"Each varied colour of the brightest hue, The green, the red, the yellow, and the blue, In every part their dazzled eyes behold, Here streak'd with silver—there enrich'd with gold."

This gentleman is said to be intended for Lord Portmore, in the habit he first appeared at Court, on his return from France. The cane dangling from his wrist, large muff, long queue, black stock, feathered chapeau, and shoes, give him the air of

"An old and finish'd fop, All cork at heel, and feather all at top."

The old lady's habit, formed of stiff brocade, gives her the appearance of a squat pyramid, with a grotesque head at the top of it. The young one is fondling a little black boy, who on his part is playing with a petite pagoda. This miniature Othello has been said to be intended for the late Ignatius Sancho, whose talents and virtues were an honour to his colour. At the time the picture was painted, he would have been rather older than the figure, but as he was then honoured by the partiality and protection of a noble family, the painter might possibly mean to delineate what his figure had been a few years before.

The little monkey, with a magnifying glass, bag-wig, solitaire, laced hat, and ruffles, is eagerly inspecting a bill of fare, with the following articles pour diner; cocks' combs, ducks' tongues, rabbits' ears, fricasee of snails, grande d'oeufs buerre.

In the centre of the room is a capacious china jar; in one corner a tremendous pyramid, composed of packs of cards, and on the floor close to them, a bill, inscribed "Lady Basto, D^{r} to John Pip, for cards,—L300."

The room is ornamented with several pictures; the principal represents the Medicean Venus, on a pedestal, in stays and high-heeled shoes, and holding before her a hoop petticoat, somewhat larger than a fig-leaf; a Cupid paring down a fat lady to a thin proportion, and another Cupid blowing up a fire to burn a hoop petticoat, muff, bag, queue wig, &c. On the dexter side is another picture, representing Monsieur Desnoyer, operatically habited, dancing in a grand ballet, and surrounded by butterflies, insects evidently of the same genus with this deity of dance. On the sinister, is a drawing of exotics, consisting of queue and bag-wigs, muffs, solitaires, petticoats, French heeled shoes, and other fantastic fripperies.

Beneath this is a lady in a pyramidical habit walking the Park; and as the companion picture, we have a blind man walking the streets.

The fire-screen is adorned with a drawing of a lady in a sedan-chair—

"To conceive how she looks, you must call to your mind The lady you've seen in a lobster confined, Or a pagod in some little corner enshrined."

As Hogarth made this design from the ideas of Miss Edwards, it has been said that he had no great partiality for his own performance, and that, as he never would consent to its being engraved, the drawing from which the first print was copied, was made by the connivance of one of her servants. Be that as it may, his ridicule on the absurdities of fashion,—on the folly of collecting old china,—cookery,—card playing, &c. is pointed, and highly wrought.

At the sale of Miss Edwards's effects at Kensington, the original picture was purchased by the father of Mr. Birch, surgeon, of Essex-street, Strand.



THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS.

PLATE I.

"The snares are set, the plot is laid, Ruin awaits thee,—hapless maid! Seduction sly assails thine ear, And gloating, foul desire is near; Baneful and blighting are their smiles, Destruction waits upon their wiles; Alas! thy guardian angel sleeps, Vice clasps her hands, and virtue weeps."

The general aim of historical painters, says Mr. Ireland, has been to emblazon some signal exploit of an exalted and distinguished character. To go through a series of actions, and conduct their hero from the cradle to the grave, to give a history upon canvass, and tell a story with the pencil, few of them attempted. Mr. Hogarth saw, with the intuitive eye of genius, that one path to the Temple of Fame was yet untrodden: he took Nature for his guide, and gained the summit. He was the painter of Nature; for he gave, not merely the ground-plan of the countenance, but marked the features with every impulse of the mind. He may be denominated the biographical dramatist of domestic life. Leaving those heroic monarchs who have blazed through their day, with the destructive brilliancy of a comet, to their adulatory historians, he, like Lillo, has taken his scenes from humble life, and rendered them a source of entertainment, instruction, and morality.

This series of prints gives the history of a Prostitute. The story commences with her arrival in London, where, initiated in the school of profligacy, she experiences the miseries consequent to her situation, and dies in the morning of life. Her variety of wretchedness, forms such a picture of the way in which vice rewards her votaries, as ought to warn the young and inexperienced from entering this path of infamy.

The first scene of this domestic tragedy is laid at the Bell Inn, in Wood-street, and the heroine may possibly be daughter to the poor old clergyman who is reading the direction of a letter close to the York waggon, from which vehicle she has just alighted. In attire—neat, plain, unadorned; in demeanor—artless, modest, diffident: in the bloom of youth, and more distinguished by native innocence than elegant symmetry; her conscious blush, and downcast eyes, attract the attention of a female fiend, who panders to the vices of the opulent and libidinous. Coming out of the door of the inn, we discover two men, one of whom is eagerly gloating on the devoted victim. This is a portrait, and said to be a strong resemblance of Colonel Francis Chartres.

The old procuress, immediately after the girl's alighting from the waggon, addresses her with the familiarity of a friend, rather than the reserve of one who is to be her mistress.

Had her father been versed in even the first rudiments of physiognomy, he would have prevented her engaging with one of so decided an aspect: for this also is the portrait of a woman infamous in her day: but he, good, easy man, unsuspicious as Fielding's parson Adams, is wholly engrossed in the contemplation of a superscription to a letter, addressed to the bishop of the diocese. So important an object prevents his attending to his daughter, or regarding the devastation occasioned by his gaunt and hungry Rozinante having snatched at the straw that packs up some earthenware, and produced

"The wreck of flower-pots, and the crash of pans!"

From the inn she is taken to the house of the procuress, divested of her home-spun garb, dressed in the gayest style of the day; and the tender native hue of her complexion incrusted with paint, and disguised by patches. She is then introduced to Colonel Chartres, and by artful flattery and liberal promises, becomes intoxicated with the dreams of imaginary greatness. A short time convinces her of how light a breath these promises were composed. Deserted by her keeper, and terrified by threats of an immediate arrest for the pompous paraphernalia of prostitution, after being a short time protected by one of the tribe of Levi, she is reduced to the hard necessity of wandering the streets, for that precarious subsistence which flows from the drunken rake, or profligate debauchee. Here her situation is truly pitiable! Chilled by nipping frost and midnight dew, the repentant tear trickling on her heaving bosom, she endeavours to drown reflection in draughts of destructive poison. This, added to the contagious company of women of her own description, vitiates her mind, eradicates the native seeds of virtue, destroys that elegant and fascinating simplicity, which gives additional charms to beauty, and leaves, in its place, art, affectation, and impudence.

Neither the painter of a sublime picture, nor the writer of an heroic poem, should introduce any trivial circumstances that are likely to draw the attention from the principal figures. Such compositions should form one great whole: minute detail will inevitably weaken their effect. But in little stories, which record the domestic incidents of familiar life, these accessary accompaniments, though trifling in themselves, acquire a consequence from their situation; they add to the interest, and realise the scene. In this, as in almost all that were delineated by Mr. Hogarth, we see a close regard paid to things as they then were; by which means his prints become a sort of historical record of the manners of the age.



THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS.

PLATE II.

"Ah! why so vain, though blooming in thy spring, Thou shining, frail, adorn'd, but wretched thing Old age will come; disease may come before, And twenty prove as fatal as threescore!"

Entered into the path of infamy, the next scene exhibits our young heroine the mistress of a rich Jew, attended by a black boy,[1] and surrounded with the pompous parade of tasteless profusion. Her mind being now as depraved, as her person is decorated, she keeps up the spirit of her character by extravagance and inconstancy. An example of the first is exhibited in the monkey being suffered to drag her rich head-dress round the room, and of the second in the retiring gallant. The Hebrew is represented at breakfast with his mistress; but, having come earlier than was expected, the favourite has not departed. To secure his retreat is an exercise for the invention of both mistress and maid. This is accomplished by the lady finding a pretence for quarrelling with the Jew, kicking down the tea-table, and scalding his legs, which, added to the noise of the china, so far engrosses his attention, that the paramour, assisted by the servant, escapes discovery.

The subjects of two pictures, with which the room is decorated, are David dancing before the ark, and Jonah seated under a gourd. They are placed there, not merely as circumstances which belong to Jewish story, but as a piece of covert ridicule on the old masters, who generally painted from the ideas of others, and repeated the same tale ad infinitum. On the toilet-table we discover a mask, which well enough intimates where she had passed part of the preceding night, and that masquerades, then a very fashionable amusement, were much frequented by women of this description; a sufficient reason for their being avoided by those of an opposite character.

Under the protection of this disciple of Moses she could not remain long. Riches were his only attraction, and though profusely lavished on this unworthy object, her attachment was not to be obtained, nor could her constancy be secured; repeated acts of infidelity are punished by dismission; and her next situation shows, that like most of the sisterhood, she had lived without apprehension of the sunshine of life being darkened by the passing cloud, and made no provision for the hour of adversity.

In this print the characters are marked with a master's hand. The insolent air of the harlot, the astonishment of the Jew, eagerly grasping at the falling table, the start of the black boy, the cautious trip of the ungartered and barefooted retreating gallant, and the sudden spring of the scalded monkey, are admirably expressed. To represent an object in its descent, has been said to be impossible; the attempt has seldom succeeded; but, in this print, the tea equipage really appears falling to the floor; and, in Rembrandt's Abraham's Offering, in the Houghton collection, now at Petersburg, the knife dropping from the hand of the patriarch, appears in a falling state.

