Part 8

To the respect which our ancestors had for this _kingly_ amusement, the author beareth ample testimony in his 38th chapter, some extracts from which I venture to insert, with the hope that they will be both pleasant and profitable to the lovers of this very refined and humane divertisement:--

"It is a sport or pastime so full of delight and pleasure, that I know not any game in that respect is to be preferred before it; and since the fighting cock hath gained so great an estimation among the gentry, in respect to this noble recreation, I shall here propose it before all the other games of which I have afore succinctly discoursed. That, therefore, I may methodically give instructions to such as are unlearned, and add more knowledge to such who have already gained a competent proficiency in this pleasing art, I shall, as briefly as I can, give you information how you shall choose, breed, and diet the fighting cock, with what choice secrets are thereunto belonging, in order thus:--

"In the election[100] of a fighting cock, there are four things principally to be considered; and they are: shape, colour, courage, and a sharp heel.

"Observe the crowing of your chickens; if you find them crow too soon, that is, before six months old, or unseasonably, and that their crowing is clear and loud, fit them as soon as you can for the pot or spit, for they are infallible signs of cowardice and falsehood: on the contrary, the true and perfect cock is long before he obtaineth his voice, and when he hath got it, observeth his hours with the best judgment."

After much more which I have not room to insert, the author addeth, "To conclude, make your choice of such a one that is of shape strong, of colour good, of valour true, and of heel sharp and ready."

Leaving the book to the study of those whom it may concern, let us now attend to the plate.

The scene is probably laid at Newmarket;[101] and in this motley group of peers, pickpockets, butchers, jockeys, ratcatchers, gentlemen,--gamblers of every denomination,--Lord Albemarle Bertie,[102] being the principal figure, is entitled to precedence. In a former print[103] we saw 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 ungentleman-like attempt his Lordship is apprised by a ragged postboy and an honest butcher: but 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 _negotiated_ 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. There are those who remember the man, and declare that his character is not heightened in the portrait. 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.

On the lower side, where there is only one tier of figures, a sort of an apothecary, and a jockey, are stretching out their arms and striking together the handles of their whips in token of a bet. An hiccuping votary of Bacchus, displaying a half-emptied purse, is not likely to possess it long; for an adroit professor of legerdemain has taken aim with an hooked stick, and by one slight jerk will convey it to his own pocket. The profession of a gentlemen in a round wig is determined by a gibbet chalked upon his coat. An enraged barber, who lifts up his stick in the corner, has probably been refused payment of a wager by the man at whom he is striking.

A cloud-capt philosopher at the top of the print, coolly smoking his pipe, unmoved by this crash of matter and wreck of property, must not be overlooked: neither should his dog be neglected; for the dog, gravely resting his fore-paws upon the partition,[104] and contemplating the company, seems more interested in the event of the battle than his master.

Like the tremendous Gog and terrific Magog of Guildhall, stand the two cock-feeders; a foot of each of these consequential purveyors is seen at the two extremities of the pit.

As to the birds whose attractive powers have drawn this admiring throng together, they deserved earlier notice--

"Each hero burns to conquer or to die, What mighty hearts in little bosoms lie!"

Having disposed of the substances, let us now attend to the shadow on the cockpit, and this it seems is the reflection of a man drawn up to the ceiling in a basket, and there suspended[105] as a punishment for having betted more money than he can pay. Though suspended, he is not reclaimed; though exposed, not abashed; for in this degrading situation he offers to stake his watch against money in another wager on his favourite champion.

The decorations of this curious theatre are, a portrait of Nan Rawlins,[106] and the King's arms.

In the margin at the bottom of the print is an oval, with a fighting cock, inscribed "Royal sport," and underneath it is written, "Pit ticket."

Of the characteristic distinctions in this heterogeneous assembly, it is not easy to speak with sufficient praise. The chimney-sweeper's absurd affectation sets the similar airs of the Frenchman in a most ridiculous point of view. The old fellow with a trumpet at his ear has a degree of deafness that I never before saw delineated; he might have lived in the same apartment with Xantippe, or slept comfortably in Alexander the coppersmith's first floor. As to the nobleman in the centre, in the language of the turf, he is a mere pigeon; and the Peer, with a star and garter, in the language of Cambridge, we must class as--a mere quiz. The man sneezing, you absolutely hear; and the fellow stealing a bank note has all the outward and visible marks of a perfect and accomplished pickpocket; Mercury himself could not do that business in a more masterly style.

