Part 9

The sanguinary Jew, while he leans upon an altar, on which lies a knife inscribed "bloody," sacrifices to his revenge an unfortunate insect which he caught carelessly wandering on the environs of his head.

Beneath is Mrs. Tofts, of Godalming, well known in the annals of credulity; in the violence of her paroxysm, she breaks a dram glass with her teeth.[123]

Next to Mrs. Tofts is a possessed shoeblack, coolly clearing his stomach of a quantity of hob-nails and iron staples.[124] In his hand he holds a quart bottle, in which the model of a spirit is closely cribbed--confin'd; but the imprisoned sprite forcing the cork, mounts into the regions of air with a lighted taper in its hand.[125] The book on which our sable professor of necromancy has deposited his basket, is King James's _Demonology_;[126] this, with Whitfield's _Journal_, which lies among the implements of his art, covertly intimate the sources where he had sought and found inspiration.

The ridicule is wound up by a Turk, whom we see through a window smoking his tube of Trinidado; lifting up his eyes with astonishment at the scene, he breathes a grateful ejaculation, and thanks his Maker that he was early initiated in the divine truths of the Koran, is out of the pale of this church, and has his name engraven on the tablets of Mahomet.

As all the decorations which are displayed in this temple of credulity, superstition, and fanaticism are suitable to the congregation, the carved figures on the pulpit are worthy of the preacher. We are in the first compartment presented with the apparition which warned Sir George Villiers of the Duke of Buckingham's danger from the knife of Felton;[127] in the second, with Julius Cæsar's ghost reproaching Brutus; and in the third, with the ghost of Mrs. Veale, which appeared to Mrs. Bargrave,[128]--because a very large impression of _Drelincourt upon Death_ lay in the bookseller's warehouse, and would not move without a marvellous relation of an apparition.

Beneath is a figure of the Tedworth drummer, who so wickedly disturbed the family of Mr. Mompesson;[129] and in the frame below, a representation of Fanny, the phantom of Cock Lane, with her hammer in her right hand. These two notable memorials of credulity are placed as a kind of headpiece to a mental thermometer, which ascertains the different degrees of heat in the blood of an enthusiast. When the liquid ascends, it rises from lukewarm to love-heat,--ecstasy! convulsion fits,--madness,--and terminates in raving, which is properly obscured by clouds, and above the ken of human comprehension. In its falling state, the progress of religious depression is most accurately marked. From low spirits it sinks to sorrow, agony, settled grief, despair, madness,--suicide! The whole rests on Wesley's _Sermons_, and Glanville _On Witches_.[130]

On the preacher's left hand, suspended to a ring inserted in a human nostril, hangs the scale of vociferation. A _natural tone_ is at the bottom, but the _speaker's tone_ is described by the distended mouth above the scale, crying Blood! blood! blood! and inscribed "Bull roar."

To the hook of the chandelier hangs a small sphere, on which is engraven, "Desarts of new Purgatory." On the globe, out of which spring the branches for candles, is written, "A globe of hell, as newly drawn by R----ne" (Romaine). It is so formed as to give the caricature of a human face, and baptized "Horrid Zone." Round one of the eyes is inscribed "The Bottomless Pit;" round the other, "Molten-lead Lake." On one cheek is "Brimstone Ocean;" on the other, "Parts Unknown;" and round the mouth, "Eternal Damnation Gulf." Horribly profane as are these mottoes, they are mere copies of Tabernacle phraseology. In the same class comes the hymn, which is placed before the clerk:

"Only _love_ to us be given; Lord, we ask no other heaven."[131]

The poor's box is a mouse-trap, which very fairly intimates that whatever money is deposited will be secured for the _faithful collectors_. It may be further meant to insinuate, that whosoever is caught in this necromantic snare will be in the state of Sterne's starling, and cannot get out, for it is planted with pointed steel, and tears in pieces those who attempt an escape.

THE TIMES.

PLATE I.

"The gods of old were logs of wood, And worship was to puppets paid: In antic dress the puppet stood, And priests and people bow'd the head."

There are three things of which your Englishman deems himself the best of all possible judges: the art of stirring a fire, religion, and politics. His infallibility in the first no one will presume to question, except his wife; and with her he will dispute as long as disputing is good. The mysteries of the second he understands better than the Archbishop of Canterbury. As to the intricacies of the third, which thinking men are apt to consider in some degree hidden from those who are not admitted into the arcana, he can unravel them with more ease, and point out with more precision what steps ought to be taken, than can the Prime Minister, with all the aggregate wisdom of the Cabinet.

So many of his Majesty's good subjects being thus gifted with an intuitive knowledge of state affairs, it is no wonder that Britain holds so high a rank among the nations; for each act of government is stated and debated, not only in the two Houses of Parliament, but in every tavern, coffeehouse, and porter-house in the metropolis.

