Chapter III: Part 3

A picture of general, and at this awful moment, indecent confusion, is admirably represented. The noise of two enraged quacks disputing in bad English; the harsh, vulgar scream of the maid servant; the table falling, and the pot boiling over, must produce a combination of sounds dreadful and dissonant to the ear. In this pitiable situation, without a friend to close her dying eyes, or soften her sufferings by a tributary tear; forlorn, destitute, and deserted, the heroine of this eventful history expires! her premature death, brought on by a licentious life, seven years of which had been devoted to debauchery and dissipation, and attended by consequent infamy, misery, and disease. The whole story affords a valuable lesson to the young and inexperienced, and proves this great, this important truth, that A DEVIATION FROM VIRTUE IS A DEPARTURE FROM HAPPINESS.

The emaciated appearance of the dying figure, the boy's thoughtless inattention, and the rapacious, unfeeling eagerness of the old nurse, are naturally and forcibly delineated.

The figures are well grouped; the curtain gives depth, and forms a good back-ground to the doctor's head; the light is judiciously distributed, and each accompaniment highly appropriate.

PLATE 5.

EXPIRES WHILE THE DOCTORS ARE DISPUTING.]

THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS.

PLATE VI.

"No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear,
Pleas'd thy pale ghost, or grac'd thy mournful bier:
By harlots' hands thy dying eyes were clos'd;
By harlots' hands thy decent limbs compos'd;
By harlots' hands thy humble grave adorn'd;
By harlots honour'd, and by harlots mourn'd."

The adventures of our heroine are now concluded. She is no longer an actor in her own tragedy; and there are those who have considered this print as a farce at the end of it: but surely such was not the author's intention.

The ingenious writer of Tristram Shandy begins the life of his hero before he is born; the picturesque biographer of Mary Hackabout has found an opportunity to convey admonition, and enforce his moral, after her death. A wish usually prevails, even among those who are most humbled by their own indiscretion, that some respect should be paid to their remains; that their eyes should be closed by the tender hand of a surviving friend, and the tear of sympathy and regret shed upon the sod which covers their grave; that those who loved them living, should attend their last sad obsequies; and a sacred character read over them the awful service which our religion ordains, with the solemnity it demands. The memory of this votary of prostitution meets with no such marks of social attention, or pious respect. The preparations for her funeral are as licentious as the progress of her life, and the contagion of her example seems to reach all who surround her coffin. One of them is engaged in the double trade of seduction and thievery; a second is contemplating her own face in a mirror. The female who is gazing at the corpse, displays some marks of concern, and feels a momentary compunction at viewing the melancholy scene before her: but if any other part of the company are in a degree affected, it is a mere maudlin sorrow, kept up by glasses of strong liquor. The depraved priest does not seem likely to feel for the dead that hope expressed in our liturgy. The appearance and employment of almost every one present at this mockery of woe, is such as must raise disgust in the breast of any female who has the least tincture of delicacy, and excite a wish that such an exhibition may not be displayed at her own funeral.

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 customs: 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. 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, sav'd 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 connexion. 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 every thing 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.

PLATE 6.

THE FUNERAL.]

THE LECTURE.

DATUR VACUUM.

"No wonder that science, and learning profound,
In Oxford and Cambridge so greatly abound,
When so many take thither a little each day,
And we see very few who bring any away."

I was once told by a fellow of a college, says Mr. Ireland, that he disliked Hogarth, because he had in this print ridiculed one of the Universities. I endeavoured to defend the artist, by suggesting that this was not intended as a picture of what Oxford is now, but of what it was in days long past: that it was that kind of general satire with which no one should be offended, &c. &c. His reply was too memorable to be forgotten. "Sir, the Theatre, the Bench, the College of Physicians, and the Foot Guards, are fair objects of satire; but those venerable characters who have devoted their whole lives to feeding the lamp of learning with hallowed oil, are too sacred to be the sport of an uneducated painter. Their unremitting industry embraced the whole circle of the sciences, and in their logical disputations they displayed an acuteness that their followers must contemplate with astonishment. The present state of Oxford it is not necessary for me to analyze, as you contend that the satire is not directed against that."