Quin compared Garrick in Othello to the black boy with the tea-kettle, a circumstance that by no means encouraged our Roscius to continue acting the part. Indeed, when his face was obscured, his chief power of expression was lost; and then, and not till then, was he reduced to a level with several other performers. It has been remarked, however, that Garrick said of himself, that when he appeared in Othello, Quin, he supposed, would say, "Here's Pompey! where's the tea-kettle?"

FOOTNOTE:

[1] The attendant black boy gave the foundation of an ill-natured remark by Quin, when Garrick once attempted the part of Othello. "He pretend to play Othello!" said the surly satirist; "He pretend to play Othello! He wants nothing but the tea-kettle and lamp, to qualify him for Hogarth's Pompey!"



THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS.

PLATE III.

"Reproach, scorn, infamy, and hate, On all thy future steps shall wait; Thy furor be loath'd by every eye, And every foot thy presence fly."

We here see this child of misfortune fallen from her high estate! Her magnificent apartment is quitted for a dreary lodging in the purlieus of Drury-lane; she is at breakfast, and every object exhibits marks of the most wretched penury: her silver tea-kettle is changed for a tin pot, and her highly decorated toilet gives place to an old leaf table, strewed with the relics of the last night's revel, and ornamented with a broken looking-glass. Around the room are scattered tobacco-pipes, gin measures, and pewter pots; emblems of the habits of life into which she is initiated, and the company which she now keeps: this is farther intimated by the wig-box of James Dalton, a notorious street-robber, who was afterwards executed. In her hand she displays a watch, which might be either presented to her, or stolen from her last night's gallant. By the nostrums which ornament the broken window, we see that poverty is not her only evil.

The dreary and comfortless appearance of every object in this wretched receptacle, the bit of butter on a piece of paper, the candle in a bottle, the basin upon a chair, the punch-bowl and comb upon the table, and the tobacco-pipes, &c. strewed upon the unswept floor, give an admirable picture of the style in which this pride of Drury-lane ate her matin meal. The pictures which ornament the room are, Abraham offering up Isaac, and a portrait of the Virgin Mary; Dr. Sacheverell and Macheath the highwayman, are companion prints. There is some whimsicality in placing the two ladies under a canopy, formed by the unnailed valance of the bed, and characteristically crowned by the wig-box of a highwayman.

When Theodore, the unfortunate king of Corsica, was so reduced as to lodge in a garret in Dean-street, Soho, a number of gentlemen made a collection for his relief. The chairman of their committee informed him, by letter, that on the following day, at twelve o'clock, two of the society would wait upon his majesty with the money. To give his attic apartment an appearance of royalty, the poor monarch placed an arm-chair on his half-testered bed, and seating himself under the scanty canopy, gave what he thought might serve as the representation of a throne. When his two visitors entered the room, he graciously held out his right hand, that they might have the honour of—kissing it!

A magistrate, cautiously entering the room, with his attendant constables, commits her to a house of correction, where our legislators wisely suppose, that being confined to the improving conversation of her associates in vice, must have a powerful tendency towards the reformation of her manners. Sir John Gonson, a justice of peace, very active in the suppression of brothels, is the person represented. In a View of the Town in 1735, by T. Gilbert, fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, are the following lines:

"Though laws severe to punish crimes were made, What honest man is of these laws afraid? All felons against judges will exclaim, As harlots tremble at a Gonson's name."

Pope has noticed him in his Imitation of Dr. Donne, and Loveling, in a very elegant Latin ode. Thus, between the poets and the painter, the name of this harlot-hunting justice, is transmitted to posterity. He died on the 9th of January, 1765.



THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS.

PLATE IV.

With pallid cheek and haggard eye, And loud laments, and heartfelt sigh, Unpitied, hopeless of relief, She drinks the bitter cup of grief.

In vain the sigh, in vain the tear, Compassion never enters here; But justice clanks her iron chain, And calls forth shame, remorse, and pain.

The situation, in which the last plate exhibited our wretched female, was sufficiently degrading, but in this, her misery is greatly aggravated. We now see her suffering the chastisement due to her follies; reduced to the wretched alternative of beating hemp, or receiving the correction of a savage task-master. Exposed to the derision of all around, even her own servant, who is well acquainted with the rules of the place, appears little disposed to show any return of gratitude for recent obligations, though even her shoes, which she displays while tying up her garter, seem by their gaudy outside to have been a present from her mistress. The civil discipline of the stern keeper has all the severity of the old school. With the true spirit of tyranny, he sentences those who will not labour to the whipping-post, to a kind of picketing suspension by the wrists, or having a heavy log fastened to their leg. With the last of these punishments he at this moment threatens the heroine of our story, nor is it likely that his obduracy can be softened except by a well applied fee. How dreadful, how mortifying the situation! These accumulated evils might perhaps produce a momentary remorse, but a return to the path of virtue is not so easy as a departure from it.

To show that neither the dread, nor endurance, of the severest punishment, will deter from the perpetration of crimes, a one-eyed female, close to the keeper, is picking a pocket. The torn card may probably be dropped by the well-dressed gamester, who has exchanged the dice-box for the mallet, and whose laced hat is hung up as a companion trophy to the hoop-petticoat.

One of the girls appears scarcely in her teens. To the disgrace of our police, these unfortunate little wanderers are still suffered to take their nocturnal rambles in the most public streets of the metropolis. What heart, so void of sensibility, as not to heave a pitying sigh at their deplorable situation? Vice is not confined to colour, for a black woman is ludicrously exhibited, as suffering the penalty of those frailties, which are imagined peculiar to the fair.

The figure chalked as dangling upon the wall, with a pipe in his mouth, is intended as a caricatured portrait of Sir John Gonson, and probably the production of some would-be artist, whom the magistrate had committed to Bridewell, as a proper academy for the pursuit of his studies. The inscription upon the pillory, "Better to work than stand thus;" and that on the whipping-post near the laced gambler, "The reward of idleness," are judiciously introduced.

In this print the composition is good: the figures in the back-ground, though properly subordinate, are sufficiently marked; the lassitude of the principal character, well contrasted by the austerity of the rigid overseer. There is a fine climax of female debasement, from the gaudy heroine of our drama, to her maid, and from thence to the still object, who is represented as destroying one of the plagues of Egypt.

Such well dressed females, as our heroine, are rarely met with in our present houses of correction; but her splendid appearance is sufficiently warranted by the following paragraph in the Grub-street Journal of September 14th, 1730.

"One Mary Moffat, a woman of great note in the hundreds of Drury, who, about a fortnight ago, was committed to hard labour in Tothill-fields Bridewell, by nine justices, brought his majesty's writ of habeas corpus, and was carried before the right honourable the Lord Chief Justice Raymond, expecting to have been either bailed or discharged; but her commitment appearing to be legal, his lordship thought fit to remand her back again to her former place of confinement, where she is now beating hemp in a gown very richly laced with silver."



THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS.

PLATE V.

With keen remorse, deep sighs, and trembling fears Repentant groans, and unavailing tears, This child of misery resigns her breath, And sinks, despondent, in the arms of death.

Released from Bridewell, we now see this victim to her own indiscretion breathe her last sad sigh, and expire in all the extremity of penury and wretchedness. The two quacks, whose injudicious treatment, has probably accelerated her death, are vociferously supporting the infallibility of their respective medicines, and each charging the other with having poisoned her. The meagre figure is a portrait of Dr. Misaubin, a foreigner, at that time in considerable practice.

These disputes, it has been affirmed, sometimes happen at a consultation of regular physicians, and a patient has been so unpolite as to die before they could determine on the name of his disorder.

"About the symptoms how they disagree, But how unanimous about the fee!"

While the maid servant is entreating them to cease quarrelling, and assist her dying mistress, the nurse plunders her trunk of the few poor remains of former grandeur. Her little boy, turning a scanty remnant of meat hung to roast by a string; the linen hanging to dry; the coals deposited in a corner; the candles, bellows, and gridiron hung upon nails; the furniture of the room; and indeed every accompaniment; exhibit a dreary display of poverty and wretchedness. Over the candles hangs a cake of Jew's Bread, once perhaps the property of her Levitical lover, and now used as a fly-trap. The initials of her name, M. H. are smoked upon the ceiling as a kind of memento mori to the next inhabitant. On the floor lies a paper inscribed "anodyne necklace," at that time deemed a sort of charm against the disorders incident to children; and near the fire, a tobacco-pipe, and paper of pills.

A picture of general, and at this awful moment, indecent confusion, is admirably represented. The noise of two enraged quacks disputing in bad English; the harsh, vulgar scream of the maid servant; the table falling, and the pot boiling over, must produce a combination of sounds dreadful and dissonant to the ear. In this pitiable situation, without a friend to close her dying eyes, or soften her sufferings by a tributary tear; forlorn, destitute, and deserted, the heroine of this eventful history expires! her premature death, brought on by a licentious life, seven years of which had been devoted to debauchery and dissipation, and attended by consequent infamy, misery, and disease. The whole story affords a valuable lesson to the young and inexperienced, and proves this great, this important truth, that A DEVIATION FROM VIRTUE IS A DEPARTURE FROM HAPPINESS.

