On the 26th day of October 1764, died William Hogarth. Very ailing and
feeble in body, but still with his heart up and his mind, as ever, alert
and vigorous and full of life, he had moved on the day before from his
pleasant snug cottage at Chiswick to his town house in Leicester Fields.
He turned now and then in his bed uneasily, as he felt the venomous
slanders of Wilkes and Churchill still wounding and stinging him like
mosquito bites; else was the good little man at peace. 'I have
invariably endeavoured to make those about me tolerably happy.' 'My
greatest enemy cannot say I ever did an intentional injury.' So he wrote
at the close of his life. And there was much love for him in the
world--culminating in his own household. His servants all had been years
and years in his service; he had painted their portraits and hung these
on his walls; there is credit to both master and servants in the fact.
After all, a man may, if he chooses, be a hero even to his
valet-de-chambre. None could have dreamt the end was so near. It is not
known that any doctor was attending him. He had read and answered a
letter in the morning; fatigued with the effort, he had retired to bed.
He was alone when the fatal attack came on: the 'suffusion of blood
among the arteries of the heart.' Starting up, he rang the bell with a
violence that broke it in pieces; they had not thought so much strength
remained to him. He fell back fainting in the arms of Mary Lewis, his
wife's niece; she had lived in his house all her life, and was his
confidential assistant in publishing and selling his prints. She
supported the poor creature for two hours, and he drew his last breath
in her arms.
Widow Hogarth wore her deep crape, be sure, with an aching void in her
heart, and an acute sense of the painful wrench to her life caused by
this bereavement. A fine stately, woman still, though she was now
fifty-five. But six years back she had sat for Sigismunda: the dreadful
mistake in historical art which poor Hogarth had vainly perpetrated in
emulation of Correggio. Something of the beauty of the Jane Thornhill,
who thirty years before had stolen away with her lover to be married at
the little village church of Paddington, must have yet remained. The
interment, as all the world knows, took place in Chiswick Churchyard; a
quiet funeral, with more tears than ostrich-plumes, more sorrow than
black silk. It was not for some six or seven years after, that the
sculptured tomb was erected, and Garrick and Johnson calmly discussed
the wording of the epitaph. It is 'no easy thing,' wrote the doctor.
Time had something numbed their sense of loss when they sat down to
exchange poetical criticism; though habit is overpowering, and it would
have taken a good deal, at any time, to have disturbed Johnson from his
wonted pose of reviewer; just as the dying sculptor in the story,
receiving extreme unction from his priest, found time to complain of the
mal-execution of the crucifix held to his lips. 'Pictured morals,' the
doctor wrote, 'is a beautiful expression, but _learn_ and _mourn_ cannot
stand for rhymes. _Art_ and _Nature_ have been seen together too often.
In the first stanza is _feeling_, in the second _feel_. _If thou hast
neither_ is quite prose, and prose of the familiar kind,' etc. etc.
Hogarth dead and buried, the window shutters re-opened, and heaven's
glad light once more permitted to stream into the rooms, the red eyes of
the household a little cooled and staunched, came the widow's dreadful
task of examining the property of the deceased, of picking up the
fragments that remained. How to live? Survivors have often to make that
painful inquiry. There was little money in the house. The painter's life
had been hard-working enough; the labourer was willing, but the harvest
was very scanty. Such a limited art public! such low prices! The six
'Mariage a la Mode' pictures had been sold for one hundred and twenty
guineas, including Carlo Maratti frames that had cost the painter four
guineas each. The eight 'Rake's Progress' pictures had fetched but
twenty-two guineas each. The six 'Harlot's Progress,' fourteen guineas
each. The 'Strolling Players' had gone for twenty-six guineas! O
purblind connoisseurs! Dullard dillettanti! Still there was something
for the widow; not her wedding portion--that seems to have long before
melted away. Sir James Thornhill had been forgiving, kind, and generous
after a time--two years--and opened to the runaway lovers his heart and
his purse. But there was little to show for all that now. There hung on
the walls various works by the dead hand. Portraits of the Miss
Hogarths, the painter's sisters; they had kept a ready-made clothes shop
at Little Britain gate. Portraits of the daughter of Mr. Rich, the
comedian; of Sir James and Lady Thornhill; of the six servants; and his
own likeness, with his bull-dog and palette; besides these there was the
great effort, 'Bill Hogarth's "Sigismunda," not to be sold under £500;'
so he had enjoined. Alas! who would give it? (At the sale after the
widow's death it was knocked down to Alderman Boydell for fifty
guineas!) Indeed, it would be very hard to sell all these. And she did
not. She clung to the precious relics, till death relaxed her grasp,
when the auctioneer's hammer made short work of the painter's remains,
even to his maul-stick. But to live? There were seventy-two plates, with
the copyright secured to her for twenty years by Act of Parliament.
