Part 3

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.

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.

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."

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!