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

The Viscountess[5] has been contemplating her face in a pocket-mirror, and is scarcely recovered from the fatigue of a rout, which by the cards, instruments, and music book on the floor, we conclude to have been the preceding night's amusement.[6]

An ungartered servant, who is yawning in the background, pays little attention to his master or mistress, and is totally regardless of a chair, which is in great danger from the blaze of an expiring candle; this, with those left burning in the sockets since the conclusion of their nocturnal revelry, must give a pleasing perfume to the breakfast-room.

The old steward's attitude and countenance clearly indicate that he foresees the gulf into which an united torrent of dissipation will inevitably plunge this infatuated pair. He has brought a great number of bills for payment: to one, and only one, is a receipt, which, being dated January 4, 1744, determines the time when vulgar tradesmen are extremely troublesome to men of rank.

Of the paintings in this stately saloon, that of which we see only a part is properly concealed by a curtain. The four cartoons, very judiciously placed in the same line, are, I believe, intended for the four evangelists. Next to that which is opposite the chandelier is a faint representation of another picture. The lines are ambiguous, but seem intended to represent a ship in a storm: a very proper emblem of the wreck which is likely to succeed the negligence and dissipation of this noble family. A marble head, in a cut wig, perhaps intended for one of the Cæsars, with the nose broken, to show that it is a genuine antique, decorates the centre of the chimney-piece. In most of the other grotesque and fantastic ornaments,

A painting over the chimney-piece represents Cupid playing upon the bagpipes. Both subject and frame prove the classical taste of the proprietor. The ornaments round a clock are equally elegant and peculiarly appropriate. It is encompassed by a kind of grove, with a cat on the summit and a Chinese pagoda at the bottom. If the branches were tenanted by the feathered tribe, it would be no more than we see every day; it would be vulgar nature. To make it uncommonly grand, and peculiarly magnifique, they are occupied by two fishes.[7]

The crowned chandelier, candlesticks, chairs, footstool, chimney-piece, and grate, are evidently made from the designs of William Kent.[8] To that fashionable architect they are indebted for the plan of the stupendous saloon, which has an air of grandeur and magnificence that is not often seen in Mr. Hogarth's works. It produces such a sensation as Pope describes on seeing Timon's villa, "Where all cry out, what sums are thrown away!"

This plate was engraved by Baron, but the old steward's face is, I think, marked by the burin of Hogarth.

PLATE III.

This has been said to be the most obscure delineation that Hogarth ever published: how far the short explanation copied from Mr. Lane's papers may contribute to sanction my previous description, I do not presume to judge. Hitherto there have certainly been many different opinions as to the meaning of this print, and Churchill is said to have asserted, that from its appearing so ambiguous to him, he once requested Hogarth to explain it, but that the artist, like many other commentators, left his subject as obscure as he found it. "From this circumstance," added the poet, "I am convinced he formed his tale upon the ideas of Hoadley, Garrick, Townley, or some other friend, and never perfectly comprehended what it meant."

How it was possible for Hoadley, Garrick, and Townley, or any other friend, to furnish Hogarth with ideas to compose the third plate of an historical series, I cannot comprehend.

I can suppose it possible that the artist might not choose to explain to Churchill what he himself thought obvious, and therefore declined giving him any explanation. I can suppose that, admirably as Hogarth told a story with his pencil, he might not be qualified to express his verbal meaning with equal accuracy, and therefore be misunderstood; but, above all, I can suppose it not only possible, but probable, that this bitter satirist, making the declaration after the publication of "Wilkes' Portrait," "The Bruiser," and "The Times," might, from resentment to the artist, be provoked to give a poetical colouring to the story about the "Marriage à la Mode."

I think it must be considered as a sort of episode, no further connected with the main subject than as it exhibits the consequences of an alliance entered into from sordid and unworthy motives. In the two preceding prints the hero and heroine of this tragedy show a fashionable indifference towards each other. On the part of the Viscount, we see no indication of any wish to conciliate the affections of his lady. Careless of her conduct, and negligent of her fame, he leaves her to superintend the musical dissipations of his house, and lays the scene of his own licentious amusements abroad. The female heart is naturally susceptible, and much influenced by first impressions. Formed for love, and gratefully attached by delicate attentions; but chilled by neglect, and frozen by coldness,—by contempt it is estranged, and by habitual and long-continued inconstancy sometimes lost.

