The original from which this plate is copied is in Jarvis' quarto translation, without either painter's or engraver's name; but the style of the etching, and air of the figures, indisputably determine the artist. It represents our heroic candidate for fame, before he had received the honour of knighthood, at the door of an inn, which he considered as a castle; the host holding his horse's bridle, and two young female travellers looking with astonishment at his figure. In the distance is a swineherd blowing his horn, which our adventurer mistakes for a trumpet sounded by a dwarf on the battlements, to announce his approaching the portico of the castle.—Vide Shelton, p. 3.
The original of this print is in my possession, and was designed to represent the innkeeper conferring the order of knighthood on Don Quixote, but for some cause, not now known, never finished. The artist probably intended that it should form a part of the series begun for Lord Carteret, but the other six being discarded, never completed his design; though a slight outline of the Don kneeling to receive his new honours is discernible in the corner of the print. Mine host, though a large man, is a less portly personage than the author describes. This print is not in any of the catalogues of Hogarth's works, but the style leaves little doubt of the artist.
In the plate from Vanderbank, in Jarvis' quarto, representing the whole scene, the innkeeper has a more than accidental resemblance to this figure.
The stern attention which our Don gives to the Shepherdess Marcella, who is vindicating herself to those that surround the corpse, well expresses his determination to defend her cause, and protect her from insult. The shepherd in a similar attitude to the soldier in Vandyke's "Belisarius," and Sancho blubbering with his finger in his eye, are well-imagined; but the figure of Marcella is affected and stiff, and the shepherd on her right hand has more city pertness than rural simplicity.
Vanderbank has taken this scene for one of the prints in Jarvis' translation, and by placing Marcella where she ought to be, on the summit of the rock, rendered his design more picturesque than Hogarth's.—Vide Shelton, p. 10.
Don Quixote's adventure with the Yanguessian carriers having terminated in his being most bountifully beaten, he is here represented in the hay-loft of a very sorry inn, attended by the hostess and her daughter, Maritornes, and his faithful squire; the two former administering comfort to his sufferings, the third holding a candle; and the last, with a most rueful countenance, bewailing his own unfortunate participation in the buffetings of his lord and master.
The picture which Cervantes draws of Maritornes, Hogarth has well transferred to the copper. Thus is she portrayed:—
"From head to heel she was not seven palms[118] high, and burdened with shoulders that forced her to look down more than she wished. Added to this, she was broad-faced, flat-pated, saddle-nosed, blind of one eye, and could scarcely see out of the other."
The hostess could not have been better marked by the pencil of Teniers; the owl perched over her head should not be overlooked. That, as well as the rope hung to a beam, cracked walls, etc. etc., added to the miserable figure of the knight reclined on his hard pallet, display variety of wretchedness. I do not recollect to have seen a print in which the light is more judiciously distributed; in this and every other particular, I think it much superior to the same scene designed by Vanderbank in Jarvis' quarto translation.—Vide Shelton, p. 29.
In this print the face and figure of the fierce knight is spirited; the terror and astonishment of the discomfited barber well expressed, and the triumphant shout of Sancho in the distance admirably characteristic. Notwithstanding this, I think that Vanderbank's design for Jarvis, where the squire is brought into the foreground, contemplating the glittering prize, is a better chosen point of time. To Sancho he has given a mixture of cunning and simplicity which I have seldom seen so happily displayed; and taken as a whole, it is perhaps a superior plate to Hogarth's.—Vide Shelton, p. 42.
The moment taken in this busy scene is when our valorous knight, after having unhorsed one of the guards, is engaged with the other; while Sancho, willing to bear his part in the adventure, helps to extricate Gines de Passamonte from his bonds.
In this, as in some other of Hogarth's designs, the artist not having taken the trouble of reversing his drawing, the figures are left-handed. The character of Sancho, and two or three of the slaves, is admirable.
