IN Mr. Aus­tin Dob­son’s Hogarth, to which all stu­dents of that mas­ter are so deep­ly in­debt­ed, the fol­low­ing sen­tence con­cludes the list of “Prints of an Un­cer­tain Date”: “It has been thought un­neces­sary to in­clude two or three designs, the gross­ness of which neither the in­genuity of the artist nor the coarse taste of his time can reasonably be held to excuse.” And in this book I have made it a car­di­nal point to emulate Mr. Dobson’s excel­lent example.

We remember in one of Mr. G. Russell’s amusing books the story of the erstwhile Member of Parliament who had accepted a peerage, not­with­stand­ing his pro­fes­sion of dem­o­cratic sen­ti­ments. There­upon one of his late sup­porters, {83} with excellent, though somewhat brutal, metaphor, remarked, “Mr. —— says as how he’s going to the House of Lords to leaven it. I tell you he can’t no more leaven the House of Lords than you can sweeten a cart-load of muck with a pot of marmalade.” Per contra, let us always bear in mind, that were the cart full of marmalade, and the pot of muck, the latter would be fully sufficient to render the whole an abomination. Fortunately for us, the Hogarth “Suppressed Plates” which are befitting are of exceptional interest. And it may as well be pointed out here that those peculiarly gross ones which are often alluringly alluded to as “suppressed” are nothing of the sort. So far from being indeed effectively withdrawn from observation, they have had, as a matter of fact, particular attention drawn to them by the fussy ingenuity with which their concealment has been emphasised.

The first of the Hogarth plates which we here reproduce—“Enthusiasm Delineated”—is of far greater intrinsic importance than any of those with which we have already dealt in the preceding chapters. It differs essentially from them not {84} only in the fact that here the artist himself is the fount and origin of the sup­pres­sion but also in the fact that it is a fine example of those palimpsest plates of which more particular description will be found in later chapters of this book. Peculiar interest, too, attaches to the cir­cum­stance that, superb as it was in execution, and elaborate to a degree though it was in conception, it was no sooner finished than the artist deliberately decided against its pub­li­ca­tion, and destroyed the engraving after only two impressions had been taken from the copper. Fortunately for us, one of these is now in the possession of the British Museum.

It will be interesting to those who are the happy possessors of Hogarth Illustrated and the Anecdotes to compare this with the reduced copy (a very different matter) made by Mills and published in these volumes. For it must always be remembered that Hogarth’s autograph engravings are infinitely more interesting than the copies, however eminent the journeyman engraver may have been.

Another plate was engraved by Mills of the size of the original, and published separately by Ireland {86} in 1795. The date of the original plate is given in the British Museum Catalogue as 1739, but how that date is arrived at I am at a loss to understand.

It will be noticed that there are upon the margin of our re­pro­duc­tion some curious remarques inscribed “the windmill,” “the scales,” and others. These were drawn in pen-and-ink by Hogarth on the margins of the two original impressions. They also appear engraved in facsimile on the second state of Mills’s full-sized plate. It will therefore be well for owners of this last not to jump to the hasty conclusion that they are the fortunate possessors of one of the two impressions mentioned above! It should be added that the MS. inscription on the British Museum copy differs considerably from that engraved by Mills.

The method by which the sup­pres­sion of this plate came about is exceedingly curious.

It is probable that, after the design was completed, Hogarth came to the conclusion that the intention of the satire might be mistaken, and that, instead of bringing ridicule upon “the superstitious absurdities of popery and ridiculous {87} personification delineated by ancient painters,” it might be considered that his objective was religion itself.

If this were so, the episode redounds greatly to the artist’s credit, and throws an effective light upon a little-known side of his character. It was an act of great nobleness to suppress what was the result of long toil, nay, more than that, what was perhaps his highest mental, though by no means his highest artistic, achievement, from what some might consider hyper-conscientious motives.

It must be remembered that Hogarth lived in a gross and irreligious age, and that what appears to us exceedingly profane was largely the result of the outspokenness of the times.

Ireland says that he altered and altered this plate piecemeal until its final sup­pres­sion. This, however, I venture to doubt, for reasons given below. At all events, in the end he had beaten out and re-engraved every figure save one, and changed, as Mr. Dobson says, what “was a compact satire” into “a desultory work—a work of genius for a lesser man, but scarcely worthy of Hogarth.” The final design was entitled {88} “Credulity, Superstition and Fanaticism: a Medley,” and was published in March 1762.

