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  HOGARTH'S WORKS:

  WITH

  _LIFE AND ANECDOTAL DESCRIPTIONS OF HIS PICTURES_.

  SECOND SERIES.

[Illustration: MARRIAGE A LA MODE. PLATE I.]

  HOGARTH'S WORKS:

  WITH

  _LIFE AND ANECDOTAL DESCRIPTIONS OF
  HIS PICTURES._

  BY

  JOHN IRELAND AND JOHN NICHOLS, F.S.A.

  _THE WHOLE OF THE PLATES REDUCED IN EXACT
  FAC-SIMILE OF THE ORIGINALS._

  Second Series.

  London:

  CHATTO AND WINDUS, PUBLISHERS.
  (_SUCCESSORS TO JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN._)

LIST OF PLATES

DESCRIBED IN THE SECOND SERIES.

                                                                  PAGE
  MARRIAGE A LA MODE--

      PLATE I. The Marriage Settlement,                 _Frontispiece_

      PLATE II. The Viscount and his Lady at Home,                  24

      PLATE III. The Viscount's Visit to the Quack Doctor,          28

      PLATE IV. The Countess's Morning Levee,                       36

      PLATE V. The Husband killed in a Bagnio,                      40

      PLATE VI. Death of the Countess,                              44

  FIRST STAGE OF CRUELTY,                                           54

  SECOND STAGE OF CRUELTY,                                          56

  CRUELTY IN PERFECTION,                                            58

  THE REWARD OF CRUELTY,                                            62

  BEER STREET,                                                      66

  GIN LANE,                                                         68

  PAUL BEFORE FELIX (Burlesqued),                                   74

  PAUL PREACHING BEFORE FELIX,                                      76

  THE SAME--ANOTHER ENGRAVING,                                      78

  MOSES AND PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER,                                     82

  FOUR PRINTS OF AN ELECTION--

      PLATE I. The Entertainment,                                   88

      PLATE II. Canvassing for Votes,                               98

      PLATE III. The Polling,                                      106

      PLATE IV. Chairing the Member,                               112

  THE MARCH TO FINCHLEY,                                           122

  THE INVASION--

     PLATE I. France,                                              140

      PLATE II. England,                                           142

  THE COCKPIT,                                                     146

  CREDULITY, SUPERSTITION, AND FANATICISM,                         160

  THE TIMES--

      PLATE I.,                                                    180

      PLATE II.,                                                   208

  JOHN WILKES, ESQ.,                                               222

  THE REV. C. CHURCHILL,                                           228

  BOYS PEEPING AT NATURE (2 Plates),                               244

  THE LAUGHING AUDIENCE,                                           246

  THE LECTURE,                                                     250

  THE ORCHESTRA,                                                   254

  THE COMPANY OF UNDERTAKERS,                                      258

  CHARACTER AND CARICATURE,                                        266

  SARAH MALCOLM,                                                   268

  COLUMBUS BREAKING THE EGG,                                       276

  THE FIVE ORDERS OF PERIWIGS,                                     284

  THE BENCH,                                                       290

  THE BEGGARS' OPERA,                                              292

  THE INDIAN EMPEROR,                                              300

  THE BATHOS,                                                      312

[Illustration: (end of section floral icon)]

HOGARTH ILLUSTRATED.

MARRIAGE A LA MODE.

  "'Tis from high life our characters are drawn."

In his preceding prints Mr. Hogarth generally pointed his satire at
persons in a subordinate situation, and took his examples from the
inferior ranks of society. From the situation of his characters, and
the minute precision with which he displayed the scenes he professed
to delineate, we sometimes see little violations of that decorum
which is perhaps necessary in engravings professedly designed for
furniture. For this neglect of delicacy some of his prints were
censured; to remove all apprehensions of this series being liable to
the same objections, they were thus announced in the _London Daily
Post_ of April 7, 1743:--

  "Mr. Hogarth intends to publish, by subscription, six prints
  from copperplates, engraved by the best masters in Paris after
  his own paintings; the heads, for the better preservation
  of the characters and expressions, to be done by the author,
  representing a variety of modern occurrences in high life, and
  called 'Marriage à la Mode.'

  "Particular care is taken that the whole work shall not be liable
  to exception, on account of any indecency or inelegancy; and that
  none of the characters represented shall be personal, etc."

The artist has adhered to his engagement: he has struck at an
higher order, and displayed the follies and vices which frequently
degrade our nobility. He has exhibited the prospect of a fashionable
marriage, where the gentleman is attracted by riches, and the lady
by ambition. That misery and destruction succeeded an union founded
upon such principles is not to be wondered at; the progress of that
misery, and the final destruction of the actors, is so delineated
as to form a regular and well-divided tragedy. In the first act
are represented five principal characters; and three of them, by a
regular chain of incidents naturally flowing from each other, fall
victims to their own vices. The young nobleman, for attempting to
revenge the violation of his wife's virtue, which he never cherished,
is killed by her paramour, who for this murder suffers an ignominious
death; and the lady, distracted at the reflection of having been
the cause of their lives terminating in so horrid a manner, makes
her own quietus with a dose of laudanum. This is painting to the
understanding, appealing to the heart, and making the pencil an
advocate in the cause of morality. It is doing that poetical justice
which our dramatists have sometimes neglected, and in which they have
perhaps been justified by the common events of human life; for it
must be acknowledged, that while virtue is frequently unfortunate, we
often see vice successful. Notwithstanding this, those pictures are
surely best calculated to encourage men in the practice of the social
duties which display the evils consequent upon their violation.
Whatever poetical justice may allow, morality demands that some
examples should be held up to prove "that the omission of a duty
frequently leads to the perpetration of a crime; and that crimes of
so black a dye as are here represented, almost invariably terminate
in wretchedness, infamy, and death."

The original pictures were, on the 6th of June 1750, purchased by
Mr. Lane of Hillingdon, near Uxbridge, for one hundred and twenty
guineas!--a price so inadequate to their merit, and to what it might
have been fairly presumed they would have produced even at that
time, that it becomes difficult to account for it in any other way
than by supposing that the strange way in which Mr. Hogarth ordered
the auction to be conducted puzzled the public, who, not exactly
comprehending this new mode of bidding, declined attending or bidding
at all.

The following particulars relative to the sale were communicated by
Mr. Lane to Mr. John Nichols:--

"Some time after the pictures had been finished, perhaps six or
seven years, they were advertised to be sold by a sort of auction,
not carried on by personal bidding, but by a written ticket, on
which every one was to put the price he would give, with his name
subscribed to it. These papers were to be received by Mr. Hogarth for
the space of one month, and the highest bidder at twelve o'clock,
on the last day of the month, was to be the purchaser: none but
those who had in writing made their biddings were to be admitted on
the day that was to determine the sale. This _nouvelle_ method of
proceeding probably disobliged the public, and there seemed to be
at that time a combination against poor Hogarth, who, perhaps, from
the extraordinary and frequent approbation of his works, might have
imbibed some degree of vanity, which the town in general, friends
and foes, seemed resolved to mortify. If this was the case (and to
me it is very apparent), they fully effected their design; for on
the memorable 6th of June 1750, which was to decide the fate of
this capital work, about eleven o'clock, Mr. Lane, the fortunate
purchaser, arrived at the Golden Head, when, to his great surprise,
expecting (what he had been a witness to in 1745, when Hogarth
disposed of many of his pictures) to have found his painting room
full of noble and great personages, he only found the painter and
his ingenious friend Dr. Parsons, secretary to the Royal Society,
talking together, and expecting a number of spectators at least, if
not of buyers. Mr. Hogarth then produced the highest bidding, from a
gentleman well known, of £110. Nobody coming in, about ten minutes
before twelve, by the decisive clock in the room, Mr. Lane told Mr.
Hogarth he would make the pounds guineas. The clock then struck
twelve, and Hogarth wished Mr. Lane joy of his purchase, hoping it
was an agreeable one. Mr. Lane answered, 'Perfectly so.' Now followed
a scene of disturbance from Hogarth's friend the Doctor, and what
more affected Mr. Lane, a great appearance of disappointment in the
painter, and truly with great reason. The Doctor told him he had
hurt himself greatly by fixing the determination of the sale at so
early an hour, when the people in that part of the town were hardly
up. Hogarth, in a tone and manner that could not escape observation,
said, 'Perhaps it may be so!' Mr. Lane, after a short pause, declared
himself to be of the same opinion; adding, that the artist was
very poorly rewarded for his labour, and if he thought it would
be of service to him, would give him till three o'clock to find a
better purchaser. Hogarth warmly accepted the offer, and expressed
his acknowledgments for this kindness in the strongest terms. The
proposal likewise received great encomiums from the Doctor, who
proposed to make it public. This was peremptorily forbidden by Mr.
Lane, whose concession in favour of our artist was remembered by him
to the time of his death. About one o'clock, two hours sooner than
the time appointed, Hogarth said he could no longer trespass on his
generosity, but that if he was pleased with his purchase, he himself
was abundantly so with the purchaser. He then desired Mr. Lane to
promise that he would not dispose of the pictures without previously
acquainting him of his intention, and that he would never permit any
person, under pretence of cleaning, to meddle with them, as he always
desired to take that office on himself. This promise was readily made
by Mr. Lane, who has been tempted more than once by Mr. Hogarth to
part with his bargain at a price to be named by himself. When Mr.
Lane bought the pictures they were in Carlo Maratte frames, which
cost the painter four guineas a-piece."

