The Project Gutenberg eBook of Biographical Anecdotes Of William Hogarth, by John Nichols.

No painter or engraver's name. The plate seems at once to represent the exhibition of The Beggar's 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 an Ass's; 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 toward the rival theatre. Musicians stand in front of the former, playing on the Jew's-harp, the salt-box, the bladder and string, bagpipes, &c. 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, &c. expressing similar applause. Apollo, and one of the Muses, are fast asleep beneath the stage. A man is easing nature under a wall hung with ballads, and shewing his contempt of such compositions, by the use he makes of one of them. A sign of the star, a gibbet, and some other circumstances less intelligible, appear in the back ground.

4. The same. The lines under it are engraved in a different manner from those on the preceding plate. Sold at the Print-Shop in The Strand, near Catherine Street.

Under the division of the print that represents the Italian Opera, the words—Stage Mutiny—are perhaps improperly added.

On the two sides of this print are scrolls, containing a list of the presents made to Farinelli. The words are copied from the same enumeration in the second plate of the Rake's Progress.[1]

Perhaps the original print was the work of Gravelot, Vandergucht, or some person unknown.[3] The idea of it is borrowed from a French book, called Les Chats, printed at Amsterdam in 1728. In this work, facing p. 117, is represented an opera performed by cats, superbly habited. The design is by Coypel; the engraving by T. Otten. At the end of the treatise, the opera itself is published. It is improbable that Hogarth should have met with this jeu d'esprit; and, if he did, he could not have read the explanation to it.

[1] The following paragraph appeared in the Grub-street Journal for April 10, 1735; and to this perhaps Hogarth alluded in the list of donations already mentioned: "His Royal Highness the Prince hath been pleased to make a present of a fine wrought gold snuff-box, richly set with brilliants and rubies, in which was inclosed a pair of brilliant diamond knee buckles, as also a purse of 100 guineas, to the famous Signor Farinelli, &c."

[2] These two last lines make part of Addison's Prologue to Phædra and Hippolytus, reading only "the soft Scarlatti," instead of Italian Eunuchs.

[3] At the back of an old impression of it, in the collection of the late Mr. Rogers, I meet with the name of Echerlan, but am unacquainted with any such designer or engraver.——I have since been told he came over to England to dispose of a number of foreign prints, and was himself no mean caricaturist. Having drawn an aggravated likeness of an English nobleman, whose figure was peculiarly unhappy, he was forced to fly in consequence of a resentment which threatened little short of assassination.

1729.

1. King Henry the Eighth, and Anna Bullen. "Very indifferent." This plate has very idly been imagined to contain the portraits of Frederick Prince of Wales and Miss Vane;[1] but the stature and faces, both of the lady and Percy, are totally unlike their supposed originals. Underneath are the following verses by Allan Ramsay:

Mr. Charlton, of Canterbury, has a copy of this print, with the following title and verses: "King Henry VIII. bringing to court Anne Bullen, who was afterwards his royal consort." Hogarth design. &. sculp.

[1] To the fate of this lady Dr. Johnson has a beautiful allusion in his Vanity of Human Wishes:

"Yet Vane could tell what ills from beauty spring,
And Sedley curs'd the form that pleas'd a king."

Perhaps the thought, that suggested this couplet, is found in Loveling's Poems, a work already quoted:

-------nec Gwynnam valebat
Angliaco placuisse regi.

Mersa est acerbo funere sanguinis
Vanella clari: nec grave spiculum
Averteret fati Machaon,
Nec madido Fredericus ore.

2. The same plate without any verses, but with an inscription added in their room. Ramsay seems to have been particularly attached to Hogarth. He subscribed, as I have already observed, for thirty copies of the large Hudibras.

The original picture was at Vauxhall, in the portico of the old great room on the right-hand of the entry into the garden. See p. 29.

3. Frontispiece to the "Humours of Oxford," a comedy by James Miller; acted at Drury-Lane, and published in 8vo, 1729.[1] W. Hogarth inv. G. Vandergucht sc. The Vice-chancellor, attended by his beadle, surprizing two Fellows of a College, one of them much intoxicated, at a tavern.