Let us now compare the two designs. Hogarth’s general purpose in the first was, in his own words, to give “a lineal rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the strange effects of literal and low conceptions of Sacred Beings, as also of the idolatrous tendency of Pictures in Churches and Prints in Religious Books.” In the second his text was, “Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God, because many false Prophets are gone out into the world.”

Before comparing the designs in detail, I should like to say that, besides carefully examining the plates for myself, I have collated the various descriptions of Ireland, Nichols, Mr. Austin Dobson, and Mr. F. G. Stephens, whose conclusions I have not hesitated to adopt, add to, discard or modify, as the cir­cum­stances have seemed to require.

Let us now particularise the incidents portrayed on the two states of the plate, both of which are here reproduced for purposes of comparison.

Beginning with the preacher, we notice that {89} his is the only figure practically unaltered and common to both engravings. By his “bull-roar” (vide the “scale of Vociferation” hanging on the wall to his left) he has apparently succeeded in cracking the sounding-board above his head. Notice his shaven crown, exposed by the fallen wig, which intimates that he is a Papist in disguise; and the harlequin jacket underneath his gown, which suggests that he is a religious merry-andrew. A point worth remarking is that the halo surrounds his wig, and not his head!

From his right hand (Plate I.) he suspends a puppet (caricatured from a picture of Raphael’s) supporting the sacred triangle, which, in attempting to personify the Trinity, was considered by some to be a profane materialisation of a mystical idea. This he has ingeniously turned into a gridiron or trivet of the Inquisition by the simple addition of three legs. In Plate II. this puppet has been removed and its place taken by a witch, riding on a broom-handle, who is suckling what appears to be a huge rat. Beyond the preacher’s hand we find a further addition in the shape of a cherub, hunting-cap on head, bearing in its mouth {90} a letter directed “To St. Moneytrap.” The sermon paper, too, has been turned about so as to bring the words “I speak as a fool” into greater prominence. In which connection it may be noticed that in “Enthusiasm Delineated” all the lettering would seem to be from the burin of Hogarth, whilst that in the “Medley” has been put in by a writing engraver, with considerable weakening of the general effect. Dangling from the preacher’s left hand is a devil with a gridiron (after Rubens), practically identical in both plates, though obviously re-engraved.

Further puppets hang ready for use on the panels of the pulpit. In Plate I. they are caricature rep­re­sen­ta­tions, from pictures of the Old Masters, of Adam and Eve (suggested by Albert Dürer), of Peter with his Key, and Paul in a black periwig armed with two swords and elevated by high-heeled shoes (travestied from Rembrandt), and of Moses and Aaron. In Plate II. these scriptural puppets are exchanged for the superstitious images of Mrs. Veal’s ghost (see the writing on the book), who, according to Defoe, appeared the day after her death to Mrs. Bargrave {91} of Canterbury, September 8, 1705; of Julius Cæsar’s apparition, starting at its own appearance in the looking-glass; and of that of Sir George Villers (sic), not “Villiers” as Ireland has it, whose appearance to an officer at Windsor, charging him to warn his son, the Duke of Buckingham, of his approaching assassination, is recorded by Lord Clarendon and Lilly the astrologer.

In the foreground, on the right, we have in both plates a most remarkable mental thermometer, the bulb of which is inserted in a Methodist’s brain. In Plate I. the mercury stands at “low-spirits”; in Plate II. at “lukewarm.” In the first a dove surmounts the whole; in the second the Methodist’s brain rests upon “Wesley’s Sermons,” and “Glanvid” (an evident misprint for “Glanvil”) on “Witches.” The lettering, too, is altered, and, in place of the inscription in the top division, is a picture of the Cock Lane Ghost, of which Walpole wrote—“Elizabeth Canning and the Rabbit Women were modest impostors in comparison of this.” The whole is surmounted by a figure of the Tedworth drummer immortalised by Addison. {92}

In the adjoining pew a nobleman, as can be seen by the decoration half concealed by his coat, makes love to a girl, who discards a heavenly for a very earthly affection, point to which is given by the quotation from Whitfield’s hymn which can be read on the paper hanging over the adjacent clerk’s desk. The “mixed expression of religious hypocrisy and amorous desire” on the girl’s face is marvellously expressed. The other occupant of the pew is a repentant thief, as may be seen from the “T” branded on his cheek.

