artist strictly copied nature, which was invariably his archetype, but
which the painter, who soars into fancy's fairy regions, must in a
degree desert. Considered with this reference, though the picture has
faults, Mr. Walpole's satire is surely too severe. It is built upon a
comparison with works painted in a language of which Hogarth knew not
the idiom,--trying him before a tribunal, whose authority he did not
acknowledge, and from the picture having been in many respects altered
after the critic saw it, some of the remarks become unfair. To the
frequency of these alterations we may attribute many of the errors: the
man who has not confidence in his own knowledge of the leading
principles on which his work ought to be built, will not render it
perfect by following the advice of his friends. Though Messrs. Wilkes
and Churchill dragged his heroine to the altar of politics, and mangled
her with a barbarity that can hardly be paralleled, except in the
history of her husband,--the artist retained his partiality; which seems
to have increased in exact proportion to their abuse. The picture being
thus contemplated through the medium of party prejudice, we cannot
wonder that all its imperfections were exaggerated. The painted harlot
of Babylon had not more opprobrious epithets from the first race of
reformers than the painted Sigismonda of Hogarth from the last race of
patriots.
When a favourite child is chastised by his preceptor, a partial mother
redoubles her caresses. Hogarth, estimating this picture by the labour
he had bestowed upon it, was certain that the public were prejudiced,
and requested, if his wife survived him, she would not sell it for less
than five hundred pounds. Mrs. Hogarth acted in conformity to his
wishes, but after her death the painting was purchased by Messrs.
Boydell, and exhibited in the Shakspeare Gallery. The colouring, though
not brilliant, is harmonious and natural: the attitude, drawing, etc.
may be generally conceived by the print. I am much inclined to think,
that if some of those who have been most severe in their censures, had
consulted their own feelings, instead of depending upon connoisseurs,
poor Sigismonda would have been in higher estimation. It has been said
that the first sketch was made from Mrs. Hogarth, at the time she was
weeping over the corse of her mother.
Hogarth once intended to have appealed from the critics' fiat to the
world's opinion, and employed Mr. Basire to make an engraving, which was
begun, but set aside for some other work, and never completed.
[Illustration: SIGISMONDA, WITH THE HEART OF HER HUSBAND.]
MARTIN FOLKES, ESQ.
Martin Folkes was a mathematician and antiquary of much celebrity in the
philosophical annals of this country. He was at the early age of
twenty-four admitted a member of the Royal Society, where he was greatly
distinguished. Two years afterwards he was chosen one of the council,
and was named by Sir Isaac Newton himself as vice president: he was
afterwards elected president, and held this high office till a short
time before his death, when he resigned it on account of ill-health. In
the Philosophical Transactions are numerous memoirs of this learned man:
his knowledge in coins, ancient and modern, was very extensive: and the
last work he produced was concerning the English Silver Coin from the
Conquest to his own time. He was president of the Society of Antiquaries
at the time of his death, which happened on the 28th of June, 1754, at
the age of sixty-four. A few days before his death he was struck with a
fit of the palsy, and never spoke after this attack.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF MARTIN FOLKES, ESQ.]
THE COCKPIT.
The scene is probably laid at Newmarket, and in this motley group of
peers,--pick-pockets,--butchers,--jockies,--rat-catchers,--gentlemen,
--gamblers of every denomination, Lord Albemarle Bertie, being the
principal figure, is entitled to precedence. In the March to Finchley,
we see him an attendant at a boxing match; and here he is president of a
most respectable society assembled at a cockpit. What rendered his
lordship's passion for amusements of this nature very singular, was his
being totally blind. In this place he is beset by seven steady friends,
five of whom at the same instant offer to bet with him on the event of
the battle. One of them, a lineal descendant of Filch, taking advantage
of his blindness and negligence, endeavours to convey a bank note,
deposited in our dignified gambler's hat, to his own pocket. Of this
ungentlemanlike attempt his lordship is apprised by a ragged post-boy,
and an honest butcher: but he is so much engaged in the pronunciation of
those important words, Done! Done! Done! Done! and the arrangement of
his bets, that he cannot attend to their hints; and it seems more than
probable that the stock will be transferred, and the note negociated in
a few seconds.