On the death of Mr. Lane the six pictures became the property of his
nephew Colonel Cawthorne, and were in the summer of 1792 put up by
auction at Mr. Christie's, and the proprietor bought them in at nine
hundred guineas.

They were a short time afterwards purchased by Mr. Angerstein, at one
thousand guineas, and are now in his very fine collection.

If considered in the aggregate,--in conception, character, drawing,
pencilling, and colouring,--it will not be easy, perhaps not
possible, to find six pictures painted by any artist, in any age or
country, in which such variety of superlative merit is united.

Since the publication of the first edition of these volumes, the
following description of "Marriage à la Mode" was found among the
papers of the late Mr. Lane of Hillingdon; and his family believe it
to be Hogarth's Explanation, either copied from his own handwriting,
or given verbally to Mr. Lane at the time he purchased the pictures.
It is subjoined, that the reader may form his own judgment:--

EXPLANATION

OF THE PAINTINGS OF THE LATE MR. HOGARTH, CALLED

MARRIAGE A LA MODE.

      "Where Titles deign with Cits to have and hold,
      And change rich blood for more substantial gold;
      And honour'd trade from interest turns aside,
      To hazard happiness for titled pride."--GARRICK.

_The First Picture._

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

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

_The Second Picture._

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

_The Third Picture._

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

_The Fourth Picture._

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

_The Fifth Picture._

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

_The Sixth Picture._

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

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

PLATE I.

        While the proud Earl of Rollo's royal race
      Points to the peers his pompous parchment grace;
      Builds all his honours on a noble name,
      And on his father's deeds depends for fame;
      The wary citizen, with heedful eye,
      Inspects what's settled on posterity;
      Pours out the pelf by rigid avarice pil'd,
      To gain an empty title for his child.
          In vain the pomp, in vain the gold,
          Love cannot thus be bought and sold;
          Such sordid motives he disdains,
          Nor can be bound in Mammon's chains.
      With cold contempt, disgust, and deadly hate,
      The new-made wife regards her tawdry mate;
      While he, Narcissus-like, with eager gaze,
      Eyes those fine features which his glass displays,
      In his own person centres all his pride,
      And as his bride loves him, he loves his bride.
        Like Satan, whispering in the ear of Eve
      (By nature form'd to ruin and deceive),
      A black-rob'd, smooth-tongued son of Belial see,
      That would betray his Saviour for a fee;
      With base, insidious smile, and tender air,
      Bend o'er the inexperienc'd, thoughtless fair,
      Assaying by his devilish art to reach
      The organs of her fancy, and to teach
      Pernicious, wicked tenets, that would taint
      The pure chaste virgin or the hallowed saint;
      Tenets of baneful, deadly, sinful dye,
      That lead to shame, remorse, and infamy.--E.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PLATE II.

      Behold how Vice her votary rewards,
      After a night of folly, frolic, cards,
      The phantom pleasure flies,--and in its place
      Comes deep remorse and torturing disgrace,
      Corroding care, and self-accusing shame,
      A ruin'd fortune, and a blighted fame.--E.

[Illustration: MARRIAGE A LA MODE. PLATE II.]

Wearied, languid, and spiritless from the dissipations of the night,
with his sword broken in a riotous frolic, the modish Viscount
comes home at noon, and finds his lady just arisen, and seated _en
déshabillé_ at her matin meal. From the melancholy cast of his
countenance, and both hands being in his pockets, we may infer that
he has been unsuccessful at the gaming-table. A cap and riband,
which hang out of his coat pocket, lead us to suppose that part of
his night has been passed in the company of a female; and from the
attention a dog pays to the cap, we are led to suspect that he may
have originally belonged to the lady who is its proprietor.

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

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

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

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

      "Gay china's unsubstantial forms supply
      The place of beauty, strength, simplicity;
      Each varied colour of the brightest hue,
      The green, the red, the yellow, and the blue,
      In every part the dazzled eyes behold,
      Here streak'd with silver, there enrich'd with gold."

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

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

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

PLATE III.

      "To Galen's great descendant list,--oh list!
      Behold a surgeon, sage, anatomist,
      Mechanic, antiquarian, seer, collector,
      Physician, barber, bone-setter, dissector.
      The sextons, registers, and tombstones tell,
      By his prescriptions, what an army fell;
      Med'cines--by him compos'd will stop the breath,
      And every pill is fraught with certain death."[9]--E.

[Illustration: MARRIAGE A LA MODE. PLATE III.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

      "Here mummies lie, most reverently stale,
      And there, the tortoise hung her coat of mail:
      Not far from some huge shark's devouring head,
      The flying fish their finny pinions spread;
      Aloft, in rows, large poppy-heads were strung,
      And near, a scaly alligator hung:
      In this place, drugs in musty heaps decay'd,
      In that, dry'd bladders and drawn teeth were laid."

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

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

PLATE IV.

      The new-made Countess treads enchanted ground,
      And madly whirls in pleasure's airy round;
      From Circe's cup delicious poison quaffs,
      And, drunk with pomp, at cold discretion laughs.
      While the soft warbling of a senseless song,
      Pour'd from a neutral nothing,[13] charms the throng;
      To love's fond tale the fair her ear inclines,
      To Satan's agent all her soul resigns.
          Beware his soft insidious smiles,
        Fly from his glance, and shun his wiles;
        Avoid the serpent's poisonous breath,
        'Tis fraught with infamy and death.--E.

[Illustration: MARRIAGE A LA MODE. PLATE IV.]

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

      "The seeming echo of what once was song,
      Sweet by defect, and impotently strong."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PLATE V.

      Her dream of dissipation o'er,
      The bubble pleasure charms no more;
      The spell dissolv'd--broken the chain,
      Reason too late resumes her reign.--
      In vain the tear and contrite sigh,
      In vain the poignant agony.--
        Henceforth--thy portion is despair,
      Remorse, and deep corroding care;
      Misery!--to madness near allied,
      And ignominious suicide,
      Thy minion's meed, by law's decree,
      Is death--a death of infamy!--E.

[Illustration: MARRIAGE A LA MODE. PLATE V.]

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

      "Some contrite tears she shed."

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

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

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

        The grisly guards, with faces all awry,
      Like Herod's hang-dogs in old tapestry:
      Each man an Askapart, with strength to toss
      For quoits, both Temple-bar and Charing-cross.

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

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

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

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

PLATE VI.

        Forlorn, degraded, and distrest,
        The furies tear her tortur'd breast.
        Remorse, with agonizing sigh,
        And sullen shame with downcast eye;
        Anguish,--by cold reflection fed,
        And wan despair, and trembling dread,
        In guise terrific hover round,
        And ring the knell of thrilling sound.
        Scar'd Reason totters on her throne,
        And Hope is fled!--and Peace is gone.
      Shuddering at phantoms ever in her sight,
      Hating the garish sun, and trembling at the night;
      To poison,--sad resort! she frantic flies,
      And, self-destroy'd, the wretched Countess dies!--E.

[Illustration: MARRIAGE A LA MODE. PLATE VI.]

The last sad scene of our unfortunate heroine's life is in the house
of her father, to which she had returned after her husband's death.
The law could not consider her as the primary cause of his murder;
but consciousness of her own guilt was more severe punishment than
that could have inflicted. This, added to her father's reproaches,
and the taunts of those who were once her friends, renders society
hateful, and solitude insupportable. Wounded in every feeling,
tortured in every nerve, and seeing no prospect of a period to her
misery, she takes the horrid resolution of ending all her calamities
by poison.

        "Dreadful deed, unbidden thus
      To rush into the presence of her Judge,
      And challenge vengeance. 'Tis said
      Unheard-of tortures are reserved
      For murderers of themselves. They herd together:
      The common damn'd shun their society,
      As fiends too foul for converse."

