CHAPTER V.

HOGARTH'S INDUCEMENT TO PAINTING THE PICTURE OF SIGISMUNDA. HIS

CORRESPONDENCE WITH LORD GROSVENOR ON THIS SUBJECT, CONTRASTED

BY TWO LETTERS FROM LORD CHARLEMONT, FOR WHOM HE HAD PREVIOUSLY

PAINTED AN INTERESTING SCENE. ORIGIN OF THE QUARREL WITH WILKES

AND CHURCHILL, WHICH GAVE RISE TO THE PRINT OF THE BEAR, ETC.;

AND THE ARTIST'S DEATH.

The particulars relative to the picture of "Sigismunda," Hogarth

has himself inserted in his subscription-book, on the leaves of

which he has pasted his correspondence with Lord Charlemont and Lord

Grosvenor, and a proof print of MacArdell's copy from Correggio's

picture. In a little blue memorandum book he resumes the subject, and

concludes with a narrative of his quarrel with Wilkes and Churchill,

which ends with the word _Finis_.

In these and some other loose papers, after having stated the

professional injury which he had sustained from his opponents

asserting, and the public believing, that he could not paint

portraits, he continues:--

"Being thus driven out of the only profitable branch of

my profession, I at first thought of attaching myself to

history-painting; but in this there was no employment, for

in forty years I had only two orders of any consequence for

historical pictures. This was rather mortifying; and being, by

the profits of my former productions and the office of serjeant

painter, tolerably easy in my circumstances, and thoroughly sick

of the idle quackery of criticism, I determined to quit the

pencil for the graver. In this humble walk I had one advantage;

the perpetual fluctuations in the manners of the times enabled

me to introduce new characters, which being drawn from the

passing day, had a chance of more originality and less insipidity

than those which are repeated again, and again, and again from

old stories. Added to this, the prints which I had previously

engraved were now become a voluminous work, and circulated not

only through England, but over Europe. These being secured to

me by an Act which I had previously got passed, were a kind of

an estate; and as they wore, I could repair and re-touch them,

so that in some particulars they became better than when first

engraved.[72]

"While I was making arrangements to confine myself entirely

to my graver, an amiable nobleman (Lord Charlemont) requested

that, before I bade a final adieu to the pencil, I would paint

him one picture; the subject to be my own choice, and the

reward--whatever I demanded. The story I pitched upon was a young

and virtuous married lady, who, by playing at cards with an

officer, loses her money, watch, and jewels; the moment when he

offers them back in return for her honour, and she is wavering at

his suit, was my point of time.[73]

"The picture was highly approved of, and the payment was noble;

but the manner in which it was made, by a note enclosed in one of

the following letters, was to me infinitely more gratifying than

treble the sum:--

_From Lord Charlemont to Mr. Hogarth._

"MOUNT STREET, _19th Aug. 1759_.

"DEAR SIR,--I have been so excessively busied with ten thousand

troublesome affairs, that I have not been able to wait upon you

according to my promise, nor even to find time to sit for my

picture. As I am obliged to set out for Ireland to-morrow, we

must defer that till my return, which will be in the latter end

of January, or in the beginning of February at furthest. I am

still your debtor, more so indeed than I ever shall be able to

pay; and did intend to have sent you before my departure what

trifling recompense my abilities permit me to make you. But the

truth is, having wrong calculated my expenses, I find myself

unable for the present even to attempt paying you. However, if

you be in any present need of money, let me know it, and as

soon as I get to Ireland I will send you, not the price of your

picture, for that is inestimable, but as much as I can afford to

give for it.--Sir, I am, with the most sincere wishes for your

health and happiness, your most obedient humble servant,

CHARLEMONT.

_To Mr. Hogarth._

"DUBLIN, _29th January 1760_.

"DEAR SIR,--Enclosed I send you a note upon Nesbitt for one

hundred pounds; and considering the name of the author, and the

surprising merit of your performance, I am really much ashamed to

offer such a trifle in recompense for the pains you have taken,

and the pleasure your picture has afforded me. I beg you would

think that I by no means attempt to pay you according to your

merit, but according to my own abilities. Were I to pay your

deserts, I fear I should leave myself poor indeed. Imagine that

you have made me a present of the picture, for literally as such

I take it, and that I have begged your acceptance of the enclosed

trifle. As this is really the case, with how much reason do I

subscribe myself, Your most obliged humble servant,

CHARLEMONT.

"This elevating circumstance had its contrast, and brought on a

train of most dissatisfactory circumstances, which by happening

at a time when I thought myself, as it were, landed, and secure

from tugging any longer at the oar, were rendered doubly

distressing.

"A gentleman (now a nobleman) seeing this picture, pressed me

with much vehemence to paint another for him upon the same terms.

To this I reluctantly assented; and as I had been frequently

flattered for my power of giving expression, I thought the figure

of Sigismunda weeping over the heart of her lover would enable me

to display it. Impressed with this idea, I fixed upon this very

difficult subject. My object was dramatic, and my aim to draw

tears from the spectator,--an effect I have often witnessed at a

tragedy; and it therefore struck me that it was worth trying if

a painter could not produce the same effect, and touch the heart

through the eye, as the player does through the ear.[74] Thus far

I have been gratified: I have more than once seen the tear of

sympathy trickle down the cheek of a female while she has been

contemplating the picture.

"As four hundred pounds had a short time before been bid for a

picture of 'Sigismunda,' painted by a French master, but falsely

ascribed to Correggio, four hundred pounds was the price at which

I rated this.[75]

"By any other of my pursuits I could have got twice the sum

in the time I devoted to it; nor was it more than half what a

fashionable face-painter would have gained in the same period.

Upon these grounds I put it at this sum; see the letter, and

see the answer. It ended by my keeping the picture in my

painting-room, and his Lordship keeping his money in his pocket.

Had it been Charlemont!"

This transaction having given rise to many ridiculous falsehoods, the

following unvarnished tale will set the whole in its true light:--

"_January 1764._

"The picture of 'Sigismunda' was painted at the earnest request

of Sir Richard Grosvenor (now Lord Grosvenor) in the year 1759,

at a time when Mr. Hogarth had fully determined to leave off

painting, partly on account of ease and retirement, but more

particularly because he had found by thirty years' experience

that his pictures--except in an instance or two, mentioned in the

note[76]--had not produced him one quarter of the profit that

arose from his engravings. However, the flattering compliments,

as well as generous offers, made him by the above gentleman

(who was immensely rich), prevailed upon the unwary artist to

undertake this difficult subject, which being seen and fully

approved of by his Lordship whilst in hand, was, after much time,

and the utmost efforts, finished. _But how!_ the painter's death

(as usual) can only positively determine. The price required for

it was therefore not on account of its value as a picture, but

proportioned to the value of the time it took in painting.

"This nobleman in the interim fell into the clutches of the

dealers in old pictures; the treatment a man who painted new ones

was to expect where these gentry once get a footing[77] so much

alarmed the artist, that he thought it best to set his Lordship

at full liberty to take or reject the picture by writing the

following letter, and putting him in mind of the agreement which

was made when the work was undertaken:--

_Mr. Hogarth's Letter to Sir Richard Grosvenor._

"SIR,--I have done all I can to the picture of 'Sigismunda.' You

may remember you was pleased to say you would give me what price

I should think fit to set upon any subject I would paint for you;

and at the time that you made this generous offer, I in return

made it my request that you would use no ceremony in refusing the

picture when done, if you should not be thoroughly satisfied with

it. This you promised should be as I pleased, which I now entreat

you will comply with, without the least hesitation, if you think

four hundred too much money for it.[78] One more favour I have to

beg, which is, that you will determine on this matter as soon as

you can conveniently, that I may resolve whether I shall go about

another picture for Mr. Hoare the banker, on the same conditions,

or stop here.--I am, etc.

"_June 13, 1757._

_Sir Richard Grosvenor to Mr. Hogarth._

"SIR,--I should sooner have answered yours of the 13th instant,

but have been mostly out of town. I understand by it that you

have a commission from Mr. Hoare for a picture. If he should have

taken a fancy to the 'Sigismunda,' I have no sort of objection

to your letting him have it; for I really think the performance

so striking and inimitable, that the constantly having it before

one's eyes would be too often occasioning melancholy ideas to

arise in one's mind, which a curtain's being drawn before it

would not diminish in the least.--I am, Sir, your most obedient

servant,

RICHARD GROSVENOR.

"GROSVENOR SQUARE,

_Sunday morning, June 17_.

_Mr. Hogarth's Reply._

"SIR RICHARD,--As your obliging answer to my letter in regard to

the picture of 'Sigismunda' did not seem to be quite positive, I

beg leave to conclude you intend to comply with my request if I

do not hear from you within a week.--I am, etc.

W. H.

"His Lordship not thinking fit to take any further notice of

the affair, here it must have ended; but things having been

represented in favour of his Lordship, and much to Mr. Hogarth's

dishonour, the foregoing plain tale is therefore submitted to

such as may at any time think it worth while to see _the whole

truth_ in what has been so publicly talked of."

To vindicate his fame, Hogarth at one time determined to have the

picture engraved, and Mr. Ravenet undertaking it, "a subscription for

the print was begun March 2d, 1761;[79] but, some time afterwards,

finding that Mr. Ravenet was under articles not to work for any one

except Mr. Boydell for three years then to come, the subscription

was put a stop to, and the money returned to the subscribers, there

being no other engraver at leisure capable of doing it as it should

be done."

"_January 2, 1764._

"All efforts to this time to get the picture finely engraved

proving in vain, Mr. Hogarth humbly hopes his best endeavours to

engrave it himself will be acceptable to his friends."

CORREGGIO'S SIGISMUNDA.

"Mute, solemn sorrow, free from female noise."

--DRYDEN'S _Sigismunda_.

On the comparative merit of the two pictures of "Sigismunda"

there have been various opinions. By the foregoing narrative it

appears that Hogarth never paid so much attention to any preceding

production; but in works of imagination success is not always

proportionate to labour, and his performance might not be equal to

his exertions. Be that as it may, this was the criterion by which

he estimated its worth; and by the political disputes in which he

was afterwards engaged with Wilkes and Churchill, this estimation

was turned against himself. His opponents discovered his parental

partiality for "Sigismunda;" and to wound the artist in his most

vulnerable part, they mangled her without mercy.

Mr. Walpole's critique did not appear until after Hogarth's death;

but when he gravely states Hogarth's performance to be more

ridiculous than anything the artist had ever ridiculed, it ceases

to be criticism. The best reply to so extravagant an assertion,

is the original picture now in the possession of Messrs. Boydell,

which, though not well coloured, and rather French, is marked with

mind, and would probably have been better had it not been so often

altered on the suggestions of different critical friends. Mr.

Walpole contrasts it with that painted by Correggio (or Furino), on

which, at the expense of the poor English artist, he bestows most

extravagant and unqualified praise; asserting that it is impossible

"to see the picture, or read Dryden's inimitable tale, and not feel

that the same spirit animated both poet and painter." That the

reader may form his own opinion by comparison, I have annexed a

copy from MacArdell's admirable print; and as both sides ought to

be heard, I have subjoined the following remarks from the _Monthly

Register of Literature_, vol. ii., in which is a critique (possibly

written by Mr. Joshua Kirby), as extravagant in the abuse of this

picture as Mr. Walpole is in its praise. It is here stated that

these observations were written for private use by a professional

man whose name is well known as the author of a treatise on painting

and perspective; it begins with some remarks on Miss Edwards' sale

in 1746, and concludes with several strictures on Sir Luke Schaub's

in April 1756: "Sir Luke's pictures (only 178) sold for £7784! a

lucky collection for his heir, but unlucky for Sir Luke's reputation

as a judge of painting." After several severe remarks on some of the

preceding lots, the writer observes of "No. 59,--'Sigismunda Weeping

over the Heart of Tancred,' called a Correggio,--that this picture

is an undoubted copy; nothing in the character of Sigismunda but

sorrow to recommend it. The painter might take it from his cook-maid,

there being nothing elegant or delicate in her appearance. The

virtuosi ran it up to £400; but Sir Thomas Sebright, at the desire

of the proprietor, bought it in for £404, 5s. He soon discovered his

mistake, for in reality it was worth no more than ten guineas."

Though I cannot consent to view this picture through the medium

of Mr. Walpole's overcharged panegyric, which gives to the artist

a power that is not in the art, and seems heightened for the pure

purpose of sinking Hogarth by the contrast; yet I by no means meet

this indiscriminate and unfounded censure. It is many years since I

saw the picture in the Duke of Newcastle's collection, and I then

thought it sublimely conceived and finely coloured. MacArdell's print

gives a faithful representation of the character, and the annexed

head is a correct copy.

Hogarth still bearing in mind this transaction, in which he thought

himself very ill-used, continues his narrative, and concludes with

a recital of the circumstances which occasioned his quarrel with Mr.