In the first account of the plate given in the Catalogue of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, the suggestion that the felon sniffs at a bottle of spirits held in the hands of the image is obviously incorrect. He is dropping his tears into the bottle. In Plate II. a less aristocratic and somewhat more decently behaved pair of lovers occupy the pew. The puppet held by the man is clearly a repetition of the Cock Lane Ghost, only bearing in its hand a lighted candle in place of a hammer. What the meaning of this is I fail to understand. Of the two other occupants of the pew one is weeping and the other asleep. {93} A winged devil whispers evil thoughts into the sleeper’s ear.

In both plates, on a bracket attached to the side of the pew and inscribed “The Poor’s Box,” rests a wire rat-trap in place of the proper receptacle.

Turning now to the clerk’s desk, which in Plate I. has the inscription “Cherubim and Seraph [ — ] do cry,” and in Plate II. “Continually do cry,” we find a hideous and brutal-looking clerk singing lustily from a book which he half supports in his claw-like fingers. Supporting him are two winged cherubs, the ridiculous nothingness of whose bodies (so envied by Thackeray in his days of pupilage) is accentuated by the significant addition of ducks’ feet. Their pitiful faces accord with the punning inscription on the edge of the desk. In Plate II. the ducks’ feet have been removed, but to make up for the loss we have the clerk himself, now a lean and hungry-looking individual, also decorated with a pair of wings.

Below the desk in Plate I. howls a dog, his collar engraved with Whitfield’s name, whilst, below the hassock on which he sits, a ragged {94} figure squats embracing an image. In Plate II. a book entitled Demonology, by K. James Ist., surmounted by a shoeblack’s basket in which Whitfield’s Journal is stuck, takes the place of the dog, whilst the boy of Bilston, vomiting forth nails, displaces the ragged figure. From the neck of the bottle in his hand a figure, similar to that held by the man in the pew, rises expelling the cork, which falls to the ground.

In the forefront of Plate I. lies the bloated figure of Mother Douglas, who, after a most licentious life, was said to have become a rigid devotee. Hogarth, who has portrayed her in other of his plates, here ridicules her conversion. A hand belonging to a figure outside the plate holds a bottle of salts to her nose. In Plate II. Mary Tofts, “ye Godliman woman,” takes her place. Her well-known imposture, which it would be out of place to particularise here, gave rise to a voluminous literature, and a sheaf of remarkable caricatures. In place of the salts a glass of cordial is applied as a restorative.

In Plate I., behind the prostrate woman a bearded Jew regards the preacher with mock {96} devotion, what time he kills a flea between his thumb-nails. Before him lies a book open at a picture of Abraham offering up Isaac. In Plate II. the figure of the Jew is much weakened, whilst a knife inscribed “Bloody” is laid across a picture of an altar on the page of the open book.

In the background of both plates a motley collection of devotees assists at these religious orgies. To the extreme left of Plate II., which, by the addition of several persons in the congregation, has become greatly overcrowded, a minister directs the attention of a terrified wretch, whose hair bristles with fear, to the ex­traor­di­nary double-globed chandelier above their heads.

Final emphasis is given to the whole satire by the figure of a Turk (slightly varied in the two plates), who regards with amusement through the window the idolatry of those “dogs of Christians.”

So much for the details of the plates. As regards the general effect of the whole, the superiority of the suppressed design will be evident at a glance. In lighting, balance, and composition, the substituted design is immeasurably removed from the original. Nor would this be wonderful if, {97} as Ireland surmised, “the alterations were made by degrees.”

With this view, however, I find it, as I have said above, impossible to concur. If, as he suggests, the figures were beaten out one by one, their substitutes would occupy practically identical spaces on the plate; but a little measurement demonstrates the fact that, with the exception of the figure of the preacher, which has been left where it was, and of the mental thermometer, which has been raised, almost the whole of the design has been shifted downwards.

I am therefore inclined to think that from the first Hogarth, from one cause or another, made up his mind to change the direction of his satire, and at once beat out all the figures on the plate save one. That the arrangement of the new design should coincide generally with that of the first is, I think, no more than one would naturally expect, and does not in any way weaken the argument.

In conclusion, it should be pointed out, for the sake of those who would study the matter further, that the accounts of the impressions of the several plates in the Catalogue of Prints and Drawings {98} in the British Museum are not easily found, being somewhat arbitrarily placed at pages 301–307, vol. iii., part i., and pages 644–648, vol. ii., respectively.