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

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

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

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

      "'Fellow, our hat!'--no more he deign'd to say,
      But stern as Ajax' spectre, stalk'd away."

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

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

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

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

The _Clandestine Marriage_ is professedly formed upon the model of
these prints.

THE FOUR STAGES OF CRUELTY.

      "The poorest beetle that we tread upon,
      In corporal sufferance feels a pang as great
      As when a giant dies."

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

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

      "To rob the poor bird of its young."

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

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

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

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

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

FIRST STAGE OF CRUELTY.

      "While various scenes of sportive woe
        The infant race employ;
      And tortur'd victims bleeding, show
        The tyrant in the boy.

      "Behold a youth of gentler heart!
        To spare the creature's pain,
      O take, he cries--take all my tart,
        But tears and tart are vain.

      "Learn from this fair example, you
        Who savage sports delight,
      How cruelty disgusts the view,
        While pity charms the sight."

[Illustration: FIRST STAGE OF CRUELTY.]

Let us suppose a disciple of Pythagoras to contemplate this print,
how would it affect him? He would imagine it to represent a group
of young barbarians qualifying themselves for executioners; would
raise his voice to Heaven, and thank the God of mercy that he is not
an inhabitant of such a country; would lament that these degenerate
little beings should not have been informed that the animals on
whom they are now inflicting such tortures, might, previous to
transmigration, have been their fathers, brothers, friends.

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

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

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

SECOND STAGE OF CRUELTY.

      "The generous steed in hoary age,
        Subdued by labour lies,
      And mourns a cruel master's rage,
        While nature strength denies.

      "The tender lamb, o'er-drove and faint,
        Amidst expiring throes,
      Bleats forth its innocent complaint,
        And dies beneath the blows.

      "Inhuman wretch! Say, whence proceeds
        This coward cruelty?
      What interest springs from barbarous deeds?
        What joy from misery?"

      If, as the Samian taught, the soul revives,
      And shifting seats, in other bodies lives,
      Severe shall be the brutal coachman's change,
      Doom'd in a hackney horse the town to range;
      Carmen, transform'd, the groaning load shall draw,
      Whom other tyrants with the lash shall awe!

[Illustration: SECOND STAGE OF CRUELTY.]

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

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

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

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

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

CRUELTY IN PERFECTION.

      "To lawless love, when once betray'd,
        Soon crime to crime succeeds;
      At length beguil'd to theft, the maid
        By her beguiler bleeds.

      "Yet learn, seducing men, not night,
        With all its sable cloud,
      Can screen the guilty deed from sight:
        Foul murder cries aloud!

      "The gaping wounds, the blood-stain'd steel,
        Now shock his trembling soul;
      But ah! what pangs his breast must feel
        When death his knell shall toll!"

[Illustration: CRUELTY IN PERFECTION.]

An early indulged habit of wanton cruelty strengthens by time,
chokes every good disposition, corrupts the mind, and sears the
heart. We cannot say to the malevolent passions,

      "Thus far shall ye go, and no further."

The hero of this print began by torturing a helpless dog; he then
beat out the eye of an unoffending horse; and now, under the
influence of that malignant rancorous spirit, which by indulgence
is become natural, he commits murder--most foul and aggravated
murder!--for this poor deluded girl is pregnant by the wretch who
deprives her of life. He tempts her to quit a happy situation; to
plunder an indulgent mistress, and meet him with the produce of her
robbery. Blinded by affection, she keeps the fatal appointment, and
comes loaded with plate. This remorseless villain, having previously
determined to destroy her, and by that means cancel his promise of
marriage, free himself from an expected encumbrance, and silence one
whom compunction might at a future day induce to confess the crime
and lead to his detection, puts her to death!

This atrocious act must have been perpetrated with most savage
barbarity, for the head is nearly severed, and the wrist cut almost
through. Her cries are heard by the servants of a neighbouring house,
who run to her assistance. 'Tis too late. The horrid deed is done!
The ethereal spirit is forced from its earthly mansion,

      "Unhousell'd, unappointed, unaneal'd!"

but the murderer, appalled by conscious guilt, and rendered
motionless by terror, cannot fly. He is seized without resistance,
and consigned to that punishment which so aggravated a violation of
the laws of nature and his country demand.

The glimpses of the moon, the screech-owl and bat hovering in the
air, the mangled corpse, and above all, the murderer's ghastly and
guilty countenance, give terrific horror to this awful scene.[34]

By the pistol in his pocket and watches on the ground, we have
reason to infer that this callous wretch has been committing other
depredations in the earlier part of the evening. The time is what has
been emphatically called "the witching hour!"--the iron tongue of
midnight has told ONE!

The letter found in his pocket gives a history of the transaction; it
appears to be dictated by the warmest affection, and written by the
woman he has just murdered, previous to her elopement:--

  "DEAR TOMMY,--My mistress has been the best of women to me, and
  my conscience flies in my face as often as I think of wronging
  her; yet I am resolved to venture body and soul to do as you
  would have me; so do not fail to meet me as you said you would,
  for I shall bring along with me all the things I can lay my hands
  on. So no more at present; but I remain yours till death.

  "ANN GILL."

This is the simple effusion of a too credulous heart; whatever would
lessen the solemnity of the scene is carefully avoided; neither bad
spelling, nor any other ridiculous circumstances that might create
laughter are introduced.

THE REWARD OF CRUELTY.

      "Behold, the villain's dire disgrace,
        Not death itself can end;
      He finds no peaceful burial-place,
        His breathless corpse--no friend.

      "Torn from the root that wicked tongue,
        Which daily swore and curst;
        Those eye-balls from their sockets wrung,
      That glow'd with lawless lust.

      "His heart exposed to prying eyes,
        To pity has no claim;
      But dreadful! from his bones shall rise
        His monument of shame."

[Illustration: THE REWARD OF CRUELTY.]

The savage and diabolical progress of cruelty is now ended, and the
thread of life severed by the sword of justice. From the place
of execution the murderer is brought to Surgeons' Hall, and now
represented under the knife of a dissector. This venerable person, as
well as his coadjutor, who scoops out the criminal's eye, and a young
student scarifying the leg, seem to have just as much feeling as the
subject now under their inspection.[35] A frequent contemplation
of sanguinary scenes hardens the heart, deadens sensibility, and
destroys every tender sensation.

Our legislators, considering how unfit such men are to determine in
cases of life and death, have judiciously excluded both surgeons and
butchers from serving upon juries.

Hogarth was most peculiarly accurate in those little markings which
identify. The gunpowder initials T. N. on the arm, denote this to
be the body of Thomas Nero. The face being impressed with horror
has been objected to. It must be acknowledged that this is rather
"o'er-stepping the modesty of nature;" but he so rarely deviates from
her laws, that a little poetical licence may be forgiven where it
produces humour or heightens character.

The skeletons on each side of the print are inscribed "James
Field" (an eminent pugilist), and "Maclean" (a notorious robber).
Both of these worthies died by a rope. They are pointing to
the physician's crest which is carved on the upper part of the
president's[36] chair, viz. a hand feeling a pulse; taking a guinea
would have been more appropriate to the practice. The heads of
these two heroes of the halter are turned so as to seem ridiculing
the president, "Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp."
Every countenance in this grisly band is marked with that medical
importance which dignifies the professors. Some of them we discover
to be "from Caledonia's bleak and barren clime."

A fellow depositing the intestines in a pail, and a dog licking the
murderer's heart, are disgusting and nauseous objects. The vessel
where the skulls and bones bubble-bubble, gives some idea of the
infernal caldron of Hecate.

Of this print, and that preceding it, there are wooden blocks
engraved upon a large scale, invented and published by "William
Hogarth, Jan. 1, 1750; J. Bell, sculpt." They were executed by order
of Mr. Hogarth, who wished to circulate the salutary examples they
contain, by making the price low enough for a poor man's purse; but
finding engraving on wood much more expensive than he had calculated,
he altered his plan, and engraved them on copper.

[Illustration: (end of chapter floral icon)]

BEER STREET AND GIN LANE.

  "The nature and use of aliments maketh men either chaste or
  incontinent; either courageous or cowardly; either meek or
  quarrelsome: let those who deny these truths come to me; let them
  follow my counsel in eating and drinking, and I promise them they
  will find great helps thereupon towards moral philosophy. They
  will acquire more prudence, more diligence, more memory."--GALEN.

Fully impressed with the truth of this axiom, Mr. Hogarth engraved
the two following prints, in which he has considered porter as
the liquor natural to an English constitution; and that villanous
distillation, gin, as pernicious and poisonous. While that noble
beverage properly termed British Burgundy[37] refreshes the weary,
exhilarates the faint, and cheers the depressed, an infernal
compound of juniper and fiery spirits debases the mind, destroys the
constitution, and brings its thirsty votaries to an untimely grave.

