HOGARTH'S WORKS:
WITH
LIFE AND ANECDOTAL DESCRIPTIONS OF HIS PICTURES.
—◆—
SECOND SERIES.

LIST OF PLATES

DESCRIBED IN THE SECOND SERIES.

HOGARTH ILLUSTRATED.

MARRIAGE A LA MODE.

"'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:—

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:—

EXPLANATION

OF THE PAINTINGS OF THE LATE MR. HOGARTH, CALLED

MARRIAGE A LA MODE.

The First Picture.

"There is always a something wanting to make men happy: the great think themselves not sufficiently rich, and the rich believe themselves not enough distinguished. This is the case of the Alderman of London, and the motive which makes him covet for his daughter the alliance of a great lord; who, on his part, does not consent thereto but on condition of enriching his son;—and this is what the painter calls marriage à la mode.

"These sort of marriages are truly but too common in England; and it is, moreover, not unfrequent to see them unhappy as they are ill chosen. The two figures of the Alderman and the Earl are in every respect so well characterized that they explain themselves. The Alderman, with an air of business, counts his money like a man used to this employment; and the Earl, full of his titles and the greatness of his birth, which he lets you see goes as high as William the Conqueror, is in an attitude which shows him full of pride; you think you hear him say me, my arms, my titles, my family, my ancestors: everything about him carries marks of distinction; his very crutches, the humbling consequence of his infirmities, are decked with an earl's coronet; these infirmities are introduced here as the usual consequence of that irregularity of living but too frequent among the great. The two persons who are betrothed, on their parts are by no means attentive to one another: the one looks at himself in the glass, is taking snuff, and thinking of nothing; the other is playing negligently with a ring, and seems to hear with indifference the conversation of a kind of a lawyer who attends the execution of the marriage articles. Another lawyer is exclaiming with admiration on the beauty of a building seen at a distance, and upon which the Earl has spent his whole fortune, and has not sufficient to finish the same. A number of idle footmen, who are about the court of this building, finish the representation of the ruinous pageantry in which the Earl is engaged."

The Second Picture.

"That indifference between the parties which preceded marriage à la mode has not been wanting to follow it. We unite ourselves by contract, and we live separately by inclination. Tired and fatigued one of another, such husbands and wives have nothing in common but a house, tiresome to the husband, and into which he enters as late as he can; and which would not be less tiresome to the lady, was it not sometimes the theatre of other pleasures, either in entertainments or routs. There is here represented a room where there has just been one of these routs, and the company just separated, as you see by the wax candles not yet extinguished. The clock shows you it is noon; and this anticipation of the night upon the day is not the slightest of those strokes which are intended to show the disorder which reigns in the house. Madam, who has just had her tea, is in an attitude which explains itself perhaps too much. Be that as it will, the painter's intention is to represent this lady neglected by her husband, under dispositions which make a perfect contrast with the present situation of this husband, who is just come home, and who appears in a state of the most perfect indifference; fatigued, exhausted, and glutted with pleasure. This figure of the husband, by the novelty of its turn, the delicacy and truth of its expression, is most happily executed. A steward of an old stamp, one of those, if such there be, who are contented with their salary, seizes this moment, not being able to find another, to settle some accounts. The disorder which he perceives gives him a motion which expresses his chagrin, and his fear for the speedy ruin of his master."

The Third Picture.

"The bad conduct of the hero of the piece must be shown here; the painter for this purpose introduces him into the apartment of a quack, where he would not have been but for his debauchery. He makes him meet at the same time, at this quack's, one of those women who, being ruined themselves long since, make afterwards the ruin of others their occupation. A quarrel is supposed to have arisen between this woman and our hero, and the subject thereof appears to be the bad condition, in point of health, of a young girl, from a commerce with whom he had received an injury. This poor girl makes here a contrast, on account of her age, her fearfulness, her softness, with the character of the other woman, who appears a composition of rage, madness, and of all other crimes which usually accompany these abandoned women towards those of their own sex. The doctor and his apartment are objects thrown in by way of episode. Although heretofore only a barber, he is now, if you judge by the appearance he makes, not only a surgeon, but a naturalist, a chemist, a mechanic, a physician, and an apothecary; and to heighten the ridicule, you see he is a Frenchman. The painter, to finish this character according to his own idea, makes him the inventor of machines extremely complicated for the most simple operations; as, one to reduce a dislocated limb, and another to draw the cork out of a bottle."

The Fourth Picture.