Wilkes, etc.; this much hurt his feelings, and in the progress of it

I have ever thought he was unjustly and most inhumanly treated:--

"As the most violent and virulent abuse thrown on 'Sigismunda'

was from a set of miscreants, with whom I am proud of having

been ever at war, I mean the expounders of the mysteries of

old pictures, I have been sometimes told they were beneath my

notice. This is true of them individually; but as they have

access to people of rank, who seem as happy in being cheated

as these merchants are in cheating them, they have a power of

doing much mischief to a modern artist. However mean the vendor

of poisons, the mineral is destructive; to me its operation was

troublesome enough. Ill-nature spread so fast, that now was the

time for every little dog in the profession to bark, and revive

the old spleen which appeared at the time of the _Analysis_.[80]

The anxiety that attends endeavouring to recollect ideas long

dormant, and the misfortunes which clung to this transaction,

coming at a time when nature demands quiet, and something besides

exercise to cheer it, added to my long sedentary life, brought

on an illness which continued twelve months. But when I got well

enough to ride on horseback I soon recovered. This being at a

period when war abroad and contention at home engrossed every

one's mind, prints were thrown into the background; and the

stagnation rendered it necessary that I should do some timed

thing, to recover my lost time and stop a gap in my income. This

drew forth my print of 'The Times,' a subject which tended to

the restoration of peace and unanimity, and put the opposers

of these humane objects in a light which gave great offence to

those who were trying to foment destruction in the minds of the

populace. One of the most notorious among them, till now rather

my friend and flatterer, attacked me in a _North Briton_, in so

infamous and malign a style, that he himself, when pushed even by

his best friends, was driven to so poor an excuse as to say, 'he

was drunk when he wrote it.' Being at that time very weak, and in

a kind of slow fever, it could not but seize on a feeling mind.

My philosophical friends advise me to laugh at the nonsense of

party writing--who would mind it?--but I cannot rest myself:

'Who steals my gold steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;

'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands:

But he that filches from me my good name,

Robs me of that which not enriches him,

And makes me poor indeed.'

"Such being my feelings, my great object was to return the

compliment, and turn it to some advantage.

"This renowned patriot's portrait drawn, like as I could as to

features, and marked with some indications of his mind, fully

answered my purpose. The ridiculous was apparent to every eye.

A Brutus! a saviour of his country with such an aspect! was so

arrant a farce, that, though it gave rise to much laughter in the

lookers-on, galled both him and his adherents to the bone. This

was proved by the papers being every day crammed with invectives

against the artist, till the town grew absolutely sick of thus

seeing me always at full length.

"Churchill, Wilkes' toad-eater, put the _North Briton_ into

verse in an epistle to Hogarth; but as the abuse was precisely

the same, except a little poetical heightening, which goes for

nothing, it made no impression, but perhaps in some measure

effaced or weakened the black strokes of the _North Briton_.

However, having an old plate by me, with some parts ready, such

as the background and a dog, I began to consider how I could turn

so much work laid aside to some account; so patched up a print

of Master Churchill in the character of a Bear. The pleasure and

pecuniary advantage which I derived from these two engravings,

together with occasionally riding on horseback, restored me to as

much health as can be expected at my time of life.

"Thus have I gone through the principal circumstances of a life

which, till lately, passed pretty much to my own satisfaction,

and, I hope, in no respect injurious to any other man. This I

can safely assert, I have invariably endeavoured to make those

about me tolerably happy, and my greatest enemy cannot say I

ever did an intentional injury; though, without ostentation, I

could produce many instances of men that have been essentially

benefited by me. What may follow, God knows.--FINIS."

Such is the candid and dispassionate appeal which this unequalled

artist and excellent man makes to his contemporaries and to posterity.

In October 1764, he died of an aneurism at his house in Leicester

Fields. His remains were removed to his family vault at Chiswick. The

epitaph by Dr. Johnson, and that written by Mr. Garrick and inscribed

on his monument, are in the first volume of _Hogarth Illustrated_.

In the _Public Ledger_ of November 19, 1764, his friend Doctor

Townley paid the following tribute to his talents and virtues:--

"_TO THE MEMORY OF WILLIAM HOGARTH, WHO WAS SUCH AM ACCURATE

OBSERVER OF MANKIND THAT NO CHARACTER ESCAPED HIM, AND SO HAPPY

IN EXPRESSING HIS CONCEPTIONS BY THE STRENGTH OF HIS PENCIL,

THAT, AS HIS OWN TIMES NEVER PRODUCED A RIVAL, POSTERITY WILL

SCARCE EVER SEE AN EQUAL TO HIM. HIS THOUGHTS WERE SO CONSTANTLY

EMPLOYED IN THE CAUSE OF TRUTH AND VIRTUE, THAT HE MAY BE JUSTLY

RANKED AMONGST THE BEST MORAL AUTHORS. WHILST HE FAITHFULLY

FOLLOWED NATURE THROUGH ALL HER VARIETIES, AND EXPOSED WITH

INIMITABLE SKILL THE INFINITE FOLLIES AND VICES OF THE WORLD,

HE WAS HIMSELF AN EXAMPLE OF MANY VIRTUES; AND WHEN, WITH

UNIVERSAL ADMIRATION AND APPLAUSE, HE HAD REPROVED, INSTRUCTED,

AND DELIGHTED THE AGE WHEREIN HE LIVED, HE RESIGNED THE UNCOMMON

GIFTS WHICH HE POSSESSED, AND PAID THE GREAT DEBT HE OWED TO

NATURE, OCT. 27, 1764._"

DESCRIPTION OF THE PRINTS, ETC.

With talents equally honourable to himself, his country, and the

age in which he lived, Hogarth did not leave his widow possessed of

much more than arose from the sale of his prints. But during the

twenty-five years which she survived him, she had the higher and more

exalted gratification of finding that his reputation increased, and

his fame acquired stability by time.

In the year 1780, the late Horace Lord Orford published his

_Anecdotes_, in which he has introduced Hogarth's catalogue and

character. The volume printed at Strawberry Hill, he (with the

preceding part of the work) presented to Mrs. Hogarth. The books were

accompanied with the following handsome apology for his strictures on

the genius of her husband:[81]--

_To Mrs. Hogarth._

"BERKELEY SQUARE, _October 4, 1780_.

"Mr. Walpole begs Mrs. Hogarth's acceptance of the volume that

accompanies this letter, and hopes she will be content with

his endeavours to do justice to the genius of Mr. Hogarth. If

there are some passages less agreeable to her than the rest,

Mr. Walpole will regard her disapprobation only as marks of

the goodness of her heart, and proofs of her affection to her

husband's memory; but she will, he is sure, be so candid as to

allow for the duty an historian owes to the public and himself,

which obliges him to say what he thinks, and which when he

obeys, his praise is corroborated by his censure. The first

page of his Preface will more fully make his apology;[82] and

his just admiration of Mr. Hogarth, Mr. W. flatters himself,

will, notwithstanding his impartiality, still rank him in Mrs.

Hogarth's mind as one of her husband's most zealous and sincere

friends."

In nine years after the receipt of this letter, Mrs. Hogarth died,

bequeathing her property to her relation, Mrs. Mary Lewis of

Chiswick, by whose kindness and friendship I am in possession of

the manuscripts which form the basis of the foregoing sheets, the

following most singular and curious print of "Enthusiasm Delineated,"

etc. etc. etc.

ENTHUSIASM DELINEATED,

CONTRASTED WITH THE PRINT ENTITLED

A MEDLEY;

TO WHICH HOGARTH AFTERWARDS ALTERED THE PLATE.[83]

"Idolatry is not only an accounting and worshipping that for God

which is not God, but it is also a worshipping the true God in a way

unsuitable to His nature, and particularly by the mediation of images

and corporeal resemblances."--SOUTH.

Such was the opinion of Dr. South, and such the opinion of Hogarth,

when he designed this very extraordinary print, the intention of

which is to give "a lineal representation of the strange effects

resulting from literal and low conceptions of sacred beings, as

also of the idolatrous tendency of pictures in churches, and prints

in religious books," etc. To exemplify this, he has parodied the

productions of several eminent masters, whose works, having been

generally painted under the direction of cardinals, popes, etc., are

chiefly on religious subjects; and by the artists absurdly attempting

to represent what are not properly objects of sight, that which they

intended to be sublime is rendered in the highest degree ridiculous.

To burlesque the idolatrous symbols with which they have peopled

their canvas, place the popish doctrine of transubstantiation[84] in

its true point of view, unmask hypocrisy, and check the progress of

those enthusiastic delusions which Bishop Lavington properly terms

"Religion run Mad,"[85] are the author's leading objects.

To effect these purposes, he has delineated what we may fairly

denominate a powerful preacher, who from his countenance, and what

is hinted at in the scale of vociferation at his left hand, seems

treating his congregation with _a bull roar_. He may be considered

as either a Methodistical Papist or a Popish Methodist, for his

shaven crown intimates that he is a Jesuit; and the harlequin's

jacket underneath his gown denotes the versatility of his religious

professions. This Proteus of the pulpit poises a puppet in each hand;

that in the left represents the devil grasping a gridiron; in his

right he holds the triple figure with the triangular emblem, by which

Raphael and some other painters have profanely presumed to personify

the Deity.[86]

Exemplifying sacred mysteries by these absurd theorems is surely open

to the severest satire; and to heighten his ridicule, the artist has,

by adding three legs to the triangle, rendered it a complete trivet,

and given to his jesuitical and theatrical declaimer (who, as his

text intimates, "speaks as a fool") a pointed antithesis,--"If you

do not believe in this trivet, you shall broil on that gridiron."

Dangling on pegs around the pulpit, and to be exhibited as there

shall be occasion, are six other puppets, copied from the absurd

misrepresentations which some of the old masters have made of Adam

and Eve, Peter and Paul, Moses and Aaron. Adam and Eve are a little

caricatured, but evidently intended to hint at the dry designs of

Albert Durer. Adam, though naked, has the air of a first-rate

coxcomb. Eve, encircled with a zone of fig leaves, has neither

grace in her step nor dignity in her gesture. Peter, displaying his

ponderous key, and pulling off Paul's black periwig, is copied from

Rembrandt, and to him referred in Hogarth's inscription. Paul, with a

beard of Hudibrastic cut and dye, being low of stature, is elevated

by high-heeled shoes, and armed with two swords: that in his hand,

massy as the weapon wielded by John a Gaunt; the other, which, like

the dagger of Hudibras, might serve as its page, tucked to his side.

Moses and Aaron, one bearing the tables and the other an incense

pot, are retreating to the other side. The Jewish lawgiver's having

made many ordinances concerning food, may be hinted at by his being

crowned with a porridge pot; the two feet may serve for horns. The

bells on the hem of Aaron's garments are sufficiently obvious, and,

as saith Master Thomas Goodwin, in his _Civil and Ecclesiastical

Rites_--"By the bells are typed the sound of his doctrine."

The nobleman in a pew beneath, unquestionably refers to some known

character; but for whom it is meant I am unable to determine. He may

either be a peer who was at that time very constant in his attendance

at the Tabernacle, or a wolf who has found his way into the fold,

and is prowling among the lambs of the flock. His face presents the

index of a mind in which hypocrisy is united with another passion,

and is in an eminent degree characteristic. The holy fervour[87] of

the female, who, seduced by the tender touches of an earthly lover,

lets her celestial model fall to the ground, is equally remarkable.

A ragged figure[88] in the same pew, dropping his tears into a

bottle, we know, by his rueful countenance, his handcuffs, and the

letter T marked on his cheek, to be a repentant thief. A tattered and

coal-black proselyte at the foot of the reading-desk, inspired with

the epidemical enthusiasm of the place, is embracing the idolatrous

image of her adoration, which in colour is similar to herself.

As sculptors and painters have thought fit to denominate a child's

head, with duck wings, "Cherubin;"[89] Hogarth, to one of these

infantine fancies, has whimsically enough added a pair of duck's

feet. The well-fed figure in the desk may perhaps be meant as an

overcharged portrait of Whitfield. The fainting female in the corner

of the print was intended for Mrs. Douglas of the Piazza, who, after

a most licentious life, became a rigid devotee, and was Sam. Foote's

original for Mother Cole. The Jew, with an insect between his nails,

has a fine air of head. On the book open before him is a print of

"Abraham offering up Isaac."[90]

The figures in the background it is not necessary to enumerate:

they are sighing, weeping, groaning! The four most obtrusive convey

a severe satire on transubstantiation. A Turk looking through the

window, is evidently laughing at their absurdities, and thanking

Mahomet that he has been early initiated in the Koran. A dog, with

"Whitfield" on his collar, seated upon a hassock, and howling in

concert with the preacher, is admirably designed.