So far we have seen Hogarth in his character of general iconoclast and antipapist. It is now our business to deal with him in what was a more personal polemic.

In the year 1731 Pope first published his notorious attack upon the Duke of Chandos in his satire Of Taste: An Epistle to the Right Hon. Richard, Earl of Burlington.

Hogarth forthwith entered the lists, and designed and published a well-deserved pictorial counterblast, allusively entitled “The Man of Taste,” or “Burlington Gate.” This was immediately “suppressed” on a prosecution being threatened because of what was deemed its scurrilous and defamatory character.

Not­with­stand­ing this prompt sup­pres­sion, however, the design reappeared the following year, reduced in size, as frontispiece to a pirated edition of Pope’s “Epistle,” which was included in a pamphlet entitled A Miscellany on Taste; by {99} Mr. Pope, etc., published by Lawton and others. Its contents were (1) Of Taste in Architecture, an Epistle to the Earl of Burlington, with Notes Variorum, and a complete Key; (2) Of Mr. Pope’s Taste in Divinity: viz., the Fall of Man, and the First Psalm, translated for the use of a Young Lady; (3) Of Mr. Pope’s Taste of Shakespeare; (4) His Satire on Mr. P——y; and (5) Mr. Congreve’s fine Epistle on Retirement and Taste, addressed to Lord Cobham. In this copy of the plate Pope, who is shown in the original by means of the back of his head and figure, and as wearing a full-bottomed wig, is more distinctly satirised, his face being displayed in profile, and his head enclosed by a linen cap instead of a wig. Amongst a few other minor alterations, it may be noticed that the palette held by Kent is transferred from one hand to the other.

Referring to the repub­li­ca­tion of Hogarth’s cartoon in this form, Mr. Dobson seems somewhat inclined to argue against the story of its “sup­pres­sion,” or, at any rate, its effectual sup­pres­sion; but he does not allude to the important fact that the publisher of this pamphlet {100} was also promptly prosecuted, and the sale strictly prohibited. From which it is clear that the sup­pres­sion was as unqualified and as prompt as could reasonably be expected.

Steevens indeed mentions a copy upon which the following inscription had been made:—

“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.

“J. COSINS.”

The signatory was an Attorney, and the wording of the memorandum suggests the intended prosecution.

To return to Pope’s poem. In it he passes the most scathing criticism upon the splendid but tasteless surroundings of “Timon” at his stupendous villa.

And then, at the end of it all, he proceeds to justify Providence, in giving riches to those who squander them, in a way that will hardly commend itself to the student of the dismal science. A bad taste, he says in effect, employs more hands, and diffuses wealth more usefully than a good one! One would like to have heard John Stuart Mill on the subject of “Pope.”

The “Epistle” was addressed to Pope’s patron, the Earl of Burlington, who was one of the noblemen who had helped to screen him a few years before on his pub­li­ca­tion of the Dunciad.

“Timon” (mainly though not entirely) referred to the Duke of Chandos, who was, Johnson says, a man perhaps too much delighted with pomp and show, but of a temper kind and beneficent, and who had consequently the voice of the public in his favour.20 {102}

A violent outcry was there­fore raised against the in­grat­i­tude and treachery of Pope, who was said to have been indebted to the patronage of Chandos for a present of a thousand pounds, and who gained the oppor­tunity of insul­ting him by the kindness of his invitation to “Canons,” the Duke’s seat near Edgware.

In a pamphlet entitled Ingratitude published in 1733, of which only a portion of the frontispiece is in the British Museum,21 the matter is thus alluded to. “A certain animal of diminutive size, who had translated a book into English metre (or at least had it translated for him), addressed himself to a nobleman of the first rank, and in the style of a gentleman-beggar requested him to subscribe a guinea for one of his books. The nobleman entertained him at dinner in a sumptuous manner, and continued so to do as often as the insignificant mortal came to his house. After dinner this generous man of quality, taking him aside, put a bank-note for five hundred pounds into his hands, and desired he might have but one book. But {103} what was the consequence of this? Why, truly, the wretch, who is a composition of peevishness, spleen and envy, having no regard to the benefits he had received, in a few years after, and without any manner of provocation, or the least foundation for truth, publishes a satire, as he terms it, but in reality it is an infamous and calumnious libel, calculated, with all the malice and virulency imaginable, to defame and render odious the character of his best benefactor.”