[1] It met with but moderate success in the theatre; but drew on Mr. Miller the resentment of some of the heads of the colleges in Oxford, who looked on themselves as satirized in it.

1730.

1. Perseus, and Medusa dead, and Pegasus. Frontispiece to Perseus and Andromeda. W. H. fec.

2. Another print to the same piece, of Perseus descending. Mr. Walpole mentions only one.

3. A half-starved boy. (The same as is represented in the print of Morning.) W. H. pinx. F. Sykes sc. Sykes was a pupil of Thornhill or Hogarth. This print bears the date of 1730; but I suspect the 0 was designed for an 8, and that the upper part of it is wanting, because the aqua fortis failed; or, that the pupil copied the figure from a sketch of his master, which at that time was unappropriated. No one will easily suspect Hogarth of such plagiarism as he might justly be charged with, could he afterwards have adopted this complete design as his own; neither is it probable that any youth could have produced a figure so characteristic as this; or, if he could, that he should have published it without any concomitant circumstances to explain its meaning. The above title, which some collector has bestowed on this etching, is not of a discriminative kind. Who can tell from it whether he is to look for a boy emaciated by hunger, or shivering with cold? It is mentioned here, only that it may be reprobated. If every young practitioner's imitation of a single figure by Hogarth were to be admitted among his works, they would never be complete.

4. Gulliver presented to the Queen of Babilary. W. Hogarth inv. Ger. Vandergucht sc. "It is the frontispiece to the Travels of Mr. John Gulliver," son of Capt. Lemuel Gulliver, a translation from the French by Mr. Lockman. There is as much merit in this print as in the work to which it belongs.

1731.

1. Two frontispieces to a translation of two of Moliere's plays, viz. L'Avare[1] and Le Cocû imaginaire. These are part of a select collection of Moliere's Comedies in French and English. They were advertised in The Grub-street Journal, with designs by "Monsieur Coypel, Mr. Hogarth, Mr. Dandridge, Mr. Hamilton," &c. in eight pocket volumes.

[1] Of this one, Mr. S. Ireland has the original drawing.

2. Frontispiece to "The Tragedy of Tragedies, or the Life and Death of Tom Thumb," in three acts;[1] by Henry Fielding. W. Hogarth inv. Ger. Vandergucht sc. "There is some humour in this print."

[1] This piece had before made its appearance in 1730 in one act only.

3. Frontispiece to the Opera of The Highland Fair, or the Union of the Clans, by Joseph Mitchell. W. Hogarth inv. Ger Vandergucht sculp.

The date of this piece is confirmed by the following paragraph in The Grub-street journal, March 4, 1731: "We hear from the Theatre-Royal in Drury-lane, that there is now in rehearsal, and to be performed on Tuesday, March 16, a new Scots Opera, called The Highland Fair, or Union of the Clans, &c." The subject being too local for the English stage, it met with little or no success.

1732.

1. Sarah Malcolm,[1] executed March 7, 1732, for murdering Mrs. Lydia Duncombe her mistress, Elizabeth Harrison, and Anne Price; drawn in Newgate. W. Hogarth (ad vivum) pinxit & sculpsit.[2] Some copies are dated 1733, and have only Hogarth pinx. She was about twenty-five years of age.[3] "This woman put on red to sit to him for her picture two days before her execution."[4] Mr. Walpole paid Hogarth five guineas for the original. Professor Martyn dissected this notorious murderess, and afterwards presented her skeleton, in a glass case, to the Botanic Garden at Cambridge, where it still remains.