The emaciated appearance of the dying figure, the boy's thoughtless inattention, and the rapacious, unfeeling eagerness of the old nurse, are naturally and forcibly delineated.

The figures are well grouped; the curtain gives depth, and forms a good back-ground to the doctor's head; the light is judiciously distributed, and each accompaniment highly appropriate.



THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS.

PLATE VI.

"No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear, Pleas'd thy pale ghost, or grac'd thy mournful bier: By harlots' hands thy dying eyes were clos'd; By harlots' hands thy decent limbs compos'd; By harlots' hands thy humble grave adorn'd; By harlots honour'd, and by harlots mourn'd."

The adventures of our heroine are now concluded. She is no longer an actor in her own tragedy; and there are those who have considered this print as a farce at the end of it: but surely such was not the author's intention.

The ingenious writer of Tristram Shandy begins the life of his hero before he is born; the picturesque biographer of Mary Hackabout has found an opportunity to convey admonition, and enforce his moral, after her death. A wish usually prevails, even among those who are most humbled by their own indiscretion, that some respect should be paid to their remains; that their eyes should be closed by the tender hand of a surviving friend, and the tear of sympathy and regret shed upon the sod which covers their grave; that those who loved them living, should attend their last sad obsequies; and a sacred character read over them the awful service which our religion ordains, with the solemnity it demands. The memory of this votary of prostitution meets with no such marks of social attention, or pious respect. The preparations for her funeral are as licentious as the progress of her life, and the contagion of her example seems to reach all who surround her coffin. One of them is engaged in the double trade of seduction and thievery; a second is contemplating her own face in a mirror. The female who is gazing at the corpse, displays some marks of concern, and feels a momentary compunction at viewing the melancholy scene before her: but if any other part of the company are in a degree affected, it is a mere maudlin sorrow, kept up by glasses of strong liquor. The depraved priest does not seem likely to feel for the dead that hope expressed in our liturgy. The appearance and employment of almost every one present at this mockery of woe, is such as must raise disgust in the breast of any female who has the least tincture of delicacy, and excite a wish that such an exhibition may not be displayed at her own funeral.

In this plate there are some local customs which mark the manners of the times when it was engraved, but are now generally disused, except in some of the provinces very distant from the capital; sprigs of rosemary were then given to each of the mourners: to appear at a funeral without one, was as great an indecorum as to be without a white handkerchief. This custom might probably originate at a time when the plague depopulated the metropolis, and rosemary was deemed an antidote against contagion. It must be acknowledged that there are also in this print some things which, though they gave the artist an opportunity of displaying his humour, are violations of propriety and customs: such is her child, but a few removes from infancy, being habited as chief mourner, to attend his parent to the grave; rings presented, and an escutcheon hung up, in a garret, at the funeral of a needy prostitute. The whole may be intended as a burlesque upon ostentatious and expensive funerals, which were then more customary than they are now. Mr. Pope has well ridiculed the same folly;

"When Hopkins dies, a thousand lights attend The wretch who, living, sav'd a candle's end."

The figures have much characteristic discrimination; the woman looking into the coffin has more beauty than we generally see in the works of this artist. The undertaker's gloating stare, his companion's leer, the internal satisfaction of the parson and his next neighbour, are contrasted by the Irish howl of the woman at the opposite side, and evince Mr. Hogarth's thorough knowledge of the operation of the passions upon the features. The composition forms a good shape, has a proper depth, and the light is well managed.

Sir James Thornhill's opinion of this series may be inferred from the following circumstance. Mr. Hogarth had without consent married his daughter: Sir James, considering him as an obscure artist, was much displeased with the connexion. To give him a better opinion of his son-in-law, a common friend, one morning, privately conveyed the six pictures of the Harlot's Progress into his drawing-room. The veteran painter eagerly inquired who was the artist; and being told, cried out, "Very well! Very well indeed! The man who can paint such pictures as these, can maintain a wife without a portion." This was the remark of the moment; but he afterwards considered the union of his daughter with a man of such abilities an honour to his family, was reconciled, and generous.

When the publication was advertised, such was the expectation of the town, that above twelve hundred names were entered in the subscription book. When the prints appeared, they were beheld with astonishment. A subject so novel in the idea, so marked with genius in the execution, excited the most eager attention of the public. At a time when England was coldly inattentive to every thing which related to the arts, so desirous were all ranks of people of seeing how this little domestic story was delineated, that there were eight piratical imitations, besides two copies in a smaller size than the original, published, by permission of the author, for Thomas Bakewell. The whole series were copied on fan-mounts, representing the six plates, three on one side, and three on the other. It was transferred from the copper to the stage, in the form of a pantomime, by Theophilus Cibber; and again represented in a ballad opera, entitled, the Jew Decoyed; or, the Harlot's Progress.



THE LECTURE.

DATUR VACUUM.

"No wonder that science, and learning profound, In Oxford and Cambridge so greatly abound, When so many take thither a little each day, And we see very few who bring any away."

I was once told by a fellow of a college, says Mr. Ireland, that he disliked Hogarth, because he had in this print ridiculed one of the Universities. I endeavoured to defend the artist, by suggesting that this was not intended as a picture of what Oxford is now, but of what it was in days long past: that it was that kind of general satire with which no one should be offended, &c. &c. His reply was too memorable to be forgotten. "Sir, the Theatre, the Bench, the College of Physicians, and the Foot Guards, are fair objects of satire; but those venerable characters who have devoted their whole lives to feeding the lamp of learning with hallowed oil, are too sacred to be the sport of an uneducated painter. Their unremitting industry embraced the whole circle of the sciences, and in their logical disputations they displayed an acuteness that their followers must contemplate with astonishment. The present state of Oxford it is not necessary for me to analyze, as you contend that the satire is not directed against that."

In answer to this observation, which was uttered with becoming gravity, a gentleman present remarked, as follows. "For some of the ancient customs of this seminary of learning, I have much respect, but as to their dry treatises on logic, immaterial dissertations on materiality, and abstruse investigations of useless subjects, they are mere literary legerdemain. Their disputations being usually built on an undefinable chimera, are solved by a paradox. Instead of exercising their power of reason they exert their powers of sophistry, and divide and subdivide every subject with such casuistical minuteness, that those who are not convinced, are almost invariably confounded. This custom, it must be granted, is not quite so prevalent as it once was: a general spirit of reform is rapidly diffusing itself; and though I have heard cold-blooded declaimers assert, that these shades of science are become the retreats of ignorance, and the haunts of dissipation, I consider them as the great schools of urbanity, and favourite seats of the belles lettres. By the belles lettres, I mean history, biography, and poetry; that all these are universally cultivated, I can exemplify by the manner in which a highly accomplished young man, who is considered as a model by his fellow-collegians, divides his hours.

"At breakfast I found him studying the marvellous and eventful history of Baron Munchausen; a work whose periods are equally free from the long-winded obscurity of Tacitus, and the asthmatic terseness of Sallust. While his hair was dressing, he enlarged his imagination and improved his morals by studying Doctor what's his name's abridgement of Chesterfield's Principles of Politeness. To furnish himself with biographical information, and add to his stock of useful anecdote, he studied the Lives of the Highwaymen; in which he found many opportunities of exercising his genius and judgment in drawing parallels between the virtues and exploits of these modern worthies, and those dignified, and almost deified ancient heroes whose deeds are recorded in Plutarch and Nepos.

"With poetical studies, he is furnished by the English operas, which, added to the prologues, epilogues, and odes of the day, afford him higher entertainment than he could find in Homer or Virgil: he has not stored his memory with many epigrams, but of puns has a plentiful stock, and in conundra is a wholesale dealer. At the same college I know a most striking contrast, whose reading"—But as his opponent would hear no more, my advocate dropped the subject; and I will follow his example.

It seems probable, that when the artist engraved this print, he had only a general reference to an university lecture; the words datur vacuum were an after-thought. Some prints are without the inscription, and in some of the early impressions it is written with a pen.

The scene is laid at Oxford, and the person reading, universally admitted to be a Mr. Fisher, of Jesus College, registrat of the university, with whose consent this portrait was taken, and who lived until the 18th of March, 1761. That he should wish to have such a face handed down to posterity, in such company, is rather extraordinary, for all the band, except one man, have been steeped in the stream of stupidity. This gentleman has the profile of penetration; a projecting forehead, a Roman nose, thin lips, and a long pointed chin. His eye is bent on vacancy: it is evidently directed to the moon-faced idiot that crowns the pyramid, at whose round head, contrasted by a cornered cap, he with difficulty suppresses a laugh. Three fellows on the right hand of this fat, contented "first-born transmitter of a foolish face," have most degraded characters, and are much fitter for the stable than the college. If they ever read, it must be in Bracken's Farriery, or the Country Gentleman's Recreation. Two square-capped students a little beneath the top, one of whom is holding converse with an adjoining profile, and the other lifting up his eyebrows, and staring without sight, have the same misfortune that attended our first James—their tongues are rather too large. A figure in the left-hand corner has shut his eyes to think; and having, in his attempt to separate a syllogism, placed the forefinger of his right hand upon his forehead, has fallen asleep. The professor, a little above the book, endeavours by a projection of his under lip to assume importance; such characters are not uncommon: they are more solicitous to look wise, than to be so. Of Mr. Fisher it is not necessary to say much: he sat for his portrait, for the express purpose of having it inserted in the Lecture!—We want no other testimony of his talents.



THE CHORUS.