The figure of a pigeon impressed on the Methodist's brain, is

intended to intimate that if the Holy Spirit gets into the head

instead of the heart, it will create that confusion of intellect

described in the mental thermometer which rises out of it, and which

is crowned by a dove on the point of a triangle.

Thus did this great artist express his "First Thought," but

afterwards erased, or essentially altered every figure except

two, and _on the same piece of copper_: we find his variations so

multifarious as to render it nearly a new print, which he entitled

CREDULITY, SUPERSTITION, AND FANATICISM.

A MEDLEY.

The preacher and the devil, except in a few shadows added to a

handkerchief, are left as in the first state, and these are the

only figures that are so left; from them and the background it is

positively ascertained that the first and second engravings are on

the same copperplate. Raphael's strange symbol of the Deity the

artist has struck out, and in the place of it inserted a witch upon a

broomstick; instead of the puppets representing Adam and Eve, Peter

and Paul, Moses and Aaron, we have Mrs. Veale's ghost, Julius Cæsar's

apparition, and the shade of Sir George Villiers.

The nobleman, and lady dropping her deified image in the pew beneath

the pulpit, are discarded, and a pair of vulgar and uninteresting

characters put in their room. The handcuffed felon is obliterated,

and his place supplied by two figures, one weeping, the other asleep.

The ragged woman hugging a model is altered to the boy of Bilson; and

on the hassock, where was the howling dog, is a shoeblack's basket,

with Whitfield's _Journal_ placed upon King James's _Demonology_.

The characters of cherubin and seraph are changed; and though the

duck's wings are left, the legs are lopped off. In the place of

the corpulent and consequential clerk, the artist has inserted a

meagre and moon-eyed monster, with wings that either grow out of his

shoulders, or appertain to a foul fiend planted behind him and acting

as his prompter. Mother Douglas is beaten out of the copper, and in

her room Hogarth has introduced Mrs. Tofts and her rabbits, one of

the popular impositions of his own day. The smelling-bottle applied

to recover Mrs. Douglas from fainting, is with Mrs. Tofts very

properly changed to a dram glass. The Jew is altered, and altered

for the worse: the print of "Abraham and Isaac," in a book before

him, is obliterated, and a knife inscribed "bloody," and laid upon

an altar, supplies its place. In the characters of the common people

of the congregation there are several variations; the models which

some of them held in their arms are totally changed. The pigeon in

the Methodist's brain is discarded; in the place of the inscription

in the top division of the thermometer he has inserted the Cock

Lane ghost; and instead of the glory, which in the "First Thought"

crowned the whole, we have the Tedworth Drummer, a tale which, had

it not given the subject for Addison's comedy, would have been long

since forgotten. On the scale of vociferation and the chandelier, the

names of W--d and Romaine are only to be found in the present state

of the plate; in the scale of the thermometer there are numerous

alterations. In "The Medley," the artist has made an addition,

and placed Wesley's _Sermons_ and Glanville's book _On Witches_

as supporters to the Methodist's brain. To do this, and introduce

the rabbits on the foreground, he has brought his work so near the

bottom of his plate as not to leave room for a title, which, with the

quotation from St. John, "Believe not every spirit," etc., is, in the

present state of the plate, engraven on another piece of copper.

Many little variations besides those I have noted will appear by a

comparison of the two designs; one is worthy of particular attention.

In the print of "Enthusiasm Delineated," the inscriptions on the

thermometer, etc., are evidently from the burin of Hogarth; in

the print of "The Medley," every inscription, even those which in

each impression contain the same words, are the work of a writing

engraver, from which I am inclined to believe, that in the first

state the artist never trusted the plate out of his own hands.

With respect to the comparative merit of the two prints, I think

of the "First Thought" what Mr. Walpole in his _Anecdotes_ asserts

of the "Second," that "for useful and deep satire, it is the most

sublime of all his works." It forms one great whole; and the skill

with which he has appropriated the absurd symbols of painters,

and combined the idolatrous emblems of Popery with the mummery of

modern enthusiasts, presents a trait of his genius hitherto unknown;

displays the powers of his mind on subjects new to his pencil, and

shows an extent of information and depth of thought that is not to be

found in any of his other works.

In "The Medley" the artist has changed his ground, attacked follies

of another description, and in the place of Enthusiasm introduced

Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism. In his management of them

he has shown much genius, and by his transition from one object to

another, and the many metamorphoses of his characters, displayed a

power of assimilating, aptness of appropriating, and versatility

of pencil hardly to be paralleled, and proved that his invention

was inexhaustible. With all this, it must be acknowledged that

some of the local credulities which he has there depicted were of

so temporary and trifling a nature, that even now they are hardly

recollected by any other circumstances than having been introduced in

this print.

Ten or twelve figures engraved on the background are not in the

"First Thought:" two of them, viz. a crazed convert terrified by a

lay preacher, are admirably descriptive; but as to the residue of

this half-price audience, met together to be miserable, they add to

the number without much increasing the force, destroy the pyramid,

and hurt the general effect;--if they are intended to stand on the

floor, they are too high; if on benches, too low. The effect of this

print is further injured by the alteration of the clerk. In the

first state, his ample breadth of face and black periwig render him

a leading character, and give him the rank of principal figure. The

thin-visaged, hungry harpy in "The Medley" has no importance, neither

is there any principal figure in that print. A little cherub Mercury,

crowned with a postilion's cap, and bearing in his mouth a letter

directed to St. Moneytrap, is an afterthought, and only to be found

in the second impression.

If I am asked what were the artist's inducements for making so

many alterations, I can account for it in no other way than by

supposing some friend suggested that the satire would be mistaken,

and that there might be those who would suppose his arrows were

aimed at religion, though every shaft is pointed at the preposterous

masquerade habit in which it has been frequently disguised.

Considering the time that must have been employed in beating out the

old figures, the trouble of polishing the copper, etc., it seems

rather extraordinary that he should not have wholly discarded his

plate of the "First Thought," and taken another piece of copper for

the second. It is probable that the alterations were made by degrees,

and before the author was fully satisfied with his design, became

much more numerous than he had at first intended.[91]

TASTE IN HIGH LIFE

IN THE YEAR 1742.

[Illustration: TASTE IN HIGH LIFE.]

The picture from which this print was copied, Hogarth painted by

the order of Miss Edwards, a woman of large fortune, who, having

been laughed at for some singularities in her manners, requested the

artist to recriminate on her opponents, and paid him sixty guineas

for his production.

It is professedly intended to ridicule the reigning fashions of

high life in the year 1742. To do this the painter has brought into

one group an old beau and an old lady of the Chesterfield school,

a fashionable young lady, a little black boy, and a full-dressed

monkey. The old lady, with a most affected air, poises between her

finger and thumb a small tea-cup, with the beauties of which she

appears to be highly enamoured.

The gentleman, gazing with vacant wonder at that and the companion

saucer which he holds in his hand, joins in admiration of its

astonishing beauties!

"Each varied colour of the brightest hue,

The green, the red, the yellow, and the blue,

In every part their dazzled eyes behold,

Here streak'd with silver--there enrich'd with gold."

This gentleman is said to be intended for Lord Portmore, in the

habit he first appeared at Court on his return from France. The

cane dangling from his wrist, large muff, long queue, black stock,

feathered _chapeau_, and shoes, give him the air of

"An old and finish'd fop,

All cork at heel, and feather all at top."

The old lady's habit, formed of stiff brocade, gives her the

appearance of a squat pyramid, with a grotesque head at the top of

it. The young one is fondling a little black boy, who on his part

is playing with a _petite_ pagoda. This miniature Othello has been

said to be intended for the late Ignatius Sancho, whose talents and

virtues were an honour to his colour. At the time the picture was

painted he would have been rather older than the figure; but as he

was then honoured by the partiality and protection of a noble family,

the painter might possibly mean to delineate what his figure had been

a few years before.

The little monkey, with a magnifying glass, bag-wig, solitaire,

laced hat, and ruffles, is eagerly inspecting a bill of fare, with

the following articles _pour_ dinner: cocks' combs, ducks' tongues,

rabbits' ears, fricasey of snails, _grande d'œuts beurre_.[92]

In the centre of the room is a capacious china jar; in one corner

a tremendous pyramid composed of packs of cards; and on the floor,

close to them, a bill inscribed, "Lady Basto D^r to John Pip, for

cards--£300."

The room is ornamented with several pictures; the principal

represents the Medicean Venus on a pedestal, in stays and high-heeled

shoes, and holding before her a hoop petticoat somewhat larger than

a fig-leaf; a Cupid paring down a fat lady to a thin proportion,

and another Cupid blowing up a fire to burn a hoop petticoat, muff,

bag, and queue wig, etc. On the dexter side is another picture

representing Monsieur Desnoyer, operatically habited, dancing in

a grand ballet, and surrounded by butterflies, etc., inscribed

"Insects," and evidently of the same genus with this deity of dance.

On the sinister is a drawing, denominated "Exotics," consisting of

queue and bag-wigs, muffs, solitaires, petticoats, French-heeled

shoes, and other fantastic fripperies.

Beneath this is a lady in a pyramidical habit walking the park; and,

as the companion picture, we have a blind man walking the streets.

The fire-screen is adorned with a drawing of a lady in a sedan chair--

"To conceive how she looks, you must call to your mind

The lady you've seen in a lobster confin'd,

Or a pagod in some little corner enshrin'd."

As Hogarth made this design from the ideas of Miss Edwards, it has

been said that he had no great partiality for his own performance,

and that, as he never would consent to its being engraved, the

drawing from which the print is copied was made by the connivance

of one of her servants.[93] Be that as it may, his ridicule on

the absurdities of fashion,--on the folly of collecting old

china,--cookery,--card-playing, etc., is pointed, and highly wrought.

At the sale of Miss Edwards' effects at Kensington, the original

picture was purchased by the father of Mr. Birch, surgeon, of Essex

Street, Strand.

FARINELLI, CUZZONI, AND SENESINO,

IN THE CHARACTERS OF

PTOLEMY, CLEOPATRA, AND JULIUS CÆSAR.

"To banish nature and to vary art,

To fix the ear but never reach the heart,

To mangle sense and dress up meagre sound,

While the same tasteless unison goes round;

And still the point of excellence to place

In execution, cadence, and grimace;

To ravish with unnatural sounds the ear,

While beaux applaud and belles with rapture hear,[94]

The song we raise."

[Illustration: FARINELLI, CUZZONI, & SENESINO.]

This dignified heroine and the two heroes--of a class--

"By their smooth chins and simple simper known,"

are here the representatives of "the majesty of Egypt, a morsel for

a monarch," and "the foremost man of all this world;"[95] they were

the three principal performers in Handel's opera of _Ptolomeo_,

performed in the year 1728. There have been some suspicions of

its not being Hogarth's design, and from the characters more than

bordering on caricature, etc., I once inclined to that opinion; but

from the general spirit of the satire, and the same figures being

introduced in nearly the same attitudes in the first print Hogarth

ever published (see p. 22), there is little doubt of its being his

production.

The position (for it can hardly be called an attitude) in which the

painter has placed Farinelli, is fully warranted by the writer

of a pamphlet, entitled _Reflections on Theatrical Expression in

Tragedy, etc._, published in 1755. These _Reflections_ are admirably

contrasted by the exaggerated compliment with which the author of the

_Divine Legation_ honours the divine Senesino. The two quotations

follow:--

"I shall therefore, in my further remarks on this article, go

back to the old Italian theatre, when Farinelli drew everybody to

the Haymarket. What a pipe! what modulation! what ecstasy to the

ear!--but, heavens! what clumsiness! what stupidity! what offence to

the eye! Reader, if of the city, thou mayst probably have seen in

the fields of Islington or Mile-End, or if thou art in the environs

of St. James's, thou must have observed in the park, with what ease

and agility a cow, heavy with calf, has rose up at the command of

the milkwoman's foot. Thus from the mossy bank sprung up the divine

Farinelli. Then with long strides, advancing a few paces, his left

hand settled upon his hip in a beautiful bend, like that of an

old-fashioned caudle-cup, his right hand remained immoveable across

his manly breast till numbness called its partner to supply its

place, when it relieved itself in the position of the other handle to

the caudle-cup, etc."--_Reflections, etc._

With respect to the other genius of Italian song, Mr. Nichols very

justly observes that his dignity must have been wonderful, or the

following passage in Dr. Warburton's _Inquiry into the Causes of

Prodigies and Miracles_ (printed in 1727) affords a most notorious

example of the bathos:--

"Observe," says he (p. 60), "Sir Walter Raleigh's great manner of

ending the first part of the _History of the World_: 'By this, which

we have already set down, is seen the beginning and end of the three

first monarchies of the world, whereof the founders and erectors

thought that they never could have ended; that of Rome, which made

the fourth, was also at this time almost at the highest. We have

left it flourishing in the middle of the field, have rooted up or

cut down all that kept it from the eyes and admiration of the world;

but after some continuance it shall begin to lose the beauty it had,

the storms of ambition shall beat the great boughs and branches one

against another, her leaves shall fall off, her limbs wither, and a

rabble of barbarous nations enter the field and cut her down.' What

strength of colouring! what grace, what nobleness of expression! with

what a majesty does he close his immortal labour! It puts one in

mind of the so much admired exit of the late famed Italian singer!"