[1] On Sunday morning, the 4th of February, Mrs. Lydia Duncombe, aged 80, Elizabeth Harrison, her companion, aged 60, were found strangled, and Ann Price, her maid, aged 17, with her throat cut, in their beds, at the said Mrs. Duncombe's apartments in Tanfield-Court in The Temple. Sarah Malcolm, a chare-woman, was apprehended the same evening on the information of Mr. Kerrol, who had chambers on the same stair-case, and had found some bloody linen under his bed, and a silver tankard in his close-stool, which she had hid there. She made a pretended confession, and gave information against Thomas Alexander, James Alexander, and Mary Tracey, that they committed the murder and robbery, and she only stood on the stairs as a watch; that they took away three hundred pounds and some valuable goods, of which she had not more than her share; but the coroner's inquest gave their verdict Wilful Murder against Malcolm only.—On the 23d her trial came on at The Old Bailey: when it appeared that Mrs. Duncombe had but 54 l. in her box, and 53 l. 11 s. 6 d. of it were found upon Malcolm betwixt her cap and hair. She owned her being concerned in the robbery, but denied she knew any thing of the murder till she went in with other company to see the deceased. The jury found her guilty of both. She was strongly suspected to have been concerned in the murder of Mr. Nesbit in 1729, near Drury-lane, for which one Kelly, alias Owen, was hanged; the grounds for his conviction being only a bloody razor found under the murdered man's head that was known to be his. But he denied to the last his being concerned in the murder; and said, in his defence, he lent the razor to a woman he did not know.—On Wednesday, March 7, she was executed on a gibbet opposite Mitre-court, Fleet-street, where the crowd was so great, that a Mrs. Strangways, who lived in Fleet-street, near Serjeant's-Inn, crossed the street, from her own house to Mrs. Coulthurst's on the opposite side of the way, over the heads and shoulders of the mob. She went to execution neatly dressed in a crape mourning gown, holding up her head in the cart with an air, and looking as if she was painted, which some did not scruple to affirm. Her corpse was carried to an undertaker's upon Snow-hill, where multitudes of people resorted, and gave money to see it: among the rest a gentleman in deep mourning, who kissed her, and gave the people half a crown. She was attended by the Rev. Mr. Pedington, lecturer of St. Bartholomew the Great, seemed penitent, and desired to see her master Kerrol; but, as she did not, protested all accusations against him were false. During her imprisonment she received a letter from her father at Dublin, who was in too bad circumstances to send her such a sum as 17 l. which she pretended he did. The night before her execution, she delivered a paper to Mr. Pedington (the copy of which he sold for 20 l.), of which the substance is printed in The Gentleman's Magazine, 1733, p. 137. She had given much the same account before, at her trial, in a long and fluent speech.

[2] The words "& sculpsit" are wanting in the copies. In the three last of them the figure also is reversed.

[3] "This woman," said Hogarth, after he had drawn Sarah Malcolm, "by her features, is capable of any wickedness."

[4] "Monday Sarah Malcolm sat for her picture in Newgate, which was taken by the ingenious Mr. Hogarth: Sir James Thornhill was likewise present." Craftsman, Saturday, March 10, 1732-3.

5. Another copy of this portrait [1] (of which only the first was engraved by Hogarth), with the addition of a clergyman holding a ring in his hand, and a motto, "No recompence but Love."[2]

In The Grub-street Journal of Thursday, March 8, 1732, appeared the following epigram:

The office of this Pedington[4] may be known from the following advertisement in The Weekly Miscellany, N° 37. August 25, 1733. "This day is published, Price Six-pence, (on occasion of the Re-commitment of the two Alexanders; with a very neat effigies of Sarah Malcolm and her Reverend Confessor, both taken from the Life) The Friendly Apparition: Being an account of the most surprising appearance of Sarah Malcolm's Ghost to a great assembly of her acquaintance at a noted Gin-shop; together with the remarkable speech she then made to the whole company."

[1] A copy of it in wood was inserted in The Gentleman's Magazine, 1733, p. 153.

[2] This print was designed as a frontispiece to the pamphlet advertised in The Weekly Miscellany. (See text, above.)

[3] The Ordinary of Newgate.

[4] Mr. Pedington died September 18, 1734. He is supposed to have made some amorous overtures to Sarah.

6. The Man of Taste. The Gate of Burlington-house. Pope white-washing it, and bespattering the Duke of Chandos's coach. "A satire on Pope's Epistle on Taste. No name." It has been already observed that the plate was suppressed; and if this be true, the suppression may be accounted for from the following inscription, lately met with at the back of one of the copies.