To show that our unfortunate victim to parental ambition has suffered this mortifying climax of provocation, the artist has made a digression, and exhibited her profligate husband attending a quack doctor. In the last plate he appears to have dissipated his fortune; in this he has injured his health. From the hour of marriage he has neglected the woman to whom he plighted his troth. Can we wonder at her conduct? By the Viscount she was despised; by the Counsellor adored. This insidious, insinuating villain, we may naturally suppose acquainted with every part of the nobleman's conduct, and artful enough to make a proper advantage of his knowledge. From such an agent the Countess would probably learn how her lord was connected: from his subtle suggestions, being aided by resentment, she is tempted to think that these accumulated insults have dissolved the marriage vow, and given her a right to retaliate. Thus impelled, thus irritated, and attended by such an advocate, can we wonder that this fair unfortunate deserted from the standard of honour, and sought refuge in the camp of infamy? To her husband many of her errors must be attributed. She saw he despised her, and therefore hated him; found that he had bestowed his affections on another, and followed his example. To show the consequence of his unrestrained wanderings, the author, in this plate, exhibits his hero in the house of one of those needy empirics who play upon public credulity, and vend poisons under the name of drugs. This quack being family surgeon to the old procuress who stands at his right hand, formerly attended the young girl, and received his fee as having recovered his patient. That he was paid for what he did not perform, appears by the countenance of the enraged nobleman, who lifts up his cane in a threatening style, accompanying the action with a promise to bastinado both surgeon and procuress for having deceived him by a false bill of health. These menaces our natural son of Æsculapius treats with that careless nonchalance which shows that his ears are accustomed to such sounds; but the haggard high priestess of the temple of Venus,[10] tenacious of her good name, and tremblingly alive to any aspersion which may tend to injure her professional reputation, unclasps her knife, determined to wash out this foul stain upon her honour with the blood of her accuser.

The nick-nackitory collection that forms this motley museum is exactly described by Doctor Garth; one would almost think Hogarth made the dispensary his model in designing the print.

An horn of the sea unicorn is so placed as to give the idea of a barber's pole; this, with the pewter basin and broken comb, clearly indicate the former profession of our mock doctor. The high-crowned hat and antique spur, which might once have been the property of Butler's redoubted knight, the valiant Hudibras, with a model of the gallows, and sundry nondescript rarities, show us that this great man, if not already a member of the Antiquarian Society, is qualifying himself to be a candidate. The dried body[11] in the glass-case, placed between a skeleton and the sage's wig-block, form a trio that might serve as the symbol of a consultation of physicians. A figure above the mummies seems at first sight to be decorated with a flowing periwig, but on a close inspection will be found intended for one of Sir John Mandeville's anthropophagi, a sort of men "whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders." Even the skulls have character; and the principal mummy has so majestic an aspect, that one is almost tempted to believe it the mighty Cheops, king of Egypt, whose body was certainly to be known, being the only one entombed in the large pyramid.[12]

By two machines, constructed upon the most complicated principles, though intended for performing very simple operations, we discover that our quack studies mechanics. On one of them lies a folio treatise descriptive of their uses; by which we are informed that the largest is to reduce a dislocated limb, the smallest is to draw a cork!—each of them invented by Monsieur De la Pilulæ, and inspected and approved by the Royal Academy of Paris.

PLATE IV.

By the old Peer's death our fair heroine has attained the summit of her wishes, and become a Countess. Intoxicated by this elevation, and vain of her new dignity, she ranges through the whole circle of frivolous amusements, and treads every maze of fashionable dissipation. Her excesses are rendered still more criminal by the consequent neglect of domestic duties; for, by the coral on the back of her chair, we are led to suppose that she is a mother. Her morning levee is crowded with persons of rank, and attended by her paramour, and that contemptible shadow of man, an Italian singer, with whose dulcet notes two of our right honourable group seem in the highest degree enraptured. This bloated animal, carelessly and consequentially leaning back in his chair, is dressed in a richly embroidered coat, and every finger is loaded with a diamond. Though in a morning, his solitaire, kneebands, and shoes are decorated with gems.[14] He is quavering,

