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

The bitter satire upon Hogarth's domestic habits, talents, taste, originality, and orthography, which has been before noticed, would have discomposed a less irritable man, and warranted any retaliation in the power of the pencil; but he seems to have felt little uneasiness, and under a conviction that the overcharged blunderbuss which had been aimed at him had burst in the explosion and wounded his assailant more than himself, did not think it necessary to point fire-arms at an adversary whose intemperate zeal had defeated his avowed purpose. Under the influence of these impressions, the artist has not attempted to be severe; nor can I comprehend upon what ground this plate has been denominated a satire, for it is not a caricature, but a very accurate and striking resemblance, with the identical accompaniments which I most firmly believe Mr. Wilkes would at that time have chosen as the decorations of his portrait. The cap of liberty, "Heaven-descended, godlike liberty," above his head, and two political papers which he acknowledged himself to have written, on his right hand. One of these papers is marked with that memorable number, which was in its day a kind of shibboleth to the party.[156] On the same table with the two North Britons is a pen and ink, importing that the person delineated is an author, a character the Colonel could hardly be ashamed of. These premises granted to the artist,—and

what crime has he committed? He has given an engraving, which cannot indeed be considered as a compliment, because it is not a flattering likeness; but I do not see why it should have been received as a sarcasm. If we add to this the time when, and place where, it was taken; if we consider how glorious the situation!—how interesting the moment!—it is delineating a general at the instant of victory; and so far from bearing any marks of satire, that it might be almost mistaken for a panegyric. To say the truth, though his friend Churchill has thrown the picture into shadow, and given only the dark tints, Mr. Wilkes seemed willing enough to receive it as such;[157] and I am informed, frequently told his friends that he every day grew into a stronger resemblance. The pleasant and philosophic indifference with which he spoke of it at the time, did honour to his good humour and his good sense. He declared himself very little concerned about the case of his soul, as he was only tenant for life, and that the best apology for his person was, that he did not make himself.[158]

Such was the style of Mr. Wilkes. As to Mr. Churchill, his temper must have forsaken him; and every circumstance taken into the account, when describing this transaction, he seems to have forgotten that satire ought to be at least seasoned with truth. Brilliant diction, animated verse, and high-sounding words, are very apt to impose. Churchill's is a muse of fire, and dazzles the eye like the sun in its meridian splendour; it fascinates the mind, and carries the most sober reason into the airy regions of imagination. This considered, before I insert his bitter satire, it will be but fair to give a candid and dispassionate relation of that which provoked it.

When Mr. Wilkes was the second time brought from the Tower to Westminster Hall, and had in one day an honourable acquittal, an universal acclamation, and a proud triumph, Mr. Hogarth attended in the court of Common Pleas, and, as was his constant custom, carried a port-crayon in his pocket. Surrounded by a crowd of spectators, who came to see how the cause would terminate, he took a portrait of Mr. Wilkes: delineated a patriot at the moment when he was in his own person asserting the cause of liberty, and by his own trial ascertaining the law of his country. But, replies an advocate for Mr. Wilkes, "Hogarth certainly intended to make a caricature."[159] To this I have no other answer than pointing to the print, which, being compared with the original, will prove to every dispassionate inquirer what it is my wish to establish, i.e. that it has been mistaken for a caricature, from the world knowing the provocation which Hogarth had previously received, and which every man felt would have justified the most severe retaliation.

What! Consider it as a satire to hand down to posterity a patriot at the moment of inspiration! "While every breast caught the holy flame of liberty, and all his fellow-citizens were animated in his cause, for they knew it to be their own cause, that of their country, and of its laws. It was declared to be so a few hours afterwards by the unanimous sentence of the Judges of that Court; and they were all present."

From the style in which the bard relates this transaction, a plain reader would be tempted to think that Hogarth had stolen into Westminster Hall with a quiver full of poisoned arrows hung to his girdle, and, like a murderous ruffian, hid himself behind the arras, that he might seize the first opportunity of assassinating this paragon of patriotism.

This animated and high-coloured rhapsody, beautiful and fervid as it is, when reduced to plain prose, ends in Liberty, Virtue, and Honour being all aghast, because Hogarth took Mr. Wilkes' portrait without the customary fee! But my readers may be weary of the subject. Enough—

THE BRUISER, CHARLES CHURCHILL (ONCE THE REVEREND),

In the Character of a Russian Hercules, regaling himself after having killed the Monster Caricatura, that so sorely galled his virtuous friend, the heaven-born Wilkes.—Published Aug. 1, 1763.

