Hogarth's Works, with life and anecdotal descriptions of his pictures. Volume 2 (of 3)

THE INVASION; OR, FRANCE AND ENGLAND.

In the two following designs Mr. Hogarth has displayed that partiality for his own country, and contempt for France, which formed a strong trait in his character. He neither forgot nor forgave the insults he suffered at Calais, though he did not recollect that this treatment originated in his own ill-humour, which threw a sombre shade over every object that presented itself. Having early imbibed the vulgar prejudice that one Englishman was a match for four Frenchmen,[96] he thought it would be doing his country a service to prove the position. How far it is either useful or political to depreciate the power or degrade the character of that people with whom we are to contend, is a question which does not come within the plan of this work. In some cases it may create confidence, but in others leads to the indulgence of that negligent security by which armies have been slaughtered, provinces depopulated, and kingdoms changed their rulers.

These two glaring contrasts were designed at a time when there was a rumour of an invasion from France. The sober politician treated this idle report with contempt; but by the credulous it was believed, and the timid trembled when they heard it. To dispel this phantom of the day was one motive for Hogarth's publication of these prints. They are not addressed to the philosopher or the legislator, but to the soldier and the sailor. They are not designed for the contemplation of the informed and travelled man, who considers himself as a citizen of the world; but for the true-born and true-bred Briton, that believes this to be the only country where man can enjoy happiness, and thinks an Englishman is the boast of the universe, the glory of creation, and the paragon of nature!

PLATE I.

FRANCE.

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.

PLATE II

ENGLAND.

Instead of the forlorn and famished party who were represented in the last plate, we here see a company of well-fed and high-spirited Britons, marked with all the hardihood of ancient times, and eager to defend their country.

In the first group, a young peasant who aspires to a niche in the Temple of Fame, preferring the service of Mars to that of Ceres, and the dignified appellation of soldier to the plebeian name of farmer, offers to enlist. Standing with his back against the halberd to ascertain his height, and finding he is rather under the mark,[97] he endeavours to reach it by rising on tiptoe. This artifice, to which he is impelled by towering ambition, the sergeant seems disposed to connive at—and the sergeant is a hero, and a great man in his way; "your hero always must be tall, you know."

To evince that the polite arts were then in a flourishing state, and cultivated by more than the immediate professors, a gentleman artist, who to common eyes must pass for a grenadier, is making a caricature of le Grand Monarque. The sovereign of France was in that day as general a subject for copper satire as Mr. Fox is in this. I have seen engravings, where his Gallic Majesty made one of the party, that were not a degree better than the grenadier's drawing, where, to render the meaning obvious, and supply the want of character, or story, every figure had a label hanging to its mouth. That given to this king of shreds and patches is worthy the speaker, and worthy observation: "You take a my fine ships: you be de pirate; you be de teef: me send my grand armies, and hang you all."

The action is suited to the word, for with his left hand this most Christian potentate grasps his sword, and in his right poises a gibbet. The figure and motto united, produce a roar of approbation from the soldier and sailor, who are criticising the work. It is so natural, that the Helen and Briseis of the camp contemplate the performance with apparent delight; and while one of them with her apron measures the breadth of this Herculean painter's shoulders, the other, to show that the performance has some point, places her forefinger against the prongs of a fork. The little fifer, playing that animated and inspiring tune "God save the King," is an old acquaintance: we recollect him in "The March to Finchley." In the background is a sergeant teaching a company of young recruits their manual exercise.

This military meeting is held at the sign of the gallant Duke of Cumberland, who is mounted upon a prancing charger,

Underneath is inscribed, "Roast and boiled every day;" which, with the beef and beverage upon the table, forms a fine contrast to the soup maigre, bare bones, and roasted frogs, in the last print. The bottle painted on the wall, foaming with liquor which, impatient of imprisonment, has burst its cerements, must be an irresistible invitation to a thirsty traveller. The soldier's sword laid upon the round of beef, and the sailor's pistol on the vessel containing the ale, intimate that these great bulwarks of our island are as tenacious of their beef and beer as of their religion and liberty.

These two plates were published in 1756; but in the London Chronicle for October 20, 1759, is the following advertisement:—

The verses which are inserted under each print, and subjoined to this account, are, it must be acknowledged, coarse enough. They were, however, written by David Garrick, who, had he thought the subject worthy of his muse, could, I believe, have produced more elegant stanzas.

THE COCKPIT.

