Part 4

In an account of the March to Finchley, it will be found that when the print was presented to George II., the king returned it in a way that must have mortified and wounded the artist, who, though he was tremblingly alive to professional indignity, made no _graven retaliation_. He could not therefore be considered as an opponent it was proper to silence, or as an advocate it was necessary to retain; notwithstanding which, on the 16th of July 1757, when Mr. Thornhill (son to Sir James) resigned his place of sergeant painter, William Hogarth was appointed his successor; and very soon after, engaged in a _pencil competition_ that did not terminate to his advantage.

I have had frequent occasion to mention the opinion he entertained of _ancient paintings_. By ridiculing copies and contemptible originals, he got a habit of laughing at them all; and when, in 1758, Sir Thomas Sebright, at Sir Luke Schaub's sale, gave £404, 5s. for Correggio's Sigismunda,[25] Hogarth, _in evil hour_, asserted that, were he paid as good a price, he could paint a better picture. Sir Richard (afterwards Lord) Grosvenor unluckily gave him an order for the same subject, _guarded with the qualifying monosyllable_ IF. The work was finished,--sent to the purchaser,--and returned to the artist,--_because_,--as the ironical epistle[26] which accompanied it expressed,--"_Contemplating such a subject must excite melancholy ideas, which a curtain being drawn before it would not diminish._"[27]

This rejection produced a letter from Hogarth to a friend, relating the whole transaction, in rhymes that might perhaps give our painter a niche amongst the minor poets; but which, having neither the harmony of Pope nor the ardour of Dryden, shall find no place here. The prophecy it concludes with has not been absolutely fulfilled, but in the form of a _wish_ may be a suitable motto for the next print.

_SIGISMUNDA._

"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 Sigismunda 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 canvas. Mr. Walpole's description, though equally radiant, is too _various_ for the utmost powers of the pencil.

Hogarth's Sigismunda, 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 Correggio. 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:[28] 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_ Sigismunda of Hogarth from the _last race_ of patriots.[30]

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 engraved by Mr. Benjamin Smith. 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 Sigismunda 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.[31]

TIME SMOKING A PICTURE.

"To nature and yourself appeal, Nor learn of others what to feel."--_Anon._

This animated satire was etched as a receipt-ticket for a print of Sigismunda. It represents _Time_, seated upon a mutilated statue, and smoking a landscape, through which he has driven his scythe, to give proof of its antiquity,--not only by _sober, sombre_ tints, but by an injured canvas. Beneath the easel on which it is fixed the artist has placed a capacious jar, on which is written VARNISH,--to _bring out_ the beauties of this inestimable assemblage of straight lines. The frame is dignified with a Greek motto:

_Crates_,--Ὁ γὰρ χρόνος μ' ἔκαμψε, τέκτων μὲν σοφὸς, Ἅπαντα δ' ἐργαζόμενος ἀσθενέστερα.

See _Spectator_, vol. ii. p. 83.

This, though not engraved with precise accuracy, is sufficiently descriptive of the figure.

_Time has bent me double; and Time, though I confess he is a great artist, weakens all he touches._

"From a contempt" (says Mr. Walpole) "of the ignorant virtuosi of the age, and from indignation at the impudent tricks of picture-dealers,[32] whom he saw continually recommending and vending vile copies to bubble-collectors, and from having never studied, indeed having seen few good pictures of the great Italian masters, he persuaded himself that the praises bestowed on those glorious works were nothing but the effects of prejudice. He talked this language till he believed it; and having heard it often asserted, as is true, that Time gives a mellowness to colours, and improves them, he not only denied the proposition, but maintained that pictures only grew black and worse by age, not distinguishing between the degrees in which the proposition might be true or false."

Whether Mr. Walpole's remarks are right or wrong, Hogarth has admirably illustrated his own doctrine, and added to his burlesque, by introducing the fragments of a statue, below which is written,

As statues moulder into worth. P. W.

By part of this print being in _mezzotinto_ and the remainder etched, it has a singularly striking and spirited appearance.

