Note 54 — Chapter IV

In this notice of the writers by whom he was attacked, he particularly alludes to the North Briton, No. 17. As to the crooked compliments paid him by his brethren in art, they were numerous indeed.

Among his papers I found a tolerably spirited drawing in pen and ink, entitled "A Christmas Gambol from Leicester Square to Westminster Hall," representing the artist with ass's ears, stripped, and tied to a cart's tail, and an old fellow with a long wig and cat-o'-nine-tails in his hand, lashing his naked back, and exclaiming, "You'll write books, will ye!" A barber's block, fixed on a straight pole, is stuck at the head of the cart, and labelled, "Perpendicular and beautiful blockhead." The horse is led by a vulgar drayman, whose locks being so dishevelled as to form a kind of glory, are inscribed, "Lines of beauty." Over the head of the painter is this motto: "'Twere better a millstone had been tied about thy neck, and (THOU) cast into the sea."

The following specimen of polite satire and curious orthography crowns the whole:—

"N.B.—Speedily will be published, an apology, in quarto, called Beauty's Defiance to Charicature; with a very extraordinary frontispiece, a just portraiture (printed on fool's-cap paper), and descriptive of the punishment that ought to be inflicted on him that dare give false and unnatural descriptions of beauty, or charicature great personages; it being an illegal as well as a mean practice; at the same time flying in the face of all regular bred gentlemen painters, sculptures, architects—in fine—arts and sciences."

Numerous prints were published in ridicule of his system and himself.

In a set of engravings, entitled "The New Dunciad, done with a view of fixing the fluctuating ideas of taste, dedicated to his friend Beauty's Analyzer," I find several prints with mottoes, which, in most vile and vulgar phrase, ridiculed both author and book. Some of them are not destitute of humour; but all would ere now have been consigned to oblivion, had not they been occasionally collected as relatives to Hogarth. One of them is entitled "Pugg's Graces, etched from his ORIGINAL daubing."

In this the artist is represented at his easel, with Lomazzo in his pocket, and with a satyr's feet (one of which rests on some copies of his Analysis), and painting the picture of "Pharaoh's Daughter." He is accompanied by a fat and a lean connoisseur; the former shows evident marks of admiration, but the latter holds the Analysis in his left hand, and appears rather puzzled. A figure in the background, who, to show that he is a judge, is arrayed in a gown, a band, and ample periwig, shows evident marks of disgust. Three naked and most filthy female figures, one of them fat as was Bright of Malden, and another tall and thin as a splinter of the Monument, are intended to represent "Pugg's graceless Graces." One of these beauties rests her foot on a box inscribed, "For the March presented to the Foundling Hospital, with a gilded frame for the admiration of the public." The other is seated on a chest of drawers, on which are written under the word FOLLY, "Bid for by Pugg's friends, £50, £100, £120." This most pointed piece of wit evidently alludes to the auction of "Marriage à la Mode," which has been already noticed. On the upper part of the print is a head, entitled "A modern cherubin," with a bag-wig on, and a stick bent into a waving line in his mouth, a satyr holding a medallion, on which is a head with a cap and bells, and many other curious allusions to the serpentine line. On the floor are a pair of stays, a pair of boots, a pair of candlesticks, etc. etc., allusive to the prints to the Analysis. Beneath is a grotesque figure of a devil, with a little incubus, masks, etc., holding in his hand a piece of paper, which seems a leaf of the book, and is inscribed, "To be continued."

A. C. Invt. et Sculp.—Published according to Act of Parliament, 1753-4.

On the back of this delicate satire is printed the following address:—

"TO THE PUBLIC.

"I propose to publish by subscription an Analysis of the Sun, in which I will show the constituent parts of which it is composed, and of which it ought to have been composed.

"I will compute exactly its magnitude and quantity of matter, both as it is, and as it ought to have been constructed.

"As to the supposed motion of the sun or earth, I shall prove that Ptolemy and Copernicus were neither of them right in any part of their conjectures; and that consequently Kepler, Des Cartes, Cassini, Leibnitz, and Sir Isaac Newton are absolutely wrong.

"I will likewise refute that vulgar error, that the sun, with respect to our earth, is the cause of light and heat; and I will show how they are caused.

"I will prove that the figure of our earth is an inverted . And lastly, I will demonstrate that their systems show nothing of my line of beauty.

"This work will be printed on a new invented fool's-cap paper, at half a guinea to subscribers; but to those who do not subscribe, it will be fifteen shillings.

"Subscriptions will be taken in by the etcher of this plate, and at my house, at the sign of the Harlot's Head in Leicester Fields.

"N.B.—It will be in vain for astronomers, foreign or domestic, to crowd my house for information in their art; I grant them leave to subscribe, which is all the favour they are to expect from me.

"W. H."

In a well-etched print which, on a monumental stone placed in the corner, the engraver has chosen to denominate "A self-conceited arrogant dauber, grovelling in vain to undermine the ever-sacred temple of the best painters, sculptors, architects, etc., in imitation of the impious Herostratus, who with sacrilegious flame destroyed the temple of Diana to perpetuate his name to posterity."

We have here a very rich and well-imagined column, the base ornamented with historical bas-relief; and between a serpent, which is spirally twisted round a circular pillar, are portraits of painters, sculptors, etc. At the bottom of this, on his knees, and still with satyr's legs and feet, and a pen stuck in his hat, the artist has represented Hogarth; who, attended by a well-dressed connoisseur in the character of his torch-bearer, accompanied by his favourite dog, and armed with his palette knife, is grubbing up whatever he can find under it. No. 3, the inscription informs us, is "A satyr ready to lash the scribbler away;" and by the same authority we learn that No. 4 are "Geese," which being placed close to this emulator of the fame of Erostratus, "greedily swallows whatever he can rake up with his palette knife," etc. etc. etc. The print is enriched with cypress trees, capitals, well-formed vases, and superb edifices; the whole (for it is a night scene) is lighted up by the temple of Diana in flames. Beneath it is the waving line in a small triangle, and the following verses:—

One nauseous delineation is entitled, "The Artist in his own Taste;" and another, "The Author run mad." In one he is represented as "A mountebank, demonstrating to his admiring audience that crookedness is most beautiful;" and in another of a larger size, entitled "The Burlesquer Burlesqued," depicted with satyr's legs, painting what the designer calls "A history piece, suitable to the painter's capacity, from a Dutch manuscript." This history piece is a copy of the Dutch delineation of Abraham sacrificing Isaac, by pointing a blunderbuss at his head, with an angel hovering over the figures, etc. The lives of Rembrandt, Rubens, Vandyke, and other eminent painters, are ingeniously imagined to be torn in pieces to make a window-blind for the author of the Analysis of Beauty; which book, with allusions to it, are displayed in different parts of the print, and in a storied border at the bottom it appears to be selling for waste paper.

Of this engraving, the satire of which is principally levelled at the burlesque "Paul before Felix," there are two editions; the first, for the more extensive circulation of Hogarth's fame, and the benefit of such foreigners as do not understand English, has an explanation in French.