In answer to this observation, which was uttered with becoming gravity, a gentleman present remarked, as follows. "For some of the ancient customs of this seminary of learning, I have much respect, but as to their dry treatises on logic, immaterial dissertations on materiality, and abstruse investigations of useless subjects, they are mere literary legerdemain. Their disputations being usually built on an undefinable chimera, are solved by a paradox. Instead of exercising their power of reason they exert their powers of sophistry, and divide and subdivide every subject with such casuistical minuteness, that those who are not convinced, are almost invariably confounded. This custom, it must be granted, is not quite so prevalent as it once was: a general spirit of reform is rapidly diffusing itself; and though I have heard cold-blooded declaimers assert, that these shades of science are become the retreats of ignorance, and the haunts of dissipation, I consider them as the great schools of urbanity, and favourite seats of the _belles lettres_. By the _belles lettres_, I mean history, biography, and poetry; that all these are universally cultivated, I can exemplify by the manner in which a highly accomplished young man, who is considered as a model by his fellow-collegians, divides his hours.

"At breakfast I found him studying the marvellous and eventful history of Baron Munchausen; a work whose periods are equally free from the long-winded obscurity of Tacitus, and the asthmatic terseness of Sallust. While his hair was dressing, he enlarged his imagination and improved his morals by studying Doctor what's his name's abridgement of Chesterfield's Principles of Politeness. To furnish himself with biographical information, and add to his stock of useful anecdote, he studied the Lives of the Highwaymen; in which he found many opportunities of exercising his genius and judgment in drawing parallels between the virtues and exploits of these modern worthies, and those dignified, and almost deified ancient heroes whose deeds are recorded in Plutarch and Nepos.

"With poetical studies, he is furnished by the English operas, which, added to the prologues, epilogues, and odes of the day, afford him higher entertainment than he could find in Homer or Virgil: he has not stored his memory with many epigrams, but of puns has a plentiful stock, and in _conundra_ is a wholesale dealer. At the same college I know a most striking contrast, whose reading"--But as his opponent would hear no more, my advocate dropped the subject; and I will follow his example.

It seems probable, that when the artist engraved this print, he had only a general reference to an university lecture; the words _datur vacuum_ were an after-thought. Some prints are without the inscription, and in some of the early impressions it is written with a pen.

The scene is laid at Oxford, and the person reading, universally admitted to be a Mr. Fisher, of Jesus College, _registrat_ of the university, with whose consent this portrait was taken, and who lived until the 18th of March, 1761. That he should wish to have such a face handed down to posterity, in such company, is rather extraordinary, for all the band, except one man, have been steeped in the stream of stupidity. This gentleman has the profile of penetration; a projecting forehead, a Roman nose, thin lips, and a long pointed chin. His eye is bent on vacancy: it is evidently directed to the moon-faced idiot that crowns the pyramid, at whose round head, contrasted by a cornered cap, he with difficulty suppresses a laugh. Three fellows on the right hand of this fat, contented "first-born transmitter of a foolish face," have most degraded characters, and are much fitter for the stable than the college. If they ever read, it must be in Bracken's Farriery, or the Country Gentleman's Recreation. Two square-capped students a little beneath the top, one of whom is holding converse with an adjoining profile, and the other lifting up his eyebrows, and staring without sight, have the same misfortune that attended our first James--their tongues are rather too large. A figure in the left-hand corner has shut his eyes to think; and having, in his attempt to separate a syllogism, placed the forefinger of his right hand upon his forehead, has fallen asleep. The professor, a little above the book, endeavours by a projection of his under lip to assume importance; such characters are not uncommon: they are more solicitous to look wise, than to be so. Of Mr. Fisher it is not necessary to say much: he sat for his portrait, for the express purpose of having it inserted in the Lecture!--We want no other testimony of his talents.

THE CHORUS.