These were hers absolutely under her husband's will. Here at least was
subsistence; indeed, the sale of prints from the plates produced, for
sometime, a respectable income. And then, too, there was the gold ticket
of admission to Vauxhall Gardens (for the admission of six persons, or
'one coach'), presented by the proprietor in his gratitude for the
designs of the 'Four Parts of the Day' (copied by Hayman), and the two
scenes of 'Evening,' and 'Night,' with representations of Henry the
Eighth and Anne Boleyn.
And the house at Chiswick was a possession of Hogarth's. It was not then
choked up with buildings, but stood cosy and secluded in its well-stored
garden of walnut, mulberry, and apple trees, with the head-stones to the
poor fellow's pets--the bullfinch and dog Dick, who died the same year
as his master; and a very old mulberry tree stricken by lightning, and
only held together by the iron braces made by his directions, perhaps
applied with his own hands. How full of memorials of the dead painter!
Pen-and-ink sketches on the panels of the wainscoted room on the ground
floor: and the painting-room over the stables, with its large window,
probably one of _his_ improvements on first taking the house, looking on
to the pleasant garden below. Doubtless the widow locked up the
painting-room, and kept the key on the ring at her girdle. Years after,
Sir Richard Phillips jotted down his memories of Chiswick--how he, a
schoolboy then with his eyes just above the pew door, the bells in the
old tower chiming for church, watched 'Widow Hogarth and her maiden
relative, Richardson, walking up the aisle, draped in their silken
sacks, their raised head-dresses, their black calashes, their lace
ruffles, and their high crooked canes, preceded by their aged servant
Samuel: who after he had wheeled his mistress to church in her
Bath-chair, carried the prayer-books up the aisle, and opened and shut
the pew.' State and dignity still remained to the widow; and there, up
in the organ loft, was the quaint group of choristers Hogarth had so
admirably sketched, headed by the Sexton Mortefee, grimacing dreadfully
as he leads on his terrible band to discord. A square, ugly church
enough, with the great Devonshire pew--a small parlour with the roof
off--half blocking up the chancel: a thing to be forgiven _then_, for
the lovely Duchess sat there, and the sight of her angel head was surely
enough to give new zest to the congregation's prayers and praises. A
church such as Hogarth often drew, with its 'three-decker' arrangement
of desks: the clerk, the reader, and the preacher, rising one above the
other, and, top of all, one of those old-fashioned massive, carved
sounding-boards, which gave so queer a Jack-in-the-box aspect to the
pulpit, and prompted dreamers in dreary sermons, heedless of George
Herbert's counsel that if nothing else, the sermon 'preacheth patience,'
to speculate on severing the iron rod that supported the board, letting
it fall, and so, by one process shutting up, so to speak, both preacher
and preaching.
