The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings Part 2

THE TAVERN SCENE.

"O vanity of youthful blood, So by misuse to poison good!

Woman, framed for social love, Fairest gift of powers above, Source of every household blessing; All charms in innocence possessing: But, turn'd to vice, all plagues above; Foe to thy being, foe to love!

Guest divine, to outward viewing; Ablest minister of ruin?

And thou, no less of gift divine, Sweet poison of misused wine!

With freedom led to every part, And secret chamber of the heart, Dost thou thy friendly host betray, And shew thy riotous gang the way To enter in, with covert treason, O'erthrow the drowsy guard of reason, To ransack the abandon'd place, And revel there with wild excess?"

Mr. Ireland having, in his description of this Plate, incorporated whatever is of value in Dr. Trusler's text, with much judicious observation and criticism of his own, the Editor has taken the former _verbatim_.

"This Plate exhibits our licentious prodigal engaged in one of his midnight festivities: forgetful of the past, and negligent of the future, he riots in the present. Having poured his libation to Bacchus, he concludes the evening orgies in a sacrifice at the Cyprian shrine; and, surrounded by the votaries of Venus, joins in the unhallowed mysteries of the place. The companions of his revelry are marked with that easy, unblushing effrontery, which belongs to the servants of all work in the isle of Paphos;--for the maids of honour they are not sufficiently elevated.

"He may be supposed, in the phrase of the day, to have beat the rounds, overset a constable, and conquered a watchman, whose staff and lantern he has brought into the room, as trophies of his prowess. In this situation he is robbed of his watch by the girl whose hand is in his bosom; and, with that adroitness peculiar to an old pract.i.tioner, she conveys her acquisition to an accomplice, who stands behind the chair.

"Two of the ladies are quarrelling; and one of them _delicately_ spouts wine in the face of her opponent, who is preparing to revenge the affront with a knife, which, in a posture of threatening defiance, she grasps in her hand. A third, enraged at being neglected, holds a lighted candle to a map of the globe, determined to _set the world on fire, though she perish in the conflagration_! A fourth is undressing. The fellow bringing in a pewter dish, as part of the apparatus of this elegant and Attic entertainment, a blind harper, a trumpeter, and a ragged ballad-singer, roaring out an obscene song, complete this motley group.

"This design may be a very exact representation of what were then the nocturnal amus.e.m.e.nts of a brothel;--so different are the manners of former and present times, that I much question whether a similar exhibition is now to be seen in any tavern of the metropolis. That we are less licentious than our predecessors, I dare not affirm; but we are certainly more delicate in the pursuit of our pleasures.

"The room is furnished with a set of Roman emperors,--they are not placed in their proper order; for in the mad revelry of the evening, this family of frenzy have decollated all of them, except Nero; and his manners had too great a similarity to their own, to admit of his suffering so degrading an insult; their reverence for _virtue_ induced them to spare his head. In the frame of a _Caesar_ they have placed a portrait of _Pontac_, an eminent cook, whose great talents being turned to heightening sensual, rather than mental enjoyments, he has a much better chance of a votive offering from this company, than would either Vespasian or Trajan.

"The shattered mirror, broken wine-gla.s.ses, fractured chair and cane; the mangled fowl, with a fork stuck in its breast, thrown into a corner, and indeed every accompaniment, shews, that this has been a night of riot without enjoyment, mischief without wit, and waste without gratification.

"With respect to the drawing of the figures in this curious female coterie, Hogarth evidently intended several of them for beauties; and of vulgar, uneducated, prost.i.tuted beauty, he had a good idea. The hero of our tale displays all that careless jollity, which copious draughts of maddening wine are calculated to inspire; he laughs the world away, and bids it pa.s.s. The poor dupe, without his periwig, in the back-ground, forms a good contrast of character: he is maudlin drunk, and sadly sick.

To keep up the spirit of unity throughout the society, and not leave the poor African girl entirely neglected, she is making signs to her friend the porter, who perceives, and slightly returns, her love-inspiring glance. This print is rather crowded,--the subject demanded it should be so; some of the figures, thrown into shade, might have helped the general effect, but would have injured the characteristic expression."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE RAKE'S PROGRESS.

PLATE 3.

TAVERN SCENE.]

PLATE IV.

ARRESTED FOR DEBT.

"O, vanity of youthful blood, So by misuse to poison good!

Reason awakes, and views unbarr'd The sacred gates he wish'd to guard; Approaching, see the harpy _Law_, And _Poverty_, with icy paw, Ready to seize the poor remains That vice has left of all his gains.

Cold _penitence_, lame _after-thought_, With fear, despair, and horror fraught, Call back his guilty pleasures dead, Whom he hath wrong'd, and whom betray'd."

The career of dissipation is here stopped. Dressed in the first style of the ton, and getting out of a sedan-chair, with the hope of shining in the circle, and perhaps forwarding a former application for a place or a pension, he is arrested! To intimate that being plundered is the certain consequence of such an event, and to shew how closely one misfortune treads upon the heels of another, a boy is at the same moment stealing his cane.

The unfortunate girl whom he basely deserted, is now a milliner, and naturally enough attends in the crowd, to mark the fashions of the day.

Seeing his distress, with all the eager tenderness of unabated love, she flies to his relief. Possessed of a small sum of money, the hard earnings of unremitted industry, she generously offers her purse for the liberation of her worthless favourite. This releases the captive beau, and displays a strong instance of female affection; which, being once planted in the bosom, is rarely eradicated by the coldest neglect, or harshest cruelty.