From which it will be seen that Hogarth was not out of the fashion in retaliating upon Pope’s devoted head with the cartoon which we here reproduce.

Let us examine it in detail. The gate, which is the main feature in the picture, is a travesty of that which is familiar to old frequenters of Piccadilly. Until as lately as 1868, it formed the frontage to Burlington House. It was the joint design of Lord Burlington and Colin Campbell, and, although well-proportioned and inoffensive, hardly justifies the fulsome praise which has been bestowed upon it. Kent, originally a coach-painter, with whose statue Hogarth has surmounted the {104} structure, was patronised by, and brought his practical knowledge to the assistance of, Lord Burlington, himself undoubtedly a man of enlightened taste. The alteration and reconstruction of the original Burlington House, which had been built by his great-grandfather, the first Earl, was the first of his many architectural projects. It was eventually taken down to make way for the existing Royal Academy and Science Buildings. Lord Hervey laughed at its inconvenience in the following couplet:—

The best of Lord Burlington’s and Kent’s joint work is to be found in the northern park front of the Treasury Buildings in Whitehall, “which,” says Fergusson, “if completed, would be more worthy of Inigo Jones than anything that has been done there since his time.”

Flanking the ex-coach-painter, Hogarth has placed reclining figures of Raphael and Michael Angelo, who regard the modern architect with respectful admiration! On the platform is Pope rough-casting the front of the structure, and {106} incidentally bespattering the passers-by with whitewash from his huge brush. Chief amongst these is the Duke of Chandos, who vainly strives to protect himself with his hat. Ascending the ladder is Lord Burlington, who carries up more whitening for the beautifying of his own gate and the defilement of his neighbours’ clothes. Over the gate Hogarth has sarcastically inscribed the solitary word “TASTE.” The double distribution of flattery and satire is an excellent pictorial burlesque of the Epistle to Lord Burlington, and who can say that it was not richly deserved? At any rate, stroke and counterstroke were fierce and unhesitating in those days, and, although Pope’s and his patrons’ influence was sufficient to get Hogarth’s witty plate suppressed, it is a tribute to the wholesome respect which the poet had for the artist, that, pugnacious and irrepressible as his pen generally was, Pope never ventured to make any written retaliation upon the libeller.

It should be mentioned that this was not the first occasion upon which Hogarth had attacked the charlatanry of Kent. In the first plate published on his own account, in 1724—“Masquerades and {107} Operas”—he had included him in his ridicule of what Mr. Dobson calls “foreign favourites and dubious exotics.” In that plate, also, he had ridiculed “Burlington Gate,” and, curiously prompted by the spirit of prophecy, had labelled it “Accademy (sic) of Arts!” He had also, in the following year, burlesqued Kent’s scandalous altarpiece at St. Clement Danes, which had lately been taken down in response to the outcry against its sacrilegious impudence.

By the kindness of the publisher of The Builder, I am enabled to reproduce a wood engraving of Burlington Gate as it actually was, which appeared in that journal on October 28, 1854. Comparing this with the cartoon, it will be seen that Hogarth did not scruple to heighten the effect of his satire by depriving Lord Burlington’s edifice of such merits as it undoubtedly possessed.

So much for Hogarth in his polemic with Pope. We will now turn for a moment to Hogarth and his quarrel with Wilkes and Churchill, in which we shall find him working over an old plate as in the case of “Enthusiasm Delineated,” but with a very different object in view. Here he adopts a method {108} of retaliation which, as we shall learn from later chapters of this book, had become already customary amongst the producers of political broadsides in the seventeenth century. Hitherto Hogarth had kept clear of politics, but now, in his sixty-fifth year, he threw himself into the fray. John Wilkes had started a paper called The North Briton in opposition to The Briton, the organ of the Tory party of which Lord Bute was the leader. Hogarth had long enjoyed Bute’s favour. He had also until now been on friendly terms with Wilkes and his henchman Charles Churchill, the poet. On September 7, 1762, taking sides with his patron, he published The Times (Plate I.). This so enraged Wilkes that he retaliated on the Saturday following, in the seventeenth number of The North Briton, with a violent attack on Hogarth both as man and artist. In the May following Hogarth retorted by publishing a portrait of John Wilkes which, professing to be a likeness, cleverly exhibited his most repulsive characteristics. Wilkes being now on his trial for libel, Churchill came to the rescue with his savage and slashing Epistle to William Hogarth. This was published on August 1. {110} With a promptitude astonishing in those days of tardy copper-plate engraving, Hogarth, by a clever expedient, retaliated within a month with his exceedingly venomous print of “The Bruiser.” The plate from which this was printed had already done duty as a portrait of Hogarth himself with his dog Trump, engraved from the well-known painting now in the National Gallery.

