of these, who appears in something that has once been
a tye-wig, was painted from a French boy that cleaned shoes at the
corner of Hog Lane.
[80] This post, and that close to the feet of the strutting Cambrian,
shows that these safeguards to the pedestrian were then thought
necessary: on new-paving the streets soon after his present Majesty's
accession, they were removed. During the short time of Lord Bute's
administration, an English gentleman who reprobated the idea of
making a Scotch pavement in the vicinity of St. James's, being asked
by a North Briton who was present how he or any other Englishman
could reasonably object to even Scotchmen mending their ways in the
neighbourhood of a palace? replied, "We do not object to your mending
our ways, but you have taken away all our _posts_."
[81] This is probably a true delineation of the church as it was
then. The print was published in 1735, and the year 1741 the church
was rebuilt. It seems likely that Marybone, from a neighbouring
village, may become the centre of the city: the alteration since the
Revolution, 1688, justifies this supposition. In that year the annual
amount of the taxes for the whole parish was four-and-twenty pounds;
in 1788 the annual amount was four-and-twenty thousand.
[82] From the antiquated bride, and young female adjusting the
folds of her gown, is taken a French print of a wrinkled harridan
of fashion at her toilet, attended by a blooming _Coiffeuse_. It
was engraved by L. Surugue, in 1745, from a picture in crayons
by Coypell, and is entitled, _La Folie pare la Decrepitude des
Ajustemens de la Jeunesse_. From the Frenchman, however, the
Devonshire Square dowager of our artist has received so high a
polish, that she might be mistaken for a queen-mother of France.
[83] "Trump," Mr. Hogarth's favourite dog, which he has introduced in
several of his prints.
[84] This probably gave the hint to a lady's reply, on being told
that thieves had the preceding night broken into the church, and
stolen the communion plate, and the Ten Commandments. "I can
suppose," added the informant, "that they may melt, and sell the
plate; but can you divine for what possible purpose they could steal
the Commandments?"--"To _break_ them, to be sure," replied she; "to
_break_ them."
[85] This is a correct copy of the inscription. Part of these lines,
in raised letters, now form a pannel in the wainscot at the end of
the right-hand gallery, as the church is entered from the street. No
heir of the Forset family appearing, the vault has been claimed and
used by his Grace the Duke of Portland, as lord of the manor. The
mural monument of the Taylors, composed of lead gilt over, is still
preserved: it is seen in Hogarth's print, just under the window. The
bishop of the diocese, when the new church was built, gave orders
that all the ancient tablets should be placed as nearly as possible
in their former situations.
It appears from an examination of the registers, etc., that Thos.
Sice and Thos. Horn were really churchwardens in the year 1725, when
the repairs were made. This print came out only ten years afterwards;
and the present state of the building seems to intimate that
Messieurs Sice and Horn had cheated the parish, when they officially
superintended the affairs of their church. The coat, shoes, and
stockings of the charity-boy convey a similar satire, though that is
directed to another quarter.
[86] The Reverend Mr. Gilpin.
[87] The thought is taken from a similar character to be found among
the figures of the principal personages in the court of Louis XIV.,
folio. This work has no engraver's name, but was probably published
about the year 1700.
[88] This is said to be old Manners (brother to John Duke of
Rutland), to whom the old Duke of Devonshire lost the great estate
of Leicester Abbey. Manners was the only person of his time who had
amassed a considerable fortune by the profession of a gamester.
[89] It has been thought intended for a portrait of William Duke
of Cumberland; but this cannot be, for the Duke was not more than
fifteen years of age when these prints were published.
[90] Such an accident as is here represented really happened at
White's Chocolate House, St. James's Street, on the 3d of May 1733.