REHEARSAL OF THE ORATORIO OF JUDITH.

"O cara, cara! silence all that train, Joy to great chaos! let division reign."

The Oratorio of Judith, Mr. Ireland observes, was written by Esquire William Huggins, honoured by the music of William de Fesch, aided by new painted scenery and magnifique decoration, and in the year 1733 brought upon the stage. As De Fesch[2] was a German and a genius, we may fairly presume it was well set; and there was at that time, as at this, a sort of musical mania, that paid much greater attention to sounds than to sense; notwithstanding all these points in her favour, when the Jewish heroine had made her theatrical debut, and so effectually smote Holofernes,

——"As to sever His head from his great trunk for ever and for ever."

the audience compelled her to make her exit. To set aside this partial and unjust decree, Mr. Huggins appealed to the public, and printed his oratorio. Though it was adorned with a frontispiece designed by Hogarth, and engraved by Vandergucht, the world could not be compelled to read, and the unhappy writer had no other resource than the consolatory reflection, that his work was superlatively excellent, but unluckily printed in a tasteless age; a comfortable and solacing self-consciousness, which hath, I verily believe, prevented many a great genius from becoming his own executioner.

To paint a sound is impossible; but as far as art can go towards it, Hogarth has gone in this print. The tenor, treble, and bass of these ear-piercing choristers are so decisively discriminated, that we all but hear them.

The principal figure, whose head, hands, and feet are in equal agitation, has very properly tied on his spectacles; it would have been prudent to have tied on his periwig also, for by the energy of his action he has shaken it from his head, and, absorbed in an eager attention to true time, is totally unconscious of his loss.

A gentleman—pardon me, I meant a singer—in a bag wig, immediately beneath his uplifted hand, I suspect to be of foreign growth. It has the engaging air of an importation from Italy.

The little figure in the sinister corner, is, it seems, intended for a Mr. Tothall, a woollen-draper, who lived in Tavistock-court, and was Hogarth's intimate friend.

The name of the performer on his right hand,

——"Whose growling bass Would drown the clarion of the braying ass,"

I cannot learn, nor do I think that this group were meant for particular portraits, but a general representation of the violent distortions into which these crotchet-mongers draw their features on such solemn occasions.

Even the head of the bass-viol has air and character: by the band under the chin, it gives some idea of a professor, or what is, I think, called a Mus. D.

The words now singing, "The world shall bow to the Assyrian throne," are extracted from Mr. Huggins' oratorio; the etching is in a most masterly style, and was originally given as a subscription ticket to the Modern Midnight Conversation.

I have seen a small political print on Sir Robert Walpole's administration, entitled, "Excise, a new Ballad Opera," of which this was unquestionably the basis. Beneath it is the following learned and poetical motto:

"Experto crede Roberto."

"Mind how each hireling songster tunes his throat, And the vile knight beats time to every note: So Nero sung while Rome was all in flames, But time shall brand with infamy their names."

FOOTNOTE:

[2] He was a respectable performer on the violin, some years chapel-master at Antwerp, and several seasons leader of the band at Marybone Gardens. He published a collection of musical compositions, to which was annexed a portrait of himself, characterised by three lines from Milton:

"Thou honour'dst verse, and verse must lend her wing To honour thee, the priest of Phoebus' quire, That tun'st her happiest lines in hymn or song."

He died in 1750, aged seventy years, and gives one additional name to a catalogue I have somewhere seen of very old professors of music, who, saith my author, "generally live unto a greater age than persons in any other way of life, from their souls being so attuned unto harmony, that they enjoy a perpetual peace of mind." It has been observed, and I believe justly, that thinking is a great enemy to longevity, and that, consequently, they who think least will be likely to live longest. The quantity of thought necessary to make an adept in this divine science, must be determined by those who have studied it.—It would seem by this remark, that Mr. Ireland was not aware that to acquire proficiency in the divine science to which he so pleasantly alludes, requires great application and study.



COLUMBUS BREAKING THE EGG.

By the success of Columbus's first voyage, doubt had been changed into admiration; from the honours with which he was rewarded, admiration degenerated into envy. To deny that his discovery carried in its train consequences infinitely more important than had resulted from any made since the creation, was impossible. His enemies had recourse to another expedient, and boldly asserted that there was neither wisdom in the plan, nor hazard in the enterprise.

When he was once at a Spanish supper, the company took this ground, and being by his narrative furnished with the reflections which had induced him to undertake his voyage, and the course that he had pursued in its completion, sagaciously observed, that "it was impossible for any man, a degree above an idiot, to have failed of success. The whole process was so obvious, it must have been seen by a man who was half blind! Nothing could be so easy!"

"It is not difficult now I have pointed out the way," was the answer of Columbus: "but easy as it will appear, when you are possessed of my method, I do not believe that, without such instruction, any person present could place one of these eggs upright on the table." The cloth, knives, and forks were thrown aside, and two of the party, placing their eggs as required, kept them steady with their fingers. One of them swore there could be no other way. "We will try," said the navigator; and giving an egg, which he held in his hand, a smart stroke upon the table, it remained upright. The emotions which this excited in the company are expressed in their countenances. In the be-ruffed booby at his left hand it raises astonishment; he is a DEAR ME! man, of the same family with Sterne's Simple Traveller, and came from Amiens only yesterday. The fellow behind him, beating his head, curses his own stupidity; and the whiskered ruffian, with his fore-finger on the egg, is in his heart cursing Columbus. As to the two veterans on the other side, they have lived too long to be agitated with trifles: he who wears a cap, exclaims, "Is this all!" and the other, with a bald head, "By St. Jago, I did not think of that!" In the face of Columbus there is not that violent and excessive triumph which is exhibited by little characters on little occasions; he is too elevated to be overbearing; and, pointing to the conical solution of his problematical conundrum, displays a calm superiority, and silent internal contempt.

Two eels, twisted round the eggs upon the dish, are introduced as specimens of the line of beauty; which is again displayed on the table-cloth, and hinted at on the knife-blade. In all these curves there is peculiar propriety; for the etching was given as a receipt-ticket to the Analysis, where this favourite undulating line forms the basis of his system.

In the print of Columbus, there is evident reference to the criticisms on what Hogarth called his own discovery; and in truth the connoisseurs' remarks on the painter were dictated by a similar spirit to those of the critics on the navigator: they first asserted there was no such line, and when he had proved that there was, gave the honour of discovery to Lomazzo, Michael Angelo, &c. &c.



A MIDNIGHT MODERN CONVERSATION.

"Think not to find one meant resemblance there; We lash the vices, but the persons spare. Prints should be priz'd, as authors should be read, Who sharply smile prevailing folly dead. So Rabelais laugh'd, and so Cervantes thought; So nature dictated what art has taught."

Notwithstanding this inscription, which was engraved on the plate some time after its publication, it is very certain that most of these figures were intended for individual portraits; but Mr. Hogarth, not wishing to be considered as a personal satirist, and fearful of making enemies among his contemporaries, would never acknowledge who were the characters. Some of them the world might perhaps mistake; for though the author was faithful in delineating whatever he intended to portray, complete intoxication so far caricatures the countenance, that, according to the old, though trite proverb, "the man is not himself." His portrait, though given with the utmost fidelity, will scarcely be known by his most intimate friends, unless they have previously seen him in this degrading disguise. Hence, it becomes difficult to identify men whom the painter did not choose to point out at the time; and a century having elapsed, it becomes impossible, for all who composed the group, with the artist by whom it was delineated,

Shake hands with dust, and call the worm their kinsman.

Mrs. Piozzi was of opinion that the divine with a cork-screw, occasionally used as a tobacco-stopper, hanging upon his little finger, was the portrait of parson Ford, Dr. Johnson's uncle; though, upon the authority of Sir John Hawkins, of anecdotish memory, it has been generally supposed to be intended for Orator Henley. As both these worthies were distinguished by that rubicundity of face with which it is marked, the reader may decree the honour of a sitting to which he pleases.

The roaring bacchanalian who stands next him, waving his glass in the air, has pulled off his wig, and, in the zeal of his friendship, crowns the divine's head. He is evidently drinking destruction to fanatics, and success to mother church, or a mitre to the jolly parson whom he addresses.

The lawyer, who sits near him, is a portrait of one Kettleby, a vociferous bar-orator, who, though an utter barrister, chose to distinguish himself by wearing an enormous full-bottom wig, in which he is here represented. He was farther remarkable for a diabolical squint, and a satanic smile.

A poor maudlin miserable, who is addressing him, when sober, must be a fool; but, in this state, it would puzzle Lavater to assign him a proper class. He seems endeavouring to demonstrate to the lawyer, that, in a poi—poi—point of law, he has been most cruelly cheated, and lost a cau—cau—cause, that he ought to have got,—and all this was owing to his attorney being an infernal villain. This may very probably be true; for the poor man's tears show that, like the person relieved by the good Samaritan, he has been among thieves. The barrister grins horribly at his misfortunes, and tells him he is properly punished for not employing a gentleman.

Next to him sits a gentleman in a black periwig. He politely turns his back to the company, that he may have the pleasure of smoking a sociable pipe.

The justice, "in fair round belly, with good capon lin'd,"—the justice, having hung up his hat, wig, and cloak, puts on his nightcap, and, with a goblet of superior capacity before him, sits in solemn cogitation. His left elbow, supported by the table, and his right by a chair, with a pipe in one hand, and a stopper in the other, he puffs out the bland vapour with the dignity of an alderman, and fancies himself as great as Jupiter, seated upon the summit of Mount Olympus, enveloped by the thick cloud which his own breath has created.

