Henry Austin Dobson

“ Nothing of the detail is softened or abated; the whole is acted out coram populo, with the hard, uncompassionate morality of the age the painter lived in, while the introduction here and there of one or two well-known characters such as Colonel Charteris and Justice Gonson give a vivid reality to the satire. It had an immediate success. To say nothing of the fact that the talent of the paintings completely reconciled Sir James Thornhill to the son-in-law he had hitherto refused to acknowledge, more than twelve hundred names of subscribers to the engravings were entered in the artist’s book. ”

“ Yet, as an accurate delineation of upper class 18th century society, his “Marriage à la mode” has never, we believe, been seriously assailed. The countess’s bedroom, the earl’s apartment with its lavish coronets and old masters, the grand saloon with its marble pillars and grotesque ornaments, are fully as true to nature as the frowsy chamber in the “Turk’s Head Bagnio,” the quack-doctor’s museum in St Martin’s Lane, or the mean opulence of the merchant’s house in the city. ”

“ It has the merit of a work by a great master of fiction, with the additional advantages which result from the pictorial fashion of the narrative; and it is matter for congratulation that it is still to be seen by all the world in the National Gallery in London, where it can tell its own tale better than pages of commentary. The engravings of “Marriage à la mode” were dated April 1745. Although by this time the painter found a ready market for his engravings, he does not appear to have been equally successful in selling his pictures. ”

“ Early in the next year, however, he replied by that portrait of Wilkes which will for ever carry his squinting features to posterity. Churchill retaliated in July by a savage Epistle to William Hogarth, to which the artist rejoined by a print of Churchill as a bear, in torn bands and ruffles, not the most successful of his works. “The pleasure, and pecuniary advantage,” writes Hogarth manfully, “which I derived from these two engravings” (of Wilkes and Churchill) , “together with occasionally riding on horseback, restored me to as much health as can be expected at my time of life.” ”

“ This was an act (8 Geo. II. cap. 13) which Hogarth had been instrumental in obtaining from the legislature, being stirred thereto by the shameless piracies of rival printsellers. Although loosely drawn, it served its purpose; and the painter commemorated his success by a long inscription on the plate entitled “Crowns, Mitres, &c.,” afterwards used as a subscription ticket to the Election series. These subscription tickets to his engravings, let us add, are among the brightest and most vivacious of the artist’s productions. ”

“ The son seems to have been early distinguished by a talent for drawing and an active perceptive faculty rather than by any close attention to the learning which he was soon shrewd enough to see had not made his parent prosper. ”

“ We next hear of him in “lodgings at South Lambeth,” where he rendered some assistance to the then well-known Jonathan Tyers, who opened Vauxhall in 1732 with an entertainment styled a ridotto al fresco. For these gardens Hogarth painted a poor picture of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn, and he also permitted Hayman to make copies of the later series of the “Four Times of the Day.” In return, the grateful Tyers presented him with a gold pass ticket “In perpetuam Beneficii Memoriam.” It was long thought that Hogarth designed this himself. ”

“ But a copious bibliography of books, pamphlets, &c., relating to Hogarth, together with detailed catalogues of his paintings and prints, will be found in the Memoir of Hogarth by Austin Dobson. First issued in 1879, this was reprinted and expanded in 1891, 1897, 1902 and finally in 1907. Pictures by Hogarth from private collections are constantly to be found at the annual exhibitions of the Old Masters at Burlington House; but most of the best-known works have permanent homes in public galleries. ”