That our extravagant Countess purchased the pipe of this expensive exotic in mere compliance to the fashion of the day, without any real taste for his mellifluous warblings, is intimated by the absorbed attention which she pays to the Advocate, who, with the luxuriant indolent grace of an Eastern effendi, is lolling on a sofa at her right hand. By his pointing to the folding screen, on which is delineated a masquerade revel,[15] at the same time that he shows his infatuated inamorato a ticket of admission, we see that they are making an assignation for the evening. The fatal consequences of their unfortunate meeting is displayed in the two succeeding plates. A Swiss servant, who is dressing her hair, has all the grimace of his country; he is the complete Canton of the Clandestine Marriage. The contemptuous leer of a black footman, serving chocolate, is evidently directed to the singer, and forms an admirable contrast to the die-away lady seated before him,[16] who, lost to every sense but that of hearing, is exalted to the third heaven by the enchanting song of this pampered Italian. On the country gentleman,[17] with a whip in his hand, it has quite a different effect; with the echoing "Tally ho!" he would be exhilarated; by the soft sounds of Italia, his soul is lulled to rest. The fine feeling creature, with a fan suspended from its wrist, is marked with that foolish face of praise which understands nothing, but admires everything that it is the ton to admire! The taper supporters of Monsieur en papillote are admirably opposed to the lumbering pedestals of our mummy of music. The figure behind him[18] blows a flute with every muscle of his face. A little black boy in the opposite corner, examining a collection of grotesque china ornaments which have been purchased at the sale of Esquire Timothy Babyhouse, pays great attention to a figure of Acteon, and with a very significant leer points to his horns. Under a delineation of Jupiter and Leda, on a china dish, is written, "Julio Romano!" The fantastic group of hydras, gorgons, and chimeras dire, which lie near it, are an admirable specimen of the absurd and shapeless monsters which disgraced our drawing-rooms until the introduction of Etrurian ornaments. By the fantastic decorations upon a chimney-piece in the second plate, we saw that our fashionable pair had a taste, and this taste may have been one source of their embarrassments. Another of their follies which, when gaming is united to it, will level their lofty forests and lay their proudest mansions in the dust, is displayed in the cards of invitation scattered on the floor. They afford a good specimen of polite literature, and the writers deserve a niche in the catalogue of royal and noble authors. The list follows:—

"Count Basset desire to no how Lady Squander sleep last nite."

"Lord Squander's company is desired at Lady Townley's drum. Monday next."

"Lady Squander's company is desired at Miss Hairbrain's rout."

"Lady Squander's company is desired at Lady Heathen's drum-major. Sunday next."

The pictures in this dressing-room are well suited to the profligate proprietor, and may be further intended as a burlesque on the strange and grossly indelicate subjects so frequently painted by ancient masters: Lot and his daughters; Ganymede and the Eagle;[19] Jupiter and Io; and a portrait of the young Lawyer, who is the favourite—the cicisbeo—or more properly, the seducer of the Countess.

This print was engraved by Ravenet, who has preserved the characters.

PLATE V.

Our exasperated Peer, suspecting his wife's infidelity, follows her in disguise to the masquerade, and from thence traces these two votaries of vice to a bagnio. Finding they are retired to a bedroom, he bursts open the door, and attacks the spoiler of his honour with a drawn sword. Too much irritated to be prudent, and too violent to be cautious, he thinks only of revenge; and, making a furious thrust at the Counsellor, neglects his own guard, and is mortally wounded. The miscreant who had basely destroyed his peace and deprived him of life is not bold enough to meet the consequences. Destitute of that courage which is the companion of virtue, and possessing no spark of that honour which ought to distinguish the gentleman; dreading the avenging hand of offended justice, he makes a mean and precipitate retreat. Leaving him to the fate which awaits him, let us return to the deluded Countess. Feeling some pangs from a recollection of her former conduct, some touches of shame at her detection, and a degree of horror at the fate of her husband, she kneels at his feet, and entreats forgiveness.

There is reason to fear that they flow from regret at the detection rather than remorse for the crime; a woman vitiated in the vortex of dissipation is not likely to feel that ingenuous shame which accompanies a good mind torn by the consciousness of having deviated from the path of virtue.