With folded arms and open mouth, another leans back in his chair. His wig is dropped from his head, and he is asleep; but though speechless, he is sonorous; for you clearly perceive that, where nasal sounds are the music, he is qualified to be leader of the band.

The fallen hero, who with his chair and goblet has tumbled to the floor, by the cockade in his hat, we suppose to be an officer. His forehead is marked, perhaps with honourable scars. To wash his wounds, and cool his head, the staggering apothecary bathes it with brandy.

A gentleman in the corner, who, from having the Craftsman and London Evening in his pocket, we determine to be a politician, very unluckily mistakes his ruffle for the bowl of his pipe, and sets fire to it.

The person in a bag-wig and solitaire, with his hand upon his head, would not now pass for a fine gentleman, but in the year 1735 was a complete beau. Unaccustomed to such joyous company, he appears to have drank rather more than agrees with him.

The company consists of eleven, and on the chimney-piece, floor, and table, are three and twenty empty flasks. These, added to a bottle which the apothecary holds in his hand, prove that this select society have not lost a moment. The overflowing bowl, full goblets, and charged glasses, prove that they think, "'Tis too early to part," though the dial points to four in the morning.

The different degrees of drunkenness are well discriminated, and its effects admirably described. The poor simpleton, who is weeping out his woes to honest lawyer Kettleby, it makes mawkish; the beau it makes sick; and the politician it stupifies. One is excited to roaring, and another lulled to sleep. It half closes the eyes of justice, renders the footing of physic unsure, and lays prostrate the glory of his country, and the pride of war.



CONSULTATION OF PHYSICIANS—THE UNDERTAKERS' ARMS.

This plate is designed, with much humour, according to the rules of heraldry, and is called The Undertakers' Arms, to show us the connexion between death and the quack doctor, as are also those cross-bones on the outside of the escutcheon. When an undertaker is in want of business, he cannot better apply than to some of those gentlemen of the faculty, who are, for the most part, so charitably disposed, as to supply the necessities of these sable death-hunters, and keep them from starving in a healthy time. By the tenour of this piece, Mr. Hogarth would intimate the general ignorance of such of the medical tribe, and teach us that they possess little more knowledge than their voluminous wigs and golden-headed canes. They are represented in deep consultation upon the contents of an urinal. Our artist's own illustration of this coat of arms, as he calls it, is as follows: "The company of undertakers beareth, sable, an urinal, proper between twelve quack heads of the second, and twelve cane heads, or, consultant. On a chief, Nebulae, ermine, one complete doctor, issuant, checkie, sustaining in his right hand a baton of the second. On the dexter and sinister sides, two demi-doctors, issuant of the second, and two cane heads, issuant of the third; the first having one eye, couchant, towards the dexter side of the escutcheon; the second faced, per pale, proper, and gules guardant. With this motto, Et plurima mortis imago. The general image of death."

It has been said of the ancients, that they began by attempting to make physic a science, and failed; of the moderns, that they began by attempting to make it a trade, and succeeded. This company are moderns to a man, and, if we may judge of their capacities by their countenances, are indeed a most sapient society. Their practice is very extensive, and they go about, taking guineas,

Far as the weekly bills can reach around, From Kent-street end, to fam'd St. Giles's pound.

Many of them are unquestionably portraits, but as these grave and sage descendants of Galen are long since gone to that place where they before sent their patients, we are unable to ascertain any of them, except the three who are, for distinction, placed in the chief, or most honourable part of the escutcheon. Those who, from their exalted situation, we may naturally conclude the most distinguished and sagacious leeches of their day, have marks too obtrusive to be mistaken. He towards the dexter side of the escutcheon, is determined by an eye in the head of his cane to be the all-accomplished Chevalier Taylor, in whose marvellous and surprising history, written by his own hand, and published in 1761, is recorded such events relative to himself and others, as have excited more astonishment than that incomparable romance, Don Belianis of Greece, the Arabian Nights, or Sir John Mandeville's Travels.

The centre figure, arrayed in a harlequin jacket, with a bone, or what the painter denominates a baton, in the right hand, is generally considered designed for Mrs. Mapp, a masculine woman, daughter to one Wallin, a bone-setter at Hindon, in Wiltshire. This female Thalestris, incompatible as it may seem with her sex, adopted her father's profession, travelled about the country, calling herself Crazy Sally; and, like another Hercules, did wonders by strength of arm.

On the sinister side is Dr. Ward, generally called Spot Ward, from his left cheek being marked with a claret colour. This gentleman was of a respectable family, and though not highly educated, had talents very superior to either of his coadjutors.

For the chief, this must suffice; as for the twelve quack heads, and twelve cane heads, or, consultant, united with the cross bones at the corners, they have a most mortuary appearance, and do indeed convey a general image of death.

In the time of Lucian, a philosopher was distinguished by three things,—his avarice, his impudence, and his beard. In the time of Hogarth, medicine was a mystery, and there were three things which distinguished the physician,—his gravity, his cane-head, and his periwig. With these leading requisites, this venerable party are most amply gifted. To specify every character is not necessary; but the upper figure on the dexter side, with a wig like a weeping willow, should not be overlooked. His lemon-like aspect must curdle the blood of all his patients. In the countenances of his brethren there is no want of acids; but, however sour, each individual was in his day,

————————a doctor of renown, To none but such as rust in health unknown; And, save or slay, this privilege they claim, Or death, or life, the bright reward's the same.



DANIEL LOCK, ESQ. F.A.S.

Daniel Lock was an architect of some eminence. He retired from business with an ample fortune, lived in Surrey-street, and was buried in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge. This portrait was originally engraved by J. M'Ardell from a painting by Hogarth, and is classed among the productions of our artist that are of uncertain date.



THE ENRAGED MUSICIAN.

"With thundering noise the azure vault they tear, And rend, with savage roar, the echoing air: The sounds terrific he with horror hears; His fiddle throws aside,—and stops his ears."

We have seen displayed the distress of a poet; in this the artist has exhibited the rage of a musician. Our poor bard bore his misfortunes with patience, and, rich in his Muse, did not much repine at his poverty. Not so this master of harmony, of heavenly harmony! To the evils of poverty he is now a stranger; his adagios and cantabiles have procured him the protection of nobles; and, contrary to the poor shirtless mendicant of the Muses that we left in a garret, he is arrayed in a coat decorated with frogs, a bag-wig, solitaire, and ruffled shirt. Waiting in the chamber of a man of fashion, whom he instructs in the divine science of music, having first tuned his instrument, he opens his crotchet-book, shoulders his violin, flourishes his fiddle-stick, and,

Softly sweet, in Lydian measure, Soon he soothes his soul to pleasure.

Rapt in Elysium at the divine symphony, he is awakened from his beatific vision, by noises that distract him.

—————An universal hubbub wild, Of stunning sounds, and voices all confus'd, Assails his ears with loudest vehemence.

Confounded with the din, and enraged by the interruption, our modern Terpander starts from his seat, and opens the window. This operates as air to a kindling fire; and such a combination of noises burst upon the auricular nerve, that he is compelled to stop his ears,—but to stop the torrent is impossible!

A louder yet, and yet a louder strain, Break his bands of thought asunder! And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder; At the horrible sound He has rais'd up his head, As awak'd from the dead, And amazed he stares all around.

In this situation he is delineated; and those who for a moment contemplate the figures before him, cannot wonder at his rage.

A crew of hell-hounds never ceasing bark, With wide Cerberean mouth, full loud, and ring A hideous peal.

Of the dramatis personae who perform the vocal parts, the first is a fellow, in a tone that would rend hell's concave, bawling, "Dust, ho! dust, ho! dust!" Next to him, an amphibious animal, who nightly pillows his head on the sedgy bosom of old Thames, in a voice that emulates the rush of many waters, or the roaring of a cataract, is bellowing "Flounda,a,a,ars!" A daughter of May-day, who dispenses what in London is called milk, and is consequently a milk-maid, in a note pitched at the very top of her voice, is crying, "Be-louw!" While a ballad-singer dolefully drawls out The Ladie's Fall, an infant in her arms joins its treble pipe in chorus with the screaming parrot, which is on a lamp-iron over her head. On the roof of an opposite house are two cats, performing what an amateur of music might perhaps call a bravura duet; near them appears

A sweep, shrill twittering on the chimney-top.

A little French drummer, singing to his rub-a-dub, and the agreeable yell of a dog, complete the vocal performers.

Of the instrumental, a fellow blowing a horn, with a violence that would have almost shaken down the walls of Jericho, claims the first notice; next to him, the dustman rattles his bell with ceaseless clangour, until the air reverberates the sound.

The intervals are filled up by a paviour, who, to every stroke of his rammer, adds a loud, distinct, and echoing, Haugh! The pedestrian cutler is grinding a butcher's cleaver with such earnestness and force, that it elicits sparks of fire. This, added to the agonizing howls of his unfortunate dog, must afford a perfect specimen of the ancient chromatic. The poor animal, between a man and a monkey, piping harsh discords upon a hautboy, the girl whirling her crepitaculum, or rattle, and the boy beating his drum, conclude the catalogue of this harmonious band.