(Senesino.[96]) What a climax!

A WOMAN SWEARING HER CHILD TO A GRAVE CITIZEN.

"Here Justice triumphs in his elbow chair,

And makes his market of the trading fair;

His office shelves with parish laws are grac'd,

But spelling-books and guides between 'em plac'd.[97]

Here pregnant madam screens the real sire,

And falsely swears her bastard child for hire

Upon a rich old leecher, who denies

The fact, and vows the naughty hussif lies.

His wife enrag'd, exclaims against her spouse,

And swears she'll be reveng'd upon his brows;

The jade, the justice, and churchward'ns agree,

And force him to provide security."

[Illustration: WOMAN SWEARING A CHILD.]

These curious rhymes, engraven under the original print, in a degree

describe the plot of the play, and the characters of the performers

in this religious ceremony; for as such does Picart class a copy

which he has introduced in the fourth volume of his work,[98]

accompanied with the following explanation:--

"Many other customs might find a place here, and delight the

readers by their comical singularity, but we dare not crowd

in too great a number of those trifles, as not being properly

religious ceremonies; which therefore, till approved of by the

church, or by the governor of it, prescribed by ecclesiastical

laws or formularies, we shall omit, except two or three of the

most remarkable. The first is what the description here annexed

calls the breeding woman's oath,--a custom not to be met with

in other countries,--which is so fantastical, or rather unjust,

that it would be a prejudice to the laws of England if we were

to judge of their equity by that practice. Suppose any of these

girls, which may be called amphibious (being neither wives nor

virgins), is found to be with child. She does not, or will not,

pretend to know the father of this child. In order to free

herself from the trouble of maintaining it when born, she looks

out for some rich man, upon whom she intends to father it.

Generally they say she pitches upon some good citizen, though she

does not know him, or maybe has never seen him. Then she goes

before a Justice of the Peace, summons the pretended father to

appear before him, and in his presence swears upon the Bible,

which the clerk holds to her, that she owns and declares that

such a one whom she has summoned to appear is the father of the

child. How far the equivocal expressions and restrictions of

that oath may excuse her from perjury, let a good casuist be the

judge. However, the man thus named and sworn to by this formality

of law is obliged to pay an arbitrary fine, and to agree upon

a sum of money for the maintenance of the child."--Picart's

_Religious Ceremonies_, p. 83.

The original picture from which this print was engraven was one of

Hogarth's early productions, and is in the possession of the Rev.

Mr. Whalley, at Ecton, Northamptonshire. In the disposition of the

figures, etc., it has a more than accidental resemblance to a picture

by Heemskirk, which was in the possession of Mr. Watson, surgeon,

Rathbone Place, where all the male figures are monkeys; all the

females, cats; and which in the year 1772 was engraved in mezzotinto

by Dickinson, and entitled "The Village Magistrate."

A small copy from Hogarth's print is introduced as the headpiece

to a tale printed in Banks' _Works_, vol. i. p. 248, entitled "The

Substitute Father."

THE FOUNDLINGS.

"No mother's care

Shielded our infant innocence with prayer;

No father's guardian hand our youth maintain'd,

Call'd forth our virtues, and from vice restrain'd;

But strangers,--pitying strangers,--hear our cry,

And with parental care each want supply."

[Illustration: THE FOUNDLINGS.]

The last print represented what Mr. Picart chose to call a religious

ceremony,--in this we have a scene which may properly be so

denominated; for surely rescuing deserted, unoffending, and helpless

innocence from destruction, providing an asylum for childhood,

initiating youth in habits of industry, and rendering those whose

parents were unable to protect them useful members of society, is a

religious as well as a political institution.

"Cold on Canadian hills or Minden's[99] plain,

Perhaps the mother mourn'd her soldier slain,

Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolv'd in dew,

The big drop mingling with the milk it drew;

Gave the sad presage of his future years,

The child of misery, baptiz'd in tears."

Hogarth, by presenting some of his works to the Foundling Hospital,

was in fact an early benefactor to the charity. He made the annexed

design for the use of this institution; it was engraved by F.

Morellon la Cave, as the headpiece to a power of attorney from the

trustees of the charity to those gentlemen who were appointed to

receive subscriptions towards the building, etc.

[Illustration: CAPTAIN THOMAS CORAM.]

The artist has made his old friend Captain Coram a principal figure;

and as this excellent and venerable man was in fact the founder of

the charity, it is with great propriety he is introduced. Before

him the beadle of the Hospital carries an infant, whose mother,

having dropped a dagger with which she might have been momentarily

tempted to destroy her child, kneels at his feet; while he, with that

benevolence with which his countenance was so eminently marked, bids

her be comforted, for her babe will be nursed and protected.

On the dexter side of the print is a new-born infant, left close to a

stream of water, which runs under the arch of a bridge. Near a gate,

on a little eminence in the pathway above, a woman leaves another

child to the casual care of the next person who passes by. In the

distance is a village with a church.

In the other corner are three boys coming out of a door with the

king's arms over it; as emblems of their future employments, one of

them poises a plummet, a second holds a trowel, and a third, whose

mother is fondly pressing him to her bosom, has in his hand a

card for combing wool. The next group, headed by a lad elevating a

mathematical instrument, are in sailors' jacket and trousers; those

on their right hand, one of whom has a rake, are in the uniform of

the school.

The attributes of the three little girls in the foreground--a

spinning-wheel, sampler, and broom--indicate female industry and

ingenuity.

It must be admitted that the scene here represented is a painter's

anticipation, for the charter was not granted until October 1739, and

this design was made only three years afterwards; but the manner in

which the charity has been since conducted has realized the scene.

FRONTISPIECE TO TERRÆ FILIUS.

[Illustration: TERRÆ FILIUS.]

The work to which this is a frontispiece was written by Nicholas

Amhurst, author of the _Craftsman_, and published in the year 1726.

The leading object of this writer is to satirize the Tory principles

of the University of Oxford; but as the book does not abound in

subjects for the pencil, Hogarth has selected a scene described

in No. 33, published 8th May 1721, which contains "Advice to all

gentlemen schoolboys, etc., who are designed for the University of

Oxford." In the part which forms the subject for this print, the

writer thus cautions them:--

"Have a particular regard how you speak of those gaudy things which

flutter about Oxford in prodigious numbers in summer time, called

'Toasts;' take care how you reflect on their parentage, their

condition, their virtue, or their beauty,--ever remembering that

'Hell has no fury like a woman scorn'd;'

especially when they have spiritual bravoes on their side, to revenge

their cause on every audacious contemner of Venus and her altars.

"Not long ago a bitter lampoon was published on the most celebrated

of these petticoat professors. As soon as it came out the town was

in an uproar, and a very severe sentence was passed upon the author

of this anonymous libel, to discover whom no pains were spared. All

the disgusted ill-natured fellows in the University were, one after

another, suspected upon this occasion. At last, I know not how, it

was peremptorily fixed upon one, whether justly or not I cannot say;

but the parties offended resolved to make an example of somebody for

such an enormous crime, and one of them (more enraged than the rest)

was heard to declare, 'that right or wrong, that impudent scoundrel

(mentioning his name) should be expelled by G--; and that she had

interest enough with the President and Senior Fellows of his

College to get his business done.' Accordingly, within a year after

this, he was (almost unanimously) expelled from his fellowship, in

the presence of some of the persons injured, who came thither to see

the execution.

'Felix quam faciunt aliena pericula cautum'

was the thesis pitched upon by the excluding doctors for the

under-graduates to moralize upon, in a public exercise upon this

occasion; and as it is a very wholesome maxim, I leave it, my little

lads, to your serious meditation."

To the figures introduced in this print the original artist has given

a spirit worthy of Callot; and the copy hereto annexed has been

thought correct and animated.

THE SEPULCHRE.

[Illustration: THE SEPULCHRE.]

It has been frequently and truly remarked, that in either historical

or serious subjects Hogarth did not excel; but to prove that even in

this walk he was considerably above mediocrity, and that the reader

may be enabled to judge for himself, I have selected the annexed

print, which forms one compartment of the altar-piece to St. Mary

Redcliffe's, Bristol, for the painting of which he received five

hundred pounds.

The centre division, which is much the largest, represents the

Ascension. The rays emanating from the ascending Deity, and beaming

through the interstices of the surrounding clouds, are tenderly and

brilliantly touched. In the foreground, St. Thomas on one knee, with

his hands clasped together, is eagerly looking up with an expression

of wonder and astonishment. On the other side is St. Peter, in a

reclining posture. Near the centre, St. John, with a group made up of

the other Apostles, attentively listening to the two men in white,

who appeared on this occasion. The background is on one side closed

with tremendous rocks; on the other, under the skirts of low-hung

clouds in the distance, appears part of the magnificent city of

Jerusalem, illuminated by a flash of lightning, which, darting from a

darkened sky, casts a livid gloom over the whole.

The compartment on the right hand represents the rolling of the stone

and sealing the sepulchre in the presence of the high priest; the

exertion displayed in this is happily contrasted by the tenderness

and elegant softness displayed in the companion picture here copied,

where the Marys approach the empty sepulchre. The angel, speaking and

pointing up to heaven with an expression which explains itself--to

singular beauty, sweetness, and benevolence, unites great elevation

of character, and the native dignity of a superior being.

The foregoing remarks, with some little variations, are extracted

from an article in the _Critical Review_ for June 1756, which, being

written while the artist was living, were possibly seen and approved

by himself.

The writer concludes by remarking, that the purchasing such a picture

for their church does great honour to the opulent city for which it

was painted, and is the likeliest means to raise a British School of

Artists; though it would be a just subject of public regret if Mr.

Hogarth should abandon a branch of painting in which he stands alone,

unrivalled and inimitable, to pursue another in which so many have

already excelled.

From the "Sealing the Sepulchre" and this print there are two large

mezzotintos by J. Jenner. The centre compartment has not been

engraved.

THE POLITICIAN.

A politician should (as I have read)

Be furnished in the first place with a head!

[Illustration: THE POLITICIAN.]

One of our old writers gives it as his opinion, that "there are

only two subjects which are worthy the study of a wise man, _i.e._

religion and politics." For the first, it does not come under

inquiry in this print; but certain it is, that too sedulously

studying the second has frequently involved its votaries in many

most tedious and unprofitable disputes, and been the source of much

evil to many well-meaning and honest men. Under this class comes

the "Quidnunc" here portrayed; it is said to be intended for a

Mr. Tibson, laceman in the Strand, who paid more attention to the

affairs of Europe than to those of his own shop. He is represented

in a style somewhat similar to that in which Schalcken painted

William the Third,[100]--holding a candle in his right hand, and

eagerly inspecting the _Gazetteer_ of the day. Deeply interested

in the intelligence it contains concerning the flames that rage on

the Continent, he is totally insensible of domestic danger, and

regardless of a flame which, ascending to his hat,

"Threatens destruction to his three-tail'd wig."

From the tie-wig, stockings, high-quartered shoes, and sword, I

should suppose it was painted about the year 1730, when street

robberies were so frequent in the metropolis that it was customary

for men in trade to wear swords; not as now (1803), to preserve their

religion and liberty from foreign invasion, but to defend their own

pockets from _domestic collectors_.

The original sketch Hogarth presented to his friend Forrest; it was

etched by Sherwin, and published 1775.

THE MATCHMAKER.

"Wanted immediately--A HUSBAND."

--_Vide the daily papers._

[Illustration: THE MATCH MAKER.]

The two agreeable persons here introduced formed part of a group in

an unfinished picture painted by Hogarth. They were some years since

engraved on two copperplates; but as I thought that was placing

still further apart the hands of those twain whom the holy service

of matrimony was soon to unite, I have here brought them into one,

and in this we are presented with the bride and that useful agent of

Hymen, denominated a Matchmaker. We see nothing of the bridegroom

but his hand and arm; from which, the countenance of the lady, and

the character of the go-between, we may fairly infer he is young,

and regret that the artist did not complete the trio, and place him

as a contrast to the antiquated virgin with whom he is to be united.

By the beauty spots on her face, she wishes to conceal the ravages

of time; and from her laced lappets, cuffs, robings, and brocaded

silk, we may suppose she is rich. As to the share which the venerable

person who provides her with a husband is to have for his reward--it

depends upon the bargain. I have been told that in this masquerade

matrimony, the master of the ceremonies, or lord of the bedchamber

(which the reader pleases), is paid by both the contracting parties.

