72 



HOGARTH. 



pation in Ship Court, in the Old Bailey. William Ho- 

 garth was born in the parish of St" Bartholomew in 

 1698, and seems to have received only the usual edu- 

 cation of a mechanic. He was bound apprentice to 

 Ellis Gamble, a silversmith in Cranbourn Court, Leices- 

 terfields ; and was to learn in that profession only the 

 branch of engraving arms and ciphers on metal. Be- 

 fore his apprenticeship had expired, his genius for 

 drawing began to point to the comic path which it af- 

 terwards pursued. Having one day rambled to High- 

 gate with some companions, he witnessed a quarrel in 

 a public-house, in which one of the disputants received 

 a blow with a quart pot, that made the blood stream 

 down his face. Such a subject, one would think, was 

 little calculated for gay effect ; but humour is not an 

 over-delicate faculty, and the distorted features of the 

 wounded sufferer, it seems, so much attracted the fan- 

 cy of young Hogarth, that he sketched his portrait on 

 the spot, with the surrounding figures, in ludicrous ca- 

 ricature. His apprenticeship was no sooner expired, 

 than he entered into the academy of St Martin's Lane, 

 and studied drawing from the life, in which he never 

 attained to great excellence. It was character, the pas- 

 sions, the soul, that his genius was given him to copy. 

 In colouring, he proved no great master ; his forte lay 

 in expression, not in tints and chiaro-scuro. It is not 

 exactly known how long he continued in obscurity, 

 but the first piece in which he distinguished himself as 

 a painter is a representation of Wanstead Assembly. In 

 this are introduced portraits of the first Earl Tylney, 

 his lady, their children, tenants, &c. The colouring of 

 this is said to be better than that of some of his later 

 and more highly finished pieces. 



From the date of the earliest plate that can be ascer- 

 tained to be the work of Hogarth, it may be presumed, 

 that he began business on his own acgonnt^it least as 

 early as the year 1 720. His first employment seems 

 to have been the engraving of arms hills ; 



the next to design and furnish plates flHHHellers. * 

 Among these, were designs for Hudibras, with Butler's 

 head. His Hudibras (says Horace Walpole) was the 

 first of his works that marked him as a man above the 

 common ; yet what made him then noticed now sur- 

 prises us, to find so little humour in an undertaking so 

 congenial to his talents. 



The success of his plates was sufficient to bring him 

 business as a portrait painter ; but it was not perma- 

 nent, or attended with much reputation. The author 

 of the volume of anecdotes respecting him, affirms with 

 confidence, that though not a portrait painter, who 

 could gratify the self-love of^his employers, he drew 

 individual likenesses in hisJH^pieces. One of his 

 most striking scenes of this n^H; was the examination 

 of the committee of the House of" Commons into the 

 cruelties exercised on the prisoners of the Fleet to ex- 

 tort money from them. On the table of the committee 

 are the instruments of torture. A prisoner in rags, 

 half starved, appears before them, with a good counte- 

 nance, that adds to the interest. On the other side is 

 the confronted and atrocious gaolor, with villany, ter- 

 ror, and the eagerness to tell a lie, depicted in his fea- 

 tures, and expressed in his gesture. This was Barn- 

 bridge, the warden of the fleet, who, with Huggins 

 his predecessor, were both declared guilty of extortion 



and cruelty. In 1730 Hogarth made a clandestine Hopurth. 

 marriage with the daughter of Sir James Thornhill, '""Y*"" 

 sergeant painter, and history painter, to George I. Ho- 

 garth was at this time called in the Craftsman an inge- 

 nious designer and engraver; but his father-in-law re- 

 garded him as so unworthy of his daughter, and was 

 so much offended by the match being a stolen one, that 

 he was not easily reconciled to it. About the same pe- 

 riod our painter began his celebrated Harlot's Progress, 

 some scenes of which were purposely put in the way 

 of Sir James Thornhill to bespeak his favour. Sir 

 James remarked, that the man who could produce such 

 works could maintain a wife without a portion ; but 

 he afterwards relented, and the young pair took up 

 their abode in his house. 



By the appearance of his Harlot's Progress, his fame 

 was completely established, and his finances raised, by 

 the rapid sale of the plates that were struck from the 

 pictures. He might be said in this production to create 

 a new species of painting, the moral comic ; and in 

 the furniture, dresses, and details of the scenes, to give 

 a history of the manners of the age. The Rake's Pro- 

 gress, which appeared in 1735, though, in the opi- 

 nion of many, superior in merit, had not so much suc- 

 cess from want of novelty. In the following year, am- 

 bitious of distinguishing himself as a painter of history, 

 he finished the Scripture scene of the Pool of Bethesda, 

 and of the Good Samaritan ; but the burlesque turn of 

 his mind mixed itself with all subjects, and here with 

 disadvantage. Nor was he more successful in his pic- 

 ture of Danae, where the old nurse tries the gold by 

 ringing it with her teeth. His fame was however novr 

 so high, that Swift complimented him in die Legion 

 Club, and Fielding in his preface to Joseph Andrews. 

 Theophilus Gibber had also brought his Rake's Pro- 

 gress on the stage in the shape of a pantomime. 



His printed proposals, dated January 25, ascertain 

 his Company of Strolling Players, and his Marriage a 

 -la Mode, to have been then ready for sale. He had 

 also projected a Happy Marriage, by way of a coun- 

 terpart to his Marriage a la Mode. The time suppo- 

 sed was immediately after the return of the parties 

 from church. The scene lay in the hall of an antiqua- 

 ted country mansion. On one side the married couple 

 were represented sitting. Behind them was a group 

 of their young friends of both sexes in the act of break, 

 ing bride-cake over their heads. In front appeared 

 the father of the young lady grasping a bumper, and 

 drinking, with a seeming roar of exultation, to the fu- 

 ture happiness of her and her husband. By his side 

 was a table covered with refreshments ; jollity rather 

 than politeness, was the designation of his character. 

 Under the screen of the hall, several rustic musicians 

 in grotesque attitudes, together with servants, tenants, 

 &c. were arranged. Before the dripping-pan stood a 

 well fed divine, with his gown and cassock, with his 

 watch in his hand, giving directions to a cook dressed 

 all in white, who was basting a haunch of venison. 

 Among the faces of the principal figures, none but that 

 of the young lady was completely finished. Hogarth 

 had been often reproached for his inability to give 

 grace and dignity to his heroines. The bride was 

 meant to vindicate his pencil from this imputation. 

 The effort, however, was unsuccessful. The girl was 



* Thirteen folio prints, with his name to each, appeared in Aubrey de la Mortraye's Travels, 1723. Seven smaller prints for 

 Apuleius's Golden AM, 1724. Fifteen head pieces to Beaver's Military Punishments of the Aneients; and five frontispieces for the 

 translation of Cassandra, in five vsls. 1725. Seventeen cuts for Hudi bras, 1726, Two for Perseus and Andromeda, 1730, Two 

 for Milton, the date uncertain ; and a variety of others between 1726 and 1733. 