This delineation originated in a story which was told to Hogarth by the late Mr. John Festin, who is the hero of the print. He was eminent for his skill in playing upon the German flute and hautboy, and much employed as a teacher of music. To each of his scholars he devoted one hour each day. "At nine o'clock in the morning," said he, "I once waited upon my lord Spencer, but his lordship being out of town, from him I went to Mr. V——n. It was so early that he was not arisen. I went into his chamber, and, opening a shutter, sat down in the window-seat. Before the rails was a fellow playing upon the hautboy. A man with a barrow full of onions offered the piper an onion if he would play him a tune. That ended, he offered a second onion for a second tune; the same for a third, and was going on: but this was too much; I could not bear it; it angered my very soul—'Zounds!' said I, 'stop here! This fellow is ridiculing my profession; he is playing on the hautboy for onions!'"

The whole of this bravura scene is admirably represented. A person quaintly enough observed, that it deafens one to look at it.



MASQUERADES AND OPERAS.

BURLINGTON GATE.

This print appeared in 1723. Of the three small figures in the centre the middle one is Lord Burlington, a man of considerable taste in painting and architecture, but who ranked Mr. Kent, an indifferent artist, above his merit. On one side of the peer is Mr. Campbell, the architect; on the other, his lordship's postilion. On a show-cloth in this plate is also supposed to be the portrait of king George II. who gave 1000l. towards the Masquerade; together with that of the earl of Peterborough, who offers Cuzzoni, the Italian singer, 8000l. and she spurns at him. Mr. Heidegger, the regulator of the Masquerade, is also exhibited, looking out of a window, with the letter H under him.

The substance of the foregoing remarks is taken from a collection lately belonging to Captain Baillie, where it is said that they were furnished by an eminent connoisseur.

A board is likewise displayed, with the words, "Long Room. Fawks's dexterity of hand." It appears from the following advertisement that this was a man of great consequence in his profession: "Whereas the town hath been lately alarmed, that the famous Fawks was robbed and murdered, returning from performing at the duchess of Buckingham's house at Chelsea; which report being raised and printed by a person to gain money to himself, and prejudice the above-mentioned Mr. Fawks, whose unparalleled performance has gained him so much applause from the greatest of quality, and most curious observers: We think, both in justice to the injured gentleman, and for the satisfaction of his admirers, that we cannot please our readers better than to acquaint them he is alive, and will not only perform his usual surprising dexterity of hand, posture-master, and musical clock: but, for the greater diversion of the quality and gentry, has agreed with the famous Powell of the Bath for the season, who has the largest, richest, and most natural figures, and finest machines in England, and whose former performances in Covent Garden were so engaging to the town, as to gain the approbation of the best judges, to show his puppet-plays along with him, beginning in the Christmas holidays next, at the Old Tennis-court, in James's-street, near the Haymarket; where any incredulous persons may be satisfied he is not left this world, if they please to believe their hands, though they can't believe their eyes."—"May 25," indeed, "1731, died Mr. Fawks, famous for his dexterity of hand, by which he had honestly acquired a fortune of 10,000l. being no more than he really deserved for his great ingenuity, by which he had surpassed all that ever pretended to that art."

This satirical performance of Hogarth, however, was thought to be invented and drawn at the instigation of Sir James Thornhill, out of revenge, because Lord Burlington had preferred Mr. Kent before him to paint for the king at his palace at Kensington. Dr. Faustus was a pantomime performed to crowded houses throughout two seasons, to the utter neglect of plays, for which reason they are cried about in a wheel-barrow.



MORNING.

Keen blows the blast, and eager is the air; With flakes of feather'd snow the ground is spread; To step, with mincing pace, to early prayer, Our clay-cold vestal leaves her downy bed.

And here the reeling sons of riot see, After a night of senseless revelry.

Poor, trembling, old, her suit the beggar plies; But frozen chastity the little boon denies.

This withered representative of Miss Bridget Alworthy, with a shivering foot-boy carrying her prayer-book, never fails in her attendance at morning service. She is a symbol of the season.—

——————-Chaste as the icicle That's curdled by the frost from purest snow, And hangs on Dian's temple

she looks with scowling eye, and all the conscious pride of severe and stubborn virginity, on the poor girls who are suffering the embraces of two drunken beaux that are just staggered out of Tom King's Coffee-house. One of them, from the basket on her arm, I conjecture to be an orange girl: she shows no displeasure at the boisterous salute of her Hibernian lover. That the hero in a laced hat is from the banks of the Shannon, is apparent in his countenance. The female whose face is partly concealed, and whose neck has a more easy turn than we always see in the works of this artist, is not formed of the most inflexible materials.

An old woman, seated upon a basket; the girl, warming her hands by a few withered sticks that are blazing on the ground, and a wretched mendicant,[3] wrapped in a tattered and parti-coloured blanket, entreating charity from the rosy-fingered vestal who is going to church, complete the group. Behind them, at the door of Tom King's Coffee-house, are a party engaged in a fray, likely to create business for both surgeon and magistrate: we discover swords and cudgels in the combatants' hands.

On the opposite side of the print are two little schoolboys. That they have shining morning faces we cannot positively assert, but each has a satchel at his back, and according with the description given by the poet of nature, is

Creeping, like snail, unwillingly to school.

The lantern appended to the woman who has a basket on her head, proves that these dispensers of the riches of Pomona rise before the sun, and do part of their business by an artificial light. Near her, that immediate descendant of Paracelsus, Dr. Rock, is expatiating to an admiring audience, on the never-failing virtues of his wonder-working medicines. One hand holds a bottle of his miraculous panacea, and the other supports a board, on which is the king's arms, to indicate that his practice is sanctioned by royal letters patent. Two porringers and a spoon, placed on the bottom of an inverted basket, intimate that the woman seated near them, is a vender of rice-milk, which was at that time brought into the market every morning.

A fatigued porter leans on a rail; and a blind beggar is going towards the church: but whether he will become one of the congregation, or take his stand at the door, in the hope that religion may have warmed the hearts of its votaries to "Pity the sorrows of a poor blind man," is uncertain.

Snow on the ground, and icicles hanging from the penthouse, exhibit a very chilling prospect; but, to dissipate the cold, there is happily a shop where spirituous liquors are sold pro bono publico, at a very little distance. A large pewter measure is placed upon a post before the door, and three of a smaller size hang over the window of the house.

The character of the principal figure is admirably delineated. She is marked with that prim and awkward formality which generally accompanies her order, and is an exact type of a hard winter; for every part of her dress, except the flying lappets and apron, ruffled by the wind, is as rigidly precise as if it were frozen. It has been said that this incomparable figure was designed as the representative of either a particular friend, or a relation. Individual satire may be very gratifying to the public, but is frequently fatal to the satirist. Churchill, by the lines,

————————Fam'd Vine-street, Where Heaven, the kindest wish of man to grant, Gave me an old house, and an older aunt,

lost a considerable legacy; and it is related that Hogarth, by the introduction of this withered votary of Diana into this print, induced her to alter a will which had been made considerably in his favour: she was at first well enough satisfied with her resemblance, but some designing people taught her to be angry.

Extreme cold is very well expressed in the slip-shod footboy, and the girl who is warming her hands. The group of which she is a part, is well formed, but not sufficiently balanced on the opposite side.

The church dial, a few minutes before seven; marks of little shoes and pattens in the snow, and various productions of the season in the market, are an additional proof of that minute accuracy with which this artist inspected and represented objects, which painters in general have neglected.

Govent Garden is the scene, but in the print every building is reversed. This was a common error with Hogarth; not from his being ignorant of the use of the mirror, but from his considering it as a matter of little consequence.

FOOTNOTE:

[3] "What signifies," says some one to Dr. Johnson, "giving halfpence to common beggars? they only lay them out in gin or tobacco." "And why," replied the doctor, "should they be denied such sweeteners of their existence? It is surely very savage to shut out from them every possible avenue to those pleasures reckoned too coarse for our own acceptance. Life is a pill which none of us can swallow without gilding, yet for the poor we delight in stripping it still more bare, and are not ashamed to show even visible marks of displeasure, if even the bitter taste is taken from their mouths."



NOON.

Hail, Gallia's daughters! easy, brisk, and free; Good humour'd, debonnaire, and degagee: Though still fantastic, frivolous, and vain, Let not their airs and graces give us pain: Or fair, or brown, at toilet, prayer, or play, Their motto speaks their manners—TOUJOURS GAI.

But for that powder'd compound of grimace, That capering he-she thing of fringe and lace; With sword and cane, with bag and solitaire, Vain of the full-dress'd dwarf, his hopeful heir, How does our spleen and indignation rise, When such a tinsell'd coxcomb meets our eyes,

Among the figures who are coming out of church, an affected, flighty Frenchwoman, with her fluttering fop of a husband, and a boy, habited a-la-mode de Paris, claim our first attention. In dress, air, and manner, they have a national character. The whole congregation, whether male or female, old or young, carry the air of their country in countenance, dress, and deportment. Like the three principal figures, they are all marked with some affected peculiarity. Affectation, in a woman, is supportable upon no other ground than that general indulgence we pay to the omnipotence of beauty, which in a degree sanctifies whatever it adopts. In a boy, when we consider that the poor fellow is attempting to copy what he has been taught to believe praiseworthy, we laugh at it; the largest portion of ridicule falls upon his tutors; but in a man, it is contemptible!