Some of my readers may possibly imagine that the tribe of

Matchmakers, like the race of wolves, is extinct in England; but this

is so far from being the case, that there is now in the neighbourhood

of Piccadilly a regular office,[101] where any gentleman or

gentlewoman, first paying a stipulated sum for entrance money, may

disclose their virtuous wishes, and be provided with partners for

life,--or as long as they can agree.

THE MAN OF TASTE.

[Illustration: THE MAN OF TASTE.]

The circumstance on which this print is built is thus described by

Dr. Johnson:--

"Mr. Pope published in 1731 a poem called _False Taste_, in which he

very particularly and severely criticises the house, the furniture,

the gardens, and the entertainments of Timon, a man of great wealth

and little taste. By Timon he was universally supposed, and by the

Earl of Burlington, to whom the poem is addressed, was privately

said, to mean the Duke of Chandos, a man perhaps too much delighted

with pomp and show, but of a temper kind and beneficent, and who had

consequently the voice of the public in his favour. A violent outcry

was therefore raised against the ingratitude and treachery of Pope,

who was said to have been indebted to the patronage of Chandos for

a present of a thousand pounds, and who gained the opportunity of

insulting him by the kindness of his invitation. The receipt of the

thousand pounds Pope publicly denied; but from the reproach which the

attack on a character so amiable brought upon him, he tried all means

of escaping. The name of Cleland was employed in an apology[102] by

which no man was satisfied; and he was at last reduced to shelter

his temerity behind dissimulation, and endeavoured to make that

disbelieved which he never had confidence openly to deny. He wrote

an exculpatory letter to the Duke, which was answered with great

magnanimity by a man who accepted his excuse without believing

his professions. He said, that to have ridiculed his taste or his

buildings had been an indifferent action in another man, but that in

Pope, after the reciprocal kindness that had been exchanged between

them, it had been less easily excused."--Johnson's _Life of Pope_.

Soon after the publication of the poem alluded to, Hogarth made this

design, which presents a view of Burlington Gate. On the front, as a

crooked compliment to the noble proprietor, he has inscribed the word

"Taste;" and as a standing proof of the projector being entitled to

the appellation, placed a statue of his grand favourite William Kent

triumphantly brandishing his palette and pencils on the summit,

with two reclining figures representing Raphael and Michael Angelo

for his supporters.[103] Standing on a scaffold board beneath them,

Mr. Pope, in the character of a plasterer, is whitewashing the front,

and whirling his brush with a spirit that produces a shower of liquid

pearl which dismays and defiles the passengers beneath; the principal

of these, intended for the Duke of Chandos, holds his hat over his

head to shelter himself in his retreat. The torrent is not confined

to his Grace's person, but lavishly scattered over his carriage

and attendants, among whom is a blackamoor in the way of being

whitewashed. The clergyman, whom I believe intended for the duke's

chaplain,[104] is escaping round the carriage.

An old military character, who as well as the chaplain is got out of

the poet's vortex, is rubbing off the stains which he has previously

contracted.

Climbing a ladder reared against the scaffold, we have Lord

Burlington doing the office of a labourer, and arrayed in a tie-wig,

with a pair of compasses[106] suspended to the riband of his order,

and carrying to his little active workman a hand-hawk, on which is

a portion of what I am told the bricklayers call "fine stuff," to

mix up more whitening for beautifying the front of his own gate,

and defiling the garments of every passenger. This, it must be

acknowledged, our poetical plasterer performs with distinguished

dexterity: he at the same time covers the corrosions in the front,

dashes a plenteous shower on those that come near it, and so kicks

the bottom of a pail which hangs to his short ladder, that a copious

stream flows on the head of a gentleman beneath.

This double distribution of flattery and satire is amply exemplified

in the Epistle to Lord Burlington; where the poet, by contrasting the

feeble and imperfect efforts of those he abuses with the superior and

superlative genius of the peer,[107] elevates the powers of his own

patron, and sinks those of all his competitors.

The print from which this is copied was prefixed to a pamphlet,

entitled _A Miscellany of Taste_, by Mr. Pope, etc., containing his

epistles, with notes, etc. There are two other engravings from the

same design, one larger and one smaller than the print annexed. In

the former of these, Mr. Pope has a tie-wig on.[109]

HENRY FIELDING.

[Illustration: HENRY FIELDING.]

This admirable writer was born at Sharpham Park, in Somersetshire,

near Glastonbury, April 22, 1707. His father, Edmund Fielding, served

in the wars under the Duke of Marlborough, and arrived at the rank

of lieutenant-general at the latter end of George I. or beginning of

George II. He was grandson to an Earl of Denbigh, and nearly related

to the Duke of Kingston, and many other noble families. His mother

was the daughter of Judge Gould, the grandfather of Sir Henry Gould,

one of the Barons of the Exchequer.

Henry received the first rudiments of his education from the Rev. Mr.

Oliver, to whom we may judge he was not under very considerable

obligations, from the humorous and striking portrait given of him

afterwards, under the name of Parson Trulliber, in _Joseph Andrews_.

From Mr. Oliver's care he was removed to Eton school, where he had

the advantage of being early known to many of the first people in

the kingdom,--namely, Lord Lyttelton, Mr. Fox, Mr. Pitt, Sir Charles

Hanbury Williams, and the late Mr. Winnington.

At this great seminary of education he gave distinguished proofs of

strong and peculiar powers; and when he left the place, was said to

be uncommonly versed in the Greek authors, and an early master of the

Latin classics: for both which he retained a strong predilection in

all the subsequent periods of his life. Thus accomplished, he went

from Eton to Leyden, and there continued to show an eager thirst for

knowledge, and to study the civilians with unwearied assiduity for

two years; when, remittances failing, he was obliged to return to

London, not then quite twenty years old.

The comedy called _Don Quixote in England_, was planned at Leyden,

and completed on his return to London; where, from some cause or

other, he was induced to bring it on the stage before it was properly

wrought up, so that by this first essay he gained no dramatic

reputation. Nor were his other productions for the playhouse much

more popular; for though he wrote eight comedies and fifteen farces,

they have not generally proved what are termed stock plays;[110] and

yet from several of them, particularly _Pasquin_, succeeding and

successful writers for the stage have borrowed some of their best

speeches.

He died at Lisbon, to which place he went for the recovery of his

health, in the year 1754, aged 47.

Of his talents, he has left memorials that will never die while the

English nation retains a taste for genuine and Cervantic humour: his

features posterity would have only known by description, had not

his friend Hogarth, to whom he had often promised to sit, made this

drawing; for, singular as it may seem, though this admirable writer

lived on intimate terms with the best artists of the day, no portrait

of him was ever painted.

Many strange stories have been told of the manner in which the

drawing was made, such as, the hint being taken from a shade which a

lady cut with scissors; of Mr. Garrick having put on a suit of his

old friend's clothes, and making up his features and assuming his

attitude for the painter to copy, etc. etc. These are trifling tales

to please children, and echoed from one to another, because the

multitude love the marvellous.

The simple fact is, that the painter of the "Distressed Poet," and

the author of _Tom Jones_, having talents of a similar texture, lived

in habits of strict intimacy; and Hogarth being told, after his

friend's death, that a portrait was wanted as a frontispiece to his

works, sketched this from memory.

The drawing was engraved by Mr. Basire, and is said, by those who

knew the original, to be a faithful resemblance. This print is copied

from a proof I had from Mrs. Lewis, and taken before the ornaments

were inserted.[111]

SIMON LORD LOVAT.

[Illustration: SIMON, LORD LOVAT.]

Simon Lord Lovat was born in the year 1667; his father was the

twenty-second person who had enjoyed the title of Lovat in lineal

descent. His mother was Dame Sybilla Macleod, daughter of the Chief

of the clan of the Macleods, so famous for its unalterable loyalty to

its princes.

Buchanan relates a marvellous story of the family at the battle of

Loch Lochlie, 1544. In this battle Lord Lovat, his four brothers, his

three sons, and the whole clan of the Frazers, were cut to pieces;

but if we are to believe this tale, the clan was afterwards restored

by a kind of miracle. The passage is curious:--

"About this time, by the instigation, as it is thought, of the Earl

of Huntly, a battle was fought in which almost the whole clan of

the Frazers was exterminated. There was an old quarrel between the

Frazers and the Macdonalds, which had been rendered illustrious by

the many bloody engagements to which it had given birth. Huntly, in

the meantime, was deeply irritated that the Frazers alone, among so

many neighbouring clans, should reject his protection. He had just

collected the neighbouring islanders, and made an incursion upon the

estates of the Earl of Argyll; and while every other clan had exerted

its whole force in his favour, there was scarcely an individual

in the whole clan of Frazer that had not ranged himself under the

enemy's standard. For this time, however, the feud was composed

without an engagement; and the forces of each party having disbanded

themselves, returned to the respective clans. The Macdonalds

meantime, instructed by the Earl of Huntly, collected their whole

force, and, having taken their enemy by surprise, engaged in a

most obstinate battle. The unfortunate clan, overpowered by the

greatest inequality of numbers, were killed to a man. Thus a family

the most numerous, and who had often deserved well of the Scottish

weal, had wholly perished, unless, as it seems just to believe, the

Divine Providence had not interfered in their favour. Of the heads

of the clan, eighty persons had left their wives pregnant at home,

and each of them in her turn was delivered of a male child, who all

attained safe to man's estate."--_Buchanan_, lib. xv. p. 532. Pity

but they had been twins!

Thus much may suffice for the character of his progenitors; as to

his own,[112] he wrote a narrative in French stating his conduct,

connections, treatment at the Court of St. Germains, etc. These

memoirs,[113] which are brought no further than the year 1715, were

translated and printed several years ago; but, for some political

or family reasons, not published until 1797. They contain many

curious particulars of his life, much of which, both then and in

every subsequent period, had great need of an apology. On his

tergiversation in the rebellion of 1745, Sir William Young, one of

the managers appointed for conducting the prosecution, makes the

following observations:--"Your Lordships have already done national

justice on some of the principal traitors who appeared in open arms

against his Majesty by the ordinary course of law; but this noble

Lord, who in the whole course of his life has boasted of his superior

cunning in wickedness, and his ability to commit frequent treasons

with impunity, vainly imagined that he might possibly be a traitor

in private, and rebel only in his heart, by sending his son and his

followers to join the Pretender, and remaining at home himself, to

endeavour to deceive his Majesty's faithful subjects; hoping _he_

might be rewarded for his son's services if successful, or his _son_

alone be the sufferer for _his_ offences if the undertaking failed.

Diabolical cunning! Atrocious impiety!"--_State Trials_, vol. iv. p.

627.

These are hard and heavy accusations; but the fact is, that whoever

becomes the biographical advocate of Lord Lovat will find it useful

to adopt the plan recommended to the writer who wished to draw

a _fair character_ of that _all-accomplished statesman_, William

Pulteney, Earl of Bath:

"Leave a blank here and there, in each page,

To enrol the fair deeds of his youth!

When you mention the acts of his age,

Leave a blank for his honour and truth."

Notwithstanding all this, his conduct previous to execution was

manly and spirited. When advised by his friends to throw himself at

his Majesty's feet and petition for mercy, he absolutely refused,

said that he was old and infirm, and his life not worth asking. When

informed that an engine was to be made for his execution like that

called "the Maiden," provided long since for state criminals in

Scotland, he commended the contrivance, observing that, as his neck

was short, the executioner would be puzzled to find it out with his

axe; and if such a machine were used, it would get the name of "Lord

Lovat's Maiden."[114]

When he was brought from Scotland to be tried in London, Hogarth

having previously known him, went to meet him at St. Albans for the

purpose of taking his portrait, and at the "White Hart" in that town

found the hoary peer under the hands of his barber. The old nobleman

rose to salute him (according to the Scotch and French fashion) with

so much eagerness, that he left a large portion of the lather from

his beard on the face of his old friend.

He is drawn in the attitude of enumerating by his fingers the rebel

forces, "Such a general had so many men," etc.; and I am informed

the portrait is in air, character, and feature, a most faithful

resemblance of the original.

NINE PRINTS FOR DON QUIXOTE.

The first of these prints is copied from a plate in Jarvis' quarto

translation of this inimitable work; it has neither painter nor

engraver's name, but carries indisputable marks of the pencil and

burin of Hogarth. The second is from an unfinished print in my

possession, which I think by the same artist. The six which follow

were designed for Lord Carteret's Spanish edition, published in the

year 1738; but as they are etched in a bold and masterly style, I

suppose the noble peer did not think they were pretty enough to

embellish his volume, and therefore laid them aside for Vandergucht's

engravings from Vanderbank's designs. Hogarth's six plates remaining

in the hands of Mr. Tonson, his Lordship's publisher, were at his

death bought by Mr. Dodsley, from whom they were purchased by

Messrs. Boydell, in whose possession they now remain. While in

Dodsley's hands, references to the chapters and corresponding pages

in Jarvis' translation were engraved under each.