These, as well as the four preceding prints, are calculated for the
lower orders of society, and exhibit such a contrast as must strike
the most careless observer. In the first, we see healthy and happy
beings inhaling copious draughts of a liquor which seems perfectly
congenial to their mental and corporeal powers; in the second, a
group of emaciated wretches who, by swallowing liquid fire, have
consumed both.

BEER STREET.

      "Beer, happy product of our isle,
        Can sinewy strength impart;
      And wearied with fatigue and toil,
        Can cheer each manly heart.

      "Labour and art, upheld by thee,
        Successfully advance;
      We quaff the balmy juice with glee,
        And water leave to France.

      "Genius of health, thy grateful taste
        Rivals the cup of Jove;
      And warms each English, generous breast,
        With liberty and love."

[Illustration: BEER STREET.]

This admirable delineation is a picture of John Bull in his most
happy moments. In the left corner, a butcher and a blacksmith are
each of them grasping a foaming tankard of porter. By the _King's
Speech_ and the _Daily Advertiser_ upon the table before them,
they appear to have been studying politics, and settling the state
of the nation. The blacksmith having just purchased a shoulder of
mutton, is triumphantly waving it in the air. Next to him a drayman
is whispering soft sentences of love to a servant-maid, round whose
neck is one of his arms; in the other hand a pot of porter. Two
fish-women, furnished with a flagon of the same liquor, are chaunting
a song of Mr. Lockman's[38] on the British Herring Fishery. A porter
having put a load of waste-paper[39] on the ground, is eagerly
quaffing this best of barley wine.

On the front of a house in ruins, is inscribed "Pinch, pawnbroker,"
and through a hole in the door a boy delivers a full half-pint.
In the background are two chairmen.[40] They have joined for
threepenny-worth to recruit their spirits, and repair the fatigue
they have undergone in _trotting between two poles_ with a ponderous
load of female frailty. Two paviors are washing away their cares
with a heart-cheering cup. In a garret window a trio of sailors are
employed in the same way; and on a house-top are four bricklayers
equally joyous. Each of these groups seem hale, happy, and well
clothed; but the artist, who is painting a glass bottle from an
original which hangs before him, is in a truly deplorable plight,
at the same time that he carries in his countenance a perfect
consciousness of his talents in this creative art.[41]

GIN LANE.

      "Gin, cursed fiend! with fury fraught,
        Makes human race a prey;
      It enters by a deadly draught,
        And steals our life away.

      "Virtue and Truth, driv'n to despair,
        Its rage compels to fly;
      But cherishes with hellish care,
        Theft, murder, perjury.

      "Damn'd cup! that on the vitals preys,
        That liquid fire contains;
      Which madness to the heart conveys,
        And rolls it thro' the veins."

[Illustration: GIN LANE.]

From contemplating the health, happiness, and mirth flowing from
a moderate use of a wholesome and natural beverage, we turn to
this nauseous contrast, which displays human nature in its most
degraded and disgusting state. The retailer of gin and ballads,[42]
who sits upon the steps with a bottle in one hand and a glass in
the other, is horribly fine. Having bartered away his waistcoat,
shirt, and stockings, and drank until he is in a state of total
insensibility; pale, wan, and emaciated, he is a perfect skeleton. A
few steps higher is a debased counterpart of Lazarus, taking snuff;
thoroughly intoxicated, and negligent of the infant at her breast,
it falls over the rail into an area, and dies an innocent victim to
the baneful vice of its depraved parent. Another of the fair sex
has drank herself to sleep. As an emblem of her disposition being
slothful, a snail is crawling from the wall to her arm. Close to her
we discover one of the lords of the creation gnawing a bare bone,
which a bull-dog, equally ravenous, endeavours to snatch from his
mouth. A working carpenter is depositing his coat and saw with a
pawnbroker. A tattered female offers her culinary utensils at the
same shrine: among them we discover a tea-kettle pawned to procure
money to purchase gin.[43] An old woman, having drank until she is
unable to walk, is put into a wheel-barrow, and in that situation
a lad solaces her with another glass. With the same poisonous and
destructive compound, a mother in the corner drenches her child.
Near her are two charity-girls of St. Giles', pledging each other
in the same corroding compound. The scene is completed by a quarrel
between two drunken mendicants, both of whom appear in the character
of cripples. While one of them uses his crutch as a quarterstaff,
the other with great goodwill aims a stool, on which he usually
sat, at the head of his adversary. This, with a crowd waiting for
their drams at a distiller's door, completes the catalogue of the
_quick_. Of the _dead_ there are two, besides an unfortunate child
whom a drunken madman has impaled upon a spit.[44] One a barber, who,
having probably drank gin until he has lost his reason, has suspended
himself by a rope in his own ruinous garret; the other a beautiful
woman, whom by direction of the parish beadle two men are depositing
in a shell. From her wasted and emaciated appearance, we may fairly
infer she also fell a martyr to this destructive and poisonous
liquid. On the side of her coffin is a child lamenting the loss of
its parent.

The large pewter measure hung over a cellar, on which is engraved
"Gin Royal," was once a common sign; the inscription on this cave of
despair, "Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for twopence, clean straw
for nothing," is worthy observation; it exhibits the state of our
metropolis at that period.

The scene of this horrible devastation is laid in a place which was a
few years since properly enough called the Ruins of St. Giles'.[45]
Except the pawnbroker's, distiller's, and undertaker's, the houses
are literally ruins! These doorkeepers to Famine, Disease, and Death,
living by the calamities of others, are in a flourishing state.[46]

Mr. Hogarth seems to have received the first idea of these two prints
from a pair by Peter Breughel (frequently called _Breughel d'enfer_),
which exhibit a similar contrast. In the one entitled "La Grosse"
are a number of comely and well-fed personages; in the other, which
is baptized "La Maigre Cuisine," the characters are meagre and
wasted: seated on a straw mat are a mother and child, which very much
resemble the wretched female we see upon the steps in the print under
consideration.

To the perspective little attention is paid, but the characters are
admirably discriminated. The emaciated retailer of gin is well drawn.
The woman with a snuff-box has all the mawkish marks of debasement
and drunkenness. The man gnawing a bone, a dog tearing it from him,
and the pawnbroker, have countenances in an equal degree hungry and
rapacious.

A print entitled the "Gin Drinkers," which bears strong marks of
being one of Hogarth's early productions, may perhaps have been the
first thought on which this print was built.

On the subject of these plates was published a catchpenny compilation
from Reynolds' "God's Revenge against Murder," entitled "_A
Dissertation on Mr. Hogarth's six prints--'Gin Lane,' 'Beer Street,'
and the 'Four Stages of Cruelty.'_"

PAUL BEFORE FELIX.

  _Designed and etched in the ridiculous manner of Rembrandt, by
  William Hogarth. Published according to the Act of Parliament,
  May 1, 1751._

  "Each hero is a pillar of darkness, and the sword a beam of
  fire."[47]--FINGAL, Book I. p. 21.

[Illustration: PAUL BEFORE FELIX.]

For the etchings of Rembrandt, and a herd of servile imitators who,
without any of his genius, copied his defects, Hogarth had the most
sovereign contempt. He considered their productions as unmeaning
scratches, as dingy and violent combinations of light and darkness,
which would not bear to be tried by the criterion of either nature
or art. How far he was right in his opinion is not my inquiry; but
certain it is, that at the time of this publication they had the
sanction of those who were deemed good judges, and produced most
enormous prices. To correct this vitiated taste, and bring men back
to reason and common sense, our whimsical artist etched this very
grotesque print.

The Apostle, conformable to the general practice of the Flemish
school, is represented as a mean and vulgar character. Among the
Lilliputians he might have been a giant; among the Romans he must
have been a dwarf. In the true spirit of Dutch allegory, a figure
fat enough for a burgomaster, invested with wings "that clad each
shoulder broad," is seated on the floor behind him as a guardian
angel. At this unpropitious moment the guardian angel is asleep, and
a little imp of darkness,[48] ever active in mischief, is busily
employed with a hand-saw cutting through the leg of the Apostle's
stool, which falling, must inevitably bring the orator to the ground,
where he will probably be seized by the snarling dog on whose collar
is engraved "Felix," and who seems to have an eye to the saint,
though his nose is evidently pointed at his appalled master. Seated
in a wicker chair, with the Roman eagle over his head, and the fasces
at his left hand, Felix indeed trembles. On an adjoining seat is the
all-accomplished Drusilla and her lap-dog. Her olfactory nerves,
as well as those of her companion, are violently affected. With a
sacrificing knife in his right hand, his left clenched, and a
countenance irritated almost to madness, the High Priest appears
ready to leap from the bench and put the Apostle to death, but is
prevented by a more prudent senator. The audience are worthy of the
judges; male and female, young and old, are in dress, deportment,
and feature, perfectly Dutch. Of the same school is the statue of
Justice, with a bandage over one eye, and grasping, in the place of
a flaming sword, a butcher's knife.[49] She stands in awful state,
laden with bags of gold, the rewards of legal decisions.

