Chapter 7

We have seen displayed the distress of a poet; in this the artist has exhibited the rage of a musician. Our poor bard bore his misfortunes with patience, and, rich in his Muse, did not much repine at his poverty. Not so this master of harmony, of heavenly harmony! To the evils of poverty he is now a stranger; his _adagios_ and _cantabiles_ have procured him the protection of nobles; and, contrary to the poor shirtless mendicant of the Muses that we left in a garret, he is arrayed in a coat decorated with frogs, a bag-wig, solitaire, and ruffled shirt. Waiting in the chamber of a man of fashion, whom he instructs in the divine science of music, having first tuned his instrument, he opens his crotchet-book, shoulders his violin, flourishes his fiddle-stick, and,

Softly sweet, in Lydian measure, Soon he soothes his soul to pleasure.

Rapt in Elysium at the divine symphony, he is awakened from his beatific vision, by noises that distract him.

An universal hubbub wild, Of stunning sounds, and voices all confus'd, Assails his ears with loudest vehemence.

Confounded with the din, and enraged by the interruption, our modern Terpander starts from his seat, and opens the window. This operates as air to a kindling fire; and such a combination of noises burst upon the auricular nerve, that he is compelled to stop his ears,--but to stop the torrent is impossible!

A louder yet, and yet a louder strain, Break his bands of thought asunder! And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder; At the horrible sound He has rais'd up his head, As awak'd from the dead, And amazed he stares all around.

In this situation he is delineated; and those who for a moment contemplate the figures before him, cannot wonder at his rage.

A crew of hell-hounds never ceasing bark, With wide Cerberean mouth, full loud, and ring A hideous peal.

Of the _dramatis personæ_ who perform the vocal parts, the first is a fellow, in a tone that would rend hell's concave, bawling, "Dust, ho! dust, ho! dust!" Next to him, an amphibious animal, who nightly pillows his head on the sedgy bosom of old Thames, in a voice that emulates the rush of many waters, or the roaring of a cataract, is bellowing "Flounda,a,a,ars!" A daughter of May-day, who dispenses what in London is called milk, and is consequently a milk-maid, in a note pitched at the very top of her voice, is crying, "Be-louw!" While a ballad-singer dolefully drawls out The Ladie's Fall, an infant in her arms joins its treble pipe in chorus with the screaming parrot, which is on a lamp-iron over her head. On the roof of an opposite house are two cats, performing what an amateur of music might perhaps call a bravura duet; near them appears

A sweep, shrill twittering on the chimney-top.

A little French drummer, singing to his rub-a-dub, and the agreeable yell of a dog, complete the vocal performers.

Of the instrumental, a fellow blowing a horn, with a violence that would have almost shaken down the walls of Jericho, claims the first notice; next to him, the dustman rattles his bell with ceaseless clangour, until the air reverberates the sound.

The intervals are filled up by a paviour, who, to every stroke of his rammer, adds a loud, distinct, and echoing, Haugh! The pedestrian cutler is grinding a butcher's cleaver with such earnestness and force, that it elicits sparks of fire. This, added to the agonizing howls of his unfortunate dog, must afford a perfect specimen of the ancient chromatic. The poor animal, between a man and a monkey, piping harsh discords upon a hautboy, the girl whirling her _crepitaculum_, or rattle, and the boy beating his drum, conclude the catalogue of this harmonious band.

This delineation originated in a story which was told to Hogarth by the late Mr. John Festin, who is the hero of the print. He was eminent for his skill in playing upon the German flute and hautboy, and much employed as a teacher of music. To each of his scholars he devoted one hour each day. "At nine o'clock in the morning," said he, "I once waited upon my lord Spencer, but his lordship being out of town, from him I went to Mr. V----n. It was so early that he was not arisen. I went into his chamber, and, opening a shutter, sat down in the window-seat. Before the rails was a fellow playing upon the hautboy. A man with a barrow full of onions offered the piper an onion if he would play him a tune. That ended, he offered a second onion for a second tune; the same for a third, and was going on: but this was too much; I could not bear it; it angered my very soul--'Zounds!' said I, 'stop here! This fellow is ridiculing my profession; he is playing on the hautboy for onions!'"