Hogarth, the following year, published that admirable satire, _The Medley_, which completely refutes the reproach thrown on his _declining talents_ by his political opponents, whose violent, and in some respects vindictive attack, is erroneously said to have hastened his death. That he was _wounded_ with a barbed spear, hurled by the hand of a friend, it is reasonable to suppose; but armed with the _mailed coat_ of conscious superiority, he could not be _wounded mortally_. What!--_broken-hearted by a rhyme!_--_pelted to death with ballads!_--He was too proud! I am told by those who knew him best, that the little mortification he felt, did not arise from the severity of the satire, but from a recollection of the terms on which he had lived with the satirist.

To the painter's recriminations in this party jar, Mr. Nichols I suppose alludes, page 97 of his Anecdotes, where he says, that "_in his political conduct and attachments, Hogarth was at once unprincipled and variable_." These are harsh and heavy charges, but I am to learn on what they are founded. He never embarked with any party, nor did he publish a political print before the year 1762; and the principles he there professes he retained until his death.

In the same page of the Anecdotes, I find, after a complimentary quotation from one of Mr. Hayley's poems, several severe strictures to which I cannot assent.[33] The assertion, that _all his powers of delighting were confined to his pencil_, is in a degree refuted by the Analysis. That _he was rarely admitted into polite circles_, I can readily believe; but if by _polite circles_, Mr. Nichols means those persons of honour who deem _dress_ the grand criterion of distinction, think making _an easy bow_ the first human acquirement, and Lord Chesterfield's code _the whole duty of man_,--the artist had no great cause to regret the loss of such society. But _his sharp corners not being rubbed off_ by collision with these polite circles, he was, _to the last, a gross, uncultivated man_. Engaged in ascertaining the principles of his art, he had not leisure to study the _principles of politeness_; but by those who lived with him in habits of intimacy, I am told he was by no means gross.

"_To be member of a club consisting of mechanics, or those not many degrees above them, seems to have been the utmost of his social ambition._"--Yet we find in the list of his social companions, Fielding, Hoadley, Garrick, Townley, and many other names who were an honour to their age and country. Though excluded from _polite circles_, by these and such men he was received as a friend. Some of his evenings were probably passed among his neighbours, and being above dissimulation, I suppose he resented what he disliked, and was, as Mr. Nichols informs us, often _sent to Coventry_. "_He is said to have beheld the rising eminence and popularity of Sir Joshua Reynolds with a degree of envy; and, if I am not misinformed, spoke with asperity both of him and his performances._" It has been said, and I believe with equal truth, that Rubens _envied_ the rising eminence and popularity of Vandyke: neither the Englishman nor the Fleming were capable of so mean a passion. The walk of William Hogarth was diametrically opposite to that of Sir Joshua Reynolds. They saw nature through a different medium: one of them almost invariably dignifies his characters; whilst the other, from the nature of his subjects, sinks, and in some measure degrades them. The man whose portrait is painted by the President feels exalted; whilst he who looks in the mirror displayed by Hogarth, finds a resemblance better calculated to gratify his _good-natured friends_ than himself. These circumstances considered, I can conceive Hogarth might have been pleased if he could have united the elegance of Sir Joshua to his own humour, and that the knight might be proud of adding the powers of Hogarth to his own taste, without either of them possessing a particle of the diabolical passion alluded to by Mr. Nichols, who thus winds up the character: "_Justice, however, obliges me to add, that our artist was liberal, hospitable, and the most punctual of paymasters._" This is fair and unequivocal praise,--but justice obliges _me_ to add, seems given _upon compulsion_. _Why_ the biographer feels so much reluctance at being _thus obliged_ to commend the hero of his own history, we are not told,--though the cause of a lady being most _indecently caricatured_, is, in the same book, frankly acknowledged.

"_She is still living, and has been loud in abuse of this work, a circumstance to which she owes a niche in it!_"--Nichols' _Anecdotes_, p. 114.

Hogarth, with all the indelicacy of which he is accused, would have blushed at the perusal of this overcharged character. Though _nothing fastidious_, I cannot quote so disgusting a combination of abominable images. In page 59 we are presented with a series equally delectable.