REHEARSAL OF THE ORATORIO OF JUDITH.

"O _cara, cara!_ silence all that train,
Joy to great _chaos!_ let division reign."

The Oratorio of Judith, Mr. Ireland observes, was written by Esquire William Huggins, honoured by the music of William de Fesch, aided by new painted scenery and _magnifique_ decoration, and in the year 1733 brought upon the stage. As De Fesch[2] was a German and a genius, we may fairly presume it was well set; and there was at that time, as at this, a sort of musical mania, that paid much greater attention to sounds than to sense; notwithstanding all these points in her favour, when the Jewish heroine had made her theatrical _debut_, and so effectually smote Holofernes,

----"As to sever
His head from his great trunk for ever and for ever."

the audience compelled her to make her exit. To set aside this partial and unjust decree, Mr. Huggins appealed to the public, and printed his oratorio. Though it was adorned with a frontispiece designed by Hogarth, and engraved by Vandergucht, the world could not be compelled to read, and the unhappy writer had no other resource than the consolatory reflection, that his work was superlatively excellent, but unluckily printed in a tasteless age; a comfortable and solacing self-consciousness, which hath, I verily believe, prevented many a great genius from becoming his own executioner.

To paint a sound is impossible; but as far as art can go towards it, Hogarth has gone in this print. The tenor, treble, and bass of these ear-piercing choristers are so decisively discriminated, that we all but hear them.

The principal figure, whose head, hands, and feet are in equal agitation, has very properly tied on his spectacles; it would have been prudent to have tied on his periwig also, for by the energy of his action he has shaken it from his head, and, absorbed in an eager attention to true time, is totally unconscious of his loss.

A gentleman--pardon me, I meant a singer--in a bag wig, immediately beneath his uplifted hand, I suspect to be of foreign growth. It has the engaging air of an importation from Italy.

The little figure in the sinister corner, is, it seems, intended for a Mr. Tothall, a woollen-draper, who lived in Tavistock-court, and was Hogarth's intimate friend.

The name of the performer on his right hand,

----"Whose growling bass
Would drown the clarion of the braying ass,"

I cannot learn, nor do I think that this group were meant for particular portraits, but a general representation of the violent distortions into which these crotchet-mongers draw their features on such solemn occasions.

Even the head of the bass-viol has air and character: by the band under the chin, it gives some idea of a professor, or what is, I think, called a Mus. D.

The words now singing, "The world shall bow to the Assyrian throne," are extracted from Mr. Huggins' oratorio; the etching is in a most masterly style, and was originally given as a subscription ticket to the Modern Midnight Conversation.

I have seen a small political print on Sir Robert Walpole's administration, entitled, "Excise, a new Ballad Opera," of which this was unquestionably the basis. Beneath it is the following learned and poetical motto:

"_Experto crede Roberto._"

"Mind how each hireling songster tunes his throat,
And the vile knight beats time to every note:
So Nero sung while Rome was all in flames,
But time shall brand with infamy their names."

FOOTNOTE:

[2] He was a respectable performer on the violin, some years chapel-master at Antwerp, and several seasons leader of the band at Marybone Gardens. He published a collection of musical compositions, to which was annexed a portrait of himself, characterised by three lines from Milton:

"Thou honour'dst verse, and verse must lend her wing
To honour thee, the priest of Phoebus' quire,
That tun'st her happiest lines in hymn or song."

He died in 1750, aged seventy years, and gives one additional name to a catalogue I have somewhere seen of very old professors of music, who, saith my author, "generally live unto a greater age than persons in any other way of life, from their souls being so attuned unto harmony, that they enjoy a perpetual peace of mind." It has been observed, and I believe justly, that thinking is a great enemy to longevity, and that, consequently, they who think least will be likely to live longest. The quantity of thought necessary to make an adept in this divine science, must be determined by those who have studied it.--It would seem by this remark, that Mr. Ireland was not aware that to acquire proficiency in the divine science to which he so pleasantly alludes, requires great application and study.

