William Hogarth

“ With his short-cropped grey hair he looks like a pugilist, and a pugilist he might have been had not Nature, so casual, so inexplicable in her gifts, chosen to plant the seeds of real artistic genius in the soul of belligerent, brave, preposterously British William Hogarth. ”

“ But to multiply examples of Hogarth's humour [Pg 13] would come very near to cataloguing his every work. Let us turn now from that work to the man himself, and study something of those conditions of life of which his genius gives us our most vivid impress.
William Hogarth was born in 1697 or 1698, in London, but of a Westmorland family (Hoggard would seem to have been the earlier spelling) , one member of which, the artist's father, after working as a schoolmaster in Westmorland, had settled in London as corrector of the Press. ”

“ From such records of him as survive, Hogarth appears to have been much what from his portrait one might suppose him to have been—a blue-eyed, honest, combative little man, thoroughly insular in his prejudices and antipathies, fond of flattery, sensitive like most satirists, a good friend, an intractable enemy, ambitious, as he somewhere says, in all things to be singular, and not always accurately estimating the extent of his powers. With the art connoisseurship of his day he was wholly at war, because, as he believed, it favoured foreign mediocrity at the expense of native talent ”

“ William Hogarth is there, observant. He will not forget the French prophets when he executes almost the last and noblest of his plates—albeit, it is directed against English revivalists, Credulity, Superstition and Fanaticism. He leaves Soho, and wanders eastward and westward. He reads Madam Godfrey’s six hundred challenges to the female sex in the newspapers; sitting, perhaps, at the “Rose,” without Temple Bar; at the “Diapente,” whither the beaux, feeble as Lord Fanny, who could not “eat beef, or horse, or any of those things,” come to recruit their exhausted digestions with jelly-broth. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is an air about his landscapes sacred to our imaginations, though different from the close atmosphere of Hogarth’s scenes; and not the less so, because the latter could paint something better than ‘a broken nose.’ Nothing provokes us more than these exclusive and invidious comparisons, which seek to raise one man of genius by setting down another, and which suppose that there is nothing to admire in the greatest talents, unless they can be made a foil to bring out the weak points or nominal imperfections of some fancied rival. ”

“ That the historical is nature in action. With regard to the face, it is expression.
Hogarth’s pictures are true history. Every feature, limb, figure, group, is instinct with life and motion. He does not take a subject and place it in a position, like a lay figure, in which it stirs neither limb nor joint. The scene moves before you: the face is like a frame-work of flexible machinery. If the mouth is distorted with laughter, the eyes swim in laughter. If the forehead is knit together, the cheeks are puckered up. If a fellow squints most horribly, the rest of his face is awry. ”

“ The third plate carries us still deeper into the history. We meet our hero engaged in one of his evening amusements. This print, on the whole, is no very extraordinary effort of genius.—The design is good; and may be a very exact description of the humours of a brothel.—The composition too is not amiss. But we have few of those masterly strokes which distinguish the works of Hogarth. The whole is plain history. The lady setting the world on fire is the best thought: and there is some humour in furnishing the room with a set of Cæsars ”

“ 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. ”

“ They exhibit the most uncommon features, with the most uncommon expressions: but which yet are as familiar and intelligible as possible, because with all the boldness, they have all the truth of nature. Hogarth has left behind him as many of these memorable faces, in their memorable moments, as, perhaps, most of us remember in the course of our lives, and has thus doubled the quantity of our experience. ”

“ The genius of William Hogarth is inseparably associated with the Forty-five by reason of this famous portrait of Simon Lovat, and for yet another reason. In this year (1745) William Hogarth was already exceedingly popular, although he had as yet failed to bask much in the sunshine of royal favor. Those old, early days of poverty and struggle were far behind. The industrious apprentice had married his master's daughter, fifteen years ago by this time, and Sir James Thornhill had forgotten his {231} wrath and forgiven the young painter who was so immeasurably his superior. ”

“ Hogarth, that such a proceeding would not only be unfriendly in the highest degree, but extremely injudicious; for such a pencil ought to be universal and moral, to speak to all ages, and to all nations, not to be dipt in the dirt of the faction of a day, of an insignificant part of the country, when it might command the admiration of the whole. An answer was sent, that neither Mr. Wilkes nor Mr. Churchill were attacked in The Times, though Lord Temple and Mr. Pitt were, and that the print should soon appear. ”

“ It happened in the early part of Hogarth's life, that a nobleman, who was uncommonly ugly and deformed, came to sit to him for his picture. It was executed with a skill that did honour to the artist's abilities; but the likeness was rigidly observed, without even the necessary attention to compliment or flattery. The peer, disgusted at this counterpart of his dear self, never once thought of paying for a reflector that would only insult him with his deformities. Some time was suffered to elapse before the artist applied for his money ”

“ The scarceness of the good impressions of Hogarth's larger works is in great measure owing to their having been pasted on canvas or boards, to be framed [Pg 451] and glazed for furniture. There were few people who collected his prints for any other purpose at their first appearance. The majority of these sets being hung up in London houses, have been utterly spoiled by smoke. Since foreigners have learned the value of the same performances, they have also been exported in considerable numbers. Wherever a taste for the fine arts has prevailed, the works of this great master are to be found. ”