To these eloquent leaders of the numerous clubs, we may add a myriad of political writers, who are all but inspired. Without studying either Machiavel, Locke, or Sidney, they pour forth a torrent of lucubrations on the floating subjects of the hour; that hour past, their letters, replies, remarks, and rejoinders are heard of no more.

In the hope of giving their puny offspring a longer life, some of these learned Thebans, or their booksellers, called in the aid of artists, to adorn their labours with _taking_ frontispieces. These graphic ornaments were in general about as _lively_ as the pamphlets they decorated; and it was found that the united efforts of author, printer, painter, engraver, and publisher, could not ensure immortality. Notwithstanding this general failure in their intended operation, they had one very awkward effect. A sort of political influenza was communicated to our engravers, and they also became deep statesmen and profound politicians. While part of this band sharpened their burins, and defaced much good copper in caricaturing the members of administration, their opponents were equally industrious, and equally pointed, in _taking off_ the _honourable gentlemen_ on the other side of the house.

The buzzing of these insects of a day was little attended to: their dulness preserved them from laughter, their weakness protected them from resentment; they excited no passion except contempt.

Very different was the public expectation when it was found that Hogarth intended to publish a series of political prints. From his former productions they knew his powers, and considered him as able to throw any party into ridicule. That which he was expected to attack dreaded the strength of his aquafortis, which they apprehended would have the effect of a caustic, not only on his copper, but on the objects of his satire.

Previous to the publication of "The Times," Mr. Wilkes, who was then at Aylesbury, was informed that the print was political, and that Lord Temple, Mr. Pitt, Mr. Churchill, and himself, were the leading characters held up to ridicule. Under the impression which this intelligence conveyed, he sent Mr. Hogarth a remonstrance, stating the ungenerous tendency of such a proceeding; which would be more glaringly unfriendly, as the two last-mentioned gentlemen and the artist had always lived upon terms of strict intimacy. This produced a reply, in which Hogarth asserted that neither Mr. Wilkes nor Mr. Churchill were introduced, but Lord Temple and Mr. Pitt were, and the print should be published in a few days. To this it was answered, that Mr. Wilkes would hardly deem it worth while to notice any reflections on himself; but if his friends were attacked, it would wound him in the most sensible part, and, well as he was able, he should revenge their cause. This was a direct declaration of war: the black flag was hoisted on both sides, and never did two angry men of their abilities throw mud with less dexterity.

"The Times" was soon after published, and on the Saturday following, in No. 17 of the _North Briton_, a most unmerciful attack was directed against the King's Serjeant Painter. Since that period, marvellous have been the variations of the patriotic needle; the Colonel of the Buckinghamshire Militia has filled the first offices in the city of London, and is now become chamberlain. Having in these situations seen the errors of his former politics, he would, I must think, be the first to acknowledge that the attack was not only unmerciful, but in many respects unjust. The hand of time having worn down political asperities, I hope--I believe--Mr. Wilkes will have no objection to this nettle, forced in the hotbed of a party, being plucked from that hallowed sod which covers the dust of William Hogarth.

Should the artist and the chamberlain meet in Elysium, why may they not drink oblivion to former feuds in a glass of Lethe? The chamberlain would, I fancy, prefer champagne; but when a gentleman travels in a strange country, he must take up with such beverage as the place affords.

The attack commences with a ridicule of the _Analysis of Beauty_, or rather of Hogarth's honesty in acknowledging that he was indebted to a friend for a third part of the wording. The artist was sensible of his own strength; but what is much more rare, he was conscious of his own weakness. He knew the principles of his art; but not being accustomed to explaining them with a pen, very prudently asked the aid of those who were, to give his ideas such language as would render them worthy public attention. This was at least honest; but as the author of the _North Briton_ presents us with only part of the apology, let us do the artist justice by inserting the whole.

After some leading remarks on the system which it was his wish to establish, he continues as follows:--

