"'Tis from high life our characters are drawn."
In his preceding prints Mr. Hogarth generally pointed his satire at
persons in a subordinate situation, and took his examples from the
inferior ranks of society. From the situation of his characters, and
the minute precision with which he displayed the scenes he professed
to delineate, we sometimes see little violations of that decorum
which is perhaps necessary in engravings professedly designed for
furniture. For this neglect of delicacy some of his prints were
censured; to remove all apprehensions of this series being liable to
the same objections, they were thus announced in the _London Daily
Post_ of April 7, 1743:--
"Mr. Hogarth intends to publish, by subscription, six prints
from copperplates, engraved by the best masters in Paris after
his own paintings; the heads, for the better preservation
of the characters and expressions, to be done by the author,
representing a variety of modern occurrences in high life, and
called 'Marriage à la Mode.'
"Particular care is taken that the whole work shall not be liable
to exception, on account of any indecency or inelegancy; and that
none of the characters represented shall be personal, etc."
The artist has adhered to his engagement: he has struck at an
higher order, and displayed the follies and vices which frequently
degrade our nobility. He has exhibited the prospect of a fashionable
marriage, where the gentleman is attracted by riches, and the lady
by ambition. That misery and destruction succeeded an union founded
upon such principles is not to be wondered at; the progress of that
misery, and the final destruction of the actors, is so delineated
as to form a regular and well-divided tragedy. In the first act
are represented five principal characters; and three of them, by a
regular chain of incidents naturally flowing from each other, fall
victims to their own vices. The young nobleman, for attempting to
revenge the violation of his wife's virtue, which he never cherished,
is killed by her paramour, who for this murder suffers an ignominious
death; and the lady, distracted at the reflection of having been
the cause of their lives terminating in so horrid a manner, makes
her own quietus with a dose of laudanum. This is painting to the
understanding, appealing to the heart, and making the pencil an
advocate in the cause of morality. It is doing that poetical justice
which our dramatists have sometimes neglected, and in which they have
perhaps been justified by the common events of human life; for it
must be acknowledged, that while virtue is frequently unfortunate, we
often see vice successful. Notwithstanding this, those pictures are
surely best calculated to encourage men in the practice of the social
duties which display the evils consequent upon their violation.
Whatever poetical justice may allow, morality demands that some
examples should be held up to prove "that the omission of a duty
frequently leads to the perpetration of a crime; and that crimes of
so black a dye as are here represented, almost invariably terminate
in wretchedness, infamy, and death."
The original pictures were, on the 6th of June 1750, purchased by
Mr. Lane of Hillingdon, near Uxbridge, for one hundred and twenty
guineas!--a price so inadequate to their merit, and to what it might
have been fairly presumed they would have produced even at that
time, that it becomes difficult to account for it in any other way
than by supposing that the strange way in which Mr. Hogarth ordered
the auction to be conducted puzzled the public, who, not exactly
comprehending this new mode of bidding, declined attending or bidding
at all.
The following particulars relative to the sale were communicated by
Mr. Lane to Mr. John Nichols:--
"Some time after the pictures had been finished, perhaps six or
seven years, they were advertised to be sold by a sort of auction,
not carried on by personal bidding, but by a written ticket, on
which every one was to put the price he would give, with his name
subscribed to it. These papers were to be received by Mr. Hogarth for
the space of one month, and the highest bidder at twelve o'clock,
on the last day of the month, was to be the purchaser: none but
those who had in writing made their biddings were to be admitted on
the day that was to determine the sale. This _nouvelle_ method of
proceeding probably disobliged the public, and there seemed to be
at that time a combination against poor Hogarth, who, perhaps, from
the extraordinary and frequent approbation of his works, might have
imbibed some degree of vanity, which the town in general, friends
and foes, seemed resolved to mortify. If this was the case (and to
me it is very apparent), they fully effected their design; for on
the memorable 6th of June 1750, which was to decide the fate of
this capital work, about eleven o'clock, Mr. Lane, the fortunate
purchaser, arrived at the Golden Head, when, to his great surprise,
expecting (what he had been a witness to in 1745, when Hogarth
disposed of many of his pictures) to have found his painting room
full of noble and great personages, he only found the painter and
his ingenious friend Dr. Parsons, secretary to the Royal Society,
talking together, and expecting a number of spectators at least, if
not of buyers. Mr. Hogarth then produced the highest bidding, from a
gentleman well known, of £110. Nobody coming in, about ten minutes
before twelve, by the decisive clock in the room, Mr. Lane told Mr.
Hogarth he would make the pounds guineas. The clock then struck
twelve, and Hogarth wished Mr. Lane joy of his purchase, hoping it
was an agreeable one. Mr. Lane answered, 'Perfectly so.' Now followed
a scene of disturbance from Hogarth's friend the Doctor, and what
more affected Mr. Lane, a great appearance of disappointment in the
painter, and truly with great reason. The Doctor told him he had
hurt himself greatly by fixing the determination of the sale at so
early an hour, when the people in that part of the town were hardly
up. Hogarth, in a tone and manner that could not escape observation,
said, 'Perhaps it may be so!' Mr. Lane, after a short pause, declared
himself to be of the same opinion; adding, that the artist was
very poorly rewarded for his labour, and if he thought it would
be of service to him, would give him till three o'clock to find a
better purchaser. Hogarth warmly accepted the offer, and expressed
his acknowledgments for this kindness in the strongest terms. The
proposal likewise received great encomiums from the Doctor, who
proposed to make it public. This was peremptorily forbidden by Mr.
Lane, whose concession in favour of our artist was remembered by him
to the time of his death. About one o'clock, two hours sooner than
the time appointed, Hogarth said he could no longer trespass on his
generosity, but that if he was pleased with his purchase, he himself
was abundantly so with the purchaser. He then desired Mr. Lane to
promise that he would not dispose of the pictures without previously
acquainting him of his intention, and that he would never permit any
person, under pretence of cleaning, to meddle with them, as he always
desired to take that office on himself. This promise was readily made
by Mr. Lane, who has been tempted more than once by Mr. Hogarth to
part with his bargain at a price to be named by himself. When Mr.
Lane bought the pictures they were in Carlo Maratte frames, which
cost the painter four guineas a-piece."
On the death of Mr. Lane the six pictures became the property of his
nephew Colonel Cawthorne, and were in the summer of 1792 put up by
auction at Mr. Christie's, and the proprietor bought them in at nine
hundred guineas.
They were a short time afterwards purchased by Mr. Angerstein, at one
thousand guineas, and are now in his very fine collection.
If considered in the aggregate,--in conception, character, drawing,
pencilling, and colouring,--it will not be easy, perhaps not
possible, to find six pictures painted by any artist, in any age or
country, in which such variety of superlative merit is united.
* * * * *
Since the publication of the first edition of these volumes, the
following description of "Marriage à la Mode" was found among the
papers of the late Mr. Lane of Hillingdon; and his family believe it
to be Hogarth's Explanation, either copied from his own handwriting,
or given verbally to Mr. Lane at the time he purchased the pictures.
It is subjoined, that the reader may form his own judgment:--