At a table beneath the bench are five curious characters. The first,
maugre the thundering eloquence of St. Paul, is asleep; the next,
mending a pen; two adjoining are highly offended with a noxious
effluvia, while their bearded associate is grinning and pointing
at the cause from which it emanates. Regardless of all other
objects, an Hebrew counterpart of Shylock is expanding his hands in
astonishment at the unguarded vehemence of the preacher. Not less
exasperated is Tertullus, who, arrayed in the habit of an English
serjeant-at-law,[50] has nothing Roman but his nose. Boiling with
rage, and irritated almost to madness, he tears his brief: this,
a devil, who to give him peculiar distinction has three horns, is
carefully picking up and joining the remnants together.[51] The vase,
and silver plates in a recess, the violent stream of light which
dazzles the eyes of a priest _who stands with his back to it_, the
boat, bark, and white sail glittering in the wave, and a village and
windmill in the distance, are all of Rembrandt's school.

The plate was originally intended as a receipt-ticket to the large
"Paul before Felix," and "Pharaoh's Daughter;" and the artist stained
many early impressions with that yellow tint which time gives to
old prints. For the Paul, and Moses, he afterwards engraved another
design, and presented this to any of his friends who requested
it; but finding applications increase, he fixed the price at five
shillings.[52]

PLATE I.

  _Engraved by William Hogarth, from his original painting in
  Lincoln's-Inn Hall, and published as the Act directs, Feb. 5,
  1752._

  "And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to
  come, Felix trembled."

[Illustration: PAUL PREACHING BEFORE FELIX.]

This print Mr. Hogarth intended as a serious and sublime
representation of the scene which he had so inimitably burlesqued;
yet so little are we qualified to judge of our own powers, that he
has here produced a print as destitute of elevation and sentiment as
are the works of those masters he so successfully ridiculed. With
the Roman eagle he could not soar, and has drawn the royal bird
like a sparrow-hawk, nailed to the bottom of a writing-desk. The
Apostle, with his right foot resting on a lower step than the left,
has neither grace, dignity, nor firmness. Felix has the appearance
of a vinegar-faced apothecary feeling the pulse of a nervous female
patient, and shocked at the velocity of our circulation, dropping
the prescription from his left hand. The haughty High Priest
biting his nails, is deficient in everything except his drapery:
the Jew immediately behind him bears a strong resemblance to an
old-clothes-man. The standard-bearer, and woman with her hands
closed, are a degree better; but the Herculean advocate, with a
brief in his right hand, looks like a journeyman hatter that has
drank porter till he is drowsy; by the strength of his muscles and
the stupidity of his countenance, he seems better fitted for a
bruiser than a pleader.

The listening soldier, at the opposite corner, is meanly conceived
and ill drawn.

At the bottom of one of the copies I once saw the following
memorandum in the handwriting of Hogarth: "A print of the plate that
was set aside as insufficient. Engraved by W. H."

PLATE II.

  _From the original painting in Lincoln's-Inn Hall, painted by Wm.
  Hogarth._

[Illustration: PAUL PREACHING BEFORE FELIX.]

This is engraved from the same design as the former, but the
situation of the figures is reversed, and Drusilla omitted, it being
thought that St. Paul's hand was rather improperly placed.

It is somewhat superior to the former, but the light is ill
distributed, and the characters too individual for the dignity of
historical composition.

Upon this and the following print Doctor Joseph Warton, in his _Essay
on the Genius and Writings of Pope_, made the following remark.
Trusting to his memory, he confounded two prints together, and
remembering to have seen a dog snarling at a cat in the fourth
print of "Industry and Idleness," from an error in recollection,
transferred them to the "Paul before Felix:"--

"Some nicer virtuosi have remarked, that in the serious pieces into
which Hogarth has deviated from the natural bias of his genius
there are some strokes of the ridiculous discernible, which suit
not with the dignity of his subject. In his Preaching of St. Paul,
a dog snarling at a cat; and in his Pharaoh's Daughter, the figure
of the infant Moses, who expresses rather archness than timidity,
are alleged as instances that this artist, unrivalled in his walk,
could not resist the impulse of his imagination towards drollery.
His picture, however, of Richard III. is pure and unmixed, without
any ridiculous circumstances, and strongly impresses terror and
amazement."

On the publication of this criticism, Hogarth engraved the whole
quotation under the two prints alluded to without any comment; but on
the appearance of the following very ample and candid apology, erased
them:--

"The author gladly lays hold of the opportunity of this third edition
of his work to confess a mistake he had committed with respect to
two admirable paintings of Mr. Hogarth,--his Paul Preaching, and
his Infant Moses,--which on a closer examination are not chargeable
with the blemishes imputed to them. Justice obliges him to declare
the high opinion he entertains of the abilities of this inimitable
artist, who shines in so many different lights and on such very
dissimilar subjects, and whose works have more of what the ancients
called the ΗΘΟΣ in them than the compositions of any other modern.
For the rest, the author begs leave to add, that he is so far from
being ashamed of retracting his error, that he had rather appear a
man of candour than the best critic that ever lived."

Hogarth did not understand Greek, and was for some time doubtful
whether the ΗΘΟΣ was meant as complimentary or satirical.

If the original painting in Lincoln's-Inn Hall were destroyed,
Hogarth's reputation would not be diminished.

[Illustration: (end of chapter floral icon)]

MOSES BEFORE PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER.

  "And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter,
  and he became her son. And she called his name Moses."--EXODUS
  II. 10.

[Illustration: MOSES BEFORE PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER.]

Among the many benevolent institutions which do honour to this
nation, the hospital for maintaining exposed and deserted infants may
be ranked as one of the most humane and political. Let the austere
enthusiast censure it as an encouragement to vice, and the rigid
moralist declaim against giving sanction to profligacy, it is still
an useful and a benevolent foundation.

To protect the helpless, give refuge to the innocent, and render that
unoffending being a useful member of society whose parents may be too
indigent to give it proper sustenance, or wicked enough to destroy
it, is fulfilling one great precept of religion, and must afford a
pure and exalted gratification to every philanthropic mind.[53]

That it is found necessary to restrict the plan, and confine the
charity in such narrow limits, is much to be lamented. Compassion and
policy demand that the doors should be open to every proper object.

To this asylum for deserted infancy Mr. Hogarth was one of the
earliest benefactors,[54] and to their institution presented the
picture from which this print is engraved; there is not perhaps in
holy writ another story so exactly suitable to the avowed purpose
of the foundation.

The history of Moses being deserted by his mother, exposed among the
bulrushes, and discovered and protected by the daughter of Pharaoh,
is known to every one who has read the Bible: those who have not,
may find it there recorded, with many other things well worthy their
attention. At the point of time here taken, the child's mother,
whom the Princess considers as merely its nurse, has brought him to
his patroness, and is receiving from the treasurer the wages of her
services. The little foundling naturally clings to his nurse, though
invited to leave her by the daughter of a monarch. The eyes of an
attendant, and a whispering Ethiopian, convey an oblique suspicion
that the child has a nearer affinity to their mistress than she
chooses to acknowledge.[55]

Considered as a whole, this picture has a more historic air than we
often find in the works of Hogarth. The royal Egyptian is graceful,
and in some degree elevated.[56] The treasurer is marked with austere
dignity, and the Jewess and child with nature. The scene is superb,
and the distant prospect of pyramids, etc. highly picturesque and
appropriate to the country. To exhibit this scene, the artist has
placed the groups at such a distance as crowd the corners and leave
the centre unoccupied. As the Greeks are said to have received the
rudiments of art from Egypt, the line of beauty on the base of a
pillar is properly introduced. A crocodile creeping from under the
stately chair may be intended to mark the neighbourhood of the Nile,
but is a poor and forced conceit.

[Illustration: (end of chapter floral icon)]

FOUR PRINTS OF AN ELECTION.

I think it is Voltaire who observes that the English nation are
mad every seven years: he might have added that there are local
fits which seize some parts of the country at other times; but this
madness, like the fermentation of liquors, proves the spirit of the
people.