Alarmed at the noise occasioned by this fatal rencontre, the inmates of the brothel called a watchman: accompanied by a constable, this nocturnal guardian is ushered into the room by the master of the house, whose meagre and trembling figure is well opposed to the consequential magistrate of the night. The watchman's lantern we see over their heads, but the bearer knows his duty is to follow his superiors; conscious that though the front may be a post of honour, yet in a service of danger the rear is a station of safety.

Immediately over the door is a picture of St. Luke; this venerable apostle being a painter, is so delineated that he seems looking at the scene now passing, and either making a sketch or a record of the transaction. On the hangings is a lively representation of Solomon's wise judgment.[20] The countenance of the sapient monarch is not sagacious, but his attitude is in an eminent degree dignified, and his air commanding and regal. He really looks like a tyrant in old tapestry; and the arm of a chair is ornamented by a carving fraught with that terrific grace peculiar to the ancient masters. We cannot say that the Hebrew women who attend for judgment are either comely or fair to look upon. Were not the scene laid in Jerusalem, they might pass for two of the silver-toned Naiades of our own Billingsgate.

The grisly guards have a most rueful and tremendous appearance. The attractive portrait of a Drury Lane Diana,[21] with a butcher's steel in one hand and a squirrel perched on the other, is hung in such a situation that the Herculean pedestals of a Jewish soldier may be supposed to be a delineation of her legs continued below the frame.

Our Counsellor's mask lies on the floor, and grins horribly, as if conscious of the fatal catastrophe. Dominoes, shoes, etc., scattered around the room, show the negligence of the ill-fated Countess, unattended by her femme de chambre. From a faggot and the shadow of a pair of tongs, we may infer that there is a fire in the room.[22] A bill near them implies that this elegant apartment is at the Turk's Head bagnio.

The dying agony of the Earl (whose face is evidently retouched by Hogarth), the eager entreaty of the Countess, the terror of mine host, and the vulgar inflected dignity of Mr. Constable, are admirably discriminated.

I have stated in the former editions that the background of this plate was engraved by Ravenet's wife, but am since informed by Mr. Charles Grignion, the engraver, that this is a mistake. See vol. iii. of this work.

PLATE VI.

Dreadful as is this resolve, she puts it in execution by bribing the servant of her father to procure her a dose of laudanum. Close to the vial, which lies on the floor, Hogarth has judiciously placed Counsellor Silvertongue's last dying speech, thus intimating that he also has suffered the punishment he justly merited.[23] The records of their fate being thus situated, seems to imply, that as they were united in vice, they are companions in the consequences. These two terrific and monitory testimonies are a kind of propitiatory sacrifice to the manes of her injured and murdered lord.

Her avaricious father, seeing his daughter at the point of death, and knowing the value of her diamond ring, determined to secure this glittering gem from the depredations of the old nurse, coolly draws it from her finger. This little circumstance shows a prominent feature of his mind. Every sense of feeling absorbed in extreme avarice, he seems at this moment calculating how many carats the brilliants weigh.

From a gown hung up near the clock we know him to be an alderman; and from his sleek appearance, we have some right to infer that he is constant in his attendance at city feasts, for so comely a countenance could never be supported by the scanty and meagre viands of his own table. His domestic care is intimated by the gaunt and hungry appearance of a dog, who, taking advantage of this general confusion, seizes the brawn's head.[24]

A rickety child, heir to the complaints of its father, shows some tenderness for its expiring mother; and the grievous whine of an old nurse is most admirably described. These are the only two of the party who exhibit any marks of sorrow for the death of our wretched Countess. The smug apothecary, indeed, displays some symptoms of vexation at his patient dying before she has taken his julap, the label of which hangs out of his pocket. Her constitution, though impaired by grief, promised to have lasted long enough for him to have marked many additional dittos in his day-book. Pointing to the dying speech, he threatens the terrified footboy with a punishment similar to that of the Counsellor for having bought the laudanum. The fellow protests his innocence, and promises never more to be guilty of a like offence. The effects of fear on an ignorant rustic cannot be better delineated; nor is it easy to conceive a more ludicrous figure than this awkward retainer, dressed in an old full-trimmed coat, which in its better days had been the property of his master. By the physician retreating, we are led to conceive that, finding his patient had dared to quit the world in an irregular way, neither abiding by his prescriptions nor waiting for his permission, he cast an indignant frown on all present, and exclaimed in style heroic,