Mr. Walpole remarks that the Flemish painters, as writers of farce and editors of burlesque nature, are the _Tom Brownes_ of the mob; and in their attempts at humour, when they intend to make us laugh, make us sick; that Hogarth resembles Butler,--amidst all his pleasantry, observes the true end of comedy, REFORMATION, and has always a moral. To prove this truth, is one great object of these volumes. But Mr. Nichols, thinking it necessary to _examine whether the scenes painted by our countryman are wholly free from Flemish indelicacies_, has with laudable industry culled some sixteen or eighteen _delicious_ examples, to convince us that they are not. _I omit the catalogue_; yet let me be permitted to suggest, that without the aid of _a commentary_, these indelicacies are not generally obtrusive. I once knew a very grave and profound critic, who employed several years of his life in collecting all Shakspeare's _double entendres_; these he intended for _publication_, to _prove_ that his plays were not fit for the _public_ eye, but was prevented, by a friend suggesting that it would be thought he had acted like the birds--_pecked at that fruit which he liked best_.

Leaving these and all other indecencies to the contemplation of those _who seek for them_, let us return to our narrative.

Finding his health in a declining state, Hogarth had some years before purchased a small house at Chiswick.[34] To this he retired during the summer months, but so active a mind could never _rust in idleness_;--even there he pursued his profession, and employed the last years of his life in retouching and superintending some repairs and alterations in his plates. From this place he, on the 25th October 1764, returned to Leicester Square, and though weak and languid, retained his usual flow of spirits; but being on the same night taken suddenly ill, died of an _aneurism_, in the arms of his friend Mrs. Lewis, who was called up to his assistance.

"The hand of him here torpid lies, That drew th' essential form of grace; Here cloath'd in death th' attentive eyes, That saw the manners in the face."[35]

His will, which bears date August 16, 1764, has the following bequests:--

"I do hereby release, and acquit, and discharge my sister Ann Hogarth, of and from all claims and demands which I have on her at the time of my decease on any account whatsoever; and I do hereby give and bequeath unto my said sister Ann, eighty pounds a year, to be paid her during her natural life, by my executrix hereinafter named, out of the profits which shall arise from the sale of the prints taken from my engraved copperplates; which yearly payment shall commence within three months after my decease, and be paid in quarterly payments: and my will is, that the said copperplates shall not be sold or disposed of without the consent of my said sister, and my executrix hereinafter named; but the same shall remain in the custody or possession of my executrix hereinafter named, for and during her natural life, if she continues sole and unmarried; and from and immediately after her marriage, my will is that the three sets of copperplates, called Marriage à la Mode, the Harlot's Progress, and the Rake's Progress, shall be delivered to my said sister, by my said executrix, during her natural life; and immediately after the decease of my said executrix, the said copperplates, and the whole profits arising from such prints as aforesaid, shall be and of right belong to my said sister; and in case my executrix shall survive my sister, the same shall in like manner become the sole property, and of right belong to my said executrix hereinafter named: and I hereby give and bequeath unto Mary Lewis, for her faithful services, one hundred pounds, to be paid her immediately after my decease by my executrix hereinafter named: and my will is, that Samuel Martin, Esq., of Abingdon Buildings, be requested to accept of the portrait which I painted of him for myself. _Item_, that a ring, value ten guineas, be presented to Doctor Isaac Schomberg, in remembrance of me. _Item_, that Miss Julian Bence be presented with a ring, value five guineas: and my will is, that the remainder of my money, securities for money, and debts due to me, shall of right belong to my said executrix hereinafter named; and all my other goods, pictures, chattels, and estates, real or personal whatsoever, I do give and bequeath the same and every part thereof unto my dear wife Jane Hogarth, whom I do ordain, constitute, and appoint my sole executrix of my will. And I do hereby revoke all the other wills by me made at any time. In witness thereof, I do hereunto set my hand and seal, this day, August 16th, 1764.

"WILLIAM HOGARTH (L.S.).

"Signed, sealed, and published, and delivered by William Hogarth, to be his last will and testament, in the presence of us, who in the presence of each other have subscribed our names as witness thereto.--_Richard Loveday_, _George Ellsom_, _Mary Graham_."

His remains were removed to Chiswick, where, on a plain but neat pyramidical monument, are the following inscriptions:--

On the first side is engraven:

"HERE LIETH THE BODY OF WILLIAM HOGARTH, ESQ., WHO DIED OCTOBER 26, 1764, AGED 67 YEARS.

MRS. JANE HOGARTH, WIFE OF WILLIAM HOGARTH, ESQ. OBIT 13 NOVEMBER 1789, ÆTAT: 80 YEARS."