"Bo^t this book of Mr. Wayte, at The Fountain Tavern, in The Strand, in the presence of Mr. Draper, who told me he had it of the Printer, Mr. W. Rayner.[1]

On this attested memorandum a prosecution seems meant to have been founded. Cosins was an attorney, and Pope was desirous on all occasions to make the law the engine of his revenge.

[1] Rayner was at that time already under prosecution for publishing a pamphlet called, "Robin's Game, or Seven's the Main." Neglecting to surrender himself, he was taken by a writ of execution from the crown, and confined to the King's Bench; where he became connected with Lady Dinely, whole character was of equal infamy with his own.

7. The same, in a smaller size; prefixed to a pamphlet, intituled, "A Miscellany of Taste, by Mr. Pope," &c. containing his Epistles, with Notes and other poems. In the former of these Mr. Pope has a tie-wig on, in the latter a cap.

8. The same, in a size still smaller; very coarsely engraved. Only one of them is noted by Mr. Walpole.

A reader of these Anecdotes observes, "That the total silence of Pope concerning so great an artist, encourages a suspicion that his attacks were felt though not resented. The thunders of the poet were usually pointed at inglorious adversaries; but he might be conscious of a more equal match in our formidable caricaturist. All ranks of people have eyes for pencil'd ridicule, but of written satire we have fewer judges. It may be suspected, that the 'pictured shape' would never have been complained of, had it been produced only by a bungler in his art. But from the powers of Hogarth, Pope seems to have apprehended more lasting inconvenience; and the event has justified his fear. The frontispiece to Smedley's Gulliveriana has been long forgotten; but the Gate of Burlington house is an object coveted by all who assemble prints of humour.—It may be added, that our painter's reputation was at the height ten years before the death of Pope, who could not therefore have overlooked his merit, though, for some reason or other, he has forborne to introduce the slightest allusion to him or his performances. Yet these, or copies from them, were to be met with in almost every public and private house throughout the kingdom; nor was it easy for the bard of Twickenham to have mixed in the conversation of the times, without being obliged to hear repeated praises of the author of The Harlot's Progress."

The sheet containing this page having been shewn to a friend, produced from him the following remark: "That Pope was silent on the merits of Hogarth (as one of your readers has observed) should excite little astonishment, as our artist's print on the South Sea exhibits the translator of Homer in no very flattering point of view. He is represented with one of his hands in the pocket of a fat personage, who wears a hornbook at his girdle. For whom this figure was designed, is doubtful. Perhaps it was meant for Gay, who was a fat man, and a loser in the same scheme."—"Gay," says Dr. Johnson, "in that disastrous year had a present from young Craggs of some South-sea stock, and once supposed himself to be master of twenty-thousand pounds. His friends persuaded him to sell his share; but he dreamed of dignity and splendour, and could not bear to obstruct his own fortune. He was then importuned to sell as much as would purchase an hundred a year for life, which, says Fenton, will make you sure of a clean shirt and a shoulder of mutton every day. This counsel was rejected; the profit and principal were lost, and Gay sunk under the calamity so low that his life became in danger.—The Hornbook appended to his girdle, perhaps, refers to the Fables he wrote for the Duke of Cumberland. Some of your ingenious correspondents, or Mr. Walpole, who is instar omnium, may be able to give a further illustration. The conclusion to the inscription under this plate—Guess at the rest, you'll find out more—seems also to imply a consciousness of such personal satire as it was not prudent to explain. I may add, that the print before us exhibits more than one figure copied from Callot. Among the people going along the gallery to raffle for husbands, the curious observer will recognize the Old Maid with lappets flying, &c. afterwards introduced into the scene of Morning. Dr. Johnson, however, bears witness to the propriety of our great poet's introduction into a satire on the 'disastrous year of national infatuation, when more riches than Peru can boast were expected from the South Sea; when the contagion of avarice tainted every mind; and Pope, being seized with the universal passion, ventured some of his money. The stock rose in its price; and he for a while thought himself The Lord of Thousands. But this dream of happiness did not last long: and he seems to have waked soon enough to get clear with the loss only of what he once thought himself to have won, and perhaps not wholly that.'"

