Part 6

In this plate there are some local customs which mark the manners of the times when it was engraved, but are now generally disused, except in some of the provinces very distant from the capital; sprigs of rosemary were then given to each of the mourners: to appear at a funeral without one, was as great an indecorum as to be without a white handkerchief. This custom might probably originate at a time when the plague depopulated the metropolis, and rosemary was deemed an antidote against contagion. It must be acknowledged that there are also in this print some things which, though they gave the artist an opportunity of displaying his humour, are violations of propriety and custom: such is her child, but a few removes from infancy, being habited as chief mourner, to attend his parent to the grave; rings presented, and an escutcheon hung up in a garret at the funeral of a needy prostitute.[64] The whole may be intended as a burlesque upon ostentatious and expensive funerals, which were then more customary than they are now. Mr. Pope has well ridiculed the same folly:

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

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

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

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

A Joseph Gay, and several other wretched rhymers, published what they called poetical illustrations of Mr. Hogarth's six plates: but these effusions of dulness do not deserve enumeration; nor would they deserve mention, but as collateral proofs of the great estimation in which these prints were held, when their popularity could force the sale of such miserable productions. Happily they are now consigned to those two high priests of the temple of oblivion, the trunkmaker and the pastrycook.

The six original pictures were sold on the 25th of January 1744-5, and produced eighty-eight pounds four shillings. Mr. Beckford, a late Lord Mayor of London, was, I believe, the purchaser. At a fire which burnt down his house at Fonthill, Wiltshire, in the year 1755, five of them were consumed.

When a messenger brought him intelligence of this unfortunate event, he said nothing, but took out his pocket-book, and wrote down a number of figures, which he seemed inspecting with the cool precision of a true disciple of Cocker, when a friend who was present, expressing some surprise at his being so collected after so heavy a loss, asked him what was the subject of his meditation? to which he answered, with the most philosophical indifference, "I am calculating how much it will cost me to rebuild my house."

THE RAKE'S PROGRESS.

PLATE I.

"Oh, vanity of age untoward! Ever spleeny, ever froward! Why these bolts and massy chains, Squint suspicions, jealous pains? Why, thy toilsome journey o'er, Lay'st thou up an useless store? Hope along with Time is flown; Nor canst thou reap the field thou'st sown. Had'st thou a son? In time be wise; He views thy toil with other eyes. Needs must thy kind paternal care, Lock'd in thy chests, be buried there? Whence, then, shall flow that friendly ease, That social converse, heartfelt peace, Familiar duty without dread, Instruction from example bred, Which youthful minds with freedom mend, And with the father mix the friend. Uncircumscrib'd by prudent rules, Or precepts of expensive schools; Abus'd at home, abroad despis'd, Unbred, unletter'd, unadvis'd; The headstrong course of life begun, What comfort from thy darling son?"

--HOADLEY.[65]

In the last series of prints Mr. Hogarth delineated, with a master's hand, the miseries attendant upon a female's deviation from virtue. In this he presents to us the picture of a young man, thoughtless, extravagant, and licentious; and, in colours equally impressive, paints the destructive consequences of his conduct. The first print most forcibly contrasts two opposite passions,--the unthinking negligence of youth, and the sordid avaricious rapacity of age. It brings into one point of view what Mr. Pope so exquisitely describes in his Epistle to Lord Bathurst:

"Who sees pale Mammon pine amidst his store, Sees but a backward steward for the poor; This year a reservoir, to keep and spare; The next a fountain, spouting through his heir."

It represents a young man taking possession of a rich miser's effects, and is crowded with the monuments of departed avarice. Everything, valuable or not valuable, has been hoarded. A chest of old plate, an old coat, a worn-out boot, and the caul of a periwig, are preserved with equal care. The thread-bare garments are hung up; the rusty spur put into a closet; and even a spectacle-frame, without glasses, is thought worthy of preservation. The contents of his armoury are curious, and valuable as the lumbering furniture of his room: they consist of two swords, which may be considered as trophies of his youthful prowess, or protectors of his cankered pelf.

The crutch and walking-stick, those unequal supporters of his feeble frame, now lean unheeded against the wall. His fur cap and greatcoat seem to have been winter substitutes for fire, as the grate in which a withered _Sibyl_ is laying wood has no marks of even a remaining cinder. The remnant of candle in a save-all, the Jack taken down as an useless piece of furniture, and, with the spit, hoisted into a high cupboard, give strong indications of the manner in which this votary of Mammon existed, for such a being could scarcely be said to live. The gaunt appearance of an half-starved cat proves not only the rigid abstinence practised by this wretched slave to his wealth, but that in his miserable mansion

"No mouse e'er lurk'd, no rat e'er sought for food."