The leathern buckets immediately over the Doctor's head were, previous to the introduction of fire-engines, considered as proper furniture for a merchant's hall. Every ornament in his parlour is highly and exactly appropriate to the man. The style of his pictures, his clock, a cobweb over the window, repaired chair, nay, the very form of his hat, are characteristic. A silver cup upon the table, and jug on the floor, show us his style of living. The scantiness of his own table is well contrasted by the plenty exhibited in the picture over the old nurse's head, where iron pots, brass pans, cabbages, and lanterns, are indiscriminately huddled together, with no other meaning than to show how highly a Flemish artist could finish. The attic delicacy of this patient and laborious school is displayed in the adjoining picture; and their humour, in that of a fellow wittily lighting his tobacco-pipe by the red nose of his companion.[25] The pipe and bottle placed under the day-book and ledger, and the whole crowned by a broken punch-bowl, intimate that this venerable gentleman united business with pleasure. The view through an open window marks the situation of our plodding merchant's house to be near London Bridge, and represents that absurd and ill-contrived structure in its original state, loaded with houses. A clock points the hour to be a little after eleven, which at this highly polished and refined period would be deemed an early hour for a citizen's breakfast; at that, it was his hour of dinner!

Thus has our moral dramatist concluded his tragedy, and brought his heroine from dissipation and vice to misery and shame, terminating her existence by suicide!

The drama of Shakspeare has been said to be the mirror of life, which to-day we see lighted up with gaiety, and to-morrow clouded with sorrow. Shakspeare had the power of exciting laughter or grief, not only in one mind, but in one composition. That Hogarth had the same power, and exerted it with the same disdain of the little cavils of little minds, is evinced in this series of prints; from the study of which, a peasant, who has never strayed beyond the precincts of his own cottage, may calculate the consequences of dissipation; and he who has lived secluded from society, may form an estimate of the value of riches and high birth when abused by prodigality or degraded by vice.

In the year 1746 was published a coarse and vulgar poem, in doggerel verse, with the following title: "Marriage à la Mode, an humorous tale in six cantos, in Hudibrastic verse, being an Explanation of the six Prints lately published by the ingenious Mr. Hogarth. London, printed for Weaver Bickerton, in Temple Exchange Passage, Fleet Street. Price One Shilling."

The Clandestine Marriage is professedly formed upon the model of these prints.

THE FOUR STAGES OF CRUELTY.

This pathetic lesson of humanity is given by the poet of nature. Aiming at the same end by different means, our benevolent artist here steps forth as the instructor of youth, the friend to mercy, and advocate of the brute creation.

In the prints before us, an obdurate boy begins his career of cruelty by tormenting animals; repeated acts of barbarity sear his heart, he commits a deliberate murder, and concludes in an ignominious death. These gradations are natural, I had almost said inevitable; and that parent who discovers the germ of barbarity in the mind of a child, and does not use every effort to exterminate the noxious weed, is an accessory to the evils which spring from its baneful growth. To check these malign propensities becomes more necessary from the general tendency of our amusements. Most of our rural and even infantine sports are savage and ferocious. They arise from the terror, misery, or death of helpless animals. A child in the nursery is taught to impale butterflies and cockchafers. The schoolboy's proud delight is clambering a tree

Grown a gentle angler, he snares the scaly fry, and scatters leaden death among the feathered tenants of the air. Ripened to man, he becomes a mighty hunter, is enamoured of the chase, and crimsons his spurs in the sides of a generous courser, whose wind he breaks in the pursuit of an inoffensive deer or timid hare.

Many of our town diversions have the same tendency. The bird, whose melodious warblings echo through the grove, is imprisoned in a sort of a Bastille, where, like an unplumed biped in a similar situation, it frequently perishes through anguish or want of food. The high-crested chanticleer, whose courage is innate, and only vanquished by death, is furnished with weapons of pointed steel, when, set in opposition to one of the same species, armed in a similar style, these two champions, for the diversion of the humane lords of the creation, lacerate each other until one or both of them are slain.