It appears from Pope's correspondence with Atterbury, that the stock he had was at one time valued at between twenty and thirty thousand pounds; and that he was one of the lucky few who had "the good fortune to remain with half of what they imagined they had."—"Had you got all you have lost beyond what you ventured," said the good Bishop in reply, "consider that your superfluous gains would have sprung from the ruin of several families that now want necessaries."[1]

[1] Letters to and from Bishop Atterbury, 1782, vol. I. p. 71.

1733.

1. The Laughing Audience. "1733. Rec^d. Dec^br. 18 of the Right Honn^ble. Lord Biron Half a Guinea being the first Payment for nine Prints 8 of which Represent a Rakes Progress and the 9^th a Fair, Which I promise to Deliver at Michaelmass Next on Receiving one Guinea more. Note the Fair will be Deliver'd next Christmass at Sight of this receipt the Prints of the Rake^s. Progress alone will be 2 Guineas each set after the Subscription is over."

2. The Fair[1] [at Southwark]. Invented, painted, and engraved by W. Hogarth.. The show-cloth, representing the Stage Mutiny, is taken from a large etching by John Laguerre (son of Louis Laguerre, the historical painter), who sung at Lincoln's-Inn Fields and Covent-Garden Theatres, painted some of their scenes, and died in 1748. The Stage-Mutineers, or A Playhouse to be let, a tragi-comi farcical-ballad-opera, which was published in 1733, will throw some light on the figures here represented by Hogarth. See also the Supplement to Dodsley's Preface to his Collection of Old Plays, and the "Biographia Dramatica, 1782."

It is remarkable that, in our artist's copy of this etching, he has added a paint-pot and brushes at the feet of the athletic figure with a cudgel in his hand, who appears on the side of Highmore.[2] From these circumstances it is evident that John Ellis the painter (a pupil of Sir James Thornhill, a great frequenter of Broughton's gymnasium, the stages of other prize-fighters, &c.) was the person designed. Ellis was deputy-manager for Mrs. Wilks, and took up the cudgels also for the new patentee. Mr. Walpole observes that Rysbrack, when he produced that "exquisite summary of his skill, knowledge, and judgment," the Hercules now in Mr. Hoare's Temple at Stourhead, modelled the legs of the God from those of Ellis. This statue was compiled from the various limbs and parts of seven or eight of the strongest and best-made men in London, chiefly the bruisers, &c. of the then famous amphitheatre in Tottenham Court road.

In Banks's Works, vol. I. p. 97. is a Poetical Epistle on this print, which alludes to the disputes between the managers of Drury-Lane, and such of the actors as were spirited up to rebellion by Theophilus Cibber, and seceded to The Haymarket in 1733. Cibber is represented under the character of Pistol;[3] Harper under that of Falstaff. The figure in the corner was designed for Colley Cibber the Laureat, who had just sold his share in the play-house to Mr. Highmore, who is represented holding a scroll, on which is written "it cost £.6000." A monkey is exhibited sitting astride the iron that supports the sign of The Rose, a well-known tavern. A label issuing from his mouth contains the words: "I am a gentleman."[4] The Siege of Troy, upon another show-cloth, was a celebrated droll, composed by Elkanah Settle, and printed in 1707; it was a great favourite at fairs. A booth was built in Smithfield this year for the use of T. Cibber, Griffin, Bullock, and H. Hallam; at which the Tragedy of Tamerlane, with The Fall of Bajazet, intermixed with the Comedy of The Miser, was actually represented. The figure vaulting on the rope was designed for Signor Violante, who signalized himself in the reign of Geo. I.; and the tall man exhibited on a show-cloth, was Maximilian, a giant from Upper Saxony. The man flying from the steeple was one Cadman, who, within the recollection of some persons now living, descended in the manner here described from the steeple of St. Martin's into The Mews. He broke his neck soon after, in an experiment of the like kind, at Shrewsbury, and lies buried there in the churchyard of St. Mary Friars, with the following inscription on a little tablet inserted in the church-wall just over his grave.[5] The lines are contemptible, but yet serve to particularize the accident that occasioned his death.