The house in Leicester Fields also remained: the house on the east side
of the square, called the 'Golden Head,' with its sign cut by Hogarth
himself from pieces of cork glued together, and gilded over. He often
took his evening walk in the enclosure in his scarlet roquelaire and
cocked hat, now and then, no doubt, casting admiring glances at his
gaudy emblem. The Fields were only just merging into the Square. We
learn that in 1745, the streets were so thinly built in the
neighbourhood, that 'when the heads of the Scottish rebels were placed
on Temple Bar, a man stood in Leicester Fields, with a telescope, to
give persons a sight of them for a halfpenny a piece.' Just as _we_ are
sometimes offered a view of Saturn's rings from Charing Cross! Hogarth's
house now forms part of a French Hotel. The lean French cook staggering
under the roast beef in the 'Gates of Calais' picture has been amply
revenged. The fumes of French ragouts incessantly rise, on the site
where the cruel caricature was drawn.[12]
[12] The Sablonière Hotel, however, is now (1869) in course of
demolition.
It is hard to say when the widow's income first began to droop--when the
demand for William Hogarth's prints slackened. They circulated largely,
but their price was never high. The eight prints of the 'Rake's
Progress' could be purchased at Mrs. Hogarth's house, in Leicester
Fields, for one guinea; 'Lord Lovat,' 'Beer Street,' and 'Gin Lane,'
for a shilling each only, and all the others could be obtained upon like
easy terms. It cannot be told when the bill first appeared in Widow
Hogarth's window--'Lodgings to Let.' But eight years after Hogarth's
death there was certainly a lodger in the house in Leicester Fields--a
lodger who could exclaim, 'I also am a painter!'
Alexander Runciman was born in Edinburgh in 1736. His father an
architect, of course the baby soon began to play with the parental
pencils. _That_ is not remarkable--but he evidenced rather more ability
than the average baby artist. At twelve he was out in the fields with
paints and brushes, filling a sketch-book with crude representations of
rocks, clouds, trees, and water. At fourteen he was a student under John
Norris, whom it pleased the period to regard as an eminent landscape
painter. He was the wildest enthusiast in the studio--and there are
generally a good many wild enthusiasts in a studio. 'Other artists,'
said one of his comrades, 'talked meat and drink, but Runciman talked
landscape!' At nineteen he renounced further tutelage, and started on
his own account as a landscape painter. He commenced to exhibit his
works. Every one praised, but unfortunately no one purchased. The market
seemed to be only for the show, not the sale of goods. The notion
prevailed absolutely that art was an absurd luxury, which but very few
could afford to indulge in. A middle-class man would have been
considered very eccentric and extravagant, who in those days bought a
picture, unless it happened to be his own portrait. There was some
demand for portrait painting--_that_ paid--especially if you, the
painter, were nearly at the head of your profession. Poor Wilson had
given up portraiture, and soon found himself painting landscapes, and
starving the while. So Runciman also discovered quickly enough--and with
characteristic un-reason abandoned landscapes and took to historical
art, which, being in much less request even than landscape painting,
rather enhanced and quickened his chances of ruin. But somehow he
struggled on. At thirty it occurred to him that he had never been to
Rome, and that the fact had probably confined his powers and limited his
prosperity. He packed up his things--an easy task--and, with a very
small purse--that he should have had one at all was a marvel--set out
for the south. He was soon, of course, on his knees, in the regular way,
doing homage to Raphael and M. Angelo. There are always professional
conventionalisms. It was as necessary then for the artist to be rapt and
deliriously enthusiastic about his calling as for the lawyer to wear a
wig and gown.
At Rome he swore friendship with Fuseli. The Scot was the elder, but the
Swiss the more learned. They had probably both quite made up their minds
about art before they met, and what drew them together was very much the
similarity of their opinions. Neither was liable to change of view, let
who would be the teacher. Runciman no more took his style from Fuseli,
than Fuseli from Runciman, and the unquestionable resemblance between
their works was only the natural result of a similarity of idiosyncrasy.