The whole of this bravura scene is admirably represented. A person quaintly enough observed, that it deafens one to look at it.

MASQUERADES AND OPERAS.

BURLINGTON GATE.

This print appeared in 1723. Of the three small figures in the centre the middle one is Lord Burlington, a man of considerable taste in painting and architecture, but who ranked Mr. Kent, an indifferent artist, above his merit. On one side of the peer is Mr. Campbell, the architect; on the other, his lordship's postilion. On a show-cloth in this plate is also supposed to be the portrait of king George II. who gave 1000_l._ towards the Masquerade; together with that of the earl of Peterborough, who offers Cuzzoni, the Italian singer, 8000_l._ and she spurns at him. Mr. Heidegger, the regulator of the Masquerade, is also exhibited, looking out of a window, with the letter H under him.

The substance of the foregoing remarks is taken from a collection lately belonging to Captain Baillie, where it is said that they were furnished by an eminent connoisseur.

A board is likewise displayed, with the words, "Long Room. Fawks's dexterity of hand." It appears from the following advertisement that this was a man of great consequence in his profession: "Whereas the town hath been lately alarmed, that the famous Fawks was robbed and murdered, returning from performing at the duchess of Buckingham's house at Chelsea; which report being raised and printed by a person to gain money to himself, and prejudice the above-mentioned Mr. Fawks, whose unparalleled performance has gained him so much applause from the greatest of quality, and most curious observers: We think, both in justice to the injured gentleman, and for the satisfaction of his admirers, that we cannot please our readers better than to acquaint them he is alive, and will not only perform his usual surprising dexterity of hand, posture-master, and musical clock: but, for the greater diversion of the quality and gentry, has agreed with the famous Powell of the Bath for the season, who has the largest, richest, and most natural figures, and finest machines in England, and whose former performances in Covent Garden were so engaging to the town, as to gain the approbation of the best judges, to show his puppet-plays along with him, beginning in the Christmas holidays next, at the Old Tennis-court, in James's-street, near the Haymarket; where any incredulous persons may be satisfied he is not left this world, if they please to believe their hands, though they can't believe their eyes."--"May 25," indeed, "1731, died Mr. Fawks, famous for his dexterity of hand, by which he had honestly acquired a fortune of 10,000_l._ being no more than he really deserved for his great ingenuity, by which he had surpassed all that ever pretended to that art."

This satirical performance of Hogarth, however, was thought to be invented and drawn at the instigation of Sir James Thornhill, out of revenge, because Lord Burlington had preferred Mr. Kent before him to paint for the king at his palace at Kensington. Dr. Faustus was a pantomime performed to crowded houses throughout two seasons, to the utter neglect of plays, for which reason they are cried about in a wheel-barrow.

MORNING.

Keen blows the blast, and eager is the air; With flakes of feather'd snow the ground is spread; To step, with mincing pace, to early prayer, Our clay-cold vestal leaves her downy bed.

And here the reeling sons of riot see, After a night of senseless revelry.

Poor, trembling, old, her suit the beggar plies; But frozen chastity the little boon denies.

This withered representative of Miss Bridget Alworthy, with a shivering foot-boy carrying her prayer-book, never fails in her attendance at morning service. She is a symbol of the season.--

Chaste as the icicle That's curdled by the frost from purest snow, And hangs on Dian's temple

she looks with scowling eye, and all the conscious pride of severe and stubborn virginity, on the poor girls who are suffering the embraces of two drunken beaux that are just staggered out of Tom King's Coffee-house. One of them, from the basket on her arm, I conjecture to be an orange girl: she shows no displeasure at the boisterous salute of her Hibernian lover. That the hero in a laced hat is from the banks of the Shannon, is apparent in his countenance. The female whose face is partly concealed, and whose neck has a more easy turn than we always see in the works of this artist, is not formed of the most inflexible materials.