Mr. Sherlock is perfectly right in his assertion, that neither of these scenes can be described by words; but where the writer must have failed, the artist has succeeded, and the Parisian who has never visited England may, from Mr. Hogarth's Prints, form a tolerably correct idea of the anarchy of an election, and the confusion of a cockpit. To the right learned and laborious successors of Master Thomas Hearne, it would be matter of curious speculation, and worthy of deep research, to inquire which of these "popular sportes was fyrste practysed in fair Englonde." To their grave and useful investigations I leave the decision of this knotty point. The earliest information of this gentile and royal game which my reading supplies, I find in a treatise, published in 1674, and entitled The Complete Gamester, containing instructions how to play at Billiards, Trucks, Bowls, Chess, etc. "To which is added, The Artes and Mysteries of Riding, Racing, Archery, and Cock Fighting. Printed by A. M. for R. Cutler, and to be sold by Henry Brome, at the Gun, at the west end of St. Paul's." To this curious little vade mecum there is a frontispiece divided into five compartments. One of them represents a cockpit, in the centre of which two of the feathered tribe, not unlike ducks, are fighting. The pit is surrounded by a company of crop-eared figures in round hats, with faces as demure and sanctified as are to be seen at a Quakers' meeting. Before many of these most sedate personages are heaps of gold, and (alluding to the print) the following sublime verses:—

To the respect which our ancestors had for this kingly amusement, the author beareth ample testimony in his 38th chapter, some extracts from which I venture to insert, with the hope that they will be both pleasant and profitable to the lovers of this very refined and humane divertisement:—

After much more which I have not room to insert, the author addeth, "To conclude, make your choice of such a one that is of shape strong, of colour good, of valour true, and of heel sharp and ready."

Leaving the book to the study of those whom it may concern, let us now attend to the plate.

The scene is probably laid at Newmarket;[101] and in this motley group of peers, pickpockets, butchers, jockeys, ratcatchers, gentlemen,—gamblers of every denomination,—Lord Albemarle Bertie,[102] being the principal figure, is entitled to precedence. In a former print[103] we saw him an attendant at a boxing match; and here he is president of a most respectable society assembled at a cockpit. What rendered his Lordship's passion for amusements of this nature very singular, was his being totally blind. In this place he is beset by seven steady friends, five of whom at the same instant offer to bet with him on the event of the battle. One of them, a lineal descendant of Filch, taking advantage of his blindness and negligence, endeavours to convey a bank note, deposited in our dignified gambler's hat, to his own pocket. Of this ungentleman-like attempt his Lordship is apprised by a ragged postboy and an honest butcher: but so much engaged in the pronunciation of those important words, "Done! done! done! done!" and the arrangement of his bets, that he cannot attend to their hints; and it seems more than probable that the stock will be transferred and the note negotiated in a few seconds.

A very curious group surround the old nobleman, who is adorned with a riband, a star, and a pair of spectacles. The whole weight of an overgrown carpenter being laid upon his shoulder, forces our illustrious personage upon a man beneath; who being thus driven downward, falls upon a fourth; and the fourth, by the accumulated pressure of this ponderous trio—composed of the upper and lower house—loses his balance, and tumbling against the edge of the partition, his head is broke, and his wig, shook from the seat of reason, falls into the cockpit.

A man adjoining enters into the spirit of the battle—his whole soul is engaged. From his distorted countenance and clasped hands, we see that he feels every stroke given to his favourite bird in his heart's core, ay, in his heart of hearts! A person at the old Peer's left hand is likely to be a loser. Ill-humour, vexation, and disappointment are painted in his countenance. The chimney-sweeper above is the very quintessence of affectation. He has all the airs and graces of a boarding-school miss. There are those who remember the man, and declare that his character is not heightened in the portrait. The sanctified Quaker adjoining, and the fellow beneath, who, by the way, is a very similar figure to Captain Stab in "The Rake's Progress," are finely contrasted.

A French marquis, on the other side, astonished at this being called amusement, is exclaiming Sauvages! sauvages! sauvages! Engrossed by the scene, and opening his snuff-box rather carelessly, its contents fall into the eyes of a man below, who, sneezing and swearing alternately, imprecates bitter curses on this devil's dust, that extorts from his inflamed eyes "a sea of melting pearls, which some call tears."

Adjoining is an old cripple with a trumpet at his ear, and in this trumpet a person in a bag-wig roars in a manner that cannot much gratify the auricular nerves of his companions; but as for the object to whom the voice is directed, he seems totally insensible to sounds, and if judgment can be formed from appearances, might very composedly stand close to the clock of St. Paul's Cathedral when it was striking twelve.