I hope it will not be thought irrelevant to my subject if I here name a man whose periods have polished the English language, and given to poesy a harmony before unknown.

To Alexander Pope, Hogarth had an early dislike. Pope was the friend of Lord Burlington,--Lord Burlington was the patron of Kent, and Kent was the rival of Sir James Thornhill, who was the father-in-law of William Hogarth. In two of his miscellaneous prints, our mellifluous poet is exhibited in very degrading situations. In one[107] he is represented as whitewashing the gate of Burlington House, and in the violence of his operation bespattering the carriage of his Grace of Chandos, etc.; and in the other, picking John Gay's[108] pocket.

Had the artist been acquainted with a circumstance mentioned by Mr. Tyers in his _Rhapsody_, our British Horace would very probably have had a place in this group. Tyers tells us that "Pope, while living with his father at Chiswick, before he went to Binfield, took great delight in cock-fighting, and laid out all his schoolboy money, and little perhaps it was, in buying fighting cocks. From this passion, but surely not the play of a child, his mother had the dexterity to wean him."

Admitting the fact, for which I have no other authority than the pamphlet above quoted, it does not tell in favour of that delicate and tender humanity which this elegant poet so much affected. On his conduct to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Lord Bolingbroke, Mr. Addison, and Mr. Broome, I will make no comment; but his bitter satire on the Duke of Chandos,[109] while it exalts his poetical powers, dishonours his moral character. The animation, energy, and elegance of the stanzas would atone for almost anything--but _ingratitude_!

Lord Orrery observes: "If we may judge of Mr. Pope from his works, his chief aim was to be esteemed a man of virtue." When actions can be clearly ascertained, it is not necessary to seek the mind's construction in the writings; and I regret being compelled to believe that some of Mr. Pope's actions, at the same time that they prove him to be querulous and petulant, lead us to suspect that he was also envious, malignant, and cruel. How far this will tend to confirm the assertion, that when a boy he was an amateur[110] of this royal sport,[111] I do not pretend to decide: but were a child in whom I had any interest cursed with such a propensity, my first object would be to correct it; if that were impracticable, and he retained a fondness for the cockpit, and the still more detestable amusement of Shrove Tuesday,[112] I should hardly dare to flatter myself that he could become a merciful man. The subject has carried me further than I intended. I will, however, take the freedom of proposing one query to the consideration of the clergy, should any of that sacred order do me the honour of perusing this volume. Might it not have a tendency to check that barbarous spirit, which has more frequently its source in an early acquired habit arising from the prevalence of example than in natural depravity, if every divine in Great Britain were to preach at least one sermon every twelve months on our universal insensibility to the sufferings of the brute creation?[113]

CREDULITY, SUPERSTITION, AND FANATICISM.

A MEDLEY.

"Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world."--1 JOHN IV. 1.

Whoever reads history with a view of tracing the progress of the human mind,--which, by the way, is the great object that renders history useful,--whoever reads history with that regard, must be astonished and shocked at the slow progress of philosophy, and the universal prevalence of credulity, superstition, and fanaticism. If antiquity would give a claim to reverence, this destructive band have a date prior to Christianity; their united power shed baneful influence on the earliest ages.

In the pagan temples there was a kind of incantation for conjuring down deities, to whom were assigned niches according to their different degrees of rank. The histories of Greece and Rome (for the sake of human nature, I wish that the parallel did not reach modern times) display an innumerable host of all ages, sexes, descriptions, and characters, enlisted under the banner of the priesthood, together with a select _corps de reserve_ of augurs and soothsayers, who, by inspecting the entrails of beasts, foretold future events, and from the flight of birds the defeat of armies. Succeeding ages beheld their heathen temples solemnly consecrated; and being thus metamorphosed into Christian churches, the sculptures representing Jupiter, Minerva, Venus, and Diana, by virtue of a new baptism, became saints.[114]