I think the whole design much superior to Vanderbank's in Jarvis' translation, where the scene is chosen after the discomfiture of the Guards; for to two or three of the thieves Vanderbank has given the countenances of apostles. His whole print is tame, feeble, and spiritless.—Vide Shelton, p. 47.
This interview, which took place in the mountains of Sierra Morena, Cervantes thus describes:—
"Cardenio approached with a grave pace, and in a hoarse voice saluted them with great courtesy. Don Quixote returned his greeting with no less complaisance, and pressed him strongly in his arms, as if they had been long acquainted. The Knight of the Rock, after he had been thus embraced, retreated a few steps, and, laying his hand on the Don's shoulder, perused his face with such earnestness, as though he were desirous of recollecting if he had ever seen him before, and no less admired Don Quixote's strange figure than himself was admired by our heroic knight-errant."
This is the point of time which Hogarth has chosen; and the wild eye of Cardenio, the placid benevolence of Don Quixote, and the shrewdness of the goatherd, are well opposed. From the air, attitude, and action of Sancho, I should have imagined the period to be after he had been mauled by the madman, did not the two knights so strongly determine it to be before.
In Vanderbank's design of the same subject (vide Jarvis' quarto), the figure of Sancho is tolerable, but the Don is vapid and ill-drawn; and Cardenio's head, like that of Medusa, looks as if it were encircled with snakes.—Vide Shelton, p. 51.
Don Quixote's old neighbours, the curate and barber, being desirous of checking his wandering disposition, are here disguising themselves for an interview, in which they hoped to bring him home, where they trusted he might again live as an old Christian ought to do. In pursuance of this plan, the barber procured an ample beard made from the tail of a pied ox; and the curate assumed the habit of a distressed virgin, and framed a tale of having been wronged by a naughty knight, to punish whom the Don was to be entreated to follow wherever this afflicted fair one should lead.
The dressing-room for this masquerade is the kitchen of an inn; out of the door, astride on a bench, inhaling copious draughts from a leathern bottle, Sancho gives some life to a little landscape in the distance.—Vide Shelton, p. 60.
"Sancho's dread doctor and his wand were there."
Though Don Quixote is the ostensible hero of this admirable history, I have sometimes thought that Sancho was the author's favourite character. He is here represented as Governor of Barataria, and seated in the spacious hall of a sumptuous palace, surrounded with all the pompous parade of high rank, and encircled by numerous attendants.[119] A band of musicians in an adjoining gallery strike up a symphony to gratify his ear, and a table is spread with every dainty to feast his eye and fret his soul; for however magnificent the appendages of this mock monarch, the instant he attempts to taste the solid comforts of government, the loaves and fishes evade his grasp, are touched by the black rod, and vanish!
"In plenty starving, tantaliz'd in state,"
he curses the gaudy unsubstantial pageant, vows vengeance on the Doctor, and swears that he will offer up both him and every physical impostor in the island as a sacrifice to his injured and insulted appetite.
Hogarth has here caught the true spirit of the author, and given to this scene the genuine humour of Cervantes. The rising choler of our Governor is admirably contrasted by the assumed gravity of Doctor Pedro Rezio. The starch and serious solemnity of a straight-haired student who officiates as chaplain, is well opposed by the broad grin of a curl-pated blackamoor. The suppressed laughter of a man who holds a napkin to his mouth forms a good antithesis to the open chuckle of a fat cook. Sancho's two pages bear a strong resemblance to the little punch-maker in the Election Feast, and though well conceived, might have had more variety; they present a front and back view of the same figure. To two females on the Viceroy's right hand there may be a similar objection.
The original print was designed and engraved at a very early period of Hogarth's life. As it was finished with more neatness than any of the eight which he afterwards etched for the same work, the copy is attempted in a similar style.
In the drawing, Sancho was originally portrayed with a full face; but Hogarth, judiciously thinking a profile would be preferable, fixed a bit of paper over his first thought, and altered it to the state in which it is here engraved.