A very curious group surround the old nobleman, who is adorned with a
riband, a star, and a pair of spectacles. The whole weight of an
overgrown carpenter being laid upon his shoulder, forces our illustrious
personage upon a man beneath; who being thus driven downward, falls upon
a fourth, and the fourth, by the accumulated pressure of this ponderous
trio, composed of the upper and lower house, loses his balance, and
tumbling against the edge of the partition, his head is broke, and his
wig, shook from the seat of reason, falls into the cockpit.
A man adjoining enters into the spirit of the battle,--his whole soul is
engaged. From his distorted countenance, and clasped hands, we see that
he feels every stroke given to his favourite bird in his heart's
core,--ay, in his heart of hearts! A person at the old peer's left hand
is likely to be a loser. Ill-humour, vexation, and disappointment are
painted in his countenance. The chimney-sweeper above, is the very
quintessence of affectation. He has all the airs and graces of a
boarding-school miss. The sanctified quaker adjoining, and the fellow
beneath, who, by the way, is a very similar figure to Captain Stab, in
the Rake's Progress, are finely contrasted.
A French marquis on the other side, astonished at this being called
amusement, is exclaiming Sauvages! Sauvages! Sauvages!--Engrossed by the
scene, and opening his snuff-box rather carelessly, its contents fall
into the eyes of a man below, who, sneezing and swearing alternately,
imprecates bitter curses on this devil's dust, that extorts from his
inflamed eyes, "A sea of melting pearls, which some call tears."
Adjoining is an old cripple, with a trumpet at his ear, and in this
trumpet a person in a bag-wig roars in a manner that cannot much gratify
the auricular nerves of his companions; but as for the object to whom
the voice is directed, he seems totally insensible to sounds, and if
judgment can be formed from appearances, might very composedly stand
close to the clock of St. Paul's Cathedral, when it was striking twelve.
The figure with a cock peeping out of a bag, is said to be intended for
Jackson, a jockey; the gravity of this experienced veteran, and the cool
sedateness of a man registering the wagers, are well opposed by the
grinning woman behind, and the heated impetuosity of a fellow, stripped
to his shirt, throwing his coin upon the cockpit, and offering to back
Ginger against Pye for a guinea.
On the lower side, where there is only one tier of figures, a sort of an
apothecary, and a jockey, are stretching out their arms, and striking
together the handles of their whips, in token of a bet. An hiccuping
votary of Bacchus, displaying a half-emptied purse, is not likely to
possess it long, for an adroit professor of legerdemain has taken aim
with a hooked stick, and by one slight jerk, will convey it to his own
pocket. The profession of a gentleman in a round wig is determined by a
gibbet chalked upon his coat. An enraged barber, who lifts up his stick
in the corner, has probably been refused payment of a wager, by the man
at whom he is striking.
A cloud-capt philosopher at the top of the print, coolly smoking his
pipe, unmoved by this crash of matter, and wreck of property, must not
be overlooked: neither should his dog be neglected; for the dog, gravely
resting his fore paws upon the partition, and contemplating the company,
seems more interested in the event of the battle than his master.
Like the tremendous Gog, and terrific Magog, of Guildhall, stand the two
cock-feeders; a foot of each of these consequential purveyors is seen at
the two extremities of the pit.
As to the birds, whose attractive powers have drawn this admiring throng
together, they deserved earlier notice:
Each hero burns to conquer or to die,
What mighty hearts in little bosoms lie!
Having disposed of the substances, let us now attend to the shadow on
the cockpit, and this it seems is the reflection of a man drawn up to
the ceiling in a basket, and there suspended, as a punishment for having
betted more money than he can pay. Though suspended, he is not
reclaimed; though exposed, not abashed; for in this degrading situation
he offers to stake his watch against money, in another wager on his
favourite champion.
The decorations of this curious theatre are, a portrait of Nan Rawlins,
and the King's arms.
In the margin at the bottom of the print is an oval, with a fighting
cock, inscribed ROYAL SPORT.
Of the characteristic distinctions in this heterogeneous assembly, it is
not easy to speak with sufficient praise. The chimney-sweeper's absurd
affectation sets the similar airs of the Frenchman in a most ridiculous
point of view. The old fellow with a trumpet at his ear, has a degree of
deafness that I never before saw delineated; he might have lived in the
same apartment with Xantippe, or slept comfortably in Alexander the
copper-smith's first floor. As to the nobleman in the centre, in the
language of the turf, he is a mere pigeon; and the peer, with a star and
garter, in the language of Cambridge, we must class as--a mere quiz. The
man sneezing,--you absolutely hear; and the fellow stealing a bank
note,--has all the outward and visible marks of a perfect and
accomplished pick-pocket; Mercury himself could not do that business in
a more masterly style.