The iron-bound chests, the hidden gold falling from the breaking cornice, and indeed every article that is displayed in this dreary tomb of buried wealth, give additional marks of a suspicious and sordid disposition. The picture of a miser counting his gold; the escutcheons, those gloomy ornaments of departed wretchedness, with the armorial bearings of avarice, three vices hard screwed, are adjuncts highly appropriate to the place; the motto, BEWARE, inscribed under the arms, is a well-directed caution, and ought to be seriously considered by those who feel a propensity to this meanest of passions. An old shoe, soled with the cover of a Bible, and the little memorandum, _May 5th, 1721, put off my bad shilling_, are strong proofs that extreme avarice destroys all reverence for religion, and eradicates every principle of honesty.

The introduction to this history is well delineated, and the principal figure marked with that easy, unmeaning vacancy of face which speaks him formed by nature for a DUPE. Ignorant of the value of money, and negligent in his nature, he leaves his bag of untold gold in the reach of an old and greedy pettifogging attorney,[66] who is making an inventory of bonds, mortgages, indentures, etc. This man, with the rapacity so natural to his profession, seizes the first opportunity of plundering his employer. Hogarth had a few years before been engaged in a lawsuit, which gave him some experience of the PRACTICE of those pests of society.

The figure of the young woman with a wedding-ring is not alluring, neither is her face attractive; but her being pregnant, and accompanied by her mother with an apron full of letters, gives her a claim to our pity, as it clearly intimates that this is meant as a visit to entreat the promised hand of her seducer; but he violates every former protestation, refuses her marriage, and attempts by a bribe to get a release from the obligation. Her mother violently reproaches him for his conduct, and invokes the curses of offended Heaven upon his falsehood.

In this print the drawing and disposition of the figures are tolerably good, the light is properly distributed, and the perspective accurately represented; but the whole wants _mass_. To display the hoards, it was necessary to open the boxes and doors; and though an exhibition of the heterogeneous collection heaped together by this wretched defrauder of himself most forcibly describes the disposition of the man, it hurts the _repose_ of the picture. Breaking the background into so many parts, destroys that breadth which ought to be considered as a leading excellence.

PLATE II.

"Prosperity (with harlot's smiles, Most pleasing when she most beguiles), How soon, sweet foe, can all thy train Of false, gay, frantic, loud, and vain, Enter the unprovided mind, And memory in fetters bind? Load faith and love with golden chain, And sprinkle Lethe o'er the brain! Pleasure, on her silver throne, Smiling comes, nor comes alone; Venus comes with her along, And smooth Lyæus, ever young; And in their train, to fill the press, Come apish Dance, and swoln Excess, Mechanic Honour, vicious Taste, And Fashion in her changing vest."

--HOADLEY.

The sordid avarice of the wretched miser is in this print contrasted by the giddy profusion of his prodigal heir. The old man pined in the midst of plenty, starved while surrounded by abundance, and refused himself enjoyment of the absolute necessaries of life from an apprehension of future poverty.

"Not so his son; he mark'd this oversight, And quite mistook reverse of wrong for right."

Three years have elapsed, and our giddy spendthrift, throwing of the awkwardness of a rustic, assumes the character and apes the manners of a modern fine gentleman. To qualify himself for performing the part, he is attended by a French tailor, a milliner, a Parisian dancing-master,[67] a Gallic fencing-master,[68] an English prize-fighter,[69] and a teacher of music.[70] Besides this crowd of masters of arts, he has at his levee a blower of the French horn, an improver of gardens,[71] a bravo,[72] a jockey,[73] and a poet! the latter having written a panegyric in honour of this exalted character, already anticipates approbation and reward. Surrounded by such a multitude of attentive friends and warm admirers, the dissolution of his fortune is inevitable; it must melt like snow beneath the solar beam.

How exactly does Bramston describe the character in his _Man of Taste_:

"Without Italian, and without an ear, To Bononcini's music I adhere. To boon companions I my time would give, With players, pimps, and parasites I'd live; I would with jockeys from Newmarket dine, And to rough riders give my choicest wine. My evenings all I would with sharpers spend, And make the thief-taker my bosom friend; In Figg the prize-fighter by day delight, And sup with Colley Cibber every night."