"This piece is amusing by the variety of characters therein represented. Let us begin with the principal; and this is Madam at her toilette: a French valet de chambre is putting the finishing stroke to her dress. The painter supposes her returned from one of those auctions of old goods, pictures, and an hundred other things which are so common at London, and where numbers of people of condition are duped. It is there that, for emulation, and only not to give place to another in point of expense, a woman buys at a great price an ugly pagod, without taste, without worth, and which she has no sort of occasion for. It is there also that an opportunity is found of conversing, without scandal, with people whom you cannot see anywhere else. The things which you see on the floor are the valuable acquisitions our heroine has just made at one of those auctions. It is extremely fashionable at London, to have at your house one of those melodious animals which are brought from Italy at great expense; there appears one here, whose figure sufficiently distinguishes him to those who have once seen one of those unhappy victims of the rage of Italians for music. The woman there is charmed, almost to fainting, with the ravishing voice of this singer; but the rest of the company do not seem so sensible of it. The country gentleman, fatigued at a stag or a fox chase, is fallen asleep. You see there, with his hair in papers, one of those personages who pass their whole life in endeavouring to please, but without succeeding; and there, with a fan in his hand, you see one of those heretics in love, a disciple of Anacreon. You see likewise, on the couch, the lawyer who is introduced in the first picture, talking to the lady. He appears to have taken advantage of the indifference of the husband, and that his affairs are pretty far advanced since the first scene. He is proposing the masquerade to his mistress, who does not fail to accept of it. The next piece proceeds to present to you the frightful consequences of this step."

The Fifth Picture.

"The houses of bagnio-keepers are yet at Paris what they were heretofore at London: but now the bath is but the accessory, the appendix of the bagnio-keepers of this country, and excepting two or three of their houses, the others have for the principal view of their establishment the reception of any couple, well or ill sorted, who are desirous of a chamber, or a bed, for an hour or a night. The price is fixed in each house: there are some where you pay five shillings, in others half a guinea: you enter both into one and the other at any time with a great deal of safety, and are received there with all the complaisance imaginable. Nothing is better furnished, more clean, and better conducted than these houses of debauchery. The masqueraders often make assignations at these places; and it is for such an assignation that our heroine has accepted of the ticket which her lover offers her in the former piece. A husband, whose wife goes to the masquerade without him, is not without his inquietudes; it is natural that ours here has secretly followed his wife thither, and from thence to the bagnio, where he finds her in bed with the lawyer. They fight;—the husband is mortally wounded: his wife, upon her knees, is making useless protestations of her remorse. The watchmen enter; and the lawyer, in his shirt, is getting out of the window."

The Sixth Picture.

"We are now at the house of the Alderman. London Bridge, which is seen through the window, shows the quarter where the people of business live. The furniture of this house does not contribute to its ornament;—everything shows niggardliness; and the dinner, which is on the table, the highest frugality. You see the tobacco-pipes set by in the corner: this, too, is a mark of great economy. Some pictures you see, upon very low subjects, to give you to understand by this choice that persons who, like the Alderman, pass their whole life in thinking of nothing but enriching themselves, generally want taste and elegance. Besides, everything here is contrasted with what you saw at the Earl's: the pride of one, and the sordidness of the other, are always equally ridiculous by the odd subjects of the pictures which are there seen; but generally in the choice of pictures, neither the analogy, taste, or agreement one with another are consulted. The broker only is advised with, who on his part consults only his own interest, of which he is much more capable of being a judge than he is of painting; like a seller of old books, who knows how to say, Here is an Elzevir Horace, or one of the Louvre edition,—and who knows all this without being acquainted with poetry, or capable of distinguishing an epigram from an epic poem. There is only one difference between a bookseller and a broker: the first has certain marks by which he knows the edition; and the other is obliged to have recourse to inspiration, which is the only way whereby he is able to judge infallibly, as he does, whether a picture is an original or no. But to return to our subject. The daughter of the Alderman, now a widow, is returned to her father. Her lover has been taken and hanged for the murder of her husband: this she has learned from the dying speech which is at her foot upon the floor. A conscience disturbed and tormented with remorse is very soon driven to despair. This woman, who by the consequence of her infidelity has destroyed her husband, her lover, her reputation, and her quiet, has nothing to lose but her life. This she does by taking laudanum. She dies. An old servant in tears makes her kiss her child, the melancholy production of an unfortunate marriage. The Alderman, more sensible of the least acquisition than of the most tragical events, takes, without emotion, a ring from the finger of his expiring daughter. The apothecary is severely reprimanding the ridiculous footman of the house who had procured the poison, the effects of which finish the catastrophe."

Thus ends this explanation; and whether it was copied from what Hogarth wrote, or, as is more probable, made up from verbal remarks which he had made at different times, it does not in any material points differ from the following description of the plates, which was published some years before the editor saw or heard of the above paper.

PLATE I.

It has been observed that woman, among savages, is a beast of burden; in the East, a piece of furniture; and in Europe, a spoiled child. Under the last denomination we may safely class the heroine of this history. She has all the pouting humours of a boarding-school girl. This alliance originated in her father wishing to aggrandize his family, and the sire of the Viscount wishing to clear his estate. These purposes answered, the two patriarchs troubled themselves no further. A similarity of disposition, or union of hearts, the nobleman considered as too vulgar an idea for a man of rank; and in the citizen's ledger of happiness there were no such items. Their dispositions are strongly marked by the different objects which engage their attention.