Apprehensive that the public might construe his delaying a reply to proceed from inability, he did not wait the tedious process of a new plate, but took a piece of copper on which he had, in the year 1749, engraven a portrait of himself and dog, erased his own head, and in the place of it introduced the divine with a tattered band and torn ruffles,—"No Lord's anointed, but a Russian bear."

In this I must acknowledge there was more ill-nature than wit.[161] It is rather caricature than character, and more like the coarse mangling of Tom Browne than the delicate yet wounding satire of Alexander Pope. For this rough retort he might, however, plead the poet's precedent. His opponent had brandished a tomahawk; and Hogarth, old as he was, wielded a battle-axe in his own defence. A more aggravated provocation cannot well be conceived. The attack was unmerciful, unmanly, unjust. Let the following extracts speak for themselves:—

Such is the introduction to Churchill's Epistle, and I believe the reader will grant that it is quite as applicable to the poet as the painter. After some lines which would apply to any other subject as well as that under consideration, he thus proceeds:

How furious the onset! but if the lines are brought back to plain prose, they will run thus: "Hogarth, thy word is candour. I adopt the same word, and having heard thee declaim with a virulence that retained nothing of candour but the name, thou shalt hear me declaim in the same style."

That this is the precise meaning which the poet intended, I will not presume to assert; but that he has pursued his theme in a manner that amply justifies my supposition, the following lines will abundantly prove:—

If Hogarth had so marked an aversion to all genius, merit, and sense, it is rather singular that he should have lived on such intimate terms with Mr. Churchill and Mr. Wilkes.

What does the bard prove himself?

He must be a very weak artist indeed who would bury the talents which Nature gave, to gratify the whims of another man; but admitting a painter had been found "who suffered blank concealment to obscure those rays which jealousy could not endure," I cannot comprehend how it concerned Hogarth. His walk was all his own: even now he need not dread a rival there. Mr. Churchill acknowledges that in walks of humour

Being unrivalled, I do not see why he should dread a rival; nor can I conceive he could be jealous of talents which he must be conscious were inferior to his own.

After some very harsh lines on envy, in no degree applicable to Hogarth, and the rhapsody about Wilkes and Liberty, which I have noticed in the preceding plate, this high priest of the Temple of Cruelty, rejoicing in his strength and triumphing in the pride of his youth, without any reverence for gray hairs or respect for superior talents, sets up the war-whoop, and springs upon a feeble old man with the ferocity of a hungry cannibal:

That a man in the vigour of life—for Churchill was not much more than thirty years old—should draw so pitiable a picture of age and decrepitude, and then attack that age and decrepitude with a barbarity so savage, is horrible! But the baleful spirit of party overthrows the barriers of truth, eradicates philanthropy, and severs those social, I had almost said sacred, bonds which ought to unite and attach men of genius to each other. Had Churchill felt his own beautiful apostrophe, he would have blotted the lines with his tears:

After advising the painter to learn how to die, the bard proceeds; repeats and amplifies what he had before written on Hogarth's envy, gives a metrical version of that North Briton which ridicules the artist's love of flattery, and beautifully versifies Mr. Wilkes' prosaic abuse of poor "Sigismunda."

In the lines which follow, he first throws the gauntlet, and then draws such a picture of the man he has challenged as must have subdued the rancour of an assassin; so far from being a stimulus to revenge, it excites pity, and concludes in the form of an apology:

Seems, Churchill!—nay, it is!

The following address to the artist may, with infinitely more propriety, be applied to the bard; whose name I have therefore ventured to insert in the place where he has left the name of Hogarth:

The whole of this unfeeling composition is dictated by the same spirit, and written in much the same style, as the lines I have quoted; it reflects more dishonour on the satirist than on the subject of his abuse.

To enumerate further examples would be painful as well as tedious: the graven image must be attended to.

It represents Mr. Churchill in the character of a bear hugging a foaming tankard of porter,[163] and like another Hercules, armed with a knotted club, to attack hydras, destroy dragons, and discomfit giants!