Pressed for time, in ill-health, and apprehensive lest the public might attribute delay in replying to inability to do so, he took the old plate, burnished out his own portrait, and substituted in its place the head of a bear, with torn and soiled clerical bands about its neck, ruffles on its wrists, and clasping against its chest a foaming pot of beer, in allusion to the personal habits of the poet and ci-devant parson. With his left paw the beast clasps a huge club, the knots of which are labelled “Lye 1,” “Lye 2,” referring to the falsities of The North Briton. There are other minor alterations which may be seen at a glance. The whole was entitled “THE BRUISER, CHARLES CHURCHILL (once the Rev^d.!) In the character of a RUSSIAN HERCULES, regaling himself after having killed {111} the MONSTER CARICATURE, that so sorely gall’d his virtuous friend, the Heaven-born Wilkes.” The plate thus altered is to be found in five states, particulars of which may be found on p. 286 of Mr. Austin Dobson’s William Hogarth, 1891. That here reproduced is from a copy of the last state engraved by Dent for John Ireland.22 It is only in the last two states that the clever little engraving in front of the palette is to be found.

So far we have dealt with work done by Hogarth in his individual capacity. Let us now turn to such of his collaborative work as suffered cancellation.

In dealing with the series of suppressed Quixote plates we shall be brought into touch with two not uninteresting and accessory episodes in the artist’s career. In the first of these Hogarth made a great success, where a rival artist had made a signal failure. In the second, by way of righting the balance of things, fate ordained it that this same artist should badly best Hogarth, and that in a manner peculiarly galling to the latter’s vanity.

Hogarth’s father-in-law was Sir James Thornhill, {112} whose drawing academy in Covent Garden had not proved as valuable an institution as had been anticipated. Johan Van der Banck, the rival artist above alluded to, had been one of Sir James’s pupils. By heading a secession and establishing a rival school he had undoubtedly largely contributed to the failure of his master’s venture. However, in due time, his school too proved to be lacking in the elements of success, and came to an untimely end.

On Sir James’s death the “neglected apparatus” of his father-in-law passed into Hogarth’s hands, and he set to work to establish the academy on a different footing. The result was that it became a successful educational centre, which only ceased to exist many years afterwards on the establishment of the Royal Academy. A picture by Hogarth of the interior of the school with the students drawing from life is to be seen on the staircase leading to the Diploma Gallery at Burlington House.

In this case Hogarth had the laugh on his side. In the other, which is immediately relevant to our subject, the laugh was with Van der Banck.

In 1738 Lord Carteret’s Spanish edition of Don {113} Quixote was published. For this Hogarth had been commissioned to design a series of illus­tra­tions. Eight of these were executed, but, on being submitted to Lord Carteret, did not meet with his approval. The commission was consequently transferred to Johan van der Banck, who thus succeeded in revenging himself for his former failure, and at the same time unconsciously provided us with matter for con­sid­er­ation in these papers. His sixty-eight designs were engraved by Van der Gucht and republished in the English edition of 1756, of which Charles Jarvis was the translator. Of Hogarth’s unsuccessful venture John Ireland writes with some indignation, “As they are etched in a bold and masterly style, I suppose the noble peer did not think them pretty enough to embellish his volume and therefore laid them aside for Vandergucht’s engravings from Vanderbank’s designs.” It is a slight satisfaction to know that Hogarth’s completed etchings were paid for!

One curious fact about Jarvis’s edition demands our attention. The plate representing the Don’s first sally in quest of adventure is without any {114} signature, but the “style of the etching and the air of the figures” indisputably determine for us the fact that it is from the pencil and burin of Hogarth, so that it is open to any one who has access to this edition to judge for themselves of the justice of Ireland’s strictures upon Lord Carteret.