COLUMBUS BREAKING THE EGG.

By the success of Columbus's first voyage, doubt had been changed into admiration; from the honours with which he was rewarded, admiration degenerated into envy. To deny that his discovery carried in its train consequences infinitely more important than had resulted from any made since the creation, was impossible. His enemies had recourse to another expedient, and boldly asserted that there was neither wisdom in the plan, nor hazard in the enterprise.

When he was once at a Spanish supper, the company took this ground, and being by his narrative furnished with the reflections which had induced him to undertake his voyage, and the course that he had pursued in its completion, sagaciously observed, that "it was impossible for any man, a degree above an idiot, to have failed of success. The whole process was so obvious, it must have been seen by a man who was half blind! Nothing could be so easy!"

"It is not difficult now I have pointed out the way," was the answer of Columbus: "but easy as it will appear, when you are possessed of my method, I do not believe that, without such instruction, any person present could place one of these eggs upright on the table." The cloth, knives, and forks were thrown aside, and two of the party, placing their eggs as required, kept them steady with their fingers. One of them swore there could be no other way. "We will try," said the navigator; and giving an egg, which he held in his hand, a smart stroke upon the table, it remained upright. The emotions which this excited in the company are expressed in their countenances. In the be-ruffed booby at his left hand it raises astonishment; he is a DEAR ME! man, of the same family with Sterne's Simple Traveller, and came from Amiens only yesterday. The fellow behind him, beating his head, curses his own stupidity; and the whiskered ruffian, with his fore-finger on the egg, is in his heart cursing Columbus. As to the two veterans on the other side, they have lived too long to be agitated with trifles: he who wears a cap, exclaims, "Is this all!" and the other, with a bald head, "By St. Jago, I did not think of that!" In the face of Columbus there is not that violent and excessive triumph which is exhibited by little characters on little occasions; he is too elevated to be overbearing; and, pointing to the conical solution of his problematical conundrum, displays a calm superiority, and silent internal contempt.

Two eels, twisted round the eggs upon the dish, are introduced as specimens of the line of beauty; which is again displayed on the table-cloth, and hinted at on the knife-blade. In all these curves there is peculiar propriety; for the etching was given as a receipt-ticket to the Analysis, where this favourite undulating line forms the basis of his system.

In the print of Columbus, there is evident reference to the criticisms on what Hogarth called his own discovery; and in truth the connoisseurs' remarks on the painter were dictated by a similar spirit to those of the critics on the navigator: they first asserted there was no such line, and when he had proved that there was, gave the honour of discovery to Lomazzo, Michael Angelo, &c. &c.

A MIDNIGHT MODERN CONVERSATION.

"Think not to find one meant resemblance there;
We lash the vices, but the persons spare.
Prints should be priz'd, as authors should be read,
Who sharply smile prevailing folly dead.
So Rabelais laugh'd, and so Cervantes thought;
So nature dictated what art has taught."

Notwithstanding this inscription, which was engraved on the plate some time after its publication, it is very certain that most of these figures were intended for individual portraits; but Mr. Hogarth, not wishing to be considered as a personal satirist, and fearful of making enemies among his contemporaries, would never acknowledge who were the characters. Some of them the world might perhaps mistake; for though the author was faithful in delineating whatever he intended to portray, complete intoxication so far caricatures the countenance, that, according to the old, though trite proverb, "the man is not himself." His portrait, though given with the utmost fidelity, will scarcely be known by his most intimate friends, unless they have previously seen him in this degrading disguise. Hence, it becomes difficult to identify men whom the painter did not choose to point out at the time; and a century having elapsed, it becomes impossible, for all who composed the group, with the artist by whom it was delineated,

Shake hands with dust, and call the worm their kinsman.

Mrs. Piozzi was of opinion that the divine with a cork-screw, occasionally used as a tobacco-stopper, hanging upon his little finger, was the portrait of parson Ford, Dr. Johnson's uncle; though, upon the authority of Sir John Hawkins, of anecdotish memory, it has been generally supposed to be intended for Orator Henley. As both these worthies were distinguished by that rubicundity of face with which it is marked, the reader may decree the honour of a sitting to which he pleases.