From the two letters "N. B." inscribed on the club, it appears that the painter considered Churchill as a writer in the North Briton; and from the words "infamous fallacy, Lie the 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th," etc., on each of the knots, that he also considered him as a poet who did not pay the strictest regard to truth.

To designate more positively the object of his ridicule, and render this rude representative still more ludicrous, it is decorated with a band and a pair of ruffles; and with these characteristic ornaments, though it remains a good bear, it becomes a sort of overcharged portrait of the reverend satirist, and I really think resembles him.

Hogarth's favourite dog Trump, who had been his companion in the portrait from which this is altered, retains his original situation on the outside of the picture frame, but is now contemptuously treating and trampling upon the Epistle to his master. Near him lie two books, on one of which is written, "A New Way to Pay Old Debts, a comedy, by Massinger:" on the other, "A List of Subscribers to the North Briton." To intimate the poverty of those who wrote it, the pyramid is crowned by a begging-box; and beneath, as emblems of art, lie a pencil and palette.

In this state the print was published; but the gentleman whom it offended asserting that it proved the painter in his dotage, he refuted their calumny by the following spirited addition:—

In the form of a framed picture on the painter's palette, is placed a small drawing, which may serve as a sort of political postscript to his first plate of "The Times," or a kind of prelude to the second. It represents Mr. Pitt reclining in a similar position to that of Sir Isaac Newton in Westminster Abbey, and is probably meant as allusive to his having retired from public business, to enjoy the otium cum dignitate, a short time before. The background is composed of a pyramidical piece of marble, from the top of which is suspended a millstone, inscribed "£3000," in allusion to his saying that "Hanover was a millstone round the neck of England," and afterwards increasing the public burdens by accepting a pension of £3000 a year. It is suspended by a thread, and must, if it falls, dash him to pieces. This was Hogarth's idea of crushing popularity. To heighten the ridicule, though recumbent, he is firing a mortar at the symbol of peace, "a dove with an olive branch" perched on the standard of England; but his artillery is not powerful enough to reach the mark; the powder fails in its effect, the ball falls short of its object. In most of his measures Mr. Pitt was supported by the city of London, and to this our great metropolis Hogarth appears to allude, in making the two Guildhall giants, with each of them a pipe of tobacco in his mouth, supporters of the Monument. The tubes with Indian weed evidently hint at his great Creolian friend, Mr. Alderman Beckford. To denote that Mr. Pitt was the sovereign of their affections, and kept the master-key of their iron chests, one of these representatives of the city is giving him supreme rule, by placing upon his head "the likeness of a kingly crown." The other holds a shield, on which is emblazoned the arms of Austria, which the statesman indignantly spurns. At an opposite corner, the painter has exhibited himself, in the humble character of a showman, drilling Messrs. Churchill and Wilkes through the varying steps of a political minuet. The first he has represented under the type of a bear in a laced hat, and the last as a monkey astride upon a mop-stick, with the cap of liberty at the top of it. In his left hand he holds a check-string, which being fastened to his two pupils, answers the purpose of a bridle, and in his right brandishes a cat-o'-nine-tails. That the two quadrupeds may dance to some tune, a figure without features, intended as a second delineation of Earl Temple, is playing on the fiddle.[164]

Such is Hogarth's representation; and in the poem of Independence, which Churchill published in September 1764, he admirably parries the caricature by a most spirited description of himself. In this he has evidently taken Hogarth's print for his model. Having described a lean, long, lank, and bony figure, designed for a then unpopular nobleman, he thus proceeds:

In the following letter written to his friend Mr. Wilkes, and dated August 3, 1763, Churchill considers Hogarth as already dead:—

Mr. Churchill died at Boulogne in his thirty-second year, and was in November 1764 buried at Dover: at which place, on a small stone in the old churchyard, formerly belonging to the collegiate Church of St. Martin, is the following inscription:

APPENDIX,

CONSISTING OF

ENGRAVED HEADPIECES FOR RECEIPTS, ETC.