The figure with a cock peeping out of a bag is said to be intended for Jackson, a jockey. The gravity of this experienced veteran, and the cool sedateness of a man registering the wagers, are well opposed by the grinning woman behind, and the heated impetuosity of a fellow, stripped to his shirt, throwing his coin upon the cockpit, and offering to back Ginger against Pye for a guinea.

On the lower side, where there is only one tier of figures, a sort of an apothecary, and a jockey, are stretching out their arms and striking together the handles of their whips in token of a bet. An hiccuping votary of Bacchus, displaying a half-emptied purse, is not likely to possess it long; for an adroit professor of legerdemain has taken aim with an hooked stick, and by one slight jerk will convey it to his own pocket. The profession of a gentlemen in a round wig is determined by a gibbet chalked upon his coat. An enraged barber, who lifts up his stick in the corner, has probably been refused payment of a wager by the man at whom he is striking.

A cloud-capt philosopher at the top of the print, coolly smoking his pipe, unmoved by this crash of matter and wreck of property, must not be overlooked: neither should his dog be neglected; for the dog, gravely resting his fore-paws upon the partition,[104] and contemplating the company, seems more interested in the event of the battle than his master.

Like the tremendous Gog and terrific Magog of Guildhall, stand the two cock-feeders; a foot of each of these consequential purveyors is seen at the two extremities of the pit.

As to the birds whose attractive powers have drawn this admiring throng together, they deserved earlier notice—

Having disposed of the substances, let us now attend to the shadow on the cockpit, and this it seems is the reflection of a man drawn up to the ceiling in a basket, and there suspended[105] as a punishment for having betted more money than he can pay. Though suspended, he is not reclaimed; though exposed, not abashed; for in this degrading situation he offers to stake his watch against money in another wager on his favourite champion.

The decorations of this curious theatre are, a portrait of Nan Rawlins,[106] and the King's arms.

In the margin at the bottom of the print is an oval, with a fighting cock, inscribed "Royal sport," and underneath it is written, "Pit ticket."

Of the characteristic distinctions in this heterogeneous assembly, it is not easy to speak with sufficient praise. The chimney-sweeper's absurd affectation sets the similar airs of the Frenchman in a most ridiculous point of view. The old fellow with a trumpet at his ear has a degree of deafness that I never before saw delineated; he might have lived in the same apartment with Xantippe, or slept comfortably in Alexander the coppersmith's first floor. As to the nobleman in the centre, in the language of the turf, he is a mere pigeon; and the Peer, with a star and garter, in the language of Cambridge, we must class as—a mere quiz. The man sneezing, you absolutely hear; and the fellow stealing a bank note has all the outward and visible marks of a perfect and accomplished pickpocket; Mercury himself could not do that business in a more masterly style.

I hope it will not be thought irrelevant to my subject if I here name a man whose periods have polished the English language, and given to poesy a harmony before unknown.

To Alexander Pope, Hogarth had an early dislike. Pope was the friend of Lord Burlington,—Lord Burlington was the patron of Kent, and Kent was the rival of Sir James Thornhill, who was the father-in-law of William Hogarth. In two of his miscellaneous prints, our mellifluous poet is exhibited in very degrading situations. In one[107] he is represented as whitewashing the gate of Burlington House, and in the violence of his operation bespattering the carriage of his Grace of Chandos, etc.; and in the other, picking John Gay's[108] pocket.

Had the artist been acquainted with a circumstance mentioned by Mr. Tyers in his Rhapsody, our British Horace would very probably have had a place in this group. Tyers tells us that "Pope, while living with his father at Chiswick, before he went to Binfield, took great delight in cock-fighting, and laid out all his schoolboy money, and little perhaps it was, in buying fighting cocks. From this passion, but surely not the play of a child, his mother had the dexterity to wean him."

Admitting the fact, for which I have no other authority than the pamphlet above quoted, it does not tell in favour of that delicate and tender humanity which this elegant poet so much affected. On his conduct to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Lord Bolingbroke, Mr. Addison, and Mr. Broome, I will make no comment; but his bitter satire on the Duke of Chandos,[109] while it exalts his poetical powers, dishonours his moral character. The animation, energy, and elegance of the stanzas would atone for almost anything—but ingratitude!