They both worked hard together, making painstaking copies of the great
masters. 'Runciman I am sure you will like,' Fuseli wrote home, 'he is
one of the best of us here.' No doubt Fuseli found him quite a kindred
spirit--mad as himself about heroic art--given to like insane
ecstasies--like pell-mell execution--like whirling, extravagant
drawing--like wild ideas interpreted by a like wild hand, and in a like
execrable nankeen and slate tone of colour. Runciman returned in 1771,
and proceeding to Edinburgh, arrived just in time to receive the vacant
situation of professor of painting to the academy established in
Edinburgh College, in the year 1760. The salary was £120 a year. The
artist accepted the appointment gleefully, and, had his knowledge and
his taste been equal to his enthusiasm, few could have better fulfilled
the duties of his office. Soon he began to dream of a series of colossal
pictures that should make his name live for ever in the annals of art.
The dream took form. There were but two or three men in Scotland who
would even hear out the project. Fortunately he lighted on one of these.
Sir James Clerk consented to the embellishment of his hall at Penicuik
with a series of pictures illustrative of Ossian, by the hand of
Runciman.
Ossian was the rage--quotations from the blind bard of Morven were in
every one's mouth. True, Dr. Samuel Johnson had denounced the whole
thing as an imposition 'as gross as ever the world was troubled with.'
Dr. Blair wrote in defence, 'Could any man, of modern age, have written
such poems?' 'Why yes, sir,' was the answer--'Many men, many women, and
many children.' Macpherson wrote offensively and violently to Dr.
Samuel, who replied heartily enough--'I received your foolish and
impudent letter ...I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what
I think a cheat, by the menaces of a ruffian ...I thought your book an
imposture. I think so still. Your rage I defy,' etc. etc. What was all
this to Runciman? He had no learning--he cared nothing for
antiquarianism. He took for granted that Ossian was authentic. Many
north of the Tweed looked upon it merely as a national question.
Macpherson was a Scotchman, therefore it was the duty of Scotchmen to
side with him. His condemners were English, and were jealous, of course,
and wrong no doubt. Runciman was hard at work at Penicuik, painting as
for his life, while all this discussion was going on, and Macpherson and
his friends were striving might and main to produce an ancient
manuscript anything like the published poem, and so confute and silence
Johnson, Goldsmith, Burke, Garrick, and lastly Boswell, who did not even
_pair_ with the doctor on the occasion, though the question _did
affect_ Scotland. Runciman had sketched out and commenced his twelve
great pictures. 1. Ossian singing to Malvina. 2. The valour of Oscar. 3.
The Death of Oscar, etc. etc. Who reads Ossian now? Who cares about
Agandecca, 'with red eyes of tears'--'with loose and raven locks?'
'Starno pierced her side with steel. She fell like a wreath of snow
which slides from the rocks of Ronan.' Who knows anything now about
Catholda, and Corban Cargloss, and Golchossa and Cairbar of the gloomy
brow? For some time the poems held their own, retained their popularity;
their partisans fought with their opponents for every inch of ground,
even though discovery was mining them. And some fragments found their
way in a fashion to the stage. But a little while ago there was living a
ballet-master, who owed his baptismal name to parental success in the
grand ballet of 'Oscar and Malvina, or the Cave of Fingal!' But this
must have been produced years after Runciman. The poems had merit, and
that floated them for a long time; but the leak of falsehood made its
way--they sunk at last. And Macpherson? Well, if a poet will be an
impostor, he must prepare to be remembered by posterity rather for his
fraud than his poetry.
He found time to paint some other subjects as well. An 'Ascension' on
the ceiling over the altar of the Episcopal chapel in the Cowgate of
Edinburgh--a wild and ungraceful work according to Cunningham, speaking
of it from recollection, though Runciman thought very highly of it. And
he had patrons and critics loud in their applause. In his picture of
'The Princess Nausicaa and her Nymphs surprised at the river side by
Ulysses,' one connoisseur detected 'the fine drawing of Julio Romano,'
another, 'the deep juicy lustre of Tintoret,' and a third 'a feeling and
air altogether the painter's own;' which last is probable. In 1772 he
exhibited some pictures in London. At all events, there was no bill in
Widow Hogarth's window then, for the lodgings were let, and Alexander
Runciman was the lodger.
'She let lodgings for subsistence:' so runs the story. The demand for
William Hogarth's prints was still bringing in some income, however.
