John Nichols

“ Which scorns the rule of Envy, Pride and Spleen,
Which springs not from the labour'd Works of Art,
But hath its rise from Nature in the heart,
Which in itself with happiness is crown'd,
And spreads with joy the blessing all around!
But truth forbids, and in these simple lays
Contented with a different kind of Praise,
Must Hogarth stand; that Praise which Genius gives;
In Which to latest time the Artist lives,
But not the Man; which, rightly understood,
May make us great, but cannot make us good,
That Praise be Hogarth's ”

“ Walpole, "than he entered into the academy in St. Martin's Lane, and studied drawing from the life, in which he never attained to great excellence. [Pg 8] It was character, the passions, the soul, that his genius was given him to copy. In colouring he proved no greater a master: his force lay in expression, not in tints and chiaro scuro."
To a man who by indefatigable industry and uncommon strength of genius has been the artificer of his own fame and fortune, it can be no reproach to have it said that at one period he was not rich. ”

“ The ambition of indigence is ever productive of distress. So it fared with Hogarth, who, while he was furnishing himself with materials for subsequent perfection, felt all the contempt which penury could produce. Being one day distressed to raise so trifling a sum as twenty shillings, in order to be revenged of his landlady, who strove to compel him to payment, he drew her as ugly as possible, and in that single portrait gave marks of the dawn of superior genius. ”

“ The public never had the least share of Hogarth's regard, or even good-will. Gain and vanity have steered his little bark quite through life. He has never been consistent but with respect to those two principles. What a despicable part has he acted with regard to the society of Arts and Sciences! How shuffling has his conduct been to the whole body of Artists! Both these useful societies have experienced the most ungenteel and offensive behaviour from him. There is at this hour scarcely a single man of any degree of merit in his own profession, with whom he does not hold a professed enmity. ”

“ So entirely do our manners differ from those of fifty years ago, that I much question if at present, in all the taverns of London, any thing resembling the scene here exhibited by Hogarth could be found. That we are less sensual than our predecessors, I do not affirm; but may with truth observe, we are more delicate in pursuit of our gratifications.—No young man, of our hero's fortune and education, would now think of entertaining half a score of prostitutes at a tavern, after having routed a set of feeble wretches, who are idly called our Guardians of the Night. ”

“ There is nothing can be more similar than the work of engraving is to literary composition. I will illustrate this proposition by the works of Mr Hogarth, who, in my humble opinion, is the only true original artist which this age has produced in England. There is hardly any character of an excellent author, which is not justly applicable to his works. What composition, what variety, what sentiment, what fancy, invention, and humour, we discover in all his performances! ”

“ There is not shade enough among the figures to balance the glare. If the neck-cloth and weepers of the gentleman in mourning had been removed, and his hands thrown into shade, even that alone would have improved the effect.—The expression, in almost every figure, is admirable; and the whole is a strong representation of the human mind in a storm. Three stages of that species of madness, which attends gaming, are here described. On the first shock, all is inward dismay. The ruined gamester is representing leaning against a wall, with his arms across, lost in an agony of horror. ”

“ By such means, however, we may open a door to imposition. A work like The Harlot's Progress will certainly remain unimitated as well as inimitable; but it is in the power of every bungler to create fresh coats of arms, or shop bills with our artist's name subscribed to them: and wherein will the Lion or Griffin of Hogarth be discovered to excell the same representation by a meaner hand? A crafty selection of paper, and a slight attention to chronology and choice of subjects, with the aid of the hot-press, may, in the end, prove an overmatch for the sagacity of the ablest connoisseur. ”

“ Hogarth was only made serjeant-painter to his majesty, as if it was meant to insinuate to him, that he was not allowed to paint any thing but the wainscot of the royal apartments. The term means no more than house-painter, and the nature of the post confined him to that business. He was not employed in any other way. A circumstance can scarcely be imagined more humiliating to a man of spirit and genius, who really thought that he more particularly excelled in portrait-painting. ”

“ Hogarth had heard of Mr. Pitt's being above all his fellow-citizens, and of his superior virtue having raised him to an envied and dangerous height of grandeur. Now this he has taken literally, and, with the kind aid of Callot, has put Mr. Pitt on stilts, and made the people look up to him; which, after all this insipid ridicule, they will continue to do, as a kind of tutelar deity, from whom they expect that security and those blessings they despair of from others. ”

“ I will do him the justice to say, that he possesses the rare talent of gibbetting in colours, and that in most of his works he has been a very good moral satirist. His forte is there, and he should have kept it. When he has at any time deviated from his own peculiar walk, he has never failed to make himself perfectly ridiculous. I need only make my appeal to any one of his historical or portrait pieces, which are now considered as almost beneath all criticism. The favourite Sigismunda, the labour of so many years, the boasted effort of his art, was not human. ”

“ Lord Temple is a nobleman of fine parts and unsullied honour, who has shewn a thorough disinterestedness, a great love of liberty, and a steady attachment to the public, in every part of his conduct through life. It was impossible such a character could be missed by the poisonous shafts of envy, which we see pointed at all superior virtue.... Mr. Hogarth's wit on this noble lord is confined to the wretched conceits of the Temple Coffee-house, and a squirt to signify the playing on the ministry. ”

“ What wonder then that some of the most respectable characters of the age become the objects of his ridicule? It is sufficient that the rest of mankind applaud; from that moment he begins the attack, and you never can be well with him, till he hears an universal outcry against you, and till all your friends have given you up. There is besides a silly affectation of singularity, joined to a strong desire of leading the rest of the world: when that is once found impracticable, the spleen engendered on such an occasion is discharged at a particular object, or ends in a general misanthropy. ”