For those who have not access to Jarvis’s edition it may be mentioned that a copy engraved by J. Mills appears in Ireland’s Hogarth Illustrated and in the Anecdotes of William Hogarth, published by Nichols in 1833. Of Hogarth’s eight designs we are therefore left with only seven, which were “suppressed.” Of these six were published from Hogarth’s own plates in Baldwin, Cradock and Joy’s splendid collection of the Works in 1822; whilst previously, in 1798, John Ireland had published small copies of them together with an unfinished design of “The Innkeeper” in his possession, engraved by J. Mills. These plates were used over again in the Anecdotes of 1833 with altered lettering and the etchings considerably worn.

The accompanying re­pro­duc­tions are, save for {116} No. 1., not made from any of the foregoing, but from the early states of the plates, never before published, to be found in the British Museum. Thus they will prove not only of interest to the casual reader but also valuable, for purposes of comparison, to the possessors of any of the three editions of Hogarth’s Works mentioned above. The full descriptions of the plates may be found in Ireland and Nichols, but for the convenience of the reader I append a short commentary.

No. I. The Innkeeper is from an unfinished etching and is of particular interest. By some its authenticity is doubted, but John Ireland believed in it, and I, for one, see no reason to call his judgment into question, more particularly as this figure bears a more than chance resemblance to that of “The Innkeeper” in the undoubted Hogarth referred to above published in Jarvis’s edition. In the Van der Banck plate, which represents the knighting of the Don by the Innkeeper, it is also evident that Hogarth’s rival has done him the compliment of adopting his model.

No. II. The Funeral of Chrysostom, Marcella vindicating herself. This scene was also taken {118} by Van der Banck for illus­tra­tion, and a comparison of the two plates is not favourable to Hogarth.

No. III. The Innkeepers Wife and Daughter taking care of the Don after he had been beaten. “Much superior to the same scene designed by Van der Banck.”

No. IV. Don Quixote seizes the Barber’s Basin for Mambrino’s Helmet. On the whole inferior to Van der Banck’s. The barb of the Don’s weapon is different from that in the Hogarth design published by Jarvis. The stirrups and saddling of the horse too are different. These points have not been referred to before, but I mention them by way of argument against the authenticity of the Jarvis plate. As I have said before, personally I have no doubt that it is from Hogarth’s burin.

No. V. Don Quixote releases the Galley Slaves. Here the Don is found wearing the barber’s basin as his helmet. By a not unusual oversight it will be noticed Hogarth has made his figures left-handed, forgetful of the reversing process due to printing from a plate. A superior design to that of Van der Banck, who, as Ireland says, “has {121} given to two or three of the thieves the countenances of apostles.”

No. VI. The First Interview of the Valorous Knight of La Mancha with the Unfortunate Knight of the Rock. Distinctly superior to Van der Banck.

No. VII. The Curate and Barber disguising themselves to convey Don Quixote home. An excellent rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the curate assuming the dress of a distressed virgin who, by his tale of having been wronged by a naughty knight, hopes to induce the Don to return to his home.

Whilst on the subject of Don Quixote it may be mentioned that, much earlier in his career, Hogarth had designed and engraved a plate dealing with “Sancho’s feast,” but this must not be in any way identified or confused with the series begun for Lord Carteret, although Ireland groups them all together.

So much for Hogarth’s suppressed illus­tra­tions, and it is, it must be confessed, something of a relief to turn again from his cognate art to that which is individual and typical. For we do not much value Hogarth as an illustrator. In this character he rarely does more than repeat for us {124} in another medium the obvious matters already dealt with in the letterpress. “Illustration,” as Mr. Laurence Housman has well said, “should be something in the nature of a brilliant commentary throwing out new light upon the subject, an exquisite parenthesis of things better said in this medium than could be said in any other: in a word, the result of another creative faculty at work on the same theme.” And this in no way describes Hogarth’s work as an illustrator. It is as a great original painter working out consummately the homeliest of morals that he appeals to us. Those morals which, to quote Thackeray, are “as easy as Goody Twoshoes,” the moral of “Tommy was a naughty boy and the master flogged him, and Jacky was a good boy and had plum-cake.” For it is in “Marriage à la Mode,” “A Rake’s Progress,” “Industry and Idleness,” that he succeeds inimitably, carrying out the motto beneath “Time Smoking a Picture”:—

But this only in passing, for our subject debars us from lingering over Hogarth’s best. {126} From the nature of our theme we are confined to the examination in the majority of cases of that which verges upon failure either from artistic or social con­sid­er­ations.