Lord Charlemont wrote to Edmund Malons from Dublin, June 29th,
1781:--'That men of task should wish for good impressions of Hogarth's
prints is not at all surprising, as I look upon him to have been in his
way, and that too an original way, one of the first of geniuses. Neither
am I much surprised at the rage you mention, as I am by experience well
acquainted with the collector's madness. Excepting only the scarce
portrait, my collection goes no further than those which Mrs. Hogarth
has advertised, and even of them a few are wanting, which I wish you
would procure for me, viz., _The Cock-Match_, _The Five Orders of
Periwigs_, _The Medley_, _The Times_, _Wilkes_, and _The Bruiser_. As my
impressions are remarkably good, having been selected for me by Hogarth
himself, I should wish to have these the best that can be had; and if
Mr. Stevens, who promised me his assistance, should happen to meet with
any of these prints of which I am not possessed--I mean such
compositions as do honour to the author, as for instance, _The Satire on
the Methodists_, _The Masquerade_, etc.--I should be much obliged to him
to purchase them for me..... I have no objection to suffering _The
Lady's Last Slake_ to be engraved, but, on the contrary, should be happy
to do anything which might contribute to add to the reputation of my
deceased friend. But then it must be performed in such a manner as to do
him honour; for otherwise I should by no means consent. One great
difficulty would be to procure a person equal to the making a drawing
from it, as the subject is a very difficult one. Hogarth had it for a
year with an intention to engrave it, and even went so far as almost to
finish the plate, which, as he told me himself, he broke into pieces
upon finding that after many trials he could not bring the woman's head
to answer his idea, or to resemble the picture.' The lady, let us note,
is a portrait of Miss Hester Lynch Salusbury, afterwards Mrs. Thrale and
Madame Piozzi. Later his Lordship wrote again:--'I have this moment
received a letter from Mrs. Hogarth requesting that if _I should permit
any one to make an engraving of 'The Lady's Last Stake,' I would give
the preference to a young gentleman who lodged in her house, as by such
preference she should be greatly benefited._ On this application I
consider it necessary to immediately inform you, as the affection I bore
towards her deceased husband, my high regard for his memory, and,
indeed, common justice will most certainly prevent me from preferring
any one else whatsoever to her in a matter of this nature. At the same
time, I must add, that whoever shall make a drawing from my picture must
do it in Dublin, as I cannot think of sending it to London.
'Will you, my dear Malone, be so kind in your morning walk as to call on
this lady and read to her the above paragraph, as such communication
will be the most satisfactory answer I can give to her letter? The same
time you will be so kind as to mention the circumstances, and my
resolution to the person in whose behalf the postscript in your letter
was written. Perhaps matters may be settled amicably between him and
Mrs. Hogarth, in which case I have no objection, provided the execution
be such as not to disgrace the picture or its author, that the drawing
be made in Dublin, and that Mrs. Hogarth be perfectly contented, and
shall declare her satisfaction by a certificate in her own handwriting.
I know your goodness will pardon all this trouble from,' etc. etc.
These letters are extracted from Prior's _Life of Malone_. To the last
letter, it is to be noted, Mr. Prior assigns the date of 1787,--surely a
misprint for 1781. Etchings by Runciman are extant, and it is clear
that Mrs. Hogarth had looked to his executing an engraving of 'The
Lady's Last Stake,' possibly by way of settling an account owing to her
for his lodgings. The plan fell through, however. It was perhaps not
worth Mr. Runciman's while to journey to Dublin to engrave the picture.
But twenty years after William Hogarth's death the copyrights had
expired--the poor woman's income from this source was clean gone. She
was then absolutely 'living by her lodgings;' and it was not until three
years more 'that the King interposed with the Royal Academy, and
obtained for her an annuity of forty pounds.' Poor Widow Hogarth! Yet
she would not sell her William's pictures left in his house!