On the back of the musician's chair hangs a list of presents which Farinelli, an Italian singer, received the day after his performance of a favourite character at the Opera House. Among others, a gold snuff-box, chased with the story of Orpheus charming the brutes, from T. Rakewell, Esq.

Another memento of musical extravagance is the frontispiece to a poem lying on the floor, and dedicated to Esquire Rakewell, in which the ladies of Great Britain are represented as sacrificing their hearts to this idol of sound, and crying out with great earnestness, One God, one Farinelli! This intimates the violent rage of the fashionable world for that most frivolous of all amusements, the Italian Opera. The taste which our prodigal has imbibed for the turf is pointed out by the jockey presenting a silver punch-bowl, which one of his horses is supposed to have won; his passion for another royal amusement, by the portraits of two fighting-cocks, hung up as the ornaments of his saloon. A picture which he has placed between them bears a whimsical allusion; it is the "Judgment of Paris."[74] The figures in the background consist of such persons as are general attendants in the ante-chamber of a dissipated man of fashion. The whole is a high-wrought satire on those men of rank and fortune whose follies render them a prey to the artful and rapacious.

Of the expression in this print we cannot speak more highly than it deserves. Every character is marked with its proper and discriminative stamp. It has been said by a very judicious critic,[75] from whom it is not easy to differ without being wrong, that the hero of this history, in the first plate of the series, is unmeaning; and in the second, ungraceful. The fact is admitted; but, for so delineating him, the author is entitled to our praise rather than our censure. Rakewell's whole conduct proves he was a fool, and at that time he had not learned how to perform an artificial character; he therefore looks as he is, unmeaning and uninformed. But in the second plate he is ungraceful--granted. The ill-educated son of so avaricious a father could not have been introduced into very good company; and though, by the different teachers who surround him, it evidently appears that he wishes to assume the character of a gentleman, his internal feelings tell him he has not attained it. Under that consciousness, he is properly and naturally represented as ungraceful and embarrassed in his new situation.

The light, it must be acknowledged, is very ill distributed, and the figures most inartificially grouped. To infer from hence, with Mr. Gilpin, that the artist was at a loss how to group them, is not quite fair: his others compositions prove that he was not ignorant of the art, but in many of them he has been inattentive to it. In this he may have introduced in his print figures which were not inserted in the sketch, merely because they were appropriate to his story. The expression of the actors in his drama was always his leading object; composition he considered as secondary, and was little solicitous about their situation on the stage.

PLATE III.

"O vanity of youthful blood, So by misuse to poison good! Woman, framed for social love, Fairest gift of powers above, Source of every household blessing; All charms in innocence possessing: But, turn'd to vice, all plagues above; Foe to thy being, foe to love! Guest divine, to outward viewing; Ablest minister of ruin! And thou, no less of gift divine, Sweet poison of misused wine! With freedom led to every part, And secret chamber of the heart, Dost thou thy friendly host betray, And show thy riotous gang the way To enter in, with covert treason, O'erthrow the drowsy guard of reason, To ransack the abandoned place, And revel there with wild excess?"

This plate exhibits our licentious prodigal engaged in one of his midnight festivities: forgetful of the past, and negligent of the future, he riots in the present. Having poured his libation to Bacchus, he concludes the evening orgies in a sacrifice at the Cyprian shrine; and, surrounded by the votaries of Venus, joins in the unhallowed mysteries of the place. The companions of his revelry are marked with that easy, unblushing effrontery which belongs to the servants of all work in the isle of Paphos;--for the maids of honour, they are not sufficiently elevated.

He may be supposed, in the phrase of the day, to have beat the rounds, overset a constable, and conquered a watchman, whose staff and lanthorn he has brought into the room as trophies of his prowess. In this situation he is robbed of his watch by the girl whose hand is in his bosom; and, with that adroitness peculiar to an old practitioner, she conveys her acquisition to an accomplice, who stands behind the chair.

Two of the ladies are quarrelling; and one of them delicately spouts wine in the face of her opponent, who is preparing to revenge the affront with a knife, which, in a posture of threatening defiance, she grasps in her hand. A third, enraged at being neglected, holds a lighted candle to a map of the globe, determined to set the world on fire though she perish in the conflagration! A fourth is undressing. The fellow bringing in a pewter dish,[76] as part of the apparatus of this elegant and attic entertainment, a blind harper,[77] a trumpeter, and a ragged ballad-singer roaring out an obscene song, completes this motley group.