The design that Vanderbank made from the same scene is cold and uninteresting; in another by Hayman, prefixed to Smollett's coarse translation, Sancho is fat enough for Falstaff, and the Doctor looks like a fellow dressed up to play the part of a conjuror in a puppet-show.—Vide Shelton, p. 221.
The spirited sketch from which this is copied has been thought the work of P. Mercier; but some of my subscribers thinking it bore a strong resemblance to Hogarth, I at their request submitted it to public opinion. It arose from the following circumstance:—
The late Duke of Montagu invited Heidegger to a tavern, where he was made drunk, and fell asleep; in that situation a mould of his face was taken, from which was made a mask; and the Duke provided a man of the same stature to appear in a similar dress, and wear it to personate Heidegger on the night of the next masquerade, when George the Second (who was apprised of the plot) was to be present. On his Majesty's entrance, Heidegger, as was usual, bade the music play "God save the King;" but no sooner was his back turned, than the impostor, assuming his voice and manner, ordered them to play "Charley over the Water." On this Heidegger raged, stamped, swore, and commanded "God save the King." The instant he retired, the impostor returned and ordered them to resume "Charley." The musicians thought their master drunk, but durst not disobey. The scene now became truly comic. Shame! shame! resounded from all parts of the theatre. Heidegger offered to discharge his band, when the impostor advanced and cried out in a plaintive tone, Sire, the whole fault lies with that devil in my likeness. This was too much: poor Heidegger turned round, grew pale, but could not speak. The Duke, seeing it take so serious a turn, ordered the fellow to unmask. Heidegger retired in great wrath, seated himself in an arm-chair, furiously commanded his attendants to extinguish the lights, and swore he would never again superintend the masquerade, unless the mask was defaced and the mould broken in his presence. For this purpose the man on his knee has a mallet stuck in his girdle.
As the first print which Hogarth published on his own account, usually denominated "The Small Masquerade Ticket," represents a large company eagerly pressing to the door of a masquerade, we have here the interior of the room crowded with a countless multitude of grotesque characters, celebrating the orgies of the place, which, in the following references engraved under the original print, are thus described:—
"A, a sacrifice to Priapus. B, a pair of Lecherometors, showing ye company's inclinations as they approach 'em. Invented for the use of ladys and gentlemen by ye ingenious Mr. H——r" (Heidegger).
This titular divinity of the gardens being thus considered as the god of their idolatry, his Term is entitled to the first notice. The arched niche in which it is placed is terminated by a goat's head, ornamented with a pair of branching antlers, and decorated with festooned curtains. Beneath is an altar, the base of which is relieved with rams' heads and flowers; and three pair of stags' horns are fixed to the top.
As a companion to it, the united statues of a Venus and Cupid, both of them masked, are placed on the opposite side of the print. Cupid, who is a very well-drawn and spirited little figure, "has bent his bow to shoot at random," and Venus seems contemplating the rise and fall of the mercury in one of those instruments which the reference informs us is to show the inclinations of all that approach it. The niche in which these divinities are placed is not only decorated with curtains, but crowned with cooing doves. An altar beneath has on it three or four bleeding hearts, which, being close to the blaze, are in the way of being broiled. On the base are queue-wigs, bag-wigs, etc.
This may suffice for the presiding deities of the diversion; the head of their high priest, the renowned Heidegger, master of the mysteries and manager in chief, is placed on the front of a large dial, fixed lozenge-fashion at the top of the print, and I believe intended to vibrate with the pendulum, the ball of which hangs beneath, and is labelled "Nonsense." On the minute finger is written "Impertinence," and on the hour hand, "Wit:" which seems to intimate nonsense every second, impertinence every minute, and wit once an hour! The time is half-past one—the witching hour of night; 1727, the date of the year this print was published, is on the corners of the clock.
Recumbent on the upper line of this print, and resting against the sides of the dial, the artist has placed our British lion and unicorn renverse (such, I think, is the term in heraldry), lying on their backs, and each of them playing with its own tail; the lion sinister, and the unicorn dexter. The supporters of our regal arms being thus ludicrously introduced, may perhaps allude to the encouragement George the Second gave to Heidegger, who at that period might be said to
"Teach kings to fiddle, and make senates dance;"
and who, by thus kindly superintending the pleasures of our nobles, gained an income of £5000 a year, and, as he frequently boasted, laid out the whole in this country.