In the following series of prints Mr. Hogarth has delineated the
progress of this malady, in four of its most remarkable stages, with
that broad and characteristic humour peculiar to himself. He has
presented us with the mirror of a contested election, the British
Saturnalia; in which is displayed what Abbé Raynal most emphatically
calls "the majesty of the people!"--an expression, says the same
writer, "which would alone consecrate a language."

The first print was published February 24, 1755, and inscribed to the
Right Hon. Henry Fox.--Plate II., February 20, 1757, to Sir Charles
Hanbury Williams, Ambassador to the Court of Russia.--Plate III.,
February 20, 1758, to the Hon. Sir Edward Walpole, Knight of the
Bath.--Plate IV., January 1, 1759, to the Hon. George Hay, one of
the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty.

The original pictures are now in the possession of Mrs. Garrick, at
Hampton.

It appears from the _Grub Street Journal_ of June 13, 1734, that
the same subject had been previously attempted by another artist,
under the title of "The Humours of a Country Election." It must be
acknowledged that the inscriptions to some of the compartments have
a striking similarity to the scenes represented by Hogarth. "The
candidates very complaisant to a country clown," etc. "The candidates
making an entertainment for the electors and their wives; at the
upper end of the table the parson of the parish," etc.

In 1759 was published, in four cantos, a poetical description of
these prints, introduced by the following remarkable advertisement,
dated

  "CHEAPSIDE, _March 1, 1759_.

  "For the satisfaction of the reader, and in justice to the
  concealed author, I take the liberty, with the permission of Mr.
  Hogarth, to insert in this manner that gentleman's opinion of the
  following cantos, which is--That the thoughts entirely coincide
  with his own; that there is a well-adapted vein of humour
  preserved through the whole; and that though some of his works
  have been formerly explained by other hands, yet none ever gave
  him so much satisfaction as the present performance.

  "JOHN SMITH."

Had Mr. Hogarth's taste for poetry been in any degree equal to his
skill in painting, he would scarcely have given so strong a sanction
to this wretched attempt at Hudibrastic humour, which is coarse,
dull, mean, and very unworthy of the scenes which it professes to
celebrate.[57]

PLATE I.

AN ELECTION ENTERTAINMENT.

      "Here tumult wild and rude confusion reign,
      And hoodwink'd party heads the senseless train;
      Here meets her motley tribe--here holds her court,
      For pamper'd Gluttony, the grand resort.
      From orgies so profane--stern Freedom flown,
      Corruption mounts her abdicated throne.
      Unhappy Britain--thy degenerate tribe,
      Like Esau, barter birthright for a bribe."--E.

[Illustration: THE ELECTION, PLATE I. THE ENTERTAINMENT.]

The first act of this popular farce is very properly a dinner, which
in all public transactions ought to precede every other business.[58]
The scene is laid in a country town, at an inn, which in these piping
times of peace is kept open for the friends of the Court candidate.
All the party, except the divine and the mayor, have ended their
repast; but episcopal dignity, or prætorian distinction, gives a
right to more indulgence than is allowed to the unhallowed multitude.

The highly polished and accomplished gentleman[59] who aspires to the
honour of a seat in the British senate demands our first notice. He
has what an Hibernian would call a face of much promise. His dress,
air, and grace proclaim that he has travelled. Pope has described him
exactly as if he had sat for the picture:

                "He saunter'd Europe round,
      And gathered every vice on Christian ground,
      Saw every court, heard every king declare
      His royal sense of operas, or the fair.--
      See now half-cured, and perfectly well-bred,
      With nothing but a solo in his head,
      As much estate, and principle, and wit,
      As Jansen, Fleetwood, Cibber, shall think fit;
      Stol'n from a duel, follow'd by a nun,
      And if a Borough choose him,--not undone," etc.

At this time of general equality and universal levelling, when
knight and vassal, esquire and mechanic, are of equal rank, our
paragon of politeness is lending an attentive ear to a disgusting
old beldam, who from her rotundity may be a descendant of Sir John
Falstaff's. In her hand, which is behind him, she holds a letter
directed to Sir Commodity Taxem; this we may naturally suppose
contains either a request of a favour or an offer of a service, in
the sure and certain hope of a return to it. Be that as it may, the
gallant knight shows her every attention, and has stretched his long
arm half round her ample waist:

      "Thus the bold eagle leaves his azure way,
      And takes the carrion carcase for his prey;
      There dips his beak--but when the banquet's done,
      Replumes his wings, and rises to the sun."

While a little girl dazzled with the splendour of his brilliant
ring attempts to make it a prize, a fellow who stands upon a chair
behind him, with all that easy familiarity which the time warrants,
strikes the Baronet's head against that of the old woman, and shakes
the ashes out of his tobacco-pipe upon his powdered hair. This is
election wit.

The next group form a trio, and are made up by a grinning cobbler, a
dirty-faced barber, and a mawkish gentleman, whose hand the son of
St. Crispin grasps with an energy that almost cracks the bones. The
barber, equally friendly, pinches his arm, and resting one hand upon
his shoulder blows the hot fumes from a short tobacco-pipe into his
eye. This also is election wit.

A pyramidical group behind is composed of an officer, a drunken
counsellor, and a pleasing young woman, over whose head the maudlin
advocate, flourishing a bumper of wine, roars out an obscene toast.
This is the third and most finished specimen of election wit. At
a table a little beneath, stewing "the last lov'd remnant of the
forest haunch," sits an oily divine,[60] holding his canonical
periwig in his right hand, and wiping his forehead with the left.
Behind him is a Scotch bagpiper, who, at the same time that he is
pressing out his harsh and unmusical tones, enjoys the _royal_
luxury of scratching.[61] A female player on the violin,[62] and a
most consequential performer on the bass viol, when aided by the
Caledonian pipe, must form a most melodious concert.

A fourth votary of St. Cecilia holds his musical instrument under his
arm, ceasing all dulcet sounds, while he drinks a glass of Burgundy
with a gentleman who seems much gratified at seeing a chin of more
extravagant length than his own. Adjoining are two country fellows
delighted beyond measure at a person[63] making the representation
of a face by wrapping a napkin round his hand, and singing, "An old
woman clothed in grey," etc. This face, ingeniously designed with
charcoal blots for eyes and mouth, bears a strong resemblance to the
poor gouty old fellow on his left hand, whose violent contortions
lead us to suspect that he feels some disagreeable internal emotion.
Behind, is a fellow pouring the contents of a vessel through a
window amongst a crowd made up of the opposite party, in return for a
shower of stones they are hurling into the room. To annoy and repel
these troublesome assailants, a man at the opposite corner throws out
a three-legged stool. At the upper end of the table sits a gentleman
in a tye-wig, whom we presume to be the Right Worshipful Mr. Mayor.
He has ate oysters until his breath is stopped, and is now under
the hands of a barber-surgeon. This village _Sangrado_ attempts to
breathe a vein; "But ah! the purple tide no more will flow."

Notwithstanding this suspension of vital powers, our absolute monarch
of his own corporation, true to the cause, and actuated by his ruling
passion, even in death, grasps a fork, on which he has impaled an
oyster. Immediately behind him an electioneering agent offers a
bribe to a puritanic tailor; but this conscientious wielder of the
needle, lifting up his eyes with horror, refuses the money, maugre
the terrific threats of his _amiable_ wife, who, while she raises her
right fist in a menacing style, rests her left hand on the head of
their barefooted boy.

On an opposite chair is an unfortunate man of the law, who, intent on
casting up the sure and doubtful votes, is, like the mighty Goliah,
struck in the forehead with a stone, and falls prostrate to the
floor. "Where be his quirks and quiddits now?"

A champion of the same party, generally called a bludgeon-man,[64]
having met with a similar accident in the cause of his country, is
taken in hand by a patriotic butcher, who, assuming the office of
surgeon, pours gin into the wound. A little boy filling a mashing-tub
with punch,[65] and a trading Quaker reading a promissory note,
conclude the catalogue. This note is from the candidate to Mr. Abel
Squat for fifty pounds, payable six months after date, and probably
offered in payment for ribands, gloves, etc., which are to be
presented to the electors' wives and daughters. With this note honest
Abel is much dissatisfied; and by the manner one hand is laid upon
his little bale of goods, it does not seem probable that he will part
with them for paper security.