An old woman, seated upon a basket; the girl, warming her hands by a few withered sticks that are blazing on the ground, and a wretched mendicant,[3] wrapped in a tattered and parti-coloured blanket, entreating charity from the rosy-fingered vestal who is going to church, complete the group. Behind them, at the door of Tom King's Coffee-house, are a party engaged in a fray, likely to create business for both surgeon and magistrate: we discover swords and cudgels in the combatants' hands.

On the opposite side of the print are two little schoolboys. That they have shining morning faces we cannot positively assert, but each has a satchel at his back, and according with the description given by the poet of nature, is

Creeping, like snail, unwillingly to school.

The lantern appended to the woman who has a basket on her head, proves that these dispensers of the riches of Pomona rise before the sun, and do part of their business by an artificial light. Near her, that immediate descendant of Paracelsus, Dr. Rock, is expatiating to an admiring audience, on the never-failing virtues of his wonder-working medicines. One hand holds a bottle of his miraculous panacea, and the other supports a board, on which is the king's arms, to indicate that his practice is sanctioned by royal letters patent. Two porringers and a spoon, placed on the bottom of an inverted basket, intimate that the woman seated near them, is a vender of rice-milk, which was at that time brought into the market every morning.

A fatigued porter leans on a rail; and a blind beggar is going towards the church: but whether he will become one of the congregation, or take his stand at the door, in the hope that religion may have warmed the hearts of its votaries to "Pity the sorrows of a poor blind man," is uncertain.

Snow on the ground, and icicles hanging from the penthouse, exhibit a very chilling prospect; but, to dissipate the cold, there is happily a shop where spirituous liquors are sold _pro bono publico_, at a very little distance. A large pewter measure is placed upon a post before the door, and three of a smaller size hang over the window of the house.

The character of the principal figure is admirably delineated. She is marked with that prim and awkward formality which generally accompanies her order, and is an exact type of a hard winter; for every part of her dress, except the flying lappets and apron, ruffled by the wind, is as rigidly precise as if it were frozen. It has been said that this incomparable figure was designed as the representative of either a particular friend, or a relation. Individual satire may be very gratifying to the public, but is frequently fatal to the satirist. Churchill, by the lines,

Fam'd Vine-street, Where Heaven, the kindest wish of man to grant, Gave me an old house, and an older aunt,

lost a considerable legacy; and it is related that Hogarth, by the introduction of this withered votary of Diana into this print, induced her to alter a will which had been made considerably in his favour: she was at first well enough satisfied with her resemblance, but some designing people taught her to be angry.

Extreme cold is very well expressed in the slip-shod footboy, and the girl who is warming her hands. The group of which she is a part, is well formed, but not sufficiently balanced on the opposite side.

The church dial, a few minutes before seven; marks of little shoes and pattens in the snow, and various productions of the season in the market, are an additional proof of that minute accuracy with which this artist inspected and represented objects, which painters in general have neglected.

Govent Garden is the scene, but in the print every building is reversed. This was a common error with Hogarth; not from his being ignorant of the use of the mirror, but from his considering it as a matter of little consequence.

FOOTNOTE:

[3] "What signifies," says some one to Dr. Johnson, "giving halfpence to common beggars? they only lay them out in gin or tobacco." "And why," replied the doctor, "should they be denied such sweeteners of their existence? It is surely very savage to shut out from them every possible avenue to those pleasures reckoned too coarse for our own acceptance. Life is a pill which none of us can swallow without gilding, yet for the poor we delight in stripping it still more bare, and are not ashamed to show even visible marks of displeasure, if even the bitter taste is taken from their mouths."

NOON.