Lord Orrery observes: "If we may judge of Mr. Pope from his works, his chief aim was to be esteemed a man of virtue." When actions can be clearly ascertained, it is not necessary to seek the mind's construction in the writings; and I regret being compelled to believe that some of Mr. Pope's actions, at the same time that they prove him to be querulous and petulant, lead us to suspect that he was also envious, malignant, and cruel. How far this will tend to confirm the assertion, that when a boy he was an amateur[110] of this royal sport,[111] I do not pretend to decide: but were a child in whom I had any interest cursed with such a propensity, my first object would be to correct it; if that were impracticable, and he retained a fondness for the cockpit, and the still more detestable amusement of Shrove Tuesday,[112] I should hardly dare to flatter myself that he could become a merciful man. The subject has carried me further than I intended. I will, however, take the freedom of proposing one query to the consideration of the clergy, should any of that sacred order do me the honour of perusing this volume. Might it not have a tendency to check that barbarous spirit, which has more frequently its source in an early acquired habit arising from the prevalence of example than in natural depravity, if every divine in Great Britain were to preach at least one sermon every twelve months on our universal insensibility to the sufferings of the brute creation?[113]

CREDULITY, SUPERSTITION, AND FANATICISM.

A MEDLEY.

"Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world."—1 John IV. 1.

In the pagan temples there was a kind of incantation for conjuring down deities, to whom were assigned niches according to their different degrees of rank. The histories of Greece and Rome (for the sake of human nature, I wish that the parallel did not reach modern times) display an innumerable host of all ages, sexes, descriptions, and characters, enlisted under the banner of the priesthood, together with a select corps de reserve of augurs and soothsayers, who, by inspecting the entrails of beasts, foretold future events, and from the flight of birds the defeat of armies. Succeeding ages beheld their heathen temples solemnly consecrated; and being thus metamorphosed into Christian churches, the sculptures representing Jupiter, Minerva, Venus, and Diana, by virtue of a new baptism, became saints.[114]

Here also were a legion of arrogant priests, who insolently dictated the terms of salvation, fixed a standard for universal belief, and introduced their own inventions as divine precepts; who forced monarchs to pay tribute by ecclesiastical privilege, assumed the dominion of empires by divine right, and claimed three-fourths of the known world as heirs-at-law to St. Peter. To secure their acquisitions, they entrenched themselves behind ramparts raised on the credulity and folly of mankind. He who attempted to scale these hallowed mounds was deemed guilty of sacrilege; he who questioned the catholic infallibility was an atheist; and whosoever doubted the divine mission of a priest—an infidel.[115]

Finding the multitude were so well inclined to believe that whatever they could not comprehend was supernatural, they construed each phenomenon of nature into a portentous menace from Heaven. An eclipse became the omen of a revolution; an inundation the prognostic of a defeat; and an hurricane foretold the fall of every power that made any opposition to papal authority. By arts like these, the people were brought into a mental vassalage; and the powerful Baron having previously enslaved their persons, they readily gave the care of their souls to the confessor. To him they applied as the proper interpreter of every difficult case; and fraught with a full portion of credulity, each individual considered every cloud that passed over the sun, and every raven that expanded its ebon wing, as bearing some particular direction to himself. Hence arose the doctrine of demonology; and apparitions, witches, dreams, and divinations, formed a creed of superstition. On this was built that notable system, properly enough called "The Philosophy of the Distaff." This mythology of weak minds has been carried through every age and country by oral tradition and unfounded record.

Our earliest histories abound in augury and prediction; the most fabulous tales had credence, not only with the unlearned and ignorant, but with the educated and sagacious. The grave Duke de Sully seriously narrates those which had relation to Henry the Fourth.

It is recorded by Victorius Sirri, that Louis the Thirteenth was from his infancy surnamed Just,—"because he was born under the sign of the Balance!"

Even sorcery was made a leading branch of religion; and one of a priest's duties was to exorcise ghosts by talking Latin, which was considered as a never-failing antidote for a troublesome spirit, and invariably concluded by the ghost being laid in the Red Sea.

Some of these glaring errors have been obliterated, but absurdities of equal magnitude have supplied their place; and modern credulities are nearly as destructive to the interests of society as ancient superstitions.

Though this nation, as well as others, was at an early period enveloped by ignorance, superstition, and their consequent accompaniments, we had some right to expect the clouds would have been dispelled by the Reformation; but credulity kept its ground, and at a still later period—when we had a most learned and sedate monarch, and a most sententious and grave Parliament—an Act was passed for the punishment of witchcraft! By this sagacious union of royal and national wisdom, if a woman lived to a greater age than her neighbour, she was tried, proved guilty of commercing with a familiar in the shape of a tabby cat, and eased of all her sufferings by the ordeal of fire or water.