The faithful dog, whose attachment and gratitude are exemplary, and worthy the imitation of man, when in the possession of a farmer, or country 'squire, is well fed, and has no great cause of complaint, except his ears and tail being lopped to improve nature, and having a rib now and then broken by a gentle spurn; but if the poor quadruped falls into the hands of a tanner, a surgeon, or an experimental philosopher, of what avail are his good qualities?[26]

The Abyssinian cruelties of our slaughter-houses[27] and kitchens[28] I do not wish to enumerate. The catalogue would fill a volume. Humanity demands that the brute creation should be protected by the Legislature.

The Mosaic Law, to guard against tortures being inflicted on animals which were slaughtered for sustenance, ordained them to die by a highly polished and pointed instrument; if the bone was pierced, or the beast mangled, it was deemed unclean, and burnt.

FIRST STAGE OF CRUELTY.

The delineation of such scenes must shock every feeling heart, and their enumeration disgust every humane mind. I hope, for the honour of our nature and our nation, that they are not so frequently practised as when these prints were published.

The hero of this tragic tale is Tom Nero: by a badge upon his arm, we know him to be one of the boys of St. Giles' Charity School. The horrible business in which he is engaged was, I hope and believe, never realized in this or any other country. The thought is taken from Callot's "Temptation of St. Anthony." A youth of superior rank, shocked at such cruelty, offers his tart to redeem the dog from torture. This Hogarth intended for the portrait of an illustrious personage, then about thirteen years of age; the compliment was rather coarse, but well intended. A lad chalking on a wall the suspended figure, inscribed Tom Nero, prepares us for the future fate of this young tyrant, and shows by anticipation the reward of cruelty.

Throwing at cocks might possibly have its origin in what some of our sagacious politicians call a natural enmity to France, which is thus humanely exercised against the allegorical symbol of that nation. A boy tying a bone to the tail of his dog, while the kind-hearted animal licks his hand, must have a most diabolical disposition.[29] Two little imps are burning out the eyes of a bird with a knitting-needle. A group of embryotic Domitians, who have tied two cats to the extremities of a rope and hung it over a lamp-iron, to see how delightfully they will tear each other, are marked with grim delight. The link-boy is absolutely a Lilliputian fiend. The fellow encouraging a dog to worry a cat, and two animals of the same species thrown out of a garret window with bladders fastened to them, completes this mortifying prospect of youthful depravity.

SECOND STAGE OF CRUELTY.

Tom Nero is now a hackney coachman, and displaying his disposition in his conduct to a horse. Worn out by ill-usage, and exhausted by fatigue, the poor animal has fallen down, overset the carriage, and broken his leg. The scene is laid at Thavie's Inn gate:[30] four brethren of the brawling bar, who have joined to pay threepence each for a ride to Westminster Hall, are in consequence of the accident overturned, and exhibited at the moment of creeping out of the carriage. These ludicrous periwig-pated personages were probably intended as portraits of advocates eminent in their day; their names I am not able to record.

A man taking the number of the coach is marked with traits of benevolence, which separate him from the savage ferocity of Nero or the guilty terror of these affrighted lawyers.

As a further exemplification of extreme barbarity, a drover is beating an expiring lamb with a large club. The wheels of a dray pass over an unfortunate boy, while the drayman, regardless of consequences, sleeps on the shafts.[31]

In the background is a poor overladen ass: the master, presuming on the strength of this patient and ill-treated animal, has mounted upon his back, and taken a loaded porter behind him. An over-driven bull, followed by a crowd of heroic spirits, has tossed a boy.[32] Two bills pasted on the wall advertise cock-fighting and Broughton's Amphitheatre[33] for boxing, as further specimens of national civilisation.

Parts of this print may at first sight appear rather overcharged, but some recent examples convince us that they are not so. In the year 1790, a fellow was convicted of lacerating and tearing out the tongue of a horse; but there being no evidence of his bearing any malice towards the proprietor, or doing it with a view of injuring him, this diabolical wretch, not having violated any then existing statute, was discharged without punishment.

CRUELTY IN PERFECTION.