"With lantern jaws, and croaking gut,
See how the half-starv'd Frenchmen strut,
And call us English dogs!
But soon we'll teach these bragging foes,
That beef and beer give heavier blows
Than soup and roasted frogs.
"The priests, inflam'd with righteous hopes,
Prepare their axes, wheels, and ropes,
To bend the stiff-neck'd sinner;
But should they sink in coming over,
Old Nick may fish 'twixt France and Dover,
And catch a glorious dinner."
[Illustration: FRANCE PLATE I.]
The scenes of all Mr. Hogarth's prints, except "The Gate of Calais"
and that now under consideration, are laid in England. In this,
having quitted his own country, he seems to think himself out of the
reach of the critics, and in delineating a Frenchman, at liberty to
depart from nature, and sport in the fairy regions of caricature.
Were these Gallic soldiers naked, each of them would appear like a
forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife.
So forlorn! that to any thick sight he would be invisible! To see
this miserable woe-begone refuse of the army, who look like a group
detached from the main body and put on the sick-list, embarking to
conquer a neighbouring kingdom, is ridiculous enough, and at the
time of publication must have had great effect. The artist seemed
sensible that it was necessary to account for the unsubstantial
appearance of these shadows of men, and has hinted at their want of
solid food, in the bare bones of beef hung up in the window, the
inscription on the alehouse sign, "Soup maigre à la sabot Royal,"
and the spider-like officer roasting four frogs which he has impaled
upon his sword. Such light and airy diet is whimsically opposed by
the motto on the standard, which two of the most valorous of this
ghastly troop are hailing with grim delight and loud exultation.
It is indeed an attractive motto, and well calculated to inspire
this famishing company with courage: "Vengeance, avec le bon bier,
et bon beuf d'Angleterre." However meagre the military, the church
militant is in no danger of starving. The portly friar is neither
emaciated by fasting, nor weakened by penance. Anticipating the
glory of extirpating heresy, he is feeling the sharp edge of an axe
to be employed in the decollation of the enemies to the true faith,
which if any one doubt, he shall die the death. A sledge is laden
with whips, wheels, ropes, chains, gibbets, and other inquisitorial
engines of torture, which are admirably calculated for the
propagation of a religion that was established in meekness and mercy,
and inculcates universal charity and forbearance. On the same sledge
is an image of St. Anthony, very properly accompanied by his pig,
and the plan of a monastery to be built at Blackfriars.
In the background are a troop of soldiers so averse to this English
expedition, that their sergeant is obliged to goad them forward with
his halberd. To intimate that agriculture suffers by the invasion
having engaged the masculine inhabitants, two women ploughing a
sterile promontory in the distance complete this catalogue of
wretchedness, misery, and famine.