[91] A masquerade is not often considered as the school of
morality: it frequently leads to vice, but seldom reclaims from
error. That it once had a salutary effect, the following story will
evince. Lord C----e, with many amiable virtues, and many brilliant
accomplishments, had a most unfortunate propensity to gaming; in one
night he lost upwards of thirty thousand pounds to the late General
Scott. Mortified at his ill-fortune, he paid the money, and wished
to keep the circumstance secret: it was, however, whispered in the
polite circles, and his lordship, to divert his chagrin, a few nights
after slipped on a domino, and went to a masquerade at Carlisle
House. He found all the company running after three Irish ladies of
the name of G----e, in the characters of _the three weird sisters_.
These ladies were so well acquainted with everything that was going
on in the great world, that they kept the room in a continued roar
by the brilliancy of their _bon-mots_, and the terseness of their
applications to some ladies of rank who were present. They knew Lord
C----e, and they knew of his loss, though he did not know them. He
walked up to them, and in a solemn tone of voice addressed them as
follows:--
"Ye black and midnight hags,--what do ye do?
Live ye, or are ye aught that man may question?
Quickly unclasp to me the book of fate,
And tell if good or ill my steps await!"
_First Witch._ "All hail, C----e! all hail to thee!
All hail! though poor thou soon shalt be!"
_Hecate._ "C----e, all hail! thy evil star
Sheds baleful influence--oh, beware!
Beware that Thane! beware that _Scott_!
Or poverty shall be thy lot!
He'll drain thy youth as dry as hay--
Hither, sisters, haste away!"
At the concluding word, whirling a watchman's rattle which she
held in her hand, the dome echoed with the sound; the terrified
peer shrunk into himself,--retired,--vowed never to lose more than
a hundred pounds at a sitting, abode by the determination, and
retrieved his fortune.
[92] There has been almost as much debate about Hogarth's orthography
as about Shakspeare's learning. One of these knotty points Dr.
Farmer's admirable pamphlet has put out of the reach of doubt, the
other is not of much consequence. I am afraid there are too many
damning proofs that Mr. William Hogarth was ignorant of spelling,
for his warmest admirers to contest the point any longer. His fame
is fixed upon a firmer basis. It was not necessary for him to study
the language of the schools; he searched into the grammar of nature,
and was himself the founder of an university, in which his pencil,
usurping the office of a pen, describes the passions as they affect
the countenance, and narrates the incidents that mark our little
life with the minuteness of a chronologist and the fidelity of an
historian. It has been truly said, that our divine poet saw nature
"without the spectacles of books." Our great artist could never have
delineated the workings of the human mind with that precise accuracy
which marks all his works, if he had studied the language of the
passions from the books of your philosophy.
[93] In his remarks on the seventh print, he speaks of this female
being introduced in the prison-scene as an episode. It cannot,
however, be called a digression; it naturally arises from the main
subject, and with the main subject it is materially connected.
EPISODIUM: _Res extra argumentum assumpta_.--AINSWORTH.
[94] The Reverend Mr. Gilpin. See _Essay on Prints_, article Hogarth.
[95] It is designed from one of the two figures at the gate of the
hospital in Moorfields, which Mr. Pope, with more malignity than
truth, calls "Cibber's brainless brothers." The sculptor was Mr.
Cibber's father.
[96] This has been said to be an allusion to the "Leda" painted and
afterwards cut to pieces by Jacques Antoine Arlaud; but it appears,
by Mr. Walpole's _Anecdotes_, vol. iv. p. 81, that Arlaud did not
anatomize his "Leda" until the year 1738.
[97] Elkannah Settle was born in the year 1648. In 1680, he was
so violent a Whig, that the ceremony of Pope-burning, on the 17th
of November, was entrusted to his management. He wrote much in
defence of the party, and with the leaders was in high estimation.
Politicians and patriots were formed of much the same materials
then as they are now. Settle, being disappointed in some of his
views, became as violent a Tory as he had been a Whig, and actually
entered himself a trooper in King James's army at Hounslow Heath. The
Revolution destroyed all his prospects; and in the latter part of his
life he was so reduced as to attend a booth, which was kept by Mrs.