Tyers tells us that "Pope, while living with his father at Chiswick,
before he went to Binfield, took great delight in cock-fighting, and
laid out all his school-boy money, and little perhaps it was, in buying
fighting cocks." Lord Orrery observes, "If we may judge of Mr. Pope from
his works, his chief aim was to be esteemed a man of virtue." When
actions can be clearly ascertained, it is not necessary to seek the
mind's construction in the writings: and we must regret being compelled
to believe that some of Mr. Pope's actions, at the same time that they
prove him to be querulous and petulant, lead us to suspect that he was
also envious, malignant, and cruel. How far this will tend to confirm
the assertion, that when a boy, he was an amateur of this royal sport, I
do, says Mr. Ireland, not pretend to decide: but were a child, in whom I
had any interest, cursed with such a propensity, my first object would
be to correct it: if that were impracticable, and he retained a fondness
for the cockpit, and the still more detestable amusement of Shrove
Tuesday, I should hardly dare to flatter myself that he could become a
merciful man.--The subject has carried me farther than I intended: I
will, however, take the freedom of proposing one query to the
consideration of the clergy,--Might it not have a tendency to check that
barbarous spirit, which has more frequently its source in an early
acquired habit, arising from the prevalence of example, than in natural
depravity, if every divine in Great Britain were to preach at least one
sermon every twelve months, on our universal insensibility to the
sufferings of the brute creation?
Wilt thou draw near the nature of the Gods,
Draw near them then in being merciful;
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.
[Illustration: THE COCK PIT.]
CAPTAIN THOMAS CORAM.
Captain Coram was born in the year 1668, bred to the sea, and passed the
first part of his life as master of a vessel trading to the colonies.
While he resided in the vicinity of Rotherhithe, his avocations obliging
him to go early into the city and return late, he frequently saw
deserted infants exposed to the inclemencies of the seasons, and through
the indigence or cruelty of their parents left to casual relief, or
untimely death. This naturally excited his compassion, and led him to
project the establishment of an hospital for the reception of exposed
and deserted young children; in which humane design he laboured more
than seventeen years, and at last, by his unwearied application,
obtained the royal charter, bearing date the 17th of October, 1739, for
its incorporation.
He was highly instrumental in promoting another good design, viz. the
procuring a bounty upon naval stores imported from the colonies to
Georgia and Nova Scotia. But the charitable plan which he lived to make
some progress in, though not to complete, was a scheme for uniting the
Indians in North America more closely with the British Government, by an
establishment for the education of Indian girls. Indeed he spent a great
part of his life in serving the public, and with so total a disregard to
his private interest, that in his old age he was himself supported by a
pension of somewhat more than a hundred pounds a year, raised for him at
the solicitation of Sir Sampson Gideon and Dr. Brocklesby, by the
voluntary subscriptions of public-spirited persons, at the head of whom
was the Prince of Wales. On application being made to this venerable and
good old man, to know whether a subscription being opened for his
benefit would not offend him, he gave this noble answer: "I have not
wasted the little wealth of which I was formerly possessed in
self-indulgence or vain expenses, and am not ashamed to confess, that in
this my old age I am poor."
This singularly humane, persevering, and memorable man died at his
lodgings near Leicester-square, March 29, 1751, and was interred,
pursuant to his own desire, in the vault under the chapel of the
Foundling Hospital, where an historic epitaph records his virtues, as
Hogarth's portrait has preserved his honest countenance.
"The portrait which I painted with most pleasure," says Hogarth, "and in
which I particularly wished to excel, was that of Captain Coram for the
Foundling Hospital; and if I am so wretched an artist as my enemies
assert, it is somewhat strange that this, which was one of the first I
painted the size of life, should stand the test of twenty years'
competition, and be generally thought the best portrait in the place,
notwithstanding the first painters in the kingdom exerted all their
talents to vie with it.
"For the portrait of Mr. Garrick in Richard III. I was paid two hundred
pounds, (which was more than any English artist ever received for a
single portrait,) and that too by the sanction of several painters who
had been previously consulted about the price, which was not given
without mature consideration.