Here also were a legion of arrogant priests, who insolently dictated the terms of salvation, fixed a standard for universal belief, and introduced their own inventions as divine precepts; who forced monarchs to pay tribute by ecclesiastical privilege, assumed the dominion of empires by divine right, and claimed three-fourths of the known world as heirs-at-law to St. Peter. To secure their acquisitions, they entrenched themselves behind ramparts raised on the credulity and folly of mankind. He who attempted to scale these hallowed mounds was deemed guilty of sacrilege; he who questioned the catholic infallibility was an atheist; and whosoever doubted the divine mission of a priest--an infidel.[115]

Finding the multitude were so well inclined to believe that whatever they could not comprehend was supernatural, they construed each phenomenon of nature into a portentous menace from Heaven. An eclipse became the omen of a revolution; an inundation the prognostic of a defeat; and an hurricane foretold the fall of every power that made any opposition to papal authority. By arts like these, the people were brought into a mental vassalage; and the powerful Baron having previously enslaved their persons, they readily gave the care of their souls to the confessor. To him they applied as the proper interpreter of every difficult case; and fraught with a full portion of credulity, each individual considered every cloud that passed over the sun, and every raven that expanded its ebon wing, as bearing some particular direction to himself. Hence arose the doctrine of demonology; and apparitions, witches, dreams, and divinations, formed a creed of superstition. On this was built that notable system, properly enough called "The Philosophy of the Distaff." This mythology of weak minds has been carried through every age and country by oral tradition and unfounded record.

Our earliest histories abound in augury and prediction; the most fabulous tales had credence, not only with the unlearned and ignorant, but with the educated and sagacious. The grave Duke de Sully seriously narrates those which had relation to Henry the Fourth.

It is recorded by Victorius Sirri, that Louis the Thirteenth was from his infancy surnamed Just,--"because he was born under the sign of the Balance!"

Even sorcery was made a leading branch of religion; and one of a priest's duties was to exorcise ghosts by talking Latin, which was considered as a never-failing antidote for a troublesome spirit, and invariably concluded by the ghost being _laid in the Red Sea_.

Some of these glaring errors have been obliterated, but absurdities of equal magnitude have supplied their place; and modern credulities are nearly as destructive to the interests of society as ancient superstitions.

Though this nation, as well as others, was at an early period enveloped by ignorance, superstition, and their consequent accompaniments, we had some right to expect the clouds would have been dispelled by the Reformation; but credulity kept its ground, and at a still later period--when we had a most learned and sedate monarch, and a most sententious and grave Parliament--an Act was passed for the punishment of witchcraft! By this sagacious union of royal and national wisdom, if a woman lived to a greater age than her neighbour, she was tried, proved guilty of commercing with a familiar in the shape of a tabby cat, and eased of all her sufferings by the ordeal of fire or water.

It is not many years since a fanatic in one of our colonies took a fancy to accuse a neighbour of witchcraft: the crime was clearly proved, and the poor culprit suffered according to law. In credulity and superstition there is something epidemical. The contagion spread; and this being found a summary process for removing a competitor in trade, or revenging an insult, informations for sorcery became frequent. Their sessions-house was crowded with witches, as is that at the Old Bailey with pickpockets. It however brought fees, and so far was well: but these sapient legislators at length discovered that the province was likely to be depopulated; and what affected them still more, their own fraternity were liable to the consequences. A man, who had been cheated by his lawyer, made an affidavit that said lawyer was a wizard. This was too much: the court had a special meeting, and unanimously determined that they would not receive any more informations against wizards. The bye-law had the effect of a charm, and sorcery was no more!

Lord Bacon somewhere remarks that superstition is worse than atheism. It takes from religion every attraction, every comfort; and the place of humble hope and patient resignation is supplied by melancholy, despair, and madness!

To the best minds, credulity is the source of much misery. Our first Charles, who, with all his errors as a king, had the manners and mind of a gentleman, was so much under its influence, that he never enjoyed a day's happiness after consulting the _Sortes Virgilianæ_.[116]

In our age--an age in many respects enlightened by the beams of philosophy--the effects resulting from credulity, superstition, and fanaticism are dreadful; but while the evils are contemplated with horror, the system is too ridiculous for sober reasoning. It induces the infatuated votary to believe that being in the pale of a particular church will ensure his salvation. The ignorant are confounded with metaphysical subtleties which the wisest cannot comprehend; and by combining different texts of holy writ, we are insulted with conclusions contrary to common sense.[117]

To check this inundation of absurdity, which deemed carnal reason profane, and was not to be combated by argument, Mr. Hogarth engraved this print; it contains what must ever operate as a complete refutation of those who, because they were his opponents in politics, have impudently asserted that he lost his talents in the decline of life: for though the delineation was made in his sixty-fourth year, in satire, wit, and imagination, it is superior to any of his preceding works.