The portly nobleman, with the conscious dignity of high birth, displays his genealogical tree, the root of which is "William Duke of Normandy, and conqueror of England." The valour of his great progenitor, and the various merits of the collateral branches which dignify his pedigree, he considers as united in his own person, and therefore looks upon an alliance with his son as the acme of honour, the apex of exaltation. While he is thus glorying in the dust of which his ancestors were once compounded, the prudent citizen, who in return for it has parted with dust of a much more weighty and useful description, paying no regard to this heraldic blazonry, devotes all his attention to the marriage settlement. The haughty and supercilious Peer is absorbed in the contemplation of his illustrious ancestry, while the worshipful Alderman, regardless of the past, and considering the present as merely preparatory for the future, calculates what provision there will be for a young family. Engrossed by their favourite reflections, neither of these sagacious personages regards the want of attachment in those who are to be united as worthy a moment's consideration. To do the Viscount justice, he seems equally indifferent; for though evidently in love—it is with himself. Gazing in the mirror with delight,[1] and in an affected style displaying his gold snuff-box and glittering ring, he is quite a husband à la mode. The lady, very well disposed to retaliate, plays with her wedding-ring, and repays this chilling coldness with sullen contempt; her heart is not worth the Viscount's attention, and she determines to bestow it on the first suitor. An insidious lawyer, like an evil spirit ever ready to move or second a temptation, appears at her right hand. That he is an eloquent pleader, is intimated by his name, Counsellor Silvertongue: that he can make the worse appear the better cause, is only saying in other words that he is great in the profession. To predict that with such an advocate her virtue is in danger, would not be sufficiently expressive. His captivating tones and insinuating manners would have ensnared Lucretia.

Two dogs in a corner, coupled against their inclinations, are good emblems of the ceremony which is to pass.[2]

The ceiling of this magnificent apartment is decorated with the story of Pharaoh and his host drowned in the Red Sea. The ocean on a ceiling proves a projector's taste,[3] and attention to the costume; the sublimity of a painter is exemplified in the hero delineated with one of the attributes of Jove. This fluttering figure is probably intended for one of the Peer's high-born ancestors, and is invested with the Golden Fleece and some other foreign orders. To give him still greater dignity, he is in the character of Jupiter; while one hand holds up an ample robe, the other grasps a thunderbolt. A comet is taking its rapid course over his head; and in one corner of the picture two of the family of Boreas are judiciously blowing contrary ways. To some such supernatural cause we must attribute the drapery and long peruke flying in opposite directions. Immediately before him a cannon is represented in the moment of explosion: to leave the spectator no doubt of its being intended for serious business, and not as a mere feu-de-joie, the ball is seen in its progress. All this is ridiculous enough, but not an iota more absurd than many of the French portraits which Hogarth evidently intended to burlesque by this parody.[4] Their painters have mistaken extravagance for spirit, and violence for freedom. Fine as are many of their engravings, they frequently give us lines that resemble the flourishes of a writing-master more than the free strokes of an artist.

In the painting which represents Goliah slain by David, the gigantic Philistine is stretched on the earth, and, in truth, appears to cover many a rood. Beneath is the merciful Judith: one hand grasps the sword with which she decollated Holofernes, and the other rests upon his bleeding head. The adjoining picture exhibits a view of St. Sebastian pierced with arrows, and that on the other side of the room displays Prometheus and the vulture; beneath is a representation of Cain slaying Abel. St. Lawrence upon the gridiron is placed under a painting of Herod's cruelty. As the ornament of a chandelier, over the sofa on which the hymeneal pair are seated, is a relievo of Medusa's head; both this and other agreeable subjects may possibly have some covert allusions, but to me they are not obvious.

Hogarth's leading object in them all seems to be a ridicule of those who gave these barbarous delineations a preference to his own paintings.

The self-important consequence of the noble inhabitant of this mansion is displayed in every part of his furniture. The coronet glitters not only upon the canopy, but the crutches; is mounted upon the frame of the mirror, and marked on the side of the dog.

Mr. Nichols observes, that "among such little circumstances as might escape the notice of a careless spectator, is the thief in the candle, emblematical of the mortgage on his lordship's estate."—As the mortgage is now paying, one thinks the thief might have been spared. The artist, however, might mean to intimate that his lordship's estate was run to waste by the negligence and carelessness of the proprietor. The same commentator properly remarks that the unfinished edifice seems at a stand for want of money, no workman appearing on the scaffolds, or near them; and adds, that a number of figures which are before the building were designed for "the lazy vermin of his lordship's hall, who, having nothing else to do, are sitting on the blocks of stone, or staring at the building."

The characters in this print are admirably marked. Nothing can be better contrasted than the cautious, calculating countenance of the Alderman, and the haughty overbearing air of the Peer. To this may be added the stare of the Serjeant, astonished at so magnificent an edifice, and the cunning craft of the Usurer delivering up the mortgage.

The plate was engraved by G. Scotin, and published April 1, 1745.

PLATE II.