Much of the untamed, unmanageable, heterodox nature of Runciman's art
pertained to his life generally. Gay, free-thinking, prankish--with a
tendency to late-houred habits that must have often scandalized his
landlady--and a talent for conversation rare amongst artists, who, as a
rule, express their thoughts better by their brushes than by word of
mouth; kind-hearted, sociable, never behind in passing the bottle--no
wonder he gathered round him a group of eminent men of his day, most of
them with attributes much like his own, who did not flinch from strong
outspeaking, who were not shocked by many things. Kames, Monboddo, Hume,
and Robertson knocked at the late William Hogarth's door, and paid
their respects to Widow Hogarth's lodger. Did _she_ ever stand before
his easel and contemplate his works? Doubtless often enough when the
painter was out firing off his smart cracker sayings, and making away
with his port wine. And what did she think of his art? How different
from William's! She could understand _him_ always. There was always
nature on _his_ canvas, and meaning and common sense--there was always a
story plainly, forcibly told. But Mr. Runciman's meanings were not so
clear. What was all the smoke about, and the waving arms, and the
distorted features, and the Bedlamite faces, and, oh! the long legs and
the flying draperies? Surely draperies never did fly like that--at least
William Hogarth never painted them so. And then--really this was too
much--he, Alexander Runciman, under that roof had presumed to paint a
'Sigismunda weeping over the heart of Tancred,' with William's treatment
of the same great subject actually in the house! To bed, Widow Hogarth,
in a rage.
Of course Runciman had _his_ opinion about Hogarth and his art,
despising both, no doubt, and agreeing with Fuseli in deeming him a
caricaturist merely, and his works 'the chronicle of scandal and the
history book of the vulgar.' It was so much nobler to portray
wild-contortions from Ossian, demoniac nightmares and lower region
revelations, than to paint simply the life around they had but to
stretch out a hand to grasp. Yet with all their talk, in the humbler
merits of colour, expression, and handling, they were miles behind
Hogarth. He has been so praised as a satirist, there is a chance of his
technical merits as a painter being overlooked. One only of the 'Mariage
à la Mode' pictures, for all that is really valuable in art, might be
safely backed against all that was ever done by both Fuseli and Runciman
put together. Yet they looked upon him as rather a bygone sort of
creature--a barbarian blind to poetic art. Could William Hogarth have
seen the works of Fuseli and Runciman, he would probably have had
something to say about _them_!
After a time, Runciman was again back at Penicuik. Perhaps his fervour
about his subject had a little cooled, or the incessant discussions in
regard to it had disturbed his faith. In fact the Ossian swindle was
getting to be, in common phrase, a little blown upon. His health was
failing him; his mode of life had never been very careful. He fell ill;
he neglected himself. He worked on steadily, but with a palpable failure
of heart in the business. He achieved his task. Yet the painting of the
great ceiling, to effect which he had to lie on his back in an almost
painful position, brought on an illness from which he never fairly
recovered. Some time he lingered, growing very pale and wan, and his
strength giving way until he could barely crawl about. On the 21st of
October 1785, he fell down dead at the door of his lodgings in West
Nicolson Street.
Four years more of life to Widow Hogarth--still, as ever, true to her
husband's memory and herself. Horace Walpole sought to buy forgiveness
for his attack on the 'Sigismunda,'--he had called it a 'maudlin fallen
virago'--by sending to the widow a copy of his 'Anecdotes;' but she took
no heed of him or his gift. Four years more, and then another interment
in the Chiswick sepulchre. The widow's earthly sorrows are at an end;
and beneath the name of 'William Hogarth, Esq.,' they now engrave on the
stone, 'Mistress Jane Hogarth, wife of William Hogarth, Esq. Obiit 13th
of November 1789. Ætat. 80 years.' In 1856, on the restoration of the
monument, which from the sinking of the earth threatened to fall in
pieces, the grave was opened, and there were seen the 'little' coffin of
the painter and the larger coffin of his widow. There too was seen,
literally, 'the hand' Johnson wrote of in his projected epitaph:--
The hand of him here torpid lies,
That drew the essential forms of grace;
Here closed in death the attentive eyes,
That saw the manners in the face.