Hail, Gallia's daughters! easy, brisk, and free; Good humour'd, _débonnaire_, and _dégagée_: Though still fantastic, frivolous, and vain, Let not their airs and graces give us pain: Or fair, or brown, at toilet, prayer, or play, Their motto speaks their manners--TOUJOURS GAI.

But for that powder'd compound of grimace, That capering he-she thing of fringe and lace; With sword and cane, with bag and solitaire, Vain of the full-dress'd dwarf, his hopeful heir, How does our spleen and indignation rise, When such a tinsell'd coxcomb meets our eyes,

Among the figures who are coming out of church, an affected, flighty Frenchwoman, with her fluttering fop of a husband, and a boy, habited _à-la-mode de Paris_, claim our first attention. In dress, air, and manner, they have a national character. The whole congregation, whether male or female, old or young, carry the air of their country in countenance, dress, and deportment. Like the three principal figures, they are all marked with some affected peculiarity. Affectation, in a woman, is supportable upon no other ground than that general indulgence we pay to the omnipotence of beauty, which in a degree sanctifies whatever it adopts. In a boy, when we consider that the poor fellow is attempting to copy what he has been taught to believe praiseworthy, we laugh at it; the largest portion of ridicule falls upon his tutors; but in a man, it is contemptible!

The old fellow, in a black periwig, has a most vinegar-like aspect, and looks with great contempt at the frippery gentlewoman immediately before him. The woman, with a demure countenance, seems very piously considering how she can contrive to pick the embroidered beau's pocket. Two old sybils joining their withered lips in a chaste salute, is nauseous enough, but, being a national custom, must be forgiven. The divine seems to have resided in this kingdom long enough to acquire a roast-beef countenance. A little boy, whose woollen nightcap is pressed over a most venerable flowing periwig, and the decrepit old man, leaning upon a crutch-stick, who is walking before him, "I once considered," says Mr. Ireland, "as two vile caricatures, out of nature, and unworthy the artist. Since I have seen the peasantry of Flanders, and the plebeian youth of France, I have in some degree changed my opinion, but still think them rather _outré_."

Under a sign of the Baptist's Head is written, Good Eating; and on each side of the inscription is a mutton chop. In opposition to this head without a body, unaccountably displayed as a sign at an eating-house, there is a body without a head, hanging out as the sign of a distiller's. This, by common consent, has been quaintly denominated the good woman. At a window above, one of the softer sex proves her indisputable right to the title by her temperate conduct to her husband, with whom having had a little disagreement, she throws their Sunday's dinner into the street.

A girl, bringing a pie from the bakehouse, is stopped in her career by the rude embraces of a blackamoor, who eagerly rubs his sable visage against her blooming cheek.

Good eating is carried on to the lower part of the picture. A boy, placing a baked pudding upon a post, with rather too violent an action, the dish breaks, the fragments fall to the ground, and while he is loudly lamenting his misfortune, and with tears anticipating his punishment, the smoking remnants are eagerly snatched up by a poor girl. Not educated according to the system of Jean Jacques Rousseau, she feels no qualms of conscience about the original proprietor, and, destitute of that fastidious delicacy which destroys the relish of many a fine lady, eagerly swallows the hot and delicious morsels, with all the concomitants.

The scene is laid at the door of a French chapel in Hog-lane; a part of the town at that time almost wholly peopled by French refugees, or their descendants.

By the dial of St. Giles's church, in the distance, we see that it is only half past eleven. At this early hour, in those good times, there was as much good eating as there is now at six o'clock in the evening. From twenty pewter measures, which are hung up before the houses of different distillers, it seems that good drinking was considered as equally worthy of their serious attention.

The dead cat, and choked kennels, mark the little attention shown to the streets by the scavengers of St. Giles's. At that time noxious effluvia was not peculiar to this parish. The neighbourhood of Fleet-ditch, and many other parts of the city, were equally polluted.