"Notwithstanding all this, the current remark was, that portraits were
not my province; and I was tempted to abandon the only lucrative branch
of my art, for the practice brought the whole nest of phyzmongers on my
back, where they buzzed like so many hornets. All these people have
their friends, whom they incessantly teach to call my women harlots, my
Essay on Beauty borrowed, and my composition and engraving contemptible.
"This so much disgusted me, that I sometimes declared I would never
paint another portrait, and frequently refused when applied to; for I
found by mortifying experience, that whoever would succeed in this
branch, must adopt the mode recommended in one of Gay's fables, and make
divinities of all who sit to him. Whether or not this childish
affectation will ever be done away is a doubtful question; none of those
who have attempted to reform it have yet succeeded; nor, unless portrait
painters in general become more honest, and their customers less vain,
is there much reason to expect they ever will."
Though thus in a state of warfare with his brother artists, he was
occasionally gratified by the praise of men whose judgment was
universally acknowledged, and whose sanction became a higher honour,
from its being neither lightly nor indiscriminately given.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN THOMAS CORAM.]
THE COUNTRY INN YARD; OR, THE STAGE COACH.
The poet's adage, ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE,
Has stood the test of each revolving age;
Another simile perhaps will bear,
'Tis a STAGE COACH, where all must pay the fare;
Where each his entrance and his exit makes,
And o'er life's rugged road his journey takes.
Some unprotected must their tour perform,
And bide the pelting of the pitiless storm;
While others, free from elemental jars,
By fortune favour'd and propitious stars,
Secure from storms, enjoy their little hour,
Despise the whirlwind, and defy the shower.
Such is our life--in sunshine or in shade,
From evil shelter'd, or by woe assay'd:
Whether we sit, like Niobe, all tears,
Or calmly sink into the vale of years;
With houseless, naked Edgar sleep on straw,
Or keep, like Caesar, subject worlds in awe--
To the same port our devious journeys tend,
Where airy hopes and sickening sorrows end;
Sunk every eye, and languid every breast,
Each wearied pilgrim sighs and sinks to rest.
E.
Among the writers of English novels, Henry Fielding holds the first
rank; he was the novelist of nature, and has described some scenes which
bear a strong resemblance to that which is here delineated. The artist,
like the author, has taken truth for his guide, and given such
characters as are familiar to all our minds. The scene is a country inn
yard, at the time passengers are getting into a stage-coach, and an
election procession passing in the back-ground. Nothing can be better
described; we become of the party. The vulgar roar of our landlady is no
less apparent than the grave, insinuating, imposing countenance of mine
host. Boniface solemnly protests that a bill he is presenting to an old
gentleman in a laced hat is extremely moderate. This does not satisfy
the paymaster, whose countenance shows that he considers it as a
palpable fraud, though the act against bribery, which he carries in his
pocket, designates him to be of a profession not very liable to suffer
imposition. They are in general less sinned against than sinning. An
ancient lady, getting into the coach, is from her breadth a very
inconvenient companion in such a vehicle; but to atone for her
rotundity, an old maid of a spare appearance, and in a most grotesque
habit, is advancing towards the steps.
A portly gentleman, with a sword and cane in one hand, is deaf to the
entreaties of a poor little deformed postilion, who solicits his
customary fee. The old woman smoking her short pipe in the basket, pays
very little attention to what is passing around her: cheered by the
fumes of her tube, she lets the vanities of the world go their own way.
Two passengers on the roof of the coach afford a good specimen of French
and English manners. Ben Block, of the Centurion, surveys the subject of
La Grande Monarque with ineffable contempt.
In the window are a very curious pair; one of them blowing a
French-horn, and the other endeavouring, but without effect, to smoke
away a little sickness, which he feels from the fumes of his last
night's punch. Beneath them is a traveller taking a tender farewell of
the chambermaid, who is not to be moved by the clangour of the great bar
bell, or the more thundering sound of her mistress's voice.
The back-ground is crowded with a procession of active citizens; they
have chaired a figure with a horn-book, a bib, and a rattle, intended to
represent Child, Lord Castlemain, afterwards Lord Tylney, who, in a
violent contest for the county of Essex, opposed Sir Robert Abdy and Mr.