Beneath is a framed picture of a Bacchanalian scene; and on each side, shelves with pyramids of jellies, sweetmeats, etc., inscribed "Provocatives." On two labels placed before them is written, "Supper below."
A pair of instruments, somewhat similar to the mental thermometer in "The Medley," are fixed on each side: on that next to Venus and Cupid is written, "cool, warm, dry, changeable, hot, moist, fixt;" on the other, "expectation, hope, hot desire, extreme hot, moist, sudden cold."
The motley crew who make up the crowd it is not easy to describe, for every one present assumes a false character.
"Here tottering old age essays to prance
With feeble feet, and joins th' imperfect dance;
There, supercilious youth assumes the air
And reverend mien which hoary sages wear.
'Tis thus, like Proteus, Folly joys to range,
Her name to vary, and her shape to change."
Here are priests of all persuasions—Brahmins, friars, drones, monks, and monkeys not a few.
A figure of Time with his scythe, eagerly pressing towards the altar with rams' heads, is arrested in his course by a sort of slaughterman, with a mask, shaven crown, and short apron, who violently grasps his wing with one hand, and with the other lifts up a hatchet, which with fatal force he aims at his head. For sanctuary, this feeble figure lays hold of one of the horns of the altar, but is frustrated in his attempt to reach the steps by a bishop, who, with his sacrificing knife, coolly stabs him to the heart; while a monkey, in the habit of a chorister, holds a basin to catch the blood, the fumes from which he snuffs up with ineffable delight. This I apprehend to be a metaphorical view of a prelate killing Time at a masquerade.
Next to this group is a Mother Shipton, hooking on the arms of a clown; and near them a harlequin endeavouring to draw the attention of a graceful columbine from a turban'd Turk, who attempts to seduce her from her party-coloured gallant. A female, with the mask of a monkey's head, salutes a nun in a black veil; and while an old Capuchin, with the face of an ape, whispers soft things to a young girl, a fellow somewhat like Tiddy-doll draws up her head-dress to a point, like a fool's cap. A man in the right-hand corner, solicitous to give a glass of wine to one of the sisterhood, lifts up her veil for the purpose of her drinking it.[120]
ADDENDA.
The two prints here given are selected as two of the earliest avowed productions of Hogarth. The allegory in both is somewhat obscure; but the figures are in the manner of Callot, and in a spirited and masterly style. They were both published in 1721, and are a proof that at this early period the admirable vein of satire which he possessed was directed against the vices and follies of the age.
In the first of them we see (to use an expression of Mr. Walpole) "the Devil cutting Fortune into collops," to gratify the avaricious hopes of the adventurers in the South Sea Bubble; and persons ascending the ladder to ride upon wooden horses; alluding to the desperate game which was played by the South Sea Directors in England in the year 1720, to the utter destruction of many opulent families. The little figure with his hand in the pocket of a fat personage was supposed by Mr. Steevens to have been intended for Pope, who profited by the South Sea scheme; and the fat man to be meant for Gay, who was a loser in that iniquitous project. Mr. John Law, a native of Edinburgh, was the projector of this bubble; and was also author of the famous Mississippi scheme in France, by which he ruined thousands. To escape popular vengeance he fled to Venice, where he died in poverty in 1729.
Under the print of "The Lottery," the artist has given a full description of his own ideas, which otherwise, at this distance of time, it would have been difficult to elucidate.
This satirical performance of Hogarth, which is commonly called "The Small Masquerade Ticket," is supposed to have been invented and drawn at the instigation of Sir James Thornhill, out of revenge, because Lord Burlington had preferred Mr. Kent before him to paint for George the Second at his palace at Kensington; and the leader of the figures hurrying to a masquerade, crowned with a cap and bells, and a garter round his right leg, has been said to be intended for that monarch, who was very partial to those nocturnal amusements, and bestowed a thousand pounds towards their support. The purse with a label "£1000," which the satyr holds immediately before him, gives some probability to the supposition.