Coming in at the door we see a band of assailants from the opposite
party, determined to attack the enemy in their entrenchments; most
of them flourish their cudgels, but one of the heroes brandishes a
sword. The stag's horns over the door may perhaps be intended to
convey some allusion to the trembling Puritan. A party, whom their
enemies at that time distinguished by the name of Jacobites, to
show _their_ respect for Revolution principles, have mangled the
portrait of King William the Third. The escutcheon with the Elector's
arms, A CHEVRON SABLE BETWEEN THREE GUINEAS OR, with the crest of a
gaping mouth, and motto "Speak and Have," is very applicable to a
parliamentary canvas. The landscape over the candidate's head may,
it has been observed, be intended as a representation of the town
where this business is transacting. On the flag, which is entwined
with laurels, is inscribed "Liberty and Loyalty," which cabalistic
words, like the Abracadabra, are a sort of charm to the eyes of
your Englishman. On another flag, which lies upon the ground, is
written, "Give us our Eleven Days."[66] In the tobacco tray is a
paper of Kirton's best,[67] and a slip from the Act against Bribery
and Corruption is torn to light pipes with. A lobster appears to be
creeping towards a mutton chop, which lies unheeded in a corner. A
procession in the street are following an effigy,[68] on the breast
of which is inscribed, "No Jews." The mottoes on their flags are
equally curious: "Liberty and Property, and no Excise;" and, "Marry
and Multiply, in spite of the devil."

An inscription on the butcher's cockade is infinitely more classical
and elegant: "Pro Patriæ" has a chance of general admiration, because
it is not generally understood.

As to the characters of the _dramatis personæ_. The face and air of
the Baronet are perfectly of Lord Chesterfield's school; a fellow
scattering ashes on his head, and the cobbler at the table, are
marked with mischief. The fat old woman is of Mother Cole's family;
and the divine has the corpulence and consequence of a bishop. He
must "lard the lean earth as he walks along." The two country fellows
looking with delighted eyes at Mr. Parnell, and an old man tortured
by the gout, are admirably discriminated. The barber-surgeon and his
brother butcher have so much _sang froid_, and display so little
feeling for their suffering patients, that we naturally infer each
of them is in great practice.

Hogarth was fond of making experiments; and it has been said, that
when engraving this plate he determined to attempt what no artist
had ever performed, _i.e._ to finish the plate without taking a
single proof during the process. The consequence was such as might
be expected; he made some mistakes that it was scarcely possible
to rectify, and on discovering the errors, violently exclaimed
that he was ruined. On his passion subsiding, a brother engraver
assisted him to correct the faults occasioned by trying to perform
an impossibility. It is, however, the highest finished print he ever
engraved.

In the first state of the plate were some lemons and oranges lying
on a paper by the side of the tub; but Hogarth being informed that
vitriol and cream of tartar are the usual acids in election punch,
erased them from the copper.

PLATE II.

CANVASSING FOR VOTES.

      "Although bare merit might in Rome appear
      The strongest plea for favour,--'tis not here;
      We form our judgment in another way,
      And he will best succeed who best can pay."

[Illustration: THE ELECTION, PLATE II. CANVASSING FOR VOTES.]

The centre group in this print represents a rustic freeholder between
two innkeepers, each of whom, as agents for their respective parties,
are dropping money into his hands. From the arch and significant
cast of his eye, we see that though interest induces him to take
all that either of them will give, _conscience_ obliges him to vote
for the best paymaster.[69] One of the candidates, considering how
necessary it is to conciliate the favour of the fair, is purchasing
trinkets from a Jew pedlar for two ladies, who express their virtuous
wishes in a balcony. Though neither of them have votes, their
interest may be very extensive. By the direction upon a letter which
a porter, in the hope of a more liberal gratuity, delivers with a
bended knee, we perceive that this gentleman is of the numerous and
ancient family of the party tools, who have flourished in this
island ever since the Revolution. A packet on the ground consists of
printed bills to be dispersed among the electors, intimating that
Punch's theatre is opened,[70] the company of the worthy electors
humbly[71] and earnestly requested, etc. etc. In election business,
eating is a leading article; of this, two hungry countrymen in the
Royal Oak larder seem perfectly sensible. One of them is voraciously
devouring a fowl, and the other slashing away a round of beef.
Seated upon an old stern of a ship, which is placed as a kind of
national trophy at the inn door, and represents the British lion
swallowing the lily of France, is the buxom landlady (at this time a
very important personage), counting the money she has received for
_her_ interest in the borough; a grenadier watches her with that
kind of eagerness which seems to intimate a desire of dividing the
spoil. Settling the nation while they drink their ale, a barber and
a cobbler are engaged in a dispute upon politics at the door of the
Portobello[72] alehouse. The former seems describing, with pieces
of broken tobacco-pipes, the great exploits of Admiral Vernon with
six ships only. In the progress of this voluble harangue he has
advanced something contrary to the cobbler's creed, and Crispin,
being no great orator, offers to back his opinion by a wager. This
the eloquent flourisher of a razor is either unwilling or unable
to answer, and the self-important mender of bad soles triumphantly
sweeps his cash from the table to his pocket. A fellow mounted on
a cross-beam at the end of the Crown signpost deserves particular
notice. Eagerly exercising his hand-saw, he strains every nerve to
cut through the beam, totally negligent of his own situation, and
forgetting that when the Crown drops--he must fall. To accelerate
this operation, and bring the business to a more speedy crisis, two
zealous coadjutors are exerting all their strength in pulling at a
rope which is tied round the beam. This is one of the neatest pieces
of allegory that Hogarth has delineated.

The crowd beneath are a fair representation of what we had occasion
to notice before--the majesty of the people. Delighting in
devastation, and blind to its consequences, they with one voice "cry
havoc, and let slip the dogs of war." The landlord, enraged at this
wanton attack upon his _castle_, opens his window and discharges a
blunderbuss amongst the assailants. Painted on the upper part of a
show-cloth, and hung before the sign of the Royal Oak,[73] is a view
of the Treasury, out of which a stream of gold is poured into a bag,
which, when filled, will be hoisted into a large waggon now loading
with guineas to defray the expense of the approaching elections.
Next to this is a view of that _solid_ specimen of Mr. Ware's taste
and talents in architecture, the Horse Guards. To the cupola of this
ponderous pile the artist has, with very little exaggeration, given
the form of a beer barrel. In the centre arch the builder forgot
proportion and neglected utility, so that the state coach could not
pass through until the ground was lowered. To satirize this violation
of the laws of Palladio, and inattention to the dictates of common
sense, Hogarth has represented the royal carriage on the point of
entering the arch, and the king's _body-coachman_ without a head.[74]
Beneath is delineated that ancient favourite of a puppet-show, the
facetious Mr. Punch, with a barrow full of guineas, which, with a
wooden ladle, he tosses up and scatters in the air, to the great
delight of two sylvan freeholders who attempt to catch them in their
hats. One of these _simple_ swains,[75] having had his head broken
with the gold, endeavours to guard his _caput_ from future mishaps.
An old woman standing behind them with a magic wand, I suppose to
be Mrs. Punch. Underneath is a very applicable inscription, "Punch,
a candidate for Guzzledown." A view in the background, between
the Crown and Portobello, of a cottage embosomed in a wood, and
a village in the distance, is highly picturesque. The tree, which
spreads its foliage before the walls of the Royal Oak, has one
withered bough; and enveloped by the luxuriant branches of a vine,
hangs a wooden bunch of grapes.

The characters are admirable. Nothing can be superior to the haughty
and oracular self-importance of the cobbler; the barber has all his
professional volubility; and the leer of the countryman lets you into
his whole soul. It is evidently directed to mine host of the Oak,[76]
who, added to his superior weight of _metal_, has a superior weight
of body, and a much more persuasive aspect. The Jew has the true
countenance of his tribe. Of his customer, we may say in the language
of Shylock,

      "How like a fawning publican he looks!"

PLATE III.

THE POLLING.

      "Time was,--our freeholders, a stout rustic band,
      Inhal'd the fresh breeze as they till'd their own land;
      Their hearts beam'd with honour, their faces with health,
      Their toil gave them strength, and their diligence wealth.
      But these sons of misery, disfranchis'd by fate,
      Resemble a group at an hospital gate,
      All huddled together in one little clan,
      To display the calamities common to man.
      Yet deaf, blind, or lame, we must trust to their choice;
      _Sans_ ears, eyes, or hands,--each may have a good voice.
      And--gasping for breath,--it deserves special note,
      The _expiring Elector_ is deem'd a _dead vote_."--E.

[Illustration: THE ELECTION, PLATE III. THE POLLING.]