“ Wilkie is a serious, prosaic, literal narrator of facts; and his pictures may be considered as diaries, or minutes of what is passing constantly about us. Hogarth, on the contrary, is essentially a comic painter; his pictures are not indifferent, unimpassioned descriptions of human nature, but rich, exuberant satires upon it. He is carried away by a passion for the ridiculous. His object is ‘to shew vice her own feature, scorn her own image.’ He is so far from contenting himself with still-life, that he is always on the verge of caricature, though without ever falling into it. ”

“ In some of his early prints he was an assiduous imitator of Callot, but deviated at last into a manner of his own, which suffers much by comparison with that of his coadjutors, Ravenet and Sullivan. In the pieces finished by these masters of their art, there is a clearness that Hogarth could never reach. His strokes sometimes look as if fortuitously disposed, and sometimes confusedly thwart [Pg 450] each other in almost every possible direction. What he wanted in skill, he strove to make up in labour ”

“ In spite of the confidence with which this plate has been attributed to Hogarth, I by no means believe it was his performance. It more resembles the manner of Vandergucht, who was equally inclined to personal satire, however his talents might be inadequate to his purposes. Witness several scattered designs of his in the very same style of engraving. I may add, that he always exerted his talents in the service of the Tory faction. Besides, there is nothing in the plate before us which might not have been expected from the hand of any common artist. ”

“ I am told that Hogarth did not undertake this political print merely ex officio, but through a hope the salary of his appointment as Serjeant Painter would be increased by such a show of zeal for the reigning Ministry.
He left behind him a second part, on the same subject; but hitherto it has been withheld from the public. The finished Plate is in the possession of Mrs. Hogarth.
There seems, however, no reason why this design should be suppressed. The widow of our artist is happily independent of a court ”

“ Hogarth undertook to convey several of them into his dining-room. When he arose, he enquired from whence they came; and being told by whom they were introduced, he cried out, "Very well; the man who can furnish representations like these, can also maintain a wife without a portion." He designed this remark as an excuse for keeping his purse-strings close; but, soon after, became both reconciled and generous to the young couple.
Our artist's reputation was so far established in 1731, that it drew forth a poetical compliment from Mr. Mitchell, in the epistle already quoted. ”

“ Hogarth inv. 1762.
A Lion in a Coffin. A plate on the cover, inscribed, "Leo Britanicus, Ob. An. 1762. Requiescat in pace." Attended by state mourners with labels as above. In one corner Hibernia supplicating for her Sister's interest.
A respect for the obliging communicator has induced me to publish this supposed addition to the foregoing catalogue of Hogarth's works. But, without ocular proof, I cannot receive as genuine any one of the plates enumerated. The name of our Artist has more than once been subscribed to the wretched productions of others ”

“ In this last instance, indeed, I ought to have observed that Hogarth meant to satirize, not to imitate, the painters of Holland and Flanders. But I forbear to dwell any longer on such disgusting circumstances; begging leave only to ask, whether the canvas of Teniers exhibits nastier [Pg 61] objects than those of the woman cracking a louse between her nails in the fourth plate of the Harlot's Progress; a Scotch bag-piper catching another in his neck while he is performing at the Election feast; Aurora doing the same kind office for a Syren or Nereid, in the Strollers, &c. ”

“ For those who have not access to Jarvis’s edition it may be mentioned that a copy engraved by J. Mills appears in Ireland’s Hogarth Illustrated and in the Anecdotes of William Hogarth, published by Nichols in 1833. Of Hogarth’s eight designs we are therefore left with only seven, which were “suppressed.” Of these six were published from Hogarth’s own plates in Baldwin, Cradock and Joy’s splendid collection of the Works in 1822 ”

“ If the quantity of amusement, or of matter for reflection which they have afforded, is that by which we are to judge of precedence among the intellectual benefactors of mankind, there are perhaps few persons who can put in a stronger claim to our gratitude than Hogarth. The wonderful knowledge which he possessed of human life and manners, is only to be surpassed (if it can be) by the powers of invention with which he has arranged his materials, and by the mastery of execution with which he has embodied and made tangible the very thoughts and passing movements of the mind. ”

“ Received the third volume of Ireland’s Hogarth Illustrated. Clementi dined with us.
6th.—Read Hogarth, J. Ireland, vol. 3. Some valuable information, but wretchedly put together. Hogarth too irascible, and pushing his favourite points to extremes: a man of uncommon genius, and though highly admired by some, most unjustly treated by others. If it be true, which I doubt, that he did not excel in the higher parts of his art, i.e. in the beautiful and sublime, what he has written, and what he has done, sufficiently prove, it was not want of power, but want of practice. ”

“ But, after poor Burton's tormentors had kept him in suspence throughout an uneasy three weeks, they proved to him that it was no engraving, but a sketch with a pen and ink. He then became so perfectly reconciled to his resemblance, that he shewed it with exultation to Admiral Vernon, and all the rest of his friends.
In 1753, Hogarth returning with Dr. Morell from a visit to Mr. Rich at Cowley, stopped his chariot, and got out, being struck by a large drawing (with a [Pg 102] coal) on the wall of an alehouse. He immediately made a sketch of it with triumph ”