The old fellow, in a black periwig, has a most vinegar-like aspect, and looks with great contempt at the frippery gentlewoman immediately before him. The woman, with a demure countenance, seems very piously considering how she can contrive to pick the embroidered beau's pocket. Two old sybils joining their withered lips in a chaste salute, is nauseous enough, but, being a national custom, must be forgiven. The divine seems to have resided in this kingdom long enough to acquire a roast-beef countenance. A little boy, whose woollen nightcap is pressed over a most venerable flowing periwig, and the decrepit old man, leaning upon a crutch-stick, who is walking before him, "I once considered," says Mr. Ireland, "as two vile caricatures, out of nature, and unworthy the artist. Since I have seen the peasantry of Flanders, and the plebeian youth of France, I have in some degree changed my opinion, but still think them rather outre."

Under a sign of the Baptist's Head is written, Good Eating; and on each side of the inscription is a mutton chop. In opposition to this head without a body, unaccountably displayed as a sign at an eating-house, there is a body without a head, hanging out as the sign of a distiller's. This, by common consent, has been quaintly denominated the good woman. At a window above, one of the softer sex proves her indisputable right to the title by her temperate conduct to her husband, with whom having had a little disagreement, she throws their Sunday's dinner into the street.

A girl, bringing a pie from the bakehouse, is stopped in her career by the rude embraces of a blackamoor, who eagerly rubs his sable visage against her blooming cheek.

Good eating is carried on to the lower part of the picture. A boy, placing a baked pudding upon a post, with rather too violent an action, the dish breaks, the fragments fall to the ground, and while he is loudly lamenting his misfortune, and with tears anticipating his punishment, the smoking remnants are eagerly snatched up by a poor girl. Not educated according to the system of Jean Jacques Rousseau, she feels no qualms of conscience about the original proprietor, and, destitute of that fastidious delicacy which destroys the relish of many a fine lady, eagerly swallows the hot and delicious morsels, with all the concomitants.

The scene is laid at the door of a French chapel in Hog-lane; a part of the town at that time almost wholly peopled by French refugees, or their descendants.

By the dial of St. Giles's church, in the distance, we see that it is only half past eleven. At this early hour, in those good times, there was as much good eating as there is now at six o'clock in the evening. From twenty pewter measures, which are hung up before the houses of different distillers, it seems that good drinking was considered as equally worthy of their serious attention.

The dead cat, and choked kennels, mark the little attention shown to the streets by the scavengers of St. Giles's. At that time noxious effluvia was not peculiar to this parish. The neighbourhood of Fleet-ditch, and many other parts of the city, were equally polluted.

Even at this refined period, there would be some use in a more strict attention to the medical police of a city so crowded with inhabitants. We ridicule the people of Paris and Edinburgh for neglecting so essential and salutary a branch of delicacy, while the kennels of a street in the vicinity of St. Paul's church are floated with the blood of slaughtered animals every market-day. Moses would have managed these things better: but in those days there was no physician in Israel!



EVENING.

One sultry Sunday, when no cooling breeze Was borne on zephyr's wing, to fan the trees; One sultry Sunday, when the torrid ray O'er nature beam'd intolerable day; When raging Sirius warn'd us not to roam, And Galen's sons prescrib'd cool draughts at home; One sultry Sunday, near those fields of fame Where weavers dwell, and Spital is their name, A sober wight, of reputation high For tints that emulate the Tyrian dye, Wishing to take his afternoon's repose, In easy chair had just began to doze, When, in a voice that sleep's soft slumbers broke, His oily helpmate thus her wishes spoke: "Why, spouse, for shame! my stars, what's this about? You's ever sleeping; come, we'll all go out; At that there garden, pr'ythee, do not stare! We'll take a mouthful of the country air; In the yew bower an hour or two we'll kill; There you may smoke, and drink what punch you will. Sophy and Billy each shall walk with me, And you must carry little Emily. Veny is sick, and pants, and loathes her food; The grass will do the pretty creature good. Hot rolls are ready as the clock strikes five— And now 'tis after four, as I'm alive!" The mandate issued, see the tour begun, And all the flock set out for Islington. Now the broad sun, refulgent lamp of day, To rest with Thetis, slopes his western way; O'er every tree embrowning dust is spread, And tipt with gold is Hampstead's lofty head. The passive husband, in his nature mild, To wife consigns his hat, and takes the child; But she a day like this hath never felt, "Oh! that this too, too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew." Such monstrous heat! dear me! she never knew. Adown her innocent and beauteous face, The big, round, pearly drops each other chase; Thence trickling to those hills, erst white as snow, That now like AEtna's mighty mountains glow, They hang like dewdrops on the full blown rose, And to the ambient air their sweets disclose. Fever'd with pleasure, thus she drags along; Nor dares her antler'd husband say 'tis wrong. The blooming offspring of this blissful pair, In all their parents' attic pleasures share. Sophy the soft, the mother's earliest joy, Demands her froward brother's tinsell'd toy; But he, enrag'd, denies the glittering prize, And rends the air with loud and piteous cries. Thus far we see the party on their way— What dire disasters mark'd the close of day, 'Twere tedious, tiresome, endless to obtrude; Imagination must the scene conclude.

It is not easy to imagine fatigue better delineated than in the appearance of this amiable pair. In a few of the earliest impressions, Mr. Hogarth printed the hands of the man in blue, to show that he was a dyer, and the face and neck of the woman in red, to intimate her extreme heat. The lady's aspect lets us at once into her character; we are certain that she was born to command. As to her husband, God made him, and he must pass for a man: what his wife has made him, is indicated by the cow's horns; which are so placed as to become his own. The hopes of the family, with a cockade in his hat, and riding upon papa's cane, seems much dissatisfied with female sway. A face with more of the shrew in embryo than that of the girl, it is scarcely possible to conceive. Upon such a character the most casual observer pronounces with the decision of a Lavater.

Nothing can be better imagined than the group in the alehouse. They have taken a refreshing walk into the country, and, being determined to have a cooling pipe, seat themselves in a chair-lumbered closet, with a low ceiling; where every man, pulling off his wig, and throwing a pocket-handkerchief over his head, inhales the fumes of hot punch, the smoke of half a dozen pipes, and the dust from the road. If this is not rural felicity, what is? The old gentleman in a black bag-wig, and the two women near him, sensibly enough, take their seats in the open air.

From a woman milking a cow, we conjecture the hour to be about five in the afternoon: and, from the same circumstance, I am inclined to think this agreeable party is going to their pastoral bower, rather than returning from it.

The cow and dog appear as much inconvenienced by heat as any of the party: the former is whisking off the flies; and the latter creeps unwillingly along, and casts a longing look at the crystal river, in which he sees his own shadow. A remarkably hot summer is intimated by the luxuriant state of a vine, creeping over an alehouse window. On the side of the New River, where the scene is laid, lies one of the wooden pipes employed in the water-works. Opposite Sadler's Wells there still remains the sign of Sir Hugh Middleton's head, which is here represented; but how changed the scene from what is here represented!



NIGHT.

Now burst the blazing bonfires on the sight, Through the wide air their corruscations play; The windows beam with artificial light, And all the region emulates the day.

The moping mason, from yon tavern led, In mystic words doth to the moon complain That unsound port distracts his aching head, And o'er the waiter waves his clouded cane.

Mr. Walpole very truly observes, that this print is inferior to the three others; there is, however, broad humour in some of the figures.

The wounded free-mason, who, in zeal of brotherly love, has drank his bumpers to the craft till he is unable to find his way home, is under the guidance of a waiter. This has been generally considered as intended for Sir Thomas de Veil, and, from an authenticated portrait which I have seen, I am, says Mr. Ireland, inclined to think it is, notwithstanding Sir John Hawkins asserts, that "he could discover no resemblance." When the knight saw him in his magisterial capacity, he was probably sober and sedate; here he is represented a little disguised. The British Xantippe showering her favours from the window upon his head, may have its source in that respect which the inmates of such houses as the Rummer Tavern had for a justice of peace. On the resignation of Mr. Horace Walpole, in February, 1738, De Veil was appointed inspector-general of the imports and exports, and was so severe against the retailers of spirituous liquors, that one Allen headed a gang of rioters for the purpose of pulling down his house, and bringing to a summary punishment two informers who were there concealed. Allen was tried for this offence, and acquitted, upon the jury's verdict declaring him lunatic.

The waiter who supports his worship, seems, from the patch upon his forehead, to have been in a recent affray; but what use he can have for a lantern, it is not easy to divine, unless he is conducting his charge to some place where there is neither moonlight nor illumination.

The Salisbury flying coach oversetting and broken, by passing through the bonfire, is said to be an intended burlesque upon a right honourable peer, who was accustomed to drive his own carriage over hedges, ditches, and rivers; and has been sometimes known to drive three or four of his maid servants into a deep water, and there leave them in the coach to shift for themselves.

The butcher, and little fellow, who are assisting the terrified passengers, are possibly free and accepted masons. One of them seems to have a mop in his hand;—the pail is out of sight.

To crown the joys of the populace, a man with a pipe in his mouth is filling a capacious hogshead with British Burgundy.

The joint operation of shaving and bleeding, performed by a drunken 'prentice on a greasy oilman, does not seen a very natural exhibition on a rejoicing night.

The poor wretches under the barber's bench display a prospect of penury and wretchedness, which it is to be hoped is not so common now, as it was then.