The kneeling figure on the show-cloth, pouring gold at the feet of Cuzzoni the Italian singer (who is drawing the money towards her with a rake), represents the Earl of Peterborough; and on the label is written, "Pray accept £8000." Mr. Heidegger, the regulator of the masquerade, is also exhibited at a window, with the letter H under him. Of the three figures in the centre of the plate, the middle one is Lord Burlington, a nobleman of considerable taste in painting and architecture. On one side of him is Mr. Campbell the architect; on the other, some artist now unknown. On a board is a display of the words, "Long Room: Fawkes' dexterity of hand." On the opposite corner is the figure of Harlequin, pointing to a label, on which is written, "Dr. Faustus is here." This was a pantomime performed to crowded houses throughout two seasons.
In this print all the figures have a strong resemblance to those of Callot; and the follies of the town are very severely satirized by the representation of multitudes, properly habited, crowding to the masquerade, opera, and pantomime; whilst the works of our greatest dramatic writers are trundled through the streets in a wheel-barrow, and cried as waste paper for shops; among these may be distinguished Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, Dryden, Congreve, Otway, Farquhar, and Addison. In the first copy of this print, instead of Ben Jonson's name on a label, we have "Pasquin, No XI." This was a periodical paper published in 1722-3; and the number specified is particularly severe on operas, etc.
As a further illustration of the taste of the times, the artist has given a view of Burlington Gate, with a figure, I believe, intended to represent the then fashionable artist William Kent, on the summit, brandishing his palette and pencils, and placed in a more elevated situation than either Michael Angelo or Raphael, who, seated beneath, become the two supporters to this favourite of Lord Burlington.
Some verses (and those not always the same) engraved on a separate piece of copper are found under the first impressions. For example, under the earliest impressions of 1724:
"Could now dumb Faustus, to reform the age,
Conjure up Shakspeare's or Ben Jonson's Ghost,
They'd blush for shame, to see the English stage
Debauch'd by fool'ries, at so great a cost.
"What would their manes say, should they behold
Monsters and masquerades, where useful plays
Adorn'd the fruitful theatre of old,
And rival wits contended for the bays?"
Under another impression:
"Long has the stage productive been
Of offsprings it could brag on,
But never till this age was seen
A windmill and a dragon.
"O Congreve! lay thy pen aside,
Shakspeare, thy works disown,
Since monsters grim, and nought beside,
Can please this senseless town."
I have been the more particular in describing this plate, as it appears to have been the first which Hogarth published on his own account, and respecting which he pathetically says: "I had to encounter a monopoly of printsellers, equally mean and destructive to the ingenious; for the first plate I published, called 'The Taste of the Town,' in which the reigning follies were lashed, had no sooner begun to take a run, than I found copies of it in the print-shops vending at half price, while the original prints were returned to me again; and I was thus obliged to sell the plate for whatever these pirates pleased to give me, as there was no place of sale but their shops. Owing to this and other circumstances, by engraving, until I was near thirty, I could do little more than maintain myself; but even then I was a punctual paymaster."
This plate seems at once to represent the exhibition of The Beggars' Opera, and the rehearsal of an Italian one. In the former, all the characters are drawn with the heads of different animals: as Polly with a cat's; Lucy with a sow's; Macheath with that of an ass; Lockit, and Mr. and Mrs. Peachum, with those of an ox, a dog, and an owl. In the latter, several noblemen appear conducting the chief female singer forward on the stage; and perhaps are offering her money, or protection from a figure that is rushing towards her with a drawn sword.