It is not many years since a fanatic in one of our colonies took a fancy to accuse a neighbour of witchcraft: the crime was clearly proved, and the poor culprit suffered according to law. In credulity and superstition there is something epidemical. The contagion spread; and this being found a summary process for removing a competitor in trade, or revenging an insult, informations for sorcery became frequent. Their sessions-house was crowded with witches, as is that at the Old Bailey with pickpockets. It however brought fees, and so far was well: but these sapient legislators at length discovered that the province was likely to be depopulated; and what affected them still more, their own fraternity were liable to the consequences. A man, who had been cheated by his lawyer, made an affidavit that said lawyer was a wizard. This was too much: the court had a special meeting, and unanimously determined that they would not receive any more informations against wizards. The bye-law had the effect of a charm, and sorcery was no more!

Lord Bacon somewhere remarks that superstition is worse than atheism. It takes from religion every attraction, every comfort; and the place of humble hope and patient resignation is supplied by melancholy, despair, and madness!

To the best minds, credulity is the source of much misery. Our first Charles, who, with all his errors as a king, had the manners and mind of a gentleman, was so much under its influence, that he never enjoyed a day's happiness after consulting the Sortes Virgilianæ.[116]

In our age—an age in many respects enlightened by the beams of philosophy—the effects resulting from credulity, superstition, and fanaticism are dreadful; but while the evils are contemplated with horror, the system is too ridiculous for sober reasoning. It induces the infatuated votary to believe that being in the pale of a particular church will ensure his salvation. The ignorant are confounded with metaphysical subtleties which the wisest cannot comprehend; and by combining different texts of holy writ, we are insulted with conclusions contrary to common sense.[117]

To check this inundation of absurdity, which deemed carnal reason profane, and was not to be combated by argument, Mr. Hogarth engraved this print; it contains what must ever operate as a complete refutation of those who, because they were his opponents in politics, have impudently asserted that he lost his talents in the decline of life: for though the delineation was made in his sixty-fourth year, in satire, wit, and imagination, it is superior to any of his preceding works.

The text "I speak as a fool" is a type of the preacher, whose strength of lungs is a convenient substitute for strength of argument. He is literally a Boanerges; his tones rend the region, and the thunder of his eloquence has cracked the sounding-board. His right hand poises a witch astride upon a broom-stick, and in his left he suspends an emissary of Satan: this embryotic demon wields a gridiron as a terror to the ungodly, and at the witch's breast is an incubus in the shape of a cat.[118] Considering action as the first requisite of an orator, our ecclesiastical juggler throws his whole frame into convulsions: he shakes as the lofty cedar in a storm. Like Milton's devil,

By these violent agitations his gown flies open, and discovers that this Proteus of the pulpit is arrayed in a Harlequin's jacket; and his wig falling off, displays the shaven crown of a Jesuit. But the loss of a periwig is not attended to, his denunciations are redoubled, his fulminations hurled indiscriminately around; he scatters about firebrands; and darts, pointed with destruction, and barbed with death, pierce the hearts of his terrified hearers. Wrought up to the highest pitch of seraphic fervour, fevered by the heat of his own ecstasies,—the whole man is inspired,—and mounted upon the clouds of mystery, he soars through the dark regions of superstition, settles in the third heaven, and breathes empyreal air.

The train is fired,—the contagion spreads, the cup of delusion is filled to the brim, and each of his infatuated auditors intoxicated with the fumes of enthusiastic madness.

With a postboy's cap upon his head, to denote that he is a special messenger from above, a little cherubimic Mercury flies through the clouds, and bears in his mouth an express directed to Saint Money Trapp.

Immediately beneath the pulpit are two lambs of the flock in an ecstasy. The young man with a round head of hair is probably a lay preacher; for though he has not a sable coat, he has a black collar. Piously entreating a young maiden, who meets his advances with an holy zeal, he puts the waxen model of a female saint down her bosom.

In the same pew are two fellows very differently affected: one of them, with a despairing countenance, sheds iron tears; the other, like the wet sea-boy on the mast, sleeps through the terrors of the storm, though a malignant imp of darkness, envying his serenity, endeavours to awake him by a whisper,[119] that he also may share such curses as would serve for a supplement to St. Ernulphus.[120]

Between two duck-winged cherubs, who are studying the laughing and crying gamut, is the harpy clerk. This crook-mouthed echo of absurdity, and associate in villany, has the true physiognomy of a Tartuffe: every feature is charged with hypocrisy.

The congregation,[121] many of whom have been imported from Liffey's verdant banks, bear their parts in this enchanting serenade; and the bull roar of the preacher, combined with a chorus of sighs, groans, and shrieks, must produce a symphony that might vie with the Irish howl or Indian war-whoop.

Among the crowd we discover a youthful convert under the guidance of his spiritual confessor,[122] who, pointing to Brimstone Ocean, unfolds a tale which terrifies his disciple to a degree that