Bramston. The horn-book, bib, and rattle are evidently displayed as
punningly allusive to his name.[4]
Some pains have been taken to discover in what part of Essex this scene
is laid; but from the many alterations made by rebuilding, removal, &c.
it has not been positively ascertained, though it is probably
Chelmsford.
[Illustration: COUNTRY INN YARD.]
FOOTNOTE:
[4] At this election a man was placed on a bulk, with a figure
representing a child in his arms: as he whipped it he exclaimed, "What,
you little child, must you be a member?" This election being disputed,
it appeared from the register-book of the parish where Lord Castlemain
was born, that he was but twenty years of age when he offered himself a
candidate.
INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS.
As our future welfare depends, in a great measure, on our own conduct in
the outset of life, and as we derive our best expectations of success
from our own attention and exertion, it may, with propriety, be
asserted, that the good or ill-fortune of mankind is chiefly
attributable to their own early diligence or sloth; either of which
becomes, through habit in the early part of life, both familiar and
natural. This Mr. Hogarth has made appear in the following history of
the two Apprentices, by representing a series of such scenes as
naturally result from a course of Industry or Idleness, and which he has
illustrated with such texts of scripture as teach us their analogy with
holy writ. Now, as example is far more convincing and persuasive than
precept, these prints are, undoubtedly, an excellent lesson to such
young men as are brought up to business, by laying before them the
inevitable destruction that awaits the slothful, and the reward that
generally attends the diligent, both appropriately exemplified in the
conduct of these two fellow-'prentices; where the one, by taking good
courses, and pursuing those purposes for which he was put apprentice,
becomes a valuable man, and an ornament to his country; the other, by
giving way to idleness, naturally falls into poverty, and ends fatally,
as shown in the last of these instructive prints.
In the chamber of the city of London, where apprentices are bound and
enrolled, the twelve prints of this series are introduced, and, with
great propriety, ornament the room.
PLATE I.
THE FELLOW-'PRENTICES AT THEIR LOOMS.
"The drunkard shall come to poverty, and drowsiness shall clothe a
man with rags."
Proverbs, chap. xxiii. verse 21.
"The hand of the diligent maketh rich."--Proverbs, chap. x. verse 4.
The first print presents us with a noble and striking contrast in two
apprentices at the looms of their master, a silk-weaver of Spitalfields:
in the one we observe a serene and open countenance, the distinguishing
mark of innocence; and in the other a sullen, down-cast look, the index
of a corrupt mind and vicious heart. The industrious youth is diligently
employed at his work, and his thoughts taken up with the business he is
upon. His book, called the "'Prentice's Guide," supposed to be given him
for instruction, lies open beside him, as if perused with care and
attention. The employment of the day seems his constant study; and the
interest of his master his continual regard. We are given to understand,
also, by the ballads of the London 'Prentice, Whittingham the Mayor, &c.
that hang behind him, that he lays out his pence on things that may
improve his mind, and enlighten his understanding. On the contrary, his
fellow-'prentice, with worn-out coat and uncombed hair, overpowered with
beer, indicated by the half-gallon pot before him, is fallen asleep; and
from the shuttle becoming the plaything of the wanton kitten, we learn
how he slumbers on, inattentive alike to his own and his master's
interest. The ballad of Moll Flanders, on the wall behind him, shows
that the bent of his mind is towards that which is bad; and his book of
instructions lying torn and defaced upon the ground, manifests how
regardless he is of any thing tending to his future welfare.
[Illustration: INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS.
PLATE 1.
THE FELLOW 'PRENTICES AT THEIR LOOMS.]
PLATE II.
THE INDUSTRIOUS 'PRENTICE PERFORMING THE DUTY OF A CHRISTIAN.
"O how I love thy law; it is my meditation all the day."--Psalm
cxix. verse 97.
This plate displays our industrious young man attending divine service
in the same pew with his master's daughter, where he shows every mark of
decent and devout attention.
Mr. Hogarth's strong bias to burlesque was not to be checked by time or
place. It is not easy to imagine any thing more whimsically grotesque
than the female Falstaff. A fellow near her, emulating the deep-toned
organ, and the man beneath, who, though asleep, joins his sonorous tones
in melodious chorus with the admirers of those two pre-eminent poets,
Hopkins and Sternhold. The pew-opener is a very prominent and principal
figure; two old women adjoining Miss West's seat are so much in shadow,
that we are apt to overlook them: they are, however, all three making
the dome ring with their exertions.