Harmony, flying in the air, turns her back on the English playhouse, and hastens towards the rival theatre. Musicians stand in front of the former, playing on the Jew's harp, the salt-box, the bladder and string, bagpipes, etc. On one side are people of distinction, some of whom kneel, as if making an offer to Polly, or paying their adorations to her. To these are opposed a butcher, etc., expressing similar applause. Apollo and one of the muses are fast asleep beneath the stage. A man is indelicately seated under a wall hung with ballads, and showing his contempt of such compositions by the use he makes of them. A sign of the star, a gibbet, and some other circumstances less intelligible, appear in the background.
This well-imagined series of plates was designed by Hogarth, and engraved by himself, for the matchless poem of Butler. Each plate is illustrated by an appropriate quotation from the facetious satirist; and as our ingenious artist formed his designs from an attentive perusal of the poem, his engravings, and the extracts selected under each of them, reciprocally explain each other. "His 'Hudibras,'" says Mr. Walpole, "was the first of his works that marked him as a man above the common; yet," adds the critic, somewhat too fastidiously, "what made him then noticed now surprises us, to find so little humour in an undertaking so congenial to his talents."
The original title ran thus: "Twelve excellent and most diverting Prints, taken from the celebrated Poem of Hudibras, wrote by Samuel Butler; exposing the villany and hypocrisy of the times. Invented and engraved on twelve copperplates by William Hogarth; and are humbly dedicated to William Ware, Esq., of Great Houghton, in Northamptonshire, and Mr. Allan Ramsay, of Edinburgh."
"What excellence can brass or marble claim?
These papers better do secure thy fame;
Thy verse all monuments does far surpass,
No mausoleum's like thy 'Hudibras.'"
Allan Ramsay subscribed for thirty sets, and the number of subscribers amounted to one hundred and ninety-two. The original plates were afterwards purchased by Mr. Philip Overton. They subsequently passed into the hands of the late Mr. Robert Sayer; and it is certain that Hogarth often lamented the having parted with his property in them without ever having had an opportunity to improve them.
In the first of these plates is a portrait inscribed, "Mr. Samuel Butler, born 1612, Author of Hudibras, died 1680." The basso-relievo of the pedestal represents Butler's Genius in a car, lashing round Mount Parnassus, in the persons of Hudibras and Ralpho, Rebellion, Hypocrisy, and Ignorance, the reigning vices and follies of the time. In the scene of the Committee (Plate IX.), one of the members has his gloves on his head. "I am told," says Mr. Steevens, "this whimsical custom once prevailed among our sanctified fraternity; but it is in vain, I suppose, to ask the reason why." This doubt, however, has since produced from a respectable divine an intimation that he has frequently heard his father, who died some years ago at an advanced age, notice the custom of placing the gloves on the head at church as not uncommon in cold weather.
In the earliest impressions of Plate XI., the words "Down with the Rumps" are not inserted on the scroll.
Mr. Walpole, in his Catalogue, thus describes this plate: "Booth, Wilkes, and Cibber, contriving a Pantomime; a Satire on Farces."
Though the inscription engraved under it is sufficiently explanatory, it may be added that Mr. Devoto was scene-painter either to Drury Lane or Lincoln's-Inn Fields, and also to Goodman's Fields Theatre; that the ropes mentioned in the inscription are no other than halters, suspended over the heads of the three managers; and that the labels issuing from their respective mouths convey the following characteristic words. The airy Wilkes, who dangles the effigies of Punch, exclaims, "Poor R—ch! faith, I pitty him." The Laureate Cibber, who is amusing himself with playing with harlequin, invokes the muse painted on the ceiling: "Assist, ye sacred Nine!" And the solemn Booth, letting down the figure of Jack Hall into the forica, is most tragically exclaiming, with an oath, "Ha! this will do." At the same instant Ben Jonson's ghost is rising through the stage, and insulting a pantomime statue fallen from its base. Over the figure of Hall is suspended a parcel of waste paper, consisting of leaves torn from The Way of the World, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Julius Cæsar. A fiddler is seen hanging by a cord in the air, and performing, with a scroll before him, which proclaims, "Music for the What" [meaning perhaps the "What d'ye call it"] entertainment. A pamphlet on the table exhibits a print of Jack Sheppard in confinement. A dragon is also preparing to fly; a dog thrusts his head out of the kennel; a flask acquires motion by machinery, etc. The countenances of Tragedy and Comedy, on each side of the stage, are concealed by the bills for Harlequin Dr. Faustus, Harlequin Shepherd, etc.