The roaring bacchanalian who stands next him, waving his glass in the air, has pulled off his wig, and, in the zeal of his friendship, crowns the divine's head. He is evidently drinking destruction to fanatics, and success to mother church, or a mitre to the jolly parson whom he addresses.

The lawyer, who sits near him, is a portrait of one Kettleby, a vociferous bar-orator, who, though an utter barrister, chose to distinguish himself by wearing an enormous full-bottom wig, in which he is here represented. He was farther remarkable for a diabolical squint, and a satanic smile.

A poor maudlin miserable, who is addressing him, when sober, must be a fool; but, in this state, it would puzzle Lavater to assign him a proper class. He seems endeavouring to demonstrate to the lawyer, that, in a poi--poi--point of law, he has been most cruelly cheated, and lost a cau--cau--cause, that he ought to have got,--and all this was owing to his attorney being an infernal villain. This may very probably be true; for the poor man's tears show that, like the person relieved by the good Samaritan, he has been among thieves. The barrister grins horribly at his misfortunes, and tells him he is properly punished for not employing a gentleman.

Next to him sits a gentleman in a black periwig. He politely turns his back to the company, that he may have the pleasure of smoking a sociable pipe.

The justice, "in fair round belly, with good capon lin'd,"--the justice, having hung up his hat, wig, and cloak, puts on his nightcap, and, with a goblet of superior capacity before him, sits in solemn cogitation. His left elbow, supported by the table, and his right by a chair, with a pipe in one hand, and a stopper in the other, he puffs out the bland vapour with the dignity of an alderman, and fancies himself as great as Jupiter, seated upon the summit of Mount Olympus, enveloped by the thick cloud which his own breath has created.

With folded arms and open mouth, another leans back in his chair. His wig is dropped from his head, and he is asleep; but though speechless, he is sonorous; for you clearly perceive that, where nasal sounds are the music, he is qualified to be leader of the band.

The fallen hero, who with his chair and goblet has tumbled to the floor, by the cockade in his hat, we suppose to be an officer. His forehead is marked, perhaps with honourable scars. To wash his wounds, and cool his head, the staggering apothecary bathes it with brandy.

A gentleman in the corner, who, from having the Craftsman and London Evening in his pocket, we determine to be a politician, very unluckily mistakes his ruffle for the bowl of his pipe, and sets fire to it.

The person in a bag-wig and solitaire, with his hand upon his head, would not now pass for a fine gentleman, but in the year 1735 was a complete beau. Unaccustomed to such joyous company, he appears to have drank rather more than agrees with him.

The company consists of eleven, and on the chimney-piece, floor, and table, are three and twenty empty flasks. These, added to a bottle which the apothecary holds in his hand, prove that this select society have not lost a moment. The overflowing bowl, full goblets, and charged glasses, prove that they think, "'Tis too early to part," though the dial points to four in the morning.

The different degrees of drunkenness are well discriminated, and its effects admirably described. The poor simpleton, who is weeping out his woes to honest lawyer Kettleby, it makes mawkish; the beau it makes sick; and the politician it stupifies. One is excited to roaring, and another lulled to sleep. It half closes the eyes of justice, renders the footing of physic unsure, and lays prostrate the glory of his country, and the pride of war.

CONSULTATION OF PHYSICIANS--THE UNDERTAKERS' ARMS.