Minns and her daughter Mrs. Leigh, in Bartholomew Fair. From these
people he received a salary for writing drolls, which were generally
approved. In his old age he was obliged to appear in these wretched
exhibitions; and in the farce of _St. George for England_, performed
the part of a dragon, being enclosed in a case of green leather of
his own invention. To this circumstance Doctor Young refers in his
Epistle to Pope:
"Poor Elkannah, all other changes past,
For bread, in Smithfield-dragons hiss'd at last;
Spit streams of fire, to make the butchers gape;
And found his manners suited to his shape."
[98] The Honourable Edward Howard, brother to the Earl of Berkshire
and to Sir Henry Howard, was much more illustrious from his birth
than distinguished by his talents. Poetry was his passion rather than
his power. He mistook inclination for ability, and wrote a number of
very dull plays, in which want of genius and invention was atoned for
by that turgid, inflated language so acceptable to an audience whose
admiration is most excited by that which they least understand.
[99] The fairs at Chester, and some few other places, still keep up
the spirit of the original institution.
[100] They were at last carried to such a height of licentiousness,
as to demand the interposition of the Legislature; and no reformation
being wrought by lenient measures, Southwark Fair, and many others,
were suppressed.
[101] A booth was built in Smithfield the year this print was
published, for the use of T. Cibber, Bullock, and H. Hallam, at which
the tragedy of _Tamerlane_, with the _Fall of Bajazet_, intermixed
with the comedy of the _Miser_, was actually represented. The bill of
fare with which these gentlemen tempted their customers may properly
enough be called an _olio_; and the royal elephant sheet on which
the titles of their plays are printed, throws the comparatively
diminutive bills of a theatre-royal into the background.
In some of the provinces distant from the capital, their dramatic
exhibitions are still given out in the quaint style which marked
the productions of our ancestors. This sometimes excites the
laughter of a scholar, but it whets the curiosity of the rustic;
and whatever helps to fill a theatre or a barn, must be the best
of all possible methods. From the recent modes of announcing new
plays at the two Royal Theatres, there seems some reason to expect
that the admirers of this kind of writing will soon be gratified by
having it introduced in the London play-bills, or at least in the
London papers, where hints of "the abundant entertainment which is
to be expected sometimes make their appearance in the shape of 'a
correspondent's opinion.'" But leaving them to their admirers, let us
return to humbler scenes, and give one example out of the many which
the provinces annually afford.
A play-bill, printed some years ago at Ludlow, in Shropshire, was
nearly as large as their principal painted scene, and dignified with
letters that were truly CAPITAL, for each of those which composed the
name of a principal character were near a foot long. The play was for
the benefit of a very eminent female performer, the bill was said to
be written by herself, and thus was the evening's amusement announced:
"For the benefit of Mrs. ----. By particular desire of B---- G----,
Esquire, and his most amiable lady: This present evening will
be performed a deep tragedy, containing the doleful history of
King Lear and his three daughters; with the merry conceits of his
Majesty's fool, and the valorous exploits of General Edmund, the
Duke of Glo'ster's bastard.--All written by one William Shakspeare,
a mighty great poet, who was born in Warwickshire, and held horses
for gentlemen at the sign of the Red Bull, in Saint John's Street,
near West Smithfield; where was just such another playhouse as that
to which we humbly invite you, and hope for the good company of all
friends round the Wrekin.
"All you who would wish to cry, or to laugh,
You had better spend your money here than in the alehouse, by half;
And if you likes more about these things for to know,
Come at six o'clock to the barn, in the High Street, Ludlow;
Where, presented by live actors, the whole may be seen:
So _vivant Rex_, God save the King, not forgetting the Queen."--E.
[102] I have heard a person, who was ambitious of being thought able
to detect the plagiarisms of painters, assert that the artist took
this hint from Jupiter and Io. The Southwark Fair nymph does not,
however, appear to be embracing a cloud.