A prelate being asked permission for a line to be fixed to the steeple of a cathedral church, for this daring adventurer, replied, the man might fix to the church whenever he pleased, but he should never give his consent to any one's flying from it. It seems that some exhibitor of the same kind met with a similar inhibition here in London. I learn from Mist's Journal for July 8, 1727, that a sixpenny pamphlet, intituled, "The Devil to pay at St. James's, &c."[6] was published on this occasion, Again, in The Weekly Miscellany for April 17, 1736. "Thomas Kidman, the famous Flyer, who has flown from several of the highest precipices in England, and was the person that flew off Bromham steeple in Wiltshire when it fell down, flew, on Monday last, from the highest of the rocks near The Hot-well at Bristol, with fire-works and pistols; after which he went up the rope, and performed several surprising dexterities on it, in sight of thousands of spectators, both from Somersetshire and Gloucestershire." In this print also is a portrait which has been taken for that of Dr. Rock, but was more probably meant for another Quack, who used to draw a crowd round him by seeming to eat fire, which, having his checks puffed up with tow, he blew out of his mouth.[7] Some other particulars are explained in the notes to the poetical epistle already mentioned.

[1] In the Craftsman, 1733, was this advertisment; "Mr. Hogarth being now engraving nine copper-plates from pictures of his own painting, one of which represents the Humours of a Fair, the other eight the Progress of a Rake, intends to publish the prints by subscription, on the following terms: each subscription to be one guinea and a half: half-a-guinea to be paid at the time of subscribing, for which a receipt will be given on a new-etched print, and the other payment of one guinea on delivery of all the prints when finished, which will be with all convenient speed, and the time publicly advertised. The Fair, being already finished, will be delivered at the time of subscribing. Subscriptions will be taken in at Mr. Hogarth's, the Golden Head, in Leicester Fields, where the pictures are to be seen."

[2] Highmore was originally a man of fortune; but White's gaming-house, and the patent of Drury-Lane theatre, completely exhausted his finances. Having proved himself an unsuccessful actor as well as manager, in 1743 he published Dettingen, a poem which would have disgraced a Bell-man. In 1744 he appeared again in the character of Lothario, for the benefit of Mrs. Horten. From this period his history is unknown. If Hogarth's representation of him, in the print entitled The Discovery, was a just one, he had no external requisites for the stage.

[3] In a two-shilling pamphlet, printed for J. Mechell at The King's Arms in Fleet street, 1740, entitled "An Apology for the life of Mr. T—— C——, comedian; being a proper sequel to the apology for the life of Mr. Colley Cibber, comedian; with a historical view of the stage to the present year; supposed to be written by himself in the stile and manner of the Poet Laureat," but in reality the work of Harry Fielding; the following passages, illustrative of our subject, occur. "In that year when the stage fell into great commotions, and the Drury Lane company, asserting the glorious cause of liberty and property, made a stand against the oppressions in the patentees—in that memorable year when the Theatric Dominions fell in labour of a revolution under the conduct of myself, that revolt gave occasion to several pieces of wit and satirical flirts at the conductor of the enterprize. I was attacked, as my father had been before me, in the public papers and journals; and the burlesque character of Pistol was attributed to me as a real one. Out came a Print of Jack Laguerre's, representing, in most vile designing, this expedition of ours, under the name of The Stage Mutiny, in which, gentle reader, your humble servant, in the Pistol character, was the principal figure. This I laughed at, knowing it only a proper embellishment for one of those necessary structures to which persons out of necessity repair." p. 16, &c.—Again, p. 88.—"At the Fair of Bartholomew, we gained some recruits; but, besides those advantages over the enemy, I myself went there in person, and publickly exposed myself. This was done to fling defiance in the Patentee's teeth; for, on the booth where I exhibited, I hung out The Stage Mutiny, with Pistol at the head of his troop, our standard bearing this motto,—We eat."—Whether this account which Cibber is made to give of his own conduct is entirely jocular, or contains a mixture of truth in it, cannot now be ascertained. Hogarth might have transplanted a circumstance from Bartholomew to Southwark Fair; or Fielding, by design, may have misrepresented the matter, alluding at the same time to Hogarth's print.