The high-born, haughty Welshman, with an enormous leek, and a countenance keen and lofty as his native mountains, establishes the chronology, and fixes the day to be the first of March; which being sacred to the t.i.tular saint of Wales, was observed at court.

Mr. Nichols remarks of this plate:--"In the early impressions, a shoe-black steals the Rake's cane. In the modern ones, a large group of sweeps, and black-shoe boys, are introduced gambling on the pavement; near them a stone inscribed _Black's_, a contrast to _White's_ gaming-house, against which a flash of lightning is pointed. The curtain in the window of the sedan-chair is thrown back. This plate is likewise found in an intermediate state; the sky being made unnaturally obscure, with an attempt to introduce a shower of rain, and lightning very aukwardly represented. It is supposed to be a first proof after the insertion of the group of blackguard gamesters; the window of the chair being only marked for an alteration that was afterwards made in it. Hogarth appears to have so far spoiled the sky, that he was obliged to obliterate it, and cause it to be engraved over again by another hand."

Mr. Gilpin observes:--"Very disagreeable accidents often befal gentlemen of pleasure. An event of this kind is recorded in the fourth print, which is now before us. Our hero going, in full dress, to pay his compliments at court on St. David's day, was accosted in the rude manner which is here represented.--The composition is good.

The form of the group, made up of the figures in action, the chair, and the lamplighter, is pleasing. Only, here we have an opportunity of remarking, that a group is disgusting when the extremities of it are heavy. A group in some respects 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 two bailiffs, the woman, and the chairman, are all huddled together in that part of the group which should have been the lightest; while the middle part, where the hand holds the door, wants strength and consistence.

It may be added too, that the four heads, in the form of a diamond, make an unpleasing shape. 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 ap.r.o.n 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. The self-importance, too, of the honest Cambrian is not ill portrayed; who is chiefly introduced to settle the chronology of the story.--In pose of grace, we have nothing striking. Hogarth might have introduced a degree of it in the female figure: at least he might have contrived to vary the heavy and unpleasing form of her drapery.--The perspective is good, and makes an agreeable shape."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE RAKE'S PROGRESS.

PLATE 4.

ARRESTED FOR DEBT AS GOING TO COURT.]

PLATE V.

MARRIES AN OLD MAID.

"New to the school of hard _mishap_, Driven from the ease of fortune's lap.

What schemes will nature not embrace T' avoid less shame of drear distress?

_Gold_ can the charms of youth bestow, And mask deformity with shew: Gold can avert the sting of shame, In Winter's arms create a flame: Can couple youth with h.o.a.ry age, And make antipathies engage."

To be thus degraded by the rude enforcement of the law, and relieved from an exigence by one whom he had injured, would have wounded, humbled, I had almost said reclaimed, any man who had either feeling or elevation of mind; but, to mark the progression of vice, we here see this depraved, lost character, hypocritically violating every natural feeling of the soul, to recruit his exhausted finances, and marrying an old and withered Sybil, at the sight of whom nature must recoil.

The ceremony pa.s.ses in the old church, Mary-le-bone, which was then considered at such a distance from London, as to become the usual resort of those who wished to be privately married; that such was the view of this prost.i.tuted young man, may be fairly inferred from a glance at the object of his choice. Her charms are heightened by the affectation of an amorous leer, which she directs to her youthful husband, in grateful return for a similar compliment which she supposes paid to herself. This gives her face much meaning, but meaning of such a sort, that an observer being ask, "_How dreadful must be this creature's hatred?_"

would naturally reply, "_How hateful must be her love!_"

In his demeanor we discover an attempt to appear at the altar with becoming decorum: but internal perturbation darts through a.s.sumed tranquillity, for though he is _plighting his troth_ to the old woman, his eyes are fixed on the young girl who kneels behind her.

The parson and clerk seem made for each other; a sleepy, stupid solemnity marks every muscle of the divine, and the nasal droning of the _lay brother_ is most happily expressed. Accompanied by her child and mother, the unfortunate victim of his seduction is here again introduced, endeavouring to enter the church, and forbid the banns. The opposition made by an old pew-opener, with her bunch of keys, gave the artist a good opportunity for indulging his taste in the burlesque, and he has not neglected it.

A dog (Trump, Hogarth's favorite), paying his addresses to a one-eyed quadruped of his own species, is a happy parody of the unnatural union going on in the church.

The commandments are broken: a crack runs near the tenth, which says, _Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife;_ a prohibition in the present case hardly necessary. The creed is destroyed by the damps of the church; and so little attention has been paid to the poor's box, that it is covered with a _cobweb_! These three high-wrought strokes of satirical humour were perhaps never equalled by any exertion of the pencil; excelled they cannot be.

On one of the pew doors is the following curious specimen of church-yard poetry, and mortuary orthography.

THESE : PEWES : VNSCRUD : AND TANE : IN : SVNDER IN : STONE : THERS : GRAUEN : WHAT : IS : VNDER TO : WIT : A VALT : FOR : BURIAL : THERE : IS WHICH : EDWARD : FORSET : MADE : FOR : HIM : AND : HIS.

This is a correct copy of the inscription. Part of these lines, in raised letters, now form a pannel in the wainscot at the end of the right-hand gallery, as the church is entered from the street. The mural monument of the Taylor's, composed of lead, gilt over, is still preserved: it is seen in Hogarth's print, just under the window.

A glory over the bride's head is whimsical.

The bay and holly, which decorate the pews, give a date to the period, and determine this preposterous union of January with June, to have taken place about the time of Christmas;

"When Winter linger'd in her icy veins."