"But observing in the fore-mentioned controversies that the torrent generally ran against me, and that several of my opponents had turned my arguments into ridicule, yet were daily availing themselves of their use, and venting them even to my face as their own, I began to wish the publication of something on this subject; and accordingly applied myself to several of my friends, whom I thought capable of taking up the pen for me, offering to furnish them with materials by word of mouth. But finding this method not practicable, from the difficulty of one man's expressing the ideas of another, especially on a subject which he was either unacquainted with, or was new in its kind, I was therefore reduced to an attempt of finding such words as would best answer my own ideas, being now too far engaged to drop the design. Hereupon, having digested the matter as well as I could, and thrown it into the form of a book, I submitted it to the judgment of such friends whose sincerity and abilities I could best rely on, determining on their approbation or dislike to publish or destroy it. But their favourable opinion of the manuscript being publicly known, it gave such a credit to the undertaking as soon changed the countenances of those who had a better opinion of my pencil than my pen, and turned their sneers into expectation, especially when the same friends had kindly made me an offer of conducting the work through the press; and here I must acknowledge myself particularly indebted to one gentleman for his corrections and amendments of at least a third part of the wording. Through his absence and avocation, several sheets went to the press without any assistance, and the rest had the occasional inspection of one or two friends. If any inaccuracies shall be found in the writing, I shall readily acknowledge them all my own, and am, I confess, under no great concern about them, provided the matter in general may be useful and answerable, in the application of it, to truth and to nature; in which material points if the reader shall think fit to rectify any mistakes, it will give me a sensible pleasure, and be doing great honour to the work."--_Preface to Analysis_, p. 20, edit of 1772.

The author of the _North Briton_ continues: "We all titter the instant he takes up a pen, but we tremble when we see the pencil in his hand."

As this essay was written in consequence of the artist giving a pictured shape, it seems rather extraordinary that so good a logician as Mr. Wilkes should drag in Hogarth's pen merely to titter at, and acknowledge that he trembles at his pencil, which instrument, by the way, drew forth this paper:--

"I will do him the justice to say, that he possesses the rare talent of gibbeting in colours, and that in most of his works he has been a very good moral satirist." That he has, it is most true. "His forte is there, and he should have kept it. When he has at any time deviated from his own peculiar walk, he has never failed to make himself perfectly ridiculous. I need only make my appeal to any one of his historical or portrait pieces, which are now considered as almost beneath all criticism."

_Some_ of his portraits might have been exempted from this censure: what does Mr. Wilkes think of Captain Coram, now in the Foundling Hospital?

"The favourite 'Sigismunda,' the labour of so many years, the boasted effort of his art, was not human. If the figure had a resemblance of anything ever on earth, or had the least pretence to meaning or expression, it was what he had seen, or perhaps made, in real life, his own wife in an agony of passion, but of what passion no connoisseur could guess."

After asserting that the figure was not human, this is rather too much! From any gentleman, the daughter of Sir James Thornhill had a claim to more politeness; but that so gallant a man as Colonel Wilkes--a perfect knight-errant in all that related to the sex--should make an estimable and respectable woman a party "in the poor politics of the day, and descend to low personal abuse" (I use his own language), because her husband had in these poor politics adopted an opposite creed, excites astonishment!

Had this transaction passed in the year 1791, instead of the year 1762, it would have been less extraordinary; for, alas,

"The days of chivalry are no more."[132]

"All his friends remember what tiresome discourses were held by him, day after day, about the transcendent merit of this 'Sigismunda,' and how the great names of Raphael, Vandyke, and others, were made to yield the palm of beauty, grace, expression, etc. to him, for this long-laboured yet uninteresting single figure. The value he himself set on this, as well as on some other of his works, almost exceeds belief; yet from politeness, or fear, or some other motives, he has actually been paid the most astonishing sums, as the price, not of his merit, but of his unbounded vanity."

That the artist demanded too high a price for his painting of "Sigismunda," I am free to acknowledge; but it has not been peculiar to Mr. Hogarth to mistake his talents, and overrate his worst performances. Mr. Wilkes must know that Milton, and many other great men, have erred in the same way. I do not think that "Sigismunda" was worth what he required; but that he has actually been paid the most astonishing sums for his other pictures, as the price, not of his merit, but of his unbounded vanity, I am yet to learn. The remuneration he received for many of his works is to be found in these volumes; it was seldom in any degree equal to their merits. The painter is no more, but several of his pictures remain; and were the "Marriage à la Mode," "Rake's Progress," etc., now upon sale, the present age would, I am persuaded, sanction my opinion, and the pictures produce much more astonishing sums than were originally paid to the artist.

"He has succeeded very happily in the way of humour, and has miscarried in every other attempt; this has arisen in some measure from his head, but much more from his heart. After 'Marriage à la Mode,' the public wished for a series of prints of a Happy Marriage. Hogarth made the attempt; but the rancour and malevolence of his mind made him soon turn away with envy and disgust from objects of so pleasing contemplation, to dwell, and feast a bad heart, on others of a hateful cast, which he pursued, for he found them congenial, with the most unabating zeal and unrelenting gall."

Should any one assert that the strength of colouring, and astonishing powers, which gave the name of Churchill so exalted a rank among satirists, originated in malevolence and rancour, and that he could not write a panegyric because he delighted in feasting a bad heart on a bad theme, Mr. Wilkes would, I am certain, be the first to defend him from such an aspersion.