“ The ingenious Abbé Du Bos has often complained, that no history-painter of his time went through a series of actions, and thus, like an historian, painted the successive fortune of an hero, from the cradle to the grave. What Du Bos wished to see done, Hogarth performed. He launches out his young adventurer a simple girl upon the town, and conducts her through all the vicissitudes of wretchedness to a premature death. ”

“ Walpole observes, "is Hogarth's satire, when he intimates, in the College of Physicians and Surgeons that preside at a dissection, how the legal habitude of viewing shocking scenes hardens the human mind, and renders it unfeeling. The president maintains the dignity of insensibility over an executed corpse, and considers it but as the object of a lecture. In the print of the Sleeping Judges, this habitual indifference only excites our laughter." ”

“ What amusement would a collection of this kind afford, drawn from every period of the history of Britain!—How far the works of Hogarth will bear a critical examination, may be the subject of a little more enquiry. In design Hogarth was seldom at a loss. His invention was fertile, and his judgement accurate. An improper incident is rarely introduced; a proper one rarely omitted. No one could tell a story better; or make it, in all its circumstances, more intelligible. His genius, however, it must be owned, was suited only to low, or familiar subjects. ”

“ On another side, which is ornamented with a masque, a laurel wreath, a palette, pencils, and a book, inscribed "Analysis of Beauty," are the following verses by his friend Mr. Garrick:
"Farewell, great painter of mankind,
Who reach'd the noblest point of art;
Whose pictur'd morals charm the mind,
And through the eye correct the heart.
If genius fire thee, reader, stay,
If nature touch thee, drop a tear;
If neither move thee, turn away,
For Hogarth's honoured dust lies here." ”

“ I tax him with plain bad drawing; I speak not of the niceties of anatomy, and elegance of outline: of these indeed he knew nothing; nor were they of use in that mode of design which he cultivated: and yet his figures, upon the whole, are inspired with so much life and meaning, that the eye is kept in good humour, in spite of its inclination to find fault. The author of the Analysis of Beauty, it might be supposed, would have given us more instances of grace, than we find in the works of Hogarth; which shews strongly that theory and practice are not always united. ”

“ Walpole says, "he commenced painter, a painter of [Pg 12] portraits; the most ill-suited employment imaginable to a man whose turn certainly was not flattery, nor his talent adapted to look on vanity without a sneer. Yet his facility in catching a likeness, and the method he chose of painting families and conversations in small, then a novelty, drew him prodigious business for some time. It did not last, either from his applying to the real bent of his disposition, or from his customers apprehending that a satirist was too formidable a confessor for the devotees of self-love." ”

“ All regular figures should be studiously avoided.—The light had been well distributed, if the bailiff holding the arrest, and the chairman, had been a little lighter, and the woman darker. The glare of the white apron is disagreeable.—We have, in this print, some beautiful instances of expression. The surprise and terror of the poor gentleman is apparent in every limb, as far as is consistent with the fear of discomposing his dress. The insolence of power in one of the bailiffs, and the unfeeling heart, which can jest with misery, in the other, are strongly marked. ”

“ Rut all genius was not born, nor will die, with Mr. Hogarth: and notwithstanding all his ungenerous efforts to damp or chill it in another, I will trust to a discerning and liberal spirit in the English nation, to patronize and reward all real merit. It will in the end rise superior to the idle laugh of the hour, which these triflers think it the highest praise to be able to raise. For my part, I scarcely know a more profligate principle, than the indiscriminately sacrificing every thing, however great or good, to the dangerous talent of ridicule ”

“ A humane soldier perceiving a fellow hard-loaded with a barrel of gin upon his back, and stopped by the croud, with a gimblet bores a hole in the head of the cask, and is kindly easing him of a part of his burthen. Near him, is the figure of a fine gentleman in the army. As I suppose the painter designed him without character, I shall therefore only observe, that he is a very pretty fellow, and happily the contemplation of his own dear person guards him from the attempts of the wicked women on his right hand. ”

“ I love to trace the ideas of a Genius, and to mark the progress of every art. Mr. Hogarth has heard much of the cobwebs of the law, and the spinning fine spider-webs, &c. This is thrown on paper, and the idea carefully treasured. Lord Hardwicke being at the head of the law, and deservedly in as high esteem with his countrymen as any man who ever held the seals, unspotted in life, and equally revered by prince and people, becomes an excellent subject for the satirical pencil of a malevolent painter. ”

“ Only, here we have an opportunity of remarking, that a group is disgusting when the extremities of it are heavy. A group in some respect should resemble a tree. The heavier part of the foliage (the cup as the landscape painter calls it) is always near the middle; the outside branches, which are relieved by the sky, are light and airy. An inattention to this rule has given a heaviness to the group before us. ”

“ The fertile genius of the artist has introduced as many of the causes of madness, as he could well have collected; but there is some tautology. There are two religionists, and two astronomers. Yet there is variety in each; and strong expression in all the characters. The self-satisfaction, and conviction, of him who has discovered the longitude; the mock majesty of the monarch; the moody melancholy of the lover; and the superstitious horror of the popish devotee; are all admirable.—The perspective is simple and proper. ”

“ I will not defend myself by pleading that these instances are thinly scattered through a great number of his works, and that there is at least humour in most of the incidents quoted, and that they insinuate some reflection, which is never the case of the foreigners—but can I chuse but smile when one of the nastiest examples specified is from the burlesque of Paul before Felix, professedly in ridicule of the gross images of the Dutch? ”

“ It was by means of the incessant clamour and outcry that these miscreants raised, and of the lies and forgeries which they scattered about the nation, that the common people were spirited up to commit the most extravagant acts of insolence and outrage on the Managers of the Old-House. They were made the sport and derision of fools, and were delivered up to an enraged and deluded populace, as a prey to the fury of wild beasts. ”