In the distance is a cart laden with furniture, which some unfortunate tenant is removing out of the reach of his landlord's execution.

There is humour in the barber's sign and inscription; "Shaving, bleeding, and teeth drawn with a touch. ECCE SIGNUM!"

By the oaken boughs on the sign, and the oak leaves in the free-masons' hats, it seems that this rejoicing night is the twenty-ninth of May, the anniversary of our second Charles's restoration; that happy day when, according to our old ballad, "The king enjoyed his own again." This might be one reason for the artist choosing a scene contiguous to the beautiful equestrian statue of Charles the First.

In the distance we see a house on fire; an accident very likely to happen on such a night as this.

On this spot once stood the cross erected by Edward the First, as a memorial of affection for his beloved queen Eleanor, whose remains were here rested on their way to the place of sepulture. It was formed from a design by Cavalini, and destroyed by the religious fury of the Reformers. In its place, in the year 1678, was erected the animated equestrian statue which now remains. It was cast in brass, in the year 1633, by Le Soeur; I think by order of that munificent encourager of the arts, Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel. The parliament ordered it to be sold, and broken to pieces; but John River, the brazier who purchased it, having more taste than his employers, seeing, with the prophetic eye of good sense, that the powers which were would not remain rulers very long, dug a hole in his garden in Holborn, and buried it unmutilated. To prove his obedience to their order, he produced to his masters several pieces of brass, which he told them were parts of the statue. M. de Archenholtz adds further, that the brazier, with the true spirit of trade, cast a great number of handles for knives and forks, and offered them for sale, as composed of the brass which had formed the statue. They were eagerly sought for, and purchased,—by the loyalists from affection to their murdered monarch,—by the other party, as trophies of triumph.

The original pictures of Morning and Noon were sold to the Duke of Ancaster for fifty-seven guineas; Evening and Night to Sir William Heathcote, for sixty-four guineas.



SIGISMONDA

————————Let the picture rust, Perhaps Time's price-enhancing dust,— As statues moulder into earth, When I'm no more, may mark its worth; And future connoisseurs may rise, Honest as ours, and full as wise, To puff the piece, and painter too, And make me then what Guido's now.

HOGARTH'S EPISTLE.

A competition with either Guido, or Furino, would to any modern painter be an enterprise of danger: to Hogarth it was more peculiarly so, from the public justly conceiving that the representation of elevated distress was not his forte, and his being surrounded by an host of foes, who either dreaded satire, or envied genius. The connoisseurs, considering the challenge as too insolent to be forgiven, before his picture appeared, determined to decry it. The painters rejoiced in his attempting what was likely to end in disgrace; and to satisfy those who had formed their ideas of Sigismonda upon the inspired page of Dryden, was no easy task.

The bard has consecrated the character, and his heroine glitters with a brightness that cannot be transferred to the canvass. Mr. Walpole's description, though equally radiant, is too various, for the utmost powers of the pencil.

Hogarth's Sigismonda, as this gentleman poetically expresses it, "has none of the sober grief, no dignity of suppressed anguish, no involuntary tear, no settled meditation on the fate she meant to meet, no amorous warmth turned holy by despair; in short, all is wanting that should have been there, all is there that such a story would have banished from a mind capable of conceiving such complicated woe; woe so sternly felt, and yet so tenderly." This glowing picture presents to the mind a being whose contending passions may be felt, but were not delineated even by Corregio. Had his tints been aided by the grace and greatness of Raphael, they must have failed.

The author of the Mysterious Mother sought for sublimity, where the artist strictly copied nature, which was invariably his archetype, but which the painter, who soars into fancy's fairy regions, must in a degree desert. Considered with this reference, though the picture has faults, Mr. Walpole's satire is surely too severe. It is built upon a comparison with works painted in a language of which Hogarth knew not the idiom,—trying him before a tribunal, whose authority he did not acknowledge, and from the picture having been in many respects altered after the critic saw it, some of the remarks become unfair. To the frequency of these alterations we may attribute many of the errors: the man who has not confidence in his own knowledge of the leading principles on which his work ought to be built, will not render it perfect by following the advice of his friends. Though Messrs. Wilkes and Churchill dragged his heroine to the altar of politics, and mangled her with a barbarity that can hardly be paralleled, except in the history of her husband,—the artist retained his partiality; which seems to have increased in exact proportion to their abuse. The picture being thus contemplated through the medium of party prejudice, we cannot wonder that all its imperfections were exaggerated. The painted harlot of Babylon had not more opprobrious epithets from the first race of reformers than the painted Sigismonda of Hogarth from the last race of patriots.

When a favourite child is chastised by his preceptor, a partial mother redoubles her caresses. Hogarth, estimating this picture by the labour he had bestowed upon it, was certain that the public were prejudiced, and requested, if his wife survived him, she would not sell it for less than five hundred pounds. Mrs. Hogarth acted in conformity to his wishes, but after her death the painting was purchased by Messrs. Boydell, and exhibited in the Shakspeare Gallery. The colouring, though not brilliant, is harmonious and natural: the attitude, drawing, etc. may be generally conceived by the print. I am much inclined to think, that if some of those who have been most severe in their censures, had consulted their own feelings, instead of depending upon connoisseurs, poor Sigismonda would have been in higher estimation. It has been said that the first sketch was made from Mrs. Hogarth, at the time she was weeping over the corse of her mother.

Hogarth once intended to have appealed from the critics' fiat to the world's opinion, and employed Mr. Basire to make an engraving, which was begun, but set aside for some other work, and never completed.



MARTIN FOLKES, ESQ.

Martin Folkes was a mathematician and antiquary of much celebrity in the philosophical annals of this country. He was at the early age of twenty-four admitted a member of the Royal Society, where he was greatly distinguished. Two years afterwards he was chosen one of the council, and was named by Sir Isaac Newton himself as vice president: he was afterwards elected president, and held this high office till a short time before his death, when he resigned it on account of ill-health. In the Philosophical Transactions are numerous memoirs of this learned man: his knowledge in coins, ancient and modern, was very extensive: and the last work he produced was concerning the English Silver Coin from the Conquest to his own time. He was president of the Society of Antiquaries at the time of his death, which happened on the 28th of June, 1754, at the age of sixty-four. A few days before his death he was struck with a fit of the palsy, and never spoke after this attack.



THE COCKPIT.

The scene is probably laid at Newmarket, and in this motley group of peers,—pick-pockets,—butchers,—jockies,—rat-catchers,—gentlemen, —gamblers of every denomination, Lord Albemarle Bertie, being the principal figure, is entitled to precedence. In the March to Finchley, we see him an attendant at a boxing match; and here he is president of a most respectable society assembled at a cockpit. What rendered his lordship's passion for amusements of this nature very singular, was his being totally blind. In this place he is beset by seven steady friends, five of whom at the same instant offer to bet with him on the event of the battle. One of them, a lineal descendant of Filch, taking advantage of his blindness and negligence, endeavours to convey a bank note, deposited in our dignified gambler's hat, to his own pocket. Of this ungentlemanlike attempt his lordship is apprised by a ragged post-boy, and an honest butcher: but he is so much engaged in the pronunciation of those important words, Done! Done! Done! Done! and the arrangement of his bets, that he cannot attend to their hints; and it seems more than probable that the stock will be transferred, and the note negociated in a few seconds.

A very curious group surround the old nobleman, who is adorned with a riband, a star, and a pair of spectacles. The whole weight of an overgrown carpenter being laid upon his shoulder, forces our illustrious personage upon a man beneath; who being thus driven downward, falls upon a fourth, and the fourth, by the accumulated pressure of this ponderous trio, composed of the upper and lower house, loses his balance, and tumbling against the edge of the partition, his head is broke, and his wig, shook from the seat of reason, falls into the cockpit.

A man adjoining enters into the spirit of the battle,—his whole soul is engaged. From his distorted countenance, and clasped hands, we see that he feels every stroke given to his favourite bird in his heart's core,—ay, in his heart of hearts! A person at the old peer's left hand is likely to be a loser. Ill-humour, vexation, and disappointment are painted in his countenance. The chimney-sweeper above, is the very quintessence of affectation. He has all the airs and graces of a boarding-school miss. The sanctified quaker adjoining, and the fellow beneath, who, by the way, is a very similar figure to Captain Stab, in the Rake's Progress, are finely contrasted.

A French marquis on the other side, astonished at this being called amusement, is exclaiming Sauvages! Sauvages! Sauvages!—Engrossed by the scene, and opening his snuff-box rather carelessly, its contents fall into the eyes of a man below, who, sneezing and swearing alternately, imprecates bitter curses on this devil's dust, that extorts from his inflamed eyes, "A sea of melting pearls, which some call tears."

Adjoining is an old cripple, with a trumpet at his ear, and in this trumpet a person in a bag-wig roars in a manner that cannot much gratify the auricular nerves of his companions; but as for the object to whom the voice is directed, he seems totally insensible to sounds, and if judgment can be formed from appearances, might very composedly stand close to the clock of St. Paul's Cathedral, when it was striking twelve.

The figure with a cock peeping out of a bag, is said to be intended for Jackson, a jockey; the gravity of this experienced veteran, and the cool sedateness of a man registering the wagers, are well opposed by the grinning woman behind, and the heated impetuosity of a fellow, stripped to his shirt, throwing his coin upon the cockpit, and offering to back Ginger against Pye for a guinea.