The last scene, representing "Sancho's Feast," is copied from an

incomparable print engraved at an early period of Hogarth's life,

and published by Overton and Hoole, price one shilling. The subject

of this is exactly consonant to Hogarth's genius, and was probably

selected by the artist to show how happily he could enter into the

spirit of a writer whose turn of mind seems so congenial to his own.

Had Cervantes been an Englishman, I think he would have contemplated

our national follies through the same medium that they were seen by

Hogarth, and probably selected similar scenes as subjects for his

satire. He lived in an age and country where one gigantic folly

"In proud pre-eminence stalk'd through the land!"

He touched the phantom with his pen, and it vanished; but as folly

is in some cases the parent of virtue, may not chivalry and romance,

ridiculous as they are in the eye of reason, give birth to an ardour

of spirit which aggrandizes and elevates a nation? To a sedate and

saturnine people, a spice of absurdity may have its use, were it only

to give motion to those virtues which without it might stagnate.

Divested of that frenzy, which at the same time that it ruffles

and impairs their reason, awakes and rouses their spirits, a whole

nation, like a man-of-war becalmed, may be undulated by ineffectual

motion, until they drop into a sort of mental stupor, unmarked by

any other distinctions than those that arise from stately indolence,

haughty solemnity, and supercilious dignity.

I will not presume to say that Spain is exactly in this situation;

but if it were, other causes may have contributed to the change.

If such are to be the consequences of a nation's becoming wise, a

tincture of folly is rather to be desired than dreaded.

As to the hero of this admirable tale, the Knight of the Sorrowful

Countenance, who has been the cause of more laughter than either the

Knights of Arthur's Round Table, or any other knights ancient or

modern, how can we sufficiently admire him! A paragon of patience

and perseverance, unconquerable fortitude and proud honour, who in

his lucid intervals reasoned like a philosopher, and was invariably

actuated by the most exalted motives; deemed himself bound to defend

the weak against the strong, chastise indolence, redress injuries,

and free those who were in bonds! That this ardent, heroic, and

dignified character, with motives so pure, an heart so excellent, and

virtues that elevate, adorn, and irradiate human nature, should be

led by an enthusiasm which fevered his imagination into absurdities

that expose him to derision, and, like Samson, brought forth to

make sport for the multitude, is mortifying to humanity; and I must

confess, that with me, the laugh which the author's irresistible

humour invariably excites is accompanied by a pitying sigh for the

hero of this history, who is, after all, so superlatively happy in

his ideal importance, that there is a degree of cruelty in destroying

the illusion. The adage, "You think you are _happy_ because you are

_wise_; I think I am _wise_ because I am _happy_," is not easily

confuted.[115]

But this admirable romance carries me further than I intended. I was

led into it by considering the comparative merit of Cervantes and

Hogarth, in doing which, it is proper to observe that the motley

follies of England (diametrically opposite to those of Spain) are

changeable as an April day. Our English moralist (for surely he is

worthy of the title) transferred them to his canvas or copper, and

exposed them by pointed ridicule.

But his satiric histories had a higher and still more useful

direction. They were calculated to encourage industry, and promote

humanity in the lower orders of society, by exhibiting the baneful

consequences of idleness and cruelty; and to check the ostentatious

follies of those in a higher rank, by pointing out the happiness

attendant on the practice of virtue, and the consequent misery of

dissipation, sensuality, and vice.

I hope the warmest admirers of Cervantes will not be offended if

I venture to assert that these were objects of more national and

individual importance than was the extirpation of knight-errantry.

Both these great men may be considered as universal classics; for

while Cervantes delights the learned and the illiterate in his

own country, and is translated and eagerly read in France, Italy,

Germany, and England, while the artists of all these nations emulate

each other in delineating the scenes he has described, and every age

and rank peruse _Don Quixote_ with pleasure,--the fame of Hogarth

is not bounded by the shores of Albion, but takes as wide a circuit

through Europe, and his pictured stories are contemplated with

admiration by men of every clime.[116]

Could their congenial spirits witness the tribute posterity pay to

their talents, how would they be gratified! Large as is their portion

of fame, they were little favoured by fortune. Hogarth, after a

long life of persevering industry, died comparatively poor. As to

the maimed hero of Spain, when the learned Don Gregorio Mayans y

Siscar, at the request of Lord Carteret, collected materials for his

life, he could neither learn where he was born nor where he died.

Sevilla, Madrid, Esquivias, Toledo, Lucena, and Alcazor de San Juan,

contended for the honour of his birth, whom living they had suffered

to languish in a prison.

He was born in Alcala de Henares, in the year 1547, and died at

Madrid, April 23, 1616, on the same nominal day with Shakspeare; so

that Spain and England lost their two great luminaries at the same

period, nor have succeeding centuries produced a successor worthy of

ascending either of their vacant thrones.

From the similarity of their genius, it was reasonable to expect

that Hogarth would excel in delineating the scenes described by

Cervantes; and though our great painter of nature succeeded better

in subjects drawn from the rich storehouse of his own mind than in

those described by others, yet in the portraits of the knight, and

knight companions, he has adhered very closely to their leading

characteristics, which are thus depicted by Cervantes:--

"The age of our gentleman bordered upon fifty years; he was of a

robust constitution, spare-bodied, of a meagre visage, and a very

keen sportsman.

"Rozinanté was so long and lank, so thin and lean, so like one

labouring with an incurable consumption, as did clearly show with

what propriety his master so entitled him. Sancho Panza, or Canzas,

was so called, because he had a great belly, a short stature, and

thick legs."[117]

To attempt a description of the nine following prints in any other

words than those of Cervantes, would be absurd and vain; to suppose

that the greatest part of my readers had not perused _Don Quixote_,

would be an insult on their taste. I will therefore take it for

granted that the following scenes are in their recollection. The few

that have not read this admirable romance have a pleasure to come;

as an inducement to their embracing it, I will insert little more

than a reference to the page in Shelton, whose quaint old English

has perhaps more serious Cervantic humour than either Jarvis' or

Smollett's modern translations. My edition is that of 1675.

PLATE I.

THE FIRST SALLY IN QUEST OF ADVENTURES.

[Illustration: DON QUIXOTE PLATE I.]

The original from which this plate is copied is in Jarvis' quarto

translation, without either painter's or engraver's name; but the

style of the etching, and air of the figures, indisputably

determine the artist. It represents our heroic candidate for fame,

before he had received the honour of knighthood, at the door of an

inn, which he considered as a castle; the host holding his horse's

bridle, and two young female travellers looking with astonishment

at his figure. In the distance is a swineherd blowing his horn,

which our adventurer mistakes for a trumpet sounded by a dwarf on

the battlements, to announce his approaching the portico of the

castle.--_Vide Shelton_, p. 3.

PLATE II.

THE INNKEEPER.

[Illustration: DON QUIXOTE PLATE II.]

The original of this print is in my possession, and was designed

to represent the innkeeper conferring the order of knighthood on

Don Quixote, but for some cause, not now known, never finished. The

artist probably intended that it should form a part of the series

begun for Lord Carteret, but the other six being discarded, never

completed his design; though a slight outline of the Don kneeling to

receive his new honours is discernible in the corner of the print.

Mine host, though a large man, is a less portly personage than the

author describes. This print is not in any of the catalogues of

Hogarth's works, but the style leaves little doubt of the artist.

In the plate from Vanderbank, in Jarvis' quarto, representing the

whole scene, the innkeeper has a more than accidental resemblance to

this figure.

PLATE III.

THE FUNERAL OF CHRYSOSTOM.

[Illustration: DON QUIXOTE PLATE III.]

The stern attention which our Don gives to the Shepherdess Marcella,

who is vindicating herself to those that surround the corpse, well

expresses his determination to defend her cause, and protect her

from insult. The shepherd in a similar attitude to the soldier in

Vandyke's "Belisarius," and Sancho blubbering with his finger in his

eye, are well-imagined; but the figure of Marcella is affected and

stiff, and the shepherd on her right hand has more city pertness than

rural simplicity.

Vanderbank has taken this scene for one of the prints in Jarvis'

translation, and by placing Marcella where she ought to be, on

the summit of the rock, rendered his design more picturesque than

Hogarth's.--_Vide Shelton_, p. 10.

PLATE IV.

THE INNKEEPER'S WIFE AND DAUGHTER ADMINISTERING CHIRURGICAL

ASSISTANCE TO THE POOR KNIGHT OF LA MANCHA.

[Illustration: DON QUIXOTE PLATE IV.]

Don Quixote's adventure with the Yanguessian carriers having

terminated in his being most bountifully beaten, he is here

represented in the hay-loft of a very sorry inn, attended by the

hostess and her daughter, Maritornes, and his faithful squire; the

two former administering comfort to his sufferings, the third holding

a candle; and the last, with a most rueful countenance, bewailing

his own unfortunate participation in the buffetings of his lord and

master.

The picture which Cervantes draws of Maritornes, Hogarth has well

transferred to the copper. Thus is she portrayed:--

"From head to heel she was not seven palms[118] high, and burdened

with shoulders that forced her to look down more than she wished.

Added to this, she was broad-faced, flat-pated, saddle-nosed, blind

of one eye, and could scarcely see out of the other."

The hostess could not have been better marked by the pencil of

Teniers; the owl perched over her head should not be overlooked.

That, as well as the rope hung to a beam, cracked walls, etc. etc.,

added to the miserable figure of the knight reclined on his hard

pallet, display variety of wretchedness. I do not recollect to have

seen a print in which the light is more judiciously distributed; in

this and every other particular, I think it much superior to the same

scene designed by Vanderbank in Jarvis' quarto translation.--_Vide

Shelton_, p. 29.

PLATE V.

DON QUIXOTE SEIZES THE BARBER'S BASIN FOR MAMBRINO'S HELMET.

[Illustration: DON QUIXOTE PLATE V.]

In this print the face and figure of the fierce knight is spirited;

the terror and astonishment of the discomfited barber well expressed,

and the triumphant shout of Sancho in the distance admirably

characteristic. Notwithstanding this, I think that Vanderbank's

design for Jarvis, where the squire is brought into the foreground,

contemplating the glittering prize, is a better chosen point of time.

To Sancho he has given a mixture of cunning and simplicity which I

have seldom seen so happily displayed; and taken as a whole, it is

perhaps a superior plate to Hogarth's.--_Vide Shelton_, p. 42.

PLATE VI.

DON QUIXOTE RELEASES THE GALLEY SLAVES.

[Illustration: DON QUIXOTE PLATE VI.]

The moment taken in this busy scene is when our valorous knight,

after having unhorsed one of the guards, is engaged with the other;

while Sancho, willing to bear his part in the adventure, helps to

extricate Gines de Passamonte from his bonds.

In this, as in some other of Hogarth's designs, the artist not

having taken the trouble of reversing his drawing, the figures are

left-handed. The character of Sancho, and two or three of the slaves,

is admirable.

I think the whole design much superior to Vanderbank's in Jarvis'

translation, where the scene is chosen after the discomfiture of

the Guards; for to two or three of the thieves Vanderbank has given

the countenances of apostles. His whole print is tame, feeble, and

spiritless.--_Vide Shelton_, p. 47.

PLATE VII.

THE FIRST INTERVIEW OF THE VALOROUS KNIGHT OF LA MANCHA WITH THE

UNFORTUNATE KNIGHT OF THE ROCK.

[Illustration: DON QUIXOTE PLATE VII.]

This interview, which took place in the mountains of Sierra Morena,

Cervantes thus describes:--

"Cardenio approached with a grave pace, and in a hoarse voice saluted

them with great courtesy. Don Quixote returned his greeting with no

less complaisance, and pressed him strongly in his arms, as if they

had been long acquainted. The Knight of the Rock, after he had been

thus embraced, retreated a few steps, and, laying his hand on the

Don's shoulder, perused his face with such earnestness, as though he

were desirous of recollecting if he had ever seen him before, and no

less admired Don Quixote's strange figure than himself was admired by

our heroic knight-errant."

This is the point of time which Hogarth has chosen; and the wild

eye of Cardenio, the placid benevolence of Don Quixote, and the

shrewdness of the goatherd, are well opposed. From the air,

attitude, and action of Sancho, I should have imagined the period to

be after he had been mauled by the madman, did not the two knights so

strongly determine it to be before.

In Vanderbank's design of the same subject (_vide_ Jarvis' quarto),

the figure of Sancho is tolerable, but the Don is vapid and

ill-drawn; and Cardenio's head, like that of Medusa, looks as if it

were encircled with snakes.--_Vide Shelton_, p. 51.

PLATE VIII.

THE CURATE AND BARBER DISGUISING THEMSELVES TO CONVEY DON QUIXOTE

HOME.