The text "I speak as a fool" is a type of the preacher, whose strength of lungs is a convenient substitute for strength of argument. He is literally a Boanerges; his tones rend the region, and the thunder of his eloquence has cracked the sounding-board. His right hand poises a witch astride upon a broom-stick, and in his left he suspends an emissary of Satan: this embryotic demon wields a gridiron as a terror to the ungodly, and at the witch's breast is an incubus in the shape of a cat.[118] Considering action as the first requisite of an orator, our ecclesiastical juggler throws his whole frame into convulsions: he shakes as the lofty cedar in a storm. Like Milton's devil,

"With head, hands, wings, or feet, he works his way, And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies."

By these violent agitations his gown flies open, and discovers that this Proteus of the pulpit is arrayed in a Harlequin's jacket; and his wig falling off, displays the shaven crown of a Jesuit. But the loss of a periwig is not attended to, his denunciations are redoubled, his fulminations hurled indiscriminately around; he scatters about firebrands; and darts, pointed with destruction, and barbed with death, pierce the hearts of his terrified hearers. Wrought up to the highest pitch of seraphic fervour, fevered by the heat of his own ecstasies,--the whole man is inspired,--and mounted upon the clouds of mystery, he soars through the dark regions of superstition, settles in the third heaven, and breathes empyreal air.

The train is fired,--the contagion spreads, the cup of delusion is filled to the brim, and each of his infatuated auditors intoxicated with the fumes of enthusiastic madness.

"Broken each link of reason's chain, Witchcraft and magic hold their reign; Terror and comfortless despair, And fond credulity is there. Circling all nature's vast profound, Imagination takes her round, Starting at spectres,--painting fairies, Fancy, with all her wild vagaries, Dances on enchanted ground. Now with wings sublime she flies Where planets roll in azure skies; Now o'er clouds where tempests low'r, To where the rushing waters pour: Thence through the vasty void descends, Where Chaos warring atoms blends, To darksome caves of deepest hell, Where sullen ghosts and torturing demons dwell."

With a postboy's cap upon his head, to denote that he is a special messenger from above, a little cherubimic Mercury flies through the clouds, and bears in his mouth an express directed to Saint Money Trapp.

Immediately beneath the pulpit are two lambs of the flock in an ecstasy. The young man with a round head of hair is probably a lay preacher; for though he has not a sable coat, he has a black collar. Piously entreating a young maiden, who meets his advances with an holy zeal, he puts the waxen model of a female saint down her bosom.

In the same pew are two fellows very differently affected: one of them, with a despairing countenance, sheds iron tears; the other, like the wet sea-boy on the mast, sleeps through the terrors of the storm, though a malignant imp of darkness, envying his serenity, endeavours to awake him by a whisper,[119] that he also may share such curses as would serve for a supplement to St. Ernulphus.[120]

Between two duck-winged cherubs, who are studying the laughing and crying gamut, is the harpy clerk. This crook-mouthed echo of absurdity, and associate in villany, has the true physiognomy of a Tartuffe: every feature is charged with hypocrisy.

The congregation,[121] many of whom have been imported from Liffey's verdant banks, bear their parts in this enchanting serenade; and the bull roar of the preacher, combined with a chorus of sighs, groans, and shrieks, must produce a symphony that might vie with the Irish howl or Indian war-whoop.

Among the crowd we discover a youthful convert under the guidance of his spiritual confessor,[122] who, pointing to Brimstone Ocean, unfolds a tale which terrifies his disciple to a degree that

"Must harrow up his soul; freeze his young blood; Make his two eyes like stars start from their spheres; His knotty and combined locks to part, And each particular hair to stand on end, Like quills upon the fretful porcupine."