This plate is designed, with much humour, according to the rules of heraldry, and is called The Undertakers' Arms, to show us the connexion between death and the quack doctor, as are also those cross-bones on the outside of the escutcheon. When an undertaker is in want of business, he cannot better apply than to some of those gentlemen of the faculty, who are, for the most part, so charitably disposed, as to supply the necessities of these sable death-hunters, and keep them from starving in a healthy time. By the tenour of this piece, Mr. Hogarth would intimate the general ignorance of such of the medical tribe, and teach us that they possess little more knowledge than their voluminous wigs and golden-headed canes. They are represented in deep consultation upon the contents of an urinal. Our artist's own illustration of this coat of arms, as he calls it, is as follows: "The company of undertakers beareth, sable, an urinal, proper between twelve quack heads of the second, and twelve cane heads, or, consultant. On a chief, _Nebulae_, ermine, one complete doctor, issuant, checkie, sustaining in his right hand a baton of the second. On the dexter and sinister sides, two demi-doctors, issuant of the second, and two cane heads, issuant of the third; the first having one eye, couchant, towards the dexter side of the escutcheon; the second faced, per pale, proper, and gules guardant. With this motto, _Et plurima mortis imago_. The general image of death."

It has been said of the ancients, that they began by attempting to make physic a science, and failed; of the moderns, that they began by attempting to make it a trade, and succeeded. This company are moderns to a man, and, if we may judge of their capacities by their countenances, are indeed a most sapient society. Their practice is very extensive, and they go about, taking guineas,

Far as the weekly bills can reach around,
From Kent-street end, to fam'd St. Giles's pound.

Many of them are unquestionably portraits, but as these grave and sage descendants of Galen are long since gone to that place where they before sent their patients, we are unable to ascertain any of them, except the three who are, for distinction, placed in the chief, or most honourable part of the escutcheon. Those who, from their exalted situation, we may naturally conclude the most distinguished and sagacious leeches of their day, have marks too obtrusive to be mistaken. He towards the dexter side of the escutcheon, is determined by an eye in the head of his cane to be the all-accomplished Chevalier Taylor, in whose marvellous and surprising history, written by his own hand, and published in 1761, is recorded such events relative to himself and others, as have excited more astonishment than that incomparable romance, Don Belianis of Greece, the Arabian Nights, or Sir John Mandeville's Travels.

The centre figure, arrayed in a harlequin jacket, with a bone, or what the painter denominates a baton, in the right hand, is generally considered designed for Mrs. Mapp, a masculine woman, daughter to one Wallin, a bone-setter at Hindon, in Wiltshire. This female Thalestris, incompatible as it may seem with her sex, adopted her father's profession, travelled about the country, calling herself Crazy Sally; and, like another Hercules, did wonders by strength of arm.

On the sinister side is Dr. Ward, generally called Spot Ward, from his left cheek being marked with a claret colour. This gentleman was of a respectable family, and though not highly educated, had talents very superior to either of his coadjutors.

For the chief, this must suffice; as for the twelve quack heads, and twelve cane heads, or, consultant, united with the cross bones at the corners, they have a most mortuary appearance, and do indeed convey a general image of death.

In the time of Lucian, a philosopher was distinguished by three things,--his avarice, his impudence, and his beard. In the time of Hogarth, medicine was a mystery, and there were three things which distinguished the physician,--his gravity, his cane-head, and his periwig. With these leading requisites, this venerable party are most amply gifted. To specify every character is not necessary; but the upper figure on the dexter side, with a wig like a weeping willow, should not be overlooked. His lemon-like aspect must curdle the blood of all his patients. In the countenances of his brethren there is no want of acids; but, however sour, each individual was in his day,

----------------a doctor of renown,
To none but such as rust in health unknown;
And, save or slay, this privilege they claim,
Or death, or life, the bright reward's the same.

DANIEL LOCK, ESQ. F.A.S.

Daniel Lock was an architect of some eminence. He retired from business with an ample fortune, lived in Surrey-street, and was buried in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge. This portrait was originally engraved by J. M'Ardell from a painting by Hogarth, and is classed among the productions of our artist that are of uncertain date.

THE ENRAGED MUSICIAN.

"With thundering noise the azure vault they tear,
And rend, with savage roar, the echoing air:
The sounds terrific he with horror hears;
His fiddle throws aside,--and stops his ears."

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 personae_ 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, _debonnaire_, and _degagee_:
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 _a-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 _outre_."

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.