At the time that Hogarth lived, we were not compelled to have our receipts sanctioned with a royal stamp; but upon the receipts given by Hogarth, there was "the stamp of genius, the broad seal of nature!" Whoever paid a subscription had a written acknowledgment beneath a little print. This invariably abounded in wit, but had seldom any immediate allusion to the series with which it was presented.[170] His great works I consider as giving not only a general mirror of the human mind, but a history of the local and temporary customs of the day when they were published. I have therefore arranged them in the order they were engraved; and thinking that the receipts, or less important prints, would break the chain by which they are in a degree connected, I have reserved the following short memoranda for an appendix:—

BOYS PEEPING AT NATURE. [171]

"Thou, Nature, art my goddess."

This alteration of his first plan left the great "Paul" without a ticket. To have given him the "Peeping Boys" in their original state, would have been a species of sacrilege; they were chastened, grouped as they now are, and transferred from the "Harlot" to the "Apostle."

Though the circumstance from which it received a name was done away, and very little either novel or striking remains, he retained the original title of "Boys Peeping at Nature."[172]

FIVE GROUPS OF HEADS.

THE LAUGHING AUDIENCE.

From the first print that Hogarth engraved to the last that he published, I do not think there is one in which character is more displayed than in this very spirited little etching. It is much superior to the more delicate engravings from his designs by other artists, and I prefer it to those that were still higher finished by his own burin.

The prim coxcomb with an enormous bag, whose favours, like those of Hercules between Virtue and Vice, are contended for by two rival orange girls, gives an admirable idea of the dress of the day; when, if we may judge from this print, our grave forefathers, defying nature and despising convenience, had a much higher rank in the temple of Folly than was then attained by their ladies. It must be acknowledged that since that period the softer sex have asserted their natural rights; and, snatching the wreath of fashion from the brow of presuming man, have tortured it into such forms—that were it possible, which certes it is not, to disguise a beauteous face!—But to the high behest of fashion all must bow.

Governed by this idol, our beau has a cuff that for a modern fop would furnish fronts for a waistcoat, and a family fire-screen might be made of his enormous bag. His bare and shrivelled neck has a close resemblance to that of a half-starved greyhound; and his face, figure, and air, form a fine contrast to the easy and degagée assurance of the grisette whom he addresses.

The opposite figure, nearly as grotesque, though not quite so formal as its companion, presses its left hand upon its breast,[173] in the style of protestation, and eagerly contemplating the superabundant charms of a beauty of Rubens' school, presents her with a pinch of comfort.[174] Every muscle, every line of his countenance, is acted upon by affectation and grimace, and his queue bears some resemblance to an ear-trumpet.

The total inattention of these three polite persons to the business of the stage, which at this moment almost convulses the children of Nature who are seated in the pit, is highly descriptive of that refined apathy which characterizes our people of fashion, and raises them above those mean passions that agitate the groundlings.

One gentleman, indeed,[175] is as affectedly unaffected as a man of the first world. By his saturnine cast of face and contracted brow, he is evidently a profound critic, and much too wise to laugh. He must indisputably be a very great genius; for, like Voltaire's Poccocurante, nothing can please him; and while those around open every avenue of their minds to mirth, and are willing to be delighted, though they do not well know why, he analyzes the drama by the laws of Aristotle, and finding those laws are violated, determines that the author ought to be hissed instead of being applauded. This it is to be so excellent a judge; this it is which gives a critic that exalted gratification which can never be attained by the illiterate: the supreme power of pointing out faults where others discern nothing but beauties, and preserving a rigid inflexibility of muscle while the sides of the vulgar herd are shaking with laughter. These merry mortals, thinking with Plato that it is no proof of a good stomach to nauseate every aliment presented them, do not inquire too nicely into causes; but, giving full scope to their risibility, display a set of features more highly ludicrous than I ever saw in any other print. It is to be regretted that the artist has not given us some clue by which we might have known what was the play which so much delighted his audience: I should conjecture that it was either one of Shakspeare's comedies, or a modern tragedy. Sentimental comedy was not the fashion of that day.

The three sedate musicians in the orchestra, totally engrossed by minims and crotchets, are an admirable contrast to the company in the pit.

THE LECTURE.

DATUR VACUUM.