On the second:

"HERE LIETH THE BODY OF DAME JUDITH THORNHILL, RELICT OF SIR JAMES THORNHILL, KNIGHT, OF THORNHILL, IN THE COUNTY OF DORSET: SHE DIED NOV. 12, 1757, AGED 84 YEARS."

On a third:

"HERE LIETH THE BODY OF MRS. ANNE HOGARTH, SISTER TO WILLIAM HOGARTH, ESQ. SHE DIED AUGUST 13, 1771, AGED 70 YEARS."

On the front, in _basso-relievo_, is the comic mask, laurel wreath, rest-stick, palette, pencils, a book inscribed _Analysis of Beauty_, and the following admirable lines by his friend Mr. Garrick:--

"Farewell, great painter of mankind, Who reached the noblest point of art; Whose pictured morals charm the mind, And through the eye correct the heart. If genius fire thee, reader, stay; If Nature touch thee, drop a tear: If neither move thee, turn away, For Hogarth's honoured dust lies here."[36]

_Time_ will obliterate this inscription, and even the pyramid must crumble into dust; but his fame is engraven on tablets which shall have longer duration than monumental marble.

During the twenty-five years which his widow survived, the plates were neither repaired nor altered,[37] but being necessarily entrusted to the management of others, were often both negligently and improperly taken off.[38] On Mrs. Hogarth's demise, in 1789, she bequeathed her property as follows:--

"_Imprimis_, I give and devise unto my cousin Mary Lewis, now living with me, all that my copyhold estate, lying and being at Chiswick, in the county of Middlesex, to have and to hold, during the term of her natural life; and after her decease, I give and devise the said copyhold estate unto Richard Loveday, surgeon, of Hammersmith, to have and to hold during his natural life; and after his decease, to his son Francis James Loveday, to him and his heirs for ever. _Item_, I give and bequeath unto the said Mary Lewis all my personal estate, of what kind soever, the legacies hereinafter mentioned excepted. _Item_, I give unto my god-daughter Jane Amelia Loveday, the sum of one hundred pounds. And I do make, constitute, and appoint my said cousin Mary Lewis, my sole executrix of this my last will and testament, written with my own hand, this third day of August, in the year of our Lord, 1770. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal.

"JANE HOGARTH (L.S.).

"Witnesses--_Michael Impey_, _Jane Sarah Home_.

"This stock of £479, 10s. 3d. I give to M. Lewis; and to Charles Stilewell, if he is with me at the time of my death, twenty pounds.--May the 17th, 1789.

"JANE HOGARTH."

Mrs. Lewis, soon after the death of her friend, on condition of receiving an annuity for life, transferred to Messrs. Boydell her right in all the plates; and since in their possession, they have not been touched upon by a _burin_. It may be proper to add, that every plate has been carefully cleaned; and the rolling-presses now in use being on an improved principle, the paper superior, and the art of printing better understood, impressions are more clearly and accurately taken off than they have been at any preceding period.

Thus much may suffice for the state of his plates: their general intention and execution is the proper basis on which to build his

CHARACTER.

Were it considered by a connoisseur, he would probably assert that this man could not be a painter, for he had never travelled to Rome; could not be a judge of art, for he spoke irreverently of the ancients; gave his figures neither dignity nor grace; was erroneous in his distribution of light and shade, and inattentive to the painter's balance; that his grouping was inartificial, and his engraving coarse.

To traverse continents in search of antique paintings, explore caverns for mutilated sculpture, and measure the proportions of a statue with mathematical precision, was not the boast of William Hogarth. The _Temple of Nature_ was his academy, and his topography the map of the human mind. Disdaining to copy or translate, he left the superior class of beings that people the canvas of Poussin and Michael Angelo to their admirers; selected his images from his own country, and gave them with a truth, energy, and variety of character,[39] ever appropriate, and invariably original. Considering his peculiar powers, it is fortunate for his fame that he was a native of Britain. In Switzerland, the scenery is romantic,--the rocks are stupendous; in Italy, the models of art are elevated and majestic,--the ruins of ancient Greece still continue a school of architecture and proportion;--but in England, and in England alone, we have every variety of character that separates man from man. To these he resorted, and rarely attempted to _heighten nature_, either by ideal or elevated beauty; for though he had the eye, he had not the wing of an eagle; when he attempted to soar, particles of his native clay clung to his pinions, and retarded his flight.