With the glorious ambition of serving their country, added to an
eagerness of displaying their own importance, the maimed, the lame,
the blind, the deaf, and the sick, hasten to the hustings to give
their _independent_ votes.[77] The contending candidates, seated at
the back of the booth, anticipate the event. One of them, coolly
resting upon his cane in a state of stupid satisfaction, appears to
be as happy as his nature will admit, in the certainty of success.
Very different are the feelings of his opponent, who, rubbing his
head with every mark of apprehensive agitation, contemplates the
state of the poll, and shudders at the heavy expense of a contest in
which he is likely to be the loser. Such are the cares of a candidate.

      "A man, when once he's safely chose,
      May laugh at all his furious foes,
        Nor think of former evil:
      Yet good has its attendant ill,
      A seat is no bad thing,--but still,
        A contest is the Devil."

The first person that tenders his oath to the swearing clerk is an
old soldier, and probably a brave one, for he has lost a leg, an arm,
and a hand, in the service of his country. They were severed by the
sword of an enemy, but the trunk and heart remain entire, and are
entitled to more respect than is paid them by the brawling advocate,
who, with that loud and overbearing loquacity for which Billingsgate
and the bar are so deservedly eminent, puts in a protest against his
vote. The objection is not founded upon this heroic remnant of war
having forfeited his franchise by any improper conduct, but upon
the letter, the black letter of the law, "which," says our quibbling
counsellor, "ordains, 'that the person who makes an affidavit shall
lay his right hand upon the book.' Now, this man having had his
right hand severed from his arm, and, as he informs us, left it in
Flanders, cannot comply with the letter of the law, and therefore
is not competent to make an affidavit; that being once admitted,
which I do contend must be admitted, he cannot be deemed competent
to vote." "That," replies another gentleman of the black robe, "I
most pointedly deny; for though this valiant veteran, who is an
half-pay officer, has lost much of his blood and three of his limbs
in the service of his king, and defence of his fellow-subjects, yet
the sword which deprived him of his hand has not deprived him of his
birthright. God forbid it should! It might as well be argued and
asserted, that this gentleman is excluded from the rites of matrimony
because he cannot pledge his hand. Thanks to our religion and our
constitution, neither law nor gospel holds such language, and it
is beneath me to waste any more words in the confutation of it. I
will only add,--and I do insist upon my opinion being confirmed by
every statute upon the case,--that the law must and will consider
this substitute for a hand to be as good as the hand itself; and
his laying that upon the book is all which the law ought to
require,--all the law can require,--all the law does require."

Leaving these two bright luminaries of their profession to throw
dust, and render that obscure which without their explanation would
have been perfectly clear, let us attend to the son of Solomon, who
is fastened in his chair and brought to give his voice for a fit
person to represent _him_ in Parliament. This is evidently a deaf
idiot, but he is attended by a man in fetters,[78] very capable of
prompting him, who is at this moment roaring in his ear the name of
the gentleman for whom he is to vote. Behind him are two fellows
carrying a man wrapped in a blanket, apparently in so languid a
state, that he cannot be supposed to feel much interest in the
concerns of a world he is on the point of leaving.[79] The catalogue
of this motley group of electors is concluded by a blind man and
a cripple, who are slowly and cautiously ascending the steps that
lead to the hustings. In the group an artist is drawing a profile of
one of the candidates, and in both air and character this Sayers of
his day has given a very striking resemblance of his original. The
constable, fatigued by double duty, is at peace with all mankind--a
deep sleep is upon him. Many of the crowd are attentively listening
to the soft sounds of a female siren, warbling forth a brown paper
libel on one of the candidates in that universal language which those
that cannot read may yet understand,--the hero of this satire being
delineated as suspended to a gibbet on the top of the ballad.

In the sinister corner is a view of Britannia's chariot oversetting,
while the coachman and footman are playing at cards on the box. Here
is one of the few instances where Hogarth has mounted into the cloudy
heights of allegory; and here, as Mr. Walpole justly observes, he is
not happy: it is a dark and dangerous region, in which almost every
aeronaut of the arts has lost himself, and confused his earth-born
admirers. On a bridge in the background is a carriage, with
colours flying, and a cavalcade composed of worthy and independent
freeholders advancing to give their suffrages with all possible
_éclat_.

The village in the distance has a pretty effect. Of the church we may
fairly say, as Charles the Second did of that at Harrow on the Hill,
"It is the _visible_ church."

Part of this plate was engraved by Morrilon le Cave, who was a
scholar of Picart's. In the year 1733, he engraved from Hogarth's
design a small print of Captain Coram, etc., as the headpiece to a
power of attorney for the Governors of the Foundling Hospital: he
also engraved a head of Doctor Pococke, which is the frontispiece to
Twell's edition of the Doctor's works.

PLATE IV.

CHAIRING THE MEMBER.

      When Philip's warlike and victorious son
      A kingdom conquer'd or a battle won,
      His legions bow'd the head, and bent the knee,
      And cried, exulting,--Lo, a Deity!
      Bore him triumphant in a glittering car,
      While thundering plaudits rent the echoing air.
        So,--the Election being finish'd,
      His borough gain'd, his coin diminish'd,
      Our Knight in mock heroic state
      Is now exalted,--but not great.
        Beyond all doubt the people's choice,
      Ah!--could he check the people's voice?
      For some exclaim,--A venal knave!
      And others,--A time-serving slave!
      While this roars out,--A party tool!
      That, sneering cries,--A party fool!
        These are hard words, and grating tones;
      But what are words to broken bones?
      And broken bones he'll soon bewail,
      For there's no fence against a flail.
      Oh hapless wight!--ah, luckless fray,
      Down drops this pageant of the day.
        Thus, he most raised above his fellows,
      By one rude blast from Fortune's bellows,
      Falls, like a tempest-riven tower,
      From pomp, pride, circumstance, and power.--E.

[Illustration: THE ELECTION, PLATE IV. CHAIRING THE MEMBERS.]

The polling being concluded, the books cast up, and the
returning-officer having declared our candidate[80] duly elected, he
is now exhibited in triumph. Seated in an arm-chair, and exalted upon
the shoulders of four tried supporters of the constitution, he is
borne through the principal streets, which are promiscuously crowded
with enemies as well as friends. In this aerostatic voyage there
seems to be some danger of a wreck; for a thresher having received
an insult from a sailor, in the act of revenging it flourishes his
flail in as extensive an orbit as if he were in his own barn. The
end of this destructive instrument coming in contact with the skull
of a bearer of our new-made member, the fellow's head rings with
the blow, his eyes swim, his limbs refuse their office, and at this
inauspicious moment the effects of the stroke, like an electric
shock, extend to the exalted senator. He trembles in every joint; the
hat flies from his head--and--without the intervention of Juno or
Minerva, he must fall from the seat of honour to the bed of stone.
Terrified at his impending danger, a nervous lady, who with her
attendants is in the churchyard, falls back in a swoon. Regardless
of her distress, two little chimney-sweepers upon the gate-post are
placing a pair of gingerbread spectacles on a death's head. Their
sportive tricks are likely to be interrupted by a monkey beneath,
who, arrayed _en militaire_, is mounted upon a bear's back. The
firelock slung over this little animal's shoulder, in a fray between
the bear and a biped, is accidentally discharged in a direction
that, if loaded, must carry leaden death to one of the gibing soot
merchants above.[81]

The venerable musician, delighted with his own harmony, neither takes
a part nor feels an interest in the business of the day. Let not his
neutrality be attributed to a wrong cause; nor be it supposed that,
in a country where every good citizen must espouse some party,[82]
this ancient personage would remain an indifferent spectator were he
not totally blind. At an opposite corner a naked soldier is taking
a few refreshing grains of best Virginia, and preparing to dress
himself after the performance of a pugilistic duet. On the other side
of the rails a half-starved French cook, a half-bred English cook,
and a half-roasted woman cook, are carrying three covers for the
lawyers' table. Near them is a cooper inspecting a vessel that had
been reported leaky, and must speedily be filled with home-brewed
ale for the gratification of the populace. Two fellows are forcing
their way through the crowd in the background with a barrel of
the same liquor. Coming out of a street behind them, a procession
of triumphant electors hail the other successful candidate, whose
shadow appears on the wall of the court-house. In Mr. Attorney's[83]
first floor are a group of the defeated party glorying in their
security, and highly delighted with the confusion below. One of
these, distinguished by a riband, is said to be intended for the
late Duke of Newcastle, who was eminently active on these occasions.
A poor old lady is unfortunately thrown down by a litter of pigs,
which, followed by their _mamma_, rush through the crowd with as
much impetuosity as if the whole herd were possessed. One of this
agreeable party has leaped, not into the ocean, but the brook, and
the whole family are on the point of following its example.

Hogarth had surely some antipathy to tailors; in the background he
has introduced one of these knights of the needle disciplined by his