[103] _The Siege of Troy_ was a celebrated droll, in high estimation
at fairs, printed in 1707. The author, Elkannah Settle,
"For his broad shoulders fam'd, and length of ears."
[104] Had Hogarth read _The Merchant of Venice_? or did the poet and
the painter see nature with the same eyes? The woman behind the post
proves that they thought alike:
"Some men there are love not a gaping pig,
Some that are mad if they behold a cat;
And others 'if the bagpipe sing i' the nose.' etc."
[105] In Mr. Horace Walpole's _Anecdotes of Painting in the Reign
of George II._, he prefaces the account of William Hogarth in the
following manner: "Having despatched the herd of our painters in
oil, I reserved to a class by himself that great and original
genius," etc. I thought the term very happily applied, and pointedly
appropriate to most of the characters it enumerates; but I remember
a second-rate artist being marvellously offended at the freedom of
the appellation; and observing that the names of Canaletti, George
Lambert, Francis Cotes, Frank Hayman, and Samuel Scott, deserved more
respect than to be classed in a herd.
[106] Mr. Highmore was originally a man of considerable fortune,
but White's gaming-house, and the Drury Lane patent, exhausted his
finances. Having exhibited himself as an unsuccessful actor and an
unfortunate manager, he in 1743 completed the climax by publishing
a poem entitled _Dettingen_, which proves him a very indifferent
writer. In 1744, he a second time appeared in the character of
Lothario, for the benefit of Mr. Horton, but seems to have had no
requisites for the stage. He was, however, a man of strict integrity
and high honour, and frequently suffered heavy losses rather than
violate any engagement, though it might be only verbal, which he
had once made. Such a person was very unfit for a coadjutor with
men who were so busied in qualifying themselves for personating the
characters of others, that they had no leisure for any attention to
their own.
[107] The general observation at the time was, "What business had a
gentleman to make the purchase?"
[108] It seems that Harper was mentally and corporeally qualified
for the character; for we are told that Mr. Highmore fixed upon
Harper as the person to take up for a vagabond, because he was
naturally a very great coward. One of the prints of the day, dated
the 12th of November 1734, speaking of this transaction, concludes
with the following remark: "Sir Thomas Clarges and other justices
have committed Mr. Harper to Bridewell, in order to his being put to
hard labour,--an employment which, by his enormous bulk, he seems as
little fit for as he is for a vagrant; being a man so marvellously
corpulent, that it is not possible for him either to labour or to
wander a great deal." He was, however, a man of very fair character,
and soon delivered from his confinement by an order from the Court of
King's Bench.
[109] Among the dead stock of a lately deceased antiquarian, there
was found, carefully wrapped up in paper that had once been white,
four moderate-sized panes of glass, cut lozenge fashion. On the
paper, in a kind of law hand, was written what follows:--
"Theese curious peeces of antiquitie I did purchase from a glazyer
at Windsor, who informed me that he had them from his father, who
was in the same business, and lived for to be very old; and told
unto him, that while he was yet but a little scrubbed boy, being
apprenticed, his master did send him to put some newe paines of
glasse in a cazement at the Olde Kinges Armes in that towne; the old
glasse being rendered dimme and obscured, by wicked fellowes having
at sundrie times scribbled naughty and unseemly words and verses
thereon. Upon the enclosed paines were the fairest inscriptions; he
therefore had kept them, and recommended unto his sonne to doe the
like. For a small peece of gold they became mine, and I do beleeve
were truelie written by the handes of those verie menne whose names
are put under each verse, and that Falstaff his lines are meaned to
convey a sort of sporting resentmente against his old companion,
once Prince Henrie, surnamed of Monmouth, but nowe become kinge, for
having banyshed him from his royal presence; though perhappes it may
onlie meane to allude unto the signe of the taverne where they did
holde their merrie meetinges."