Even at this refined period, there would be some use in a more strict attention to the medical police of a city so crowded with inhabitants. We ridicule the people of Paris and Edinburgh for neglecting so essential and salutary a branch of delicacy, while the kennels of a street in the vicinity of St. Paul's church are floated with the blood of slaughtered animals every market-day. Moses would have managed these things better: but in those days there was no physician in Israel!

EVENING.

One sultry Sunday, when no cooling breeze Was borne on zephyr's wing, to fan the trees; One sultry Sunday, when the torrid ray O'er nature beam'd intolerable day; When raging Sirius warn'd us not to roam, And Galen's sons prescrib'd cool draughts at home; One sultry Sunday, near those fields of fame Where weavers dwell, and Spital is their name, A sober wight, of reputation high For tints that emulate the Tyrian dye, Wishing to take his afternoon's repose, In easy chair had just began to doze, When, in a voice that sleep's soft slumbers broke, His oily helpmate thus her wishes spoke: "Why, spouse, for shame! my stars, what's this about? You's ever sleeping; come, we'll all go out; At that there garden, pr'ythee, do not stare! We'll take a mouthful of the country air; In the yew bower an hour or two we'll kill; There you may smoke, and drink what punch you will. Sophy and Billy each shall walk with me, And you must carry little Emily. Veny is sick, and pants, and loathes her food; The grass will do the pretty creature good. Hot rolls are ready as the clock strikes five-- And now 'tis after four, as I'm alive!" The mandate issued, see the tour begun, And all the flock set out for Islington. Now the broad sun, refulgent lamp of day, To rest with Thetis, slopes his western way; O'er every tree embrowning dust is spread, And tipt with gold is Hampstead's lofty head. The passive husband, in his nature mild, To wife consigns his hat, and takes the child; But she a day like this hath never felt, "Oh! that this too, too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew." Such monstrous heat! dear me! she never knew. Adown her innocent and beauteous face, The big, round, pearly drops each other chase; Thence trickling to those hills, erst white as snow, That now like Ætna's mighty mountains glow, They hang like dewdrops on the full blown rose, And to the ambient air their sweets disclose. Fever'd with pleasure, thus she drags along; Nor dares her antler'd husband say 'tis wrong. The blooming offspring of this blissful pair, In all their parents' attic pleasures share. Sophy the soft, the mother's earliest joy, Demands her froward brother's tinsell'd toy; But he, enrag'd, denies the glittering prize, And rends the air with loud and piteous cries. Thus far we see the party on their way-- What dire disasters mark'd the close of day, 'Twere tedious, tiresome, endless to obtrude; Imagination must the scene conclude.

It is not easy to imagine fatigue better delineated than in the appearance of this amiable pair. In a few of the earliest impressions, Mr. Hogarth printed the hands of the man in blue, to show that he was a dyer, and the face and neck of the woman in red, to intimate her extreme heat. The lady's aspect lets us at once into her character; we are certain that she was born to command. As to her husband, God made him, and he must pass for a man: what his wife has made him, is indicated by the cow's horns; which are so placed as to become his own. The hopes of the family, with a cockade in his hat, and riding upon papa's cane, seems much dissatisfied with female sway. A face with more of the shrew in embryo than that of the girl, it is scarcely possible to conceive. Upon such a character the most casual observer pronounces with the decision of a Lavater.

Nothing can be better imagined than the group in the alehouse. They have taken a refreshing walk into the country, and, being determined to have a cooling pipe, seat themselves in a chair-lumbered closet, with a low ceiling; where every man, pulling off his wig, and throwing a pocket-handkerchief over his head, inhales the fumes of hot punch, the smoke of half a dozen pipes, and the dust from the road. If this is not rural felicity, what is? The old gentleman in a black bag-wig, and the two women near him, sensibly enough, take their seats in the open air.

From a woman milking a cow, we conjecture the hour to be about five in the afternoon: and, from the same circumstance, I am inclined to think this agreeable party is going to their pastoral bower, rather than returning from it.