Vivetur ingenio is the motto over the curtain.
This very fine picture, Hogarth himself tells us, was painted in 1729 for Sir Archibald Grant of Monymusk, Bart., at that time Knight of the Shire for Aberdeen, and one of the Committee represented in the painting,—many of whom attended daily, and some of them twice a day.
That every other figure in this print is a genuine portrait, there cannot be the least doubt, though at this distant period it is not possible to identify the particular persons; they are all, however, to be found in the following list of the names of the Committee:—
| James Oglethorpe, Esq., Chairman. | ||
| The Right Hon. the Lords | ||
| { Finch. | General Wade. | |
| { Morpeth. | Humphrey Parsons, Esq. | |
| { Inchequin. | Hon. Robert Byng. | |
| { Percival. | Edward Houghton, Esq. | |
| { Limerick. | (Judge-Advocate.) | |
| Sir Robert Sutton. | Captain Vernon. | |
| Sir Robert Clifton. | Charles Selwyn, Esq. | |
| Sir Abraham Elton. | Velters Cornwall, Esq. | |
| Sir Edward Knatchbull. | Thomas Scawen, Esq. | |
| Sir Humphrey Herries. | Francis Child, Esq. | |
| Hon. James Bertie. | William Hucks, Esq. | |
| Sir Gregory Page. | Stampe Brooksbank, Esq. | |
| Sir Archibald Grant. | Charles Withers, Esq. | |
| Sir James Thomhill. | John La Roche, Esq. | |
| Gyles Earle, Esq. | Mr. Thomas Martin. | |
"The scene," says Mr. Walpole, "is the Committee. On the table are the instruments of torture. A prisoner in rags, half-starved, appears before them; the poor man has a good countenance, that adds to the interest. On the other hand is the inhuman gaoler. It is the very figure that Salvator Rosa would have drawn for Iago in the moment of detection. Villany, fear, and conscience are mixed in yellow and livid on his countenance; his lips are contracted by tremor, his face advances as eager to lie, his legs step back as thinking to make his escape; one hand is thrust precipitately into his bosom, the fingers of the other are catching uncertainly at his button-holes. If this was a portrait, it is the most striking that ever was drawn; if it was not, it is still finer."
This Committee was first appointed, Feb. 25, 1728-9, to examine into the state of the gaols within the kingdom; and the persons here represented under examination were—Thomas Bambridge, then Warden of the Fleet Prison, and John Huggins, his predecessor in that office. Both were declared "notoriously guilty of great breaches of trust, extortions, cruelties, and other high crimes and misdemeanours." It was the unanimous resolution of the Committee, "That Thomas Bambridge, the acting Warden of the Prison of the Fleet, hath wilfully permitted several debtors to the Crown in great sums of money, as well as debtors to divers of his Majesty's subjects, to escape; hath been guilty of the most notorious breaches of his trust, great extortions, and the highest crimes and misdemeanours in the execution of his said office; and hath arbitrarily and unlawfully loaded with irons, put into dungeons, and destroyed, prisoners for debt under his charge, treating them in the most barbarous and cruel manner, in high violation and contempt of the laws of this kingdom." Bambridge was in consequence disqualified by Act of Parliament; and he cut his throat twenty years after.
It was also resolved, "That John Huggins, Esq., late Warden of the Prison of the Fleet, did, during the time of his wardenship, wilfully permit several considerable debtors in his custody to escape; and was notoriously guilty of great breaches of his trust, extortions, cruelties, and other high crimes and misdemeanours, in the execution of the said office;" and he was for some time committed to Newgate, but afterwards lived in credit to the age of ninety.