That he did not succeed in an attempt to delineate a Happy Marriage, I can readily believe. Hogarth was a painter of manners as they were, not as they ought to be. He considered nature in the abstract, and usually adhered to what he saw. Among those friends with whom Hogarth lived in habits of intimacy, and whose domestic situations he had the best opportunity of studying,--though Mr. Churchill and the Colonel were of the number,--he might not know a family from whence such a scene could be copied.

"I have observed some time his setting sun. He has long been very dim, and almost shorn of his beams."

For a confirmation of the above assertion, see the print of "The Medley," published this very year. My opinion of it the reader is already in possession of, and that opinion corresponds with an authority which, I believe, even Mr. Wilkes will consider as very high:--"For useful and deep satire, 'The Medley' is the most sublime of all Hogarth's works."--_Walpole._

"He seems so conscious of this (_i.e._ that his sun is setting, etc.) that he now glimmers with borrowed light. 'John Bull's house in flames' has been hackneyed in fifty different prints; and if there is any merit in the figure on stilts, and the mob prancing around, it is not to be ascribed to Hogarth, but to Callot."

Callot's was, I acknowledge, the first thought, but Sir Joshua Reynolds will tell Mr. Wilkes that happy appropriation is not plagiarism.

"I own, too, that I am grieved to see the genius of Hogarth, which should take in all ages and countries, sunk to a level with the miserable tribe of party-etchers, and now in his rapid decline entering into the poor politics of the faction of the day, and descending into low personal abuse, instead of instructing the world, as he could once, by manly moral satire."

I too am grieved that Hogarth, or any other man of talents, should descend to the poor politics of the faction of the day. But be it remarked, that this was the first political print he designed; and if so contemptible as it was before stated to be, it is rather singular that this one little satire, the first he engraved on the subject, and "destitute of every kind of original merit, in every part confused, perplexed, and embarrassed, where the story is not well told to the eye, and where we cannot discover the faintest ray of genius," should excite so warm a resentment.

Mr. Wilkes goes on to ask, "Whence can proceed so surprising a change? Is it from the frowardness of old age? or is it that envy and impatience of resplendent merit in every way, at which he has always sickened? How often has he been remarked to droop at the fair and honest applause given even to a friend?" etc.

I am told, by those who lived in habits of intimacy with Mr. Hogarth--never! But let us remember, that what is deemed fair and honest applause by the person who receives it, may by an impartial spectator be thought more than he is entitled to.

"It is sufficient that the rest of mankind applaud; from that moment he begins the attack, and you never can be well with him, till he hears an universal outcry against you, and till all your friends have given you up."

That Hogarth should have wished to render a man infamous in the eyes of society, before he would admit him to the honour of his regards, is a paradox I cannot solve. I believe this kind of preparation for friendship was never practised by any other person, of any age or country.

"The public had never the least share of Hogarth's regard, or even goodwill. Gain and vanity have steered his little bark quite through life. He has never been consistent but with respect to these two principles."

Hogarth was no hypocrite. By the word "public," is frequently meant that party who are immersed in the violent factions of the day. For them he never professed goodwill. But if by the public is meant society in its various branches and different ranks, almost all his works had as great a tendency to make the world wiser and better, as had those of men who made more violent professions. His little bark having been steered through life by gain and vanity, I hardly know how to understand. He lived a long and laborious life; he was admitted to be the first, the very first, in his walk; and died worth a sum that a Jew broker will acquire before breakfast. As to vanity,--of talents superior to any other artist,--he had a right to be vain.

"But all genius was not born, nor will it die, with Mr. Hogarth; and notwithstanding all his ungenerous efforts to damp or chill it in another, I will trust to a discerning and liberal spirit in the English nation to patronize and reward all real merit. It will in the end rise superior to the idle laugh of the hour," etc.

Of this discerning and liberal spirit there is not a stronger instance than the estimation in which Hogarth's works, not excepting the _Analysis_ (however it may be worded), are held thirty years after the publication of the _North Briton_.

"In the year 1746, when the Guards were ordered to march to Finchley on the most important service they could be employed in,--the extinguishing a Scottish rebellion which threatened the entire ruin of the illustrious family on the throne, and, in consequence, of our liberties,--Mr. Hogarth came out with a print to make them ridiculous[133] to their countrymen, and to all Europe; or, perhaps, it rather was to tell the Scots, in his way, how little the Guards were to be feared, and that they might safely advance. That the ridicule might not stop here, and that it might be as offensive as possible to his own sovereign, he dedicated the print to the King of Prussia, as an encourager of arts. Is this patriotism? In old Rome, or in any of the Grecian States, he would have been punished as a profligate citizen, totally devoid of all principle."