This design may be a very exact representation of what were then the nocturnal amusements of a brothel;--so different are the manners of the year 1805 from those of 1734, that I much question whether a similar exhibition is now to be seen in any tavern of the metropolis. That we are less licentious than our predecessors, I dare not affirm; but we are certainly more delicate in the pursuit of our pleasures.

The room is furnished with a set of Roman emperors,--they are not placed in their proper order; for in the mad revelry of the evening this family of frenzy have decollated all of them except Nero; and his manners had too great a similarity to their own to admit of his suffering so degrading an insult: their reverence for _virtue_ induced them to spare his head. In the frame of a Cæsar they have placed the portrait of Pontac, an eminent cook, whose great talents being turned to heightening sensual rather than mental enjoyments, he has a much better chance of a votive offering from this company than would either Vespasian or Trajan.

The shattered mirror, broken wine-glasses, fractured chair and cane; the mangled fowl, with a fork stuck in its breast, thrown into a corner, and indeed every accompaniment, shows that this has been a night of riot without enjoyment, mischief without wit, and waste without gratification.

With respect to the drawing of the figures in this curious female coterie, Hogarth evidently intended several of them for beauties; and of vulgar, uneducated, prostituted beauty, he had a good idea. The hero of our tale displays all that careless jollity which copious draughts of maddening wine are calculated to inspire; he laughs the world away, and bids it pass. The poor dupe without his periwig, in the background, forms a good contrast of character: he is maudlin drunk, and sadly sick. To keep up the spirit of unity throughout the society, and not leave the poor African girl entirely neglected, she is making signs to her friend the porter, who perceives, and slightly returns, her love-inspiring glance. This print is rather crowded,--the subject demanded it should be so; some of the figures thrown into shade might have helped the general effect, but would have injured the characteristic expression.

PLATE IV.

"O vanity of youthful blood, So by misuse to poison good! Reason awakes, and views unbarr'd The sacred gates he wish'd to guard; Approaching, see the harpy Law, And Poverty, with icy paw, Ready to seize the poor remains That vice has left of all his gains. Cold penitence, lame after-thought, With fear, despair, and horror fraught, Call back his guilty pleasures dead, Whom he hath wrong'd, and whom betray'd."

The career of dissipation is here stopped. Dressed in the first style of the _ton_, and getting out of a sedan chair, with the hope of shining in the circle, and perhaps forwarding a former application for a place or a pension, he is arrested! To intimate that being plundered is the certain consequence of such an event, and to show how closely one misfortune treads upon the heels of another, a boy is at the same moment picking his pocket.

The unfortunate girl whom he basely deserted is now a milliner, and naturally enough attends in the crowd to mark the fashions of the day. Seeing his distress, with all the eager tenderness of unabated love, she flies to his relief. Possessed of a small sum of money, the hard earnings of unremitted industry, she generously offers her purse for the liberation of her worthless favourite. This releases the captive beau, and displays a strong instance of female affection, which, being once planted in the bosom, is rarely eradicated by the coldest neglect or harshest cruelty.

The high-born, haughty Welshman, with an enormous leek, and a countenance keen and lofty as his native mountains, establishes the chronology, and fixes the day to be the first of March; which, being sacred to the titular saint of Wales, was observed at court.[78]

The background exhibits a view of St James's Palace, and White's Chocolate House, then the rendezvous of the first gamesters in London. At this fountainhead of dissipation the artist has aimed a flash of lightning; and to show the contagion of example, and how much this ruinous vice prevails even in the lowest ranks of society, he has in one corner of the print represented an assembly composed of shoe-blacks, chimney-sweepers, etc.,[79] who, aping the vices of their superiors, are engaged at cards, dice, cups and balls, and pricking in the belt. To intimate how eagerly these minor gamblers enter into the spirit of what they are engaged in, one of them is naked, and having staked and lost his clothes, is now throwing for his stock in trade, a basket, brushes, and blacking. The little smutty smoking politician is reading the _Farthing Post_; his attention is exquisitely marked; his whole soul is engaged; and, regardless of the confusion which reigns around, he contemplates

"The fate of empires, and the fall of kings."