I was once told by a fellow of a college that he would never purchase Hogarth's works, because Hogarth had in this print ridiculed one of the Universities. I endeavoured to defend the artist, by suggesting that this was not intended as a picture of what Oxford is now, but of what it was in days long past: that it was that kind of general satire with which no one should be offended, etc. etc. His reply was too memorable to be forgotten: "Sir, the Theatre, the Bench, the College of Physicians, and the Foot Guards, are fair objects of satire; but those venerable characters who have devoted their whole lives to feeding the lamp of learning with hallowed oil, are too sacred to be the sport of an uneducated painter. Their unremitting industry embraced the whole circle of the sciences, and in their logical disputations they displayed an acuteness that their followers must contemplate with astonishment. The present state of Oxford it is not necessary for me to analyze, as you contend that the satire is not directed against that."

In answer to this observation, which was uttered with becoming gravity, a gentleman present remarked as follows: "For some of the ancient customs of this seminary of learning I have much respect; but as to their dry treatises on logic, immaterial dissertations on materiality, and abstruse investigations of useless subjects, they are mere literary legerdemain. Their disputations being usually built on an undefinable chimera, are solved by a paradox. Instead of exercising their power of reason, they exert their powers of sophistry, and divide and subdivide every subject with such casuistical minuteness, that those who are not convinced are almost invariably confounded. This custom, it must be granted, is not quite so prevalent as it once was: a general spirit of reform is rapidly diffusing itself; and though I have heard cold-blooded declaimers assert that these shades of science are become the retreats of ignorance and the haunts of dissipation, I consider them as the great schools of urbanity, and favourite seats of the belles lettres. By the belles lettres I mean history, biography, and poetry; that all these are universally cultivated, I can exemplify by the manner in which a highly accomplished young man, who is considered as a model by his fellow-collegians, divides his hours.

"At breakfast I found him studying the marvellous and eventful history of Baron Munchausen; a work whose periods are equally free from the long-winded obscurity of Tacitus, and the asthmatic terseness of Sallust. While his hair was dressing, he enlarged his imagination and improved his morals by studying Doctor what's his name's Abridgment of Chesterfield's Principles of Politeness. To furnish himself with biographical information, and add to his stock of useful anecdote, he studied the Lives of the Highwaymen; in which he found many opportunities of exercising his genius and judgment in drawing parallels between the virtues and exploits of these modern worthies, and those dignified and almost deified ancient heroes whose deeds are recorded in Plutarch and Nepos.

"With poetical studies he is furnished by the English operas, which, added to the prologues, epilogues, and odes of the day, afford him higher entertainment than he could find in Homer or Virgil: he has not stored his memory with many epigrams, but of puns has a plentiful stock, and in conundra is a wholesale dealer. At the same college I know a most striking contrast, whose reading"—— But as his opponent would hear no more, my advocate dropped the subject; and I will follow his example.

It seems probable that when the artist engraved this print he had only a general reference to an university lecture; the words datur vacuum were an after-thought. I have seen prints without the inscription, and in some of the early impressions it is written with a pen.

The scene is laid at Oxford, and the person reading, universally admitted to be a Mr. Fisher of Jesus College, registrat of the university, with whose consent this portrait was taken, and who lived until the 18th of March 1761. That he should wish to have such a face handed down to posterity in such company is rather extraordinary; for all the band, except one man, have been steeped in the stream of stupidity. This gentleman has the profile of penetration; a projecting forehead, a Roman nose, thin lips, and a long pointed chin. His eye is bent on vacancy: it is evidently directed to the moon-faced idiot that crowns the pyramid, at whose round head, contrasted by a cornered cap, he with difficulty supresses a laugh. Three fellows on the right hand of this fat, contented "first-born transmitter of a foolish face," have most degraded characters, and are much fitter for the stable than the college. If they ever read, it must be in Bracken's Farriery, or The Country Gentleman's Recreation. Two square-capped students a little beneath the top, one of whom is holding converse with an adjoining profile, and the other lifting up his eyebrows and staring without sight, have the same misfortune that attended our first James—their tongues are rather too large. A figure in the left-hand corner has shut his eyes to think; and having, in his attempt to separate a syllogism, placed the forefinger of his right hand upon his forehead, has fallen asleep. The professor, a little above the book, endeavours by a projection of his under lip to assume importance; such characters are not uncommon: they are more solicitous to look wise than to be so. Of Mr. Fisher it is not necessary to say much: he sat for his portrait for the express purpose of having it inserted in the "Lecture!"—We want no other testimony of his talents. To the whole tribe I bid a long and last adieu.