[Illustration: DON QUIXOTE PLATE VIII.]

Don Quixote's old neighbours, the curate and barber, being desirous

of checking his wandering disposition, are here disguising themselves

for an interview, in which they hoped to bring him home, where

they trusted he might again live as an old Christian ought to do.

In pursuance of this plan, the barber procured an ample beard made

from the tail of a pied ox; and the curate assumed the habit of a

distressed virgin, and framed a tale of having been wronged by a

naughty knight, to punish whom the Don was to be entreated to follow

wherever this afflicted fair one should lead.

The dressing-room for this masquerade is the kitchen of an inn;

out of the door, astride on a bench, inhaling copious draughts from a

leathern bottle, Sancho gives some life to a little landscape in the

distance.--_Vide Shelton_, p. 60.

PLATE IX.

SANCHO'S FEAST.

"Sancho's dread doctor and his wand were there."

[Illustration: DON QUIXOTE PLATE IX.]

Though Don Quixote is the ostensible hero of this admirable history,

I have sometimes thought that Sancho was the author's favourite

character. He is here represented as Governor of Barataria, and

seated in the spacious hall of a sumptuous palace, surrounded with

all the pompous parade of high rank, and encircled by numerous

attendants.[119] A band of musicians in an adjoining gallery strike

up a symphony to gratify his ear, and a table is spread with every

dainty to feast his eye and fret his soul; for however magnificent

the appendages of this mock monarch, the instant he attempts to taste

the solid comforts of government, the loaves and fishes evade his

grasp, are touched by the black rod, and vanish!

"In plenty starving, tantaliz'd in state,"

he curses the gaudy unsubstantial pageant, vows vengeance on the

Doctor, and swears that he will offer up both him and every physical

impostor in the island as a sacrifice to his injured and insulted

appetite.

Hogarth has here caught the true spirit of the author, and given to

this scene the genuine humour of Cervantes. The rising choler of our

Governor is admirably contrasted by the assumed gravity of Doctor

Pedro Rezio. The starch and serious solemnity of a straight-haired

student who officiates as chaplain, is well opposed by the broad

grin of a curl-pated blackamoor. The suppressed laughter of a man

who holds a napkin to his mouth forms a good antithesis to the open

chuckle of a fat cook. Sancho's two pages bear a strong resemblance

to the little punch-maker in the Election Feast, and though well

conceived, might have had more variety; they present a front and back

view of the same figure. To two females on the Viceroy's right hand

there may be a similar objection.

The original print was designed and engraved at a very early period

of Hogarth's life. As it was finished with more neatness than any of

the eight which he afterwards etched for the same work, the copy is

attempted in a similar style.

In the drawing, Sancho was originally portrayed with a full face; but

Hogarth, judiciously thinking a profile would be preferable, fixed a

bit of paper over his first thought, and altered it to the state

in which it is here engraved.

The design that Vanderbank made from the same scene is cold and

uninteresting; in another by Hayman, prefixed to Smollett's coarse

translation, Sancho is fat enough for Falstaff, and the Doctor

looks like a fellow dressed up to play the part of a conjuror in a

puppet-show.--_Vide Shelton_, p. 221.

HEIDEGGER IN A RAGE.

[Illustration: HEIDEGGER IN A RAGE.]

The spirited sketch from which this is copied has been thought the

work of P. Mercier; but some of my subscribers thinking it bore a

strong resemblance to Hogarth, I at their request submitted it to

public opinion. It arose from the following circumstance:--

The late Duke of Montagu invited Heidegger to a tavern, where he was

made drunk, and fell asleep; in that situation a mould of his face

was taken, from which was made a mask; and the Duke provided a man

of the same stature to appear in a similar dress, and wear it to

personate Heidegger on the night of the next masquerade, when George

the Second (who was apprised of the plot) was to be present. On his

Majesty's entrance, Heidegger, as was usual, bade the music play "God

save the King;" but no sooner was his back turned, than the impostor,

assuming his voice and manner, ordered them to play "Charley over

the Water." On this Heidegger raged, stamped, swore, and commanded

"God save the King." The instant he retired, the impostor returned

and ordered them to resume "Charley." The musicians thought their

master drunk, but durst not disobey. The scene now became truly

comic. Shame! shame! resounded from all parts of the theatre.

Heidegger offered to discharge his band, when the impostor advanced

and cried out in a plaintive tone, Sire, the whole fault lies with

that devil in my likeness. This was too much: poor Heidegger turned

round, grew pale, but could not speak. The Duke, seeing it take so

serious a turn, ordered the fellow to unmask. Heidegger retired in

great wrath, seated himself in an arm-chair, furiously commanded his

attendants to extinguish the lights, and swore he would never again

superintend the masquerade, unless the mask was defaced and the mould

broken in his presence. For this purpose the man on his knee has a

mallet stuck in his girdle.

THE LARGE MASQUERADE TICKET.

[Illustration: MASQUERADE TICKET.]

As the first print which Hogarth published on his own account,

usually denominated "The Small Masquerade Ticket," represents a large

company eagerly pressing to the door of a masquerade, we have here

the interior of the room crowded with a countless multitude of

grotesque characters, celebrating the orgies of the place, which, in

the following references engraved under the original print, are thus

described:--

"_A_, a sacrifice to Priapus. _B_, a pair of Lecherometors, showing

y^e company's inclinations as they approach 'em. Invented for the use

of ladys and gentlemen by y^e ingenious Mr. H----r" (Heidegger).

This titular divinity of the gardens being thus considered as the

god of their idolatry, his Term is entitled to the first notice.

The arched niche in which it is placed is terminated by a goat's

head, ornamented with a pair of branching antlers, and decorated

with festooned curtains. Beneath is an altar, the base of which is

relieved with rams' heads and flowers; and three pair of stags' horns

are fixed to the top.

As a companion to it, the united statues of a Venus and Cupid, both

of them masked, are placed on the opposite side of the print. Cupid,

who is a very well-drawn and spirited little figure, "has bent his

bow to shoot at random," and Venus seems contemplating the rise and

fall of the mercury in one of those instruments which the reference

informs us is to show the inclinations of all that approach it. The

niche in which these divinities are placed is not only decorated with

curtains, but crowned with cooing doves. An altar beneath has on it

three or four bleeding hearts, which, being close to the blaze, are

in the way of being broiled. On the base are queue-wigs, bag-wigs,

etc.

This may suffice for the presiding deities of the diversion; the head

of their high priest, the renowned Heidegger, master of the mysteries

and manager in chief, is placed on the front of a large dial, fixed

lozenge-fashion at the top of the print, and I believe intended to

vibrate with the pendulum, the ball of which hangs beneath, and is

labelled "Nonsense." On the minute finger is written "Impertinence,"

and on the hour hand, "Wit:" which seems to intimate nonsense every

second, impertinence every minute, and wit once an hour! The time is

half-past one--the witching hour of night; 1727, the date of the year

this print was published, is on the corners of the clock.

Recumbent on the upper line of this print, and resting against the

sides of the dial, the artist has placed our British lion and unicorn

renverse (such, I think, is the term in heraldry), lying on their

backs, and each of them playing with its own tail; the lion sinister,

and the unicorn dexter. The supporters of our regal arms being thus

ludicrously introduced, may perhaps allude to the encouragement

George the Second gave to Heidegger, who at that period might be said

to

"Teach kings to fiddle, and make senates dance;"

and who, by thus kindly superintending the pleasures of our nobles,

gained an income of £5000 a year, and, as he frequently boasted, laid

out the whole in this country.

Beneath is a framed picture of a Bacchanalian scene; and on each

side, shelves with pyramids of jellies, sweetmeats, etc., inscribed

"Provocatives." On two labels placed before them is written, "Supper

below."

A pair of instruments, somewhat similar to the mental thermometer in

"The Medley," are fixed on each side: on that next to Venus and Cupid

is written, "cool, warm, dry, changeable, hot, moist, fixt;" on the

other, "expectation, hope, hot desire, extreme hot, moist, sudden

cold."

The motley crew who make up the crowd it is not easy to describe, for

every one present assumes a false character.

"Here tottering old age essays to prance

With feeble feet, and joins th' imperfect dance;

There, supercilious youth assumes the air

And reverend mien which hoary sages wear.

'Tis thus, like Proteus, Folly joys to range,

Her name to vary, and her shape to change."

Here are priests of all persuasions--Brahmins, friars, drones, monks,

and monkeys not a few.

A figure of Time with his scythe, eagerly pressing towards the

altar with rams' heads, is arrested in his course by a sort of

slaughterman, with a mask, shaven crown, and short apron, who

violently grasps his wing with one hand, and with the other lifts up

a hatchet, which with fatal force he aims at his head. For sanctuary,

this feeble figure lays hold of one of the horns of the altar, but

is frustrated in his attempt to reach the steps by a bishop, who,

with his sacrificing knife, coolly stabs him to the heart; while

a monkey, in the habit of a chorister, holds a basin to catch the

blood, the fumes from which he snuffs up with ineffable delight. This

I apprehend to be a metaphorical view of a prelate _killing Time_ at

a masquerade.

Next to this group is a Mother Shipton, hooking on the arms of a

clown; and near them a harlequin endeavouring to draw the attention

of a graceful columbine from a turban'd Turk, who attempts to seduce

her from her party-coloured gallant. A female, with the mask of

a monkey's head, salutes a nun in a black veil; and while an old

Capuchin, with the face of an ape, whispers soft things to a young

girl, a fellow somewhat like Tiddy-doll draws up her head-dress to a

point, like a fool's cap. A man in the right-hand corner, solicitous

to give a glass of wine to one of the sisterhood, lifts up her veil

for the purpose of her drinking it.[120]

ADDENDA.

ADDENDA.

AN EMBLEMATIC PRINT ON THE SOUTH SEA.

[Illustration: THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE.]

The two prints here given are selected as two of the earliest avowed

productions of Hogarth. The allegory in both is somewhat obscure;

but the figures are in the manner of Callot, and in a spirited and

masterly style. They were both published in 1721, and are a proof

that at this early period the admirable vein of satire which he

possessed was directed against the vices and follies of the age.

In the first of them we see (to use an expression of Mr. Walpole)

"the Devil cutting Fortune into collops," to gratify the avaricious

hopes of the adventurers in the South Sea Bubble; and persons

ascending the ladder to ride upon wooden horses; alluding to the

desperate game which was played by the South Sea Directors in England

in the year 1720, to the utter destruction of many opulent families.

The little figure with his hand in the pocket of a fat personage

was supposed by Mr. Steevens to have been intended for Pope, who

profited by the South Sea scheme; and the fat man to be meant for

Gay, who was a loser in that iniquitous project. Mr. John Law, a

native of Edinburgh, was the projector of this bubble; and was also

author of the famous Mississippi scheme in France, by which he ruined

thousands. To escape popular vengeance he fled to Venice, where he

died in poverty in 1729.

THE LOTTERY.

[Illustration: THE LOTTERY.]

Under the print of "The Lottery," the artist has given a full

description of his own ideas, which otherwise, at this distance of

time, it would have been difficult to elucidate.

MASQUERADES AND OPERAS--BURLINGTON GATE.

[Illustration: MASQUERADES & OPERAS, BURLINGTON GATE.]

This satirical performance of Hogarth, which is commonly called "The

Small Masquerade Ticket," is supposed to have been invented and drawn

at the instigation of Sir James Thornhill, out of revenge, because

Lord Burlington had preferred Mr. Kent before him to paint for

George the Second at his palace at Kensington; and the leader of the

figures hurrying to a masquerade, crowned with a cap and bells, and

a garter round his right leg, has been said to be intended for that

monarch, who was very partial to those nocturnal amusements,

and bestowed a thousand pounds towards their support. The purse with

a label "£1000," which the satyr holds immediately before him, gives

some probability to the supposition.

The kneeling figure on the show-cloth, pouring gold at the feet of

Cuzzoni the Italian singer (who is drawing the money towards her

with a rake), represents the Earl of Peterborough; and on the label

is written, "Pray accept £8000." Mr. Heidegger, the regulator of the

masquerade, is also exhibited at a window, with the letter H under

him. Of the three figures in the centre of the plate, the middle one

is Lord Burlington, a nobleman of considerable taste in painting and

architecture. On one side of him is Mr. Campbell the architect; on

the other, some artist now unknown. On a board is a display of the

words, "Long Room: Fawkes' dexterity of hand." On the opposite corner

is the figure of Harlequin, pointing to a label, on which is written,

"Dr. Faustus is here." This was a pantomime performed to crowded

houses throughout two seasons.

In this print all the figures have a strong resemblance to those of

Callot; and the follies of the town are very severely satirized by

the representation of multitudes, properly habited, crowding to the

masquerade, opera, and pantomime; whilst the works of our greatest

dramatic writers are trundled through the streets in a wheel-barrow,

and cried as waste paper for shops; among these may be distinguished

Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, Dryden, Congreve, Otway, Farquhar, and

Addison. In the first copy of this print, instead of Ben Jonson's

name on a label, we have "Pasquin, N^o XI." This was a periodical

paper published in 1722-3; and the number specified is particularly

severe on operas, etc.

As a further illustration of the taste of the times, the artist has

given a view of Burlington Gate, with a figure, I believe, intended

to represent the then fashionable artist William Kent, on the summit,

brandishing his palette and pencils, and placed in a more elevated

situation than either Michael Angelo or Raphael, who, seated beneath,

become the two supporters to this favourite of Lord Burlington.

Some verses (and those not always the same) engraved on a separate

piece of copper are found under the first impressions. For example,

under the earliest impressions of 1724:

"Could now dumb Faustus, to reform the age,

Conjure up Shakspeare's or Ben Jonson's Ghost,

They'd blush for shame, to see the English stage

Debauch'd by fool'ries, at so great a cost.

"What would their manes say, should they behold

Monsters and masquerades, where useful plays

Adorn'd the fruitful theatre of old,

And rival wits contended for the bays?"

Under another impression:

"Long has the stage productive been

Of offsprings it could brag on,

But never till this age was seen

A windmill and a dragon.

"O Congreve! lay thy pen aside,

Shakspeare, thy works disown,

Since monsters grim, and nought beside,

Can please this senseless town."

I have been the more particular in describing this plate, as it

appears to have been the first which Hogarth published on his own

account, and respecting which he pathetically says: "I had to

encounter a monopoly of printsellers, equally mean and destructive to

the ingenious; for the first plate I published, called 'The Taste of

the Town,' in which the reigning follies were lashed, had no sooner

begun to take a run, than I found copies of it in the print-shops

vending at half price, while the original prints were returned to me

again; and I was thus obliged to sell the plate for whatever these

pirates pleased to give me, as there was no place of sale but their

shops. Owing to this and other circumstances, by engraving, until I

was near thirty, I could do little more than maintain myself; but

even then I was a punctual paymaster."

BEGGARS' OPERA BURLESQUED.

[Illustration: BEGGARS' OPERA BURLESQUED.]

This plate seems at once to represent the exhibition of _The Beggars'

Opera_, and the rehearsal of an Italian one. In the former, all the

characters are drawn with the heads of different animals: as Polly

with a cat's; Lucy with a sow's; Macheath with that of an ass;

Lockit, and Mr. and Mrs. Peachum, with those of an ox, a dog, and

an owl. In the latter, several noblemen appear conducting the chief

female singer forward on the stage; and perhaps are offering her

money, or protection from a figure that is rushing towards her with a

drawn sword.

Harmony, flying in the air, turns her back on the English playhouse,

and hastens towards the rival theatre. Musicians stand in front of

the former, playing on the Jew's harp, the salt-box, the bladder

and string, bagpipes, etc. On one side are people of distinction,

some of whom kneel, as if making an offer to Polly, or paying their

adorations to her. To these are opposed a butcher, etc., expressing

similar applause. Apollo and one of the muses are fast asleep

beneath the stage. A man is indelicately seated under a wall hung

with ballads, and showing his contempt of such compositions by the

use he makes of them. A sign of the star, a gibbet, and some other

circumstances less intelligible, appear in the background.

TWELVE PRINTS OF HUDIBRAS.

[Illustration: FRONTISPIECE TO HUDIBRAS PLATE I.]

[Illustration: HUDIBRAS, PLATE II.]

[Illustration: HUDIBRAS, PLATE III.]

[Illustration: HUDIBRAS, PLATE IV.]

[Illustration: HUDIBRAS, PLATE V.]

[Illustration: HUDIBRAS, PLATE VI.]

[Illustration: HUDIBRAS, PLATE VII.]

[Illustration: HUDIBRAS, PLATE VIII.]

[Illustration: HUDIBRAS, PLATE IX.]

[Illustration: HUDIBRAS, PLATE X.]

[Illustration: HUDIBRAS, PLATE XI.]

[Illustration: HUDIBRAS, PLATE XII.]

This well-imagined series of plates was designed by Hogarth, and

engraved by himself, for the matchless poem of Butler. Each plate is

illustrated by an appropriate quotation from the facetious satirist;

and as our ingenious artist formed his designs from an attentive

perusal of the poem, his engravings, and the extracts selected under

each of them, reciprocally explain each other. "His 'Hudibras,'" says

Mr. Walpole, "was the first of his works that marked him as a man

above the common; yet," adds the critic, somewhat too fastidiously,

"what made him then noticed now surprises us, to find so little

humour in an undertaking so congenial to his talents."

The original title ran thus: "Twelve excellent and most diverting

Prints, taken from the celebrated Poem of Hudibras, wrote by Samuel

Butler; exposing the villany and hypocrisy of the times. Invented

and engraved on twelve copperplates by William Hogarth; and are

humbly dedicated to William Ware, Esq., of Great Houghton, in

Northamptonshire, and Mr. Allan Ramsay, of Edinburgh."

"What excellence can brass or marble claim?

These papers better do secure thy fame;

Thy verse all monuments does far surpass,

No mausoleum's like thy 'Hudibras.'"

Allan Ramsay subscribed for thirty sets, and the number of

subscribers amounted to one hundred and ninety-two. The original

plates were afterwards purchased by Mr. Philip Overton. They

subsequently passed into the hands of the late Mr. Robert Sayer; and

it is certain that Hogarth often lamented the having parted with his

property in them without ever having had an opportunity to improve

them.

In the first of these plates is a portrait inscribed, "Mr. Samuel

Butler, born 1612, Author of Hudibras, died 1680." The basso-relievo

of the pedestal represents Butler's Genius in a car, lashing round

Mount Parnassus, in the persons of Hudibras and Ralpho, Rebellion,

Hypocrisy, and Ignorance, the reigning vices and follies of the time.

In the scene of the Committee (Plate IX.), one of the members has his

gloves on his head. "I am told," says Mr. Steevens, "this whimsical

custom once prevailed among our sanctified fraternity; but it is in

vain, I suppose, to ask the reason why." This doubt, however, has

since produced from a respectable divine an intimation that he has

frequently heard his father, who died some years ago at an advanced

age, notice the custom of placing the gloves on the head at church as

not uncommon in cold weather.

In the earliest impressions of Plate XI., the words "Down with the

Rumps" are not inserted on the scroll.

JUST VIEW OF THE BRITISH STAGE.

[Illustration: JUST VIEW OF THE BRITISH STAGE.]

Mr. Walpole, in his _Catalogue_, thus describes this plate: "Booth,

Wilkes, and Cibber, contriving a Pantomime; a Satire on Farces."

Though the inscription engraved under it is sufficiently explanatory,

it may be added that Mr. Devoto was scene-painter either to Drury

Lane or Lincoln's-Inn Fields, and also to Goodman's Fields Theatre;

that the ropes mentioned in the inscription are no other than

halters, suspended over the heads of the three managers; and that

the labels issuing from their respective mouths convey the following

characteristic words. The airy Wilkes, who dangles the effigies of

Punch, exclaims, "Poor R--ch! faith, I _pitty_ him." The Laureate

Cibber, who is amusing himself with playing with harlequin, invokes

the muse painted on the ceiling: "Assist, ye sacred Nine!" And the

solemn Booth, letting down the figure of Jack Hall into the _forica_,

is most tragically exclaiming, with an oath, "Ha! this will do." At

the same instant Ben Jonson's ghost is rising through the stage,

and insulting a pantomime statue fallen from its base. Over the

figure of Hall is suspended a parcel of waste paper, consisting of

leaves torn from _The Way of the World_, _Hamlet_, _Macbeth_, and

_Julius Cæsar_. A fiddler is seen hanging by a cord in the air, and

performing, with a scroll before him, which proclaims, "Music for

the What" [meaning perhaps the "What d'ye call it"] entertainment.

A pamphlet on the table exhibits a print of Jack Sheppard in

confinement. A dragon is also preparing to fly; a dog thrusts his

head out of the kennel; a flask acquires motion by machinery, etc.

The countenances of Tragedy and Comedy, on each side of the stage,

are concealed by the bills for _Harlequin Dr. Faustus_, _Harlequin

Shepherd_, _etc._

_Vivetur ingenio_ is the motto over the curtain.

EXAMINATION OF BAMBRIDGE.

[Illustration: BAMBRIDGE ON TRIAL FOR MURDER.]

This very fine picture, Hogarth himself tells us, was painted in 1729

for Sir Archibald Grant of Monymusk, Bart., at that time Knight of

the Shire for Aberdeen, and one of the Committee represented in the

painting,--many of whom attended daily, and some of them twice a day.

That every other figure in this print is a genuine portrait, there

cannot be the least doubt, though at this distant period it is not

possible to identify the particular persons; they are all, however,

to be found in the following list of the names of the Committee:--

James Oglethorpe, Esq., Chairman.

{ Finch.

The Right Hon. { Morpeth.

the Lords { Inchequin.

{ Percival.

{ Limerick.

Sir Robert Sutton.

Sir Robert Clifton.

Sir Abraham Elton.

Sir Edward Knatchbull.

Sir Humphrey Herries.

Hon. James Bertie.

Sir Gregory Page.

Sir Archibald Grant.

Sir James Thomhill.

Gyles Earle, Esq.

General Wade.

Humphrey Parsons, Esq.

Hon. Robert Byng.

Edward Houghton, Esq.

(Judge-Advocate.)

Captain Vernon.

Charles Selwyn, Esq.

Velters Cornwall, Esq.

Thomas Scawen, Esq.

Francis Child, Esq.

William Hucks, Esq.

Stampe Brooksbank, Esq.

Charles Withers, Esq.

John La Roche, Esq.

Mr. Thomas Martin.

"The scene," says Mr. Walpole, "is the Committee. On the table are

the instruments of torture. A prisoner in rags, half-starved, appears

before them; the poor man has a good countenance, that adds to the

interest. On the other hand is the inhuman gaoler. It is the very

figure that Salvator Rosa would have drawn for Iago in the moment

of detection. Villany, fear, and conscience are mixed in yellow and

livid on his countenance; his lips are contracted by tremor, his face

advances as eager to lie, his legs step back as thinking to make his

escape; one hand is thrust precipitately into his bosom, the fingers

of the other are catching uncertainly at his button-holes. If this

was a portrait, it is the most striking that ever was drawn; if it

was not, it is still finer."

This Committee was first appointed, Feb. 25, 1728-9, to examine into

the state of the gaols within the kingdom; and the persons here

represented under examination were--Thomas Bambridge, then Warden of

the Fleet Prison, and John Huggins, his predecessor in that office.

Both were declared "notoriously guilty of great breaches of trust,

extortions, cruelties, and other high crimes and misdemeanours."

It was the unanimous resolution of the Committee, "That Thomas

Bambridge, the acting Warden of the Prison of the Fleet, hath

wilfully permitted several debtors to the Crown in great sums of

money, as well as debtors to divers of his Majesty's subjects, to

escape; hath been guilty of the most notorious breaches of his trust,

great extortions, and the highest crimes and misdemeanours in the

execution of his said office; and hath arbitrarily and unlawfully

loaded with irons, put into dungeons, and destroyed, prisoners for

debt under his charge, treating them in the most barbarous and cruel

manner, in high violation and contempt of the laws of this kingdom."

Bambridge was in consequence disqualified by Act of Parliament; and

he cut his throat twenty years after.

It was also resolved, "That John Huggins, Esq., late Warden of the

Prison of the Fleet, did, during the time of his wardenship, wilfully

permit several considerable debtors in his custody to escape; and

was notoriously guilty of great breaches of his trust, extortions,

cruelties, and other high crimes and misdemeanours, in the execution

of the said office;" and he was for some time committed to Newgate,

but afterwards lived in credit to the age of ninety.

KING HENRY VIII. AND ANNA BULLEYN.

[Illustration: HENRY THE EIGHTH & ANNE BOLEYNE.]

This plate, copied from a painting in the portico of the old great

room in Vauxhall Gardens, has very idly been imagined to contain

the portraits of Frederick Prince of Wales, and the beautiful but

unfortunate Lady Vane; but the stature and faces both of the lady and

Henry are totally unlike their supposed originals.

CROWNS, MITRES, MACES, ETC.

[Illustration: CROWNS, MITRES, MACES &^c.]

This plate forms so important a feature in the annals of Hogarth,

that it requires his own elucidation:--

"After having had my plates pirated in almost all sizes, I

applied to Parliament for redress, and obtained it in so liberal

a manner, as hath not only answered my own purpose, but made

prints a considerable article in the commerce of this country,

there being now more business of that kind done here than at

Paris, or anywhere else, and as well."