Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

It was done at the time that the House of Commons appointed a Committee to enquire into the cruelties exercised on prifoners in the Fleet, to extort money from them. The fcene is the Committee; on the table are the inftruments of torture. A prifoner, in rags, half ftarved appears before them; the poor man has a good countenance that adds to the intereft. On the other hand is the inhuman gaoler. It is the very figure that Salvator Rofa would have drawn for Iago in the moment of detection. Villany, fear, and confcience, are mixed in yellow and livid on his countenance, his lips are contracted by tremor, his face advances as eager to lie, his legs ftep back as thinking to make his efcape; one hand is thruft precipitately into his bofom, the fingers of the other are catching uncertainly at his buttonholes. If this was a portrait, it is the mott fpeaking that ever was drawn; if it was not, it is still finer.

It is feldom that his figures do not exprefs the character he intended to give them. When they wanted an illuftration that colours could not bestow, collateral circumftances, full of wit, fupply notes. The Nobleman in Marriage à-la-mode has a great air--the coronet on his crutches, and his pedigree iffuing out of the bowels of William the Conqueror, add his character. In the breakfast, the old fteward reflects for the Spectator. Sometimes a fhort label is an epigram, and is never introduced without improving the fubject. Untortunately fome circumftances, that were temporary, will be loft to pofterity, the fate of all comic Authors; and if ever an Author wanted a commentary, that none of his beauties might be loft, it is Hogarth-not from being obfcure (for he never was that but in two or three of his first prints, where tranfient national follies, as lotteries, free-mafonry, and the South Sea were his topics), but for the use of foreigners, and from a multiplicity of little incidents, not effentials, but always heightening the principal action. Such is the spider's web extended over the poor's box in a parish church; the blunders in architecture in the nobleman's feat feen through the window, in the first print of Marriage à-la-mode; and a thousand in the Strollers dreffing in a Barn, which for wit and imagination, without any other end, I think the best of all his works: as for ufeful and deep fatire, that on the Methodists is the moft fublime. The fcenes of Bedlam and the gaming-houfe, are inimitable reprefentations of our ferious follies or unavoidable woes; and the concern fhewn by the Lord Mayor when the companion of his childhood is brought before him as a criminal, is a touching picture, and big with humane admonįtion and reflection.

• Another inftance of this Author's genius is his not condescending to explain his moral leffons by the trite poverty of allegory. If he had an emblematic thought, he expreffed it with wit, rather than by a fymbol. Such is that of the whore's fetting fire to the world in the Rake's Progrefs. Once, indeed, he defcended to use an allegoric perfonage, and was not happy in it: in one of his election prints, Britannia's chariot breaks down, while the coachman and footman are playing at cards on the box. Sometimes too, to please his vul gar customers, he flooped to low images and national fatire, as in the two prints of France and England, and that of the Gates of Calais. The laft indeed has great merit, though the caricatura is carried to

excess.

Excess. In all thefe the painter's purpose was to make his countrymen obferve the eafe and affluence of a free government, opposed to the wants and woes of flaves. In Beer-ftreet, the English butcher toffing a Frenchman in the air with one hand, is abfolute hyperbole; and what is worse, was an after-thought, not being in the first edition. The Gin-alley is much fuperiour, horridly fine, but difgufting.

• His Bartholomew-fair is full of humour; the March to Finchley, of nature; the Enraged Mufician tends to farce. The Four Parts of the Day, except the laft, are inferior to few of his works. The Sleeping Congregation, the Lecture on the Vacuum, the Laughing Audience, the Confultation of Physicians as a coat of arms, and the Cockpit, are perfect in their several kinds. The prints of Induftry and Idleness have more merit in the intention than execution.

It may appear fingular, that of an author whom I call comic, and who is celebrated for his humour, I fhould fpeak in general in so ferious a ftile; but it would be fuppreffing the merits of his heart to confider him only as a promoter of laughter. I think I have fhewn that his views were more generous and extenfive. Mirth coloured his pictures, but benevolence defigned them. He fmiled like Socrates, that men might not be offended at his lectures, and might learn to laugh at their own follies. When his topics were harmless, all his touches were marked with pleasantry, and fun. He never laughed like Rabelais at nonfenfe that he impofed for wit; but like Swift combined incidents that divert one from their unexpected encounter, and illuftrate the tale he means to tell. Such are the hens roofting on the upright waves in the fcene of the Strollers, and the devils drinking porter on the altar. The manners, or coftume, are more than obferved in every one of his works. The very furniture of his rooms describes the characters of the perfons to whom they belong; a leffon that might be of use to comic authors. It was referved to Hogarth to write a scene of furniture. The rakes levee-room, the nobleman's dining-room, the apartments of the husband and wife in Marriage à-la-mode, the alderman's parlour, the poet's bed-chamber, and many others, are the hiftory of the manners of the age.'

Mr. Walpole now proceeds to eftimate Mr. Hogarth's merits as a painter, and to mention the circumstances of his life. He was born, we are told, in the parish of St. Bartholomew, London, the son of a low tradesman, who bound him to a mean engraver of arms on plate.

We have reason to think that Mr. Walpole has been mifinformed in regard to Hogarth's father. He came from Weftmoreland to London, to push his fortune, in company with Dr. Gibson, the late learned Bishop of London's brother, and was employed as a corrector of the prefs, which in those days was not confidered as a mean employment. He appears to have been a man of no inconfiderable learning, from a Dictionary in Latin and English which he compofed for the ufe of fchools, a copy of which we have now before us in his own hand-writing. Nor was the perfon, to whom Hogarth was bound, a mean en

graver of arms. His name was Gamble, an engraver on filver, at the head of his bufinefs, and an eminent filver-fmith.

In regard to Hogarth's Sigifmonda, we cannot but think that our Author fpeaks too contemptuoufly of this picture, and that there is no ground for the infinuation that the perfon for whom it was painted thought meanly of it. We have in our poffeffion a letter to Hogarth from the noble perfon referred to, in which he expreffes himself in the following terms-I really think the performance fo ftriking and inimitable, that the conftantly having it before one's eyes would be often occafioning melancholy ideas to arife in one's mind, which a curtain being drawn before it would not diminish in the leaft.

We fhall make no apology for inferting thefe particulars. Mr. Walpole has too much candour to be offended with the

mention of them.

Mr. Walpole concludes this chapter with a catalogue of Hogarth's prints, for the ufe of collectors, being himself poffeffed of the most complete collection of them that is to be found, and likewife of what few sketches had not been forced from him by his friends.

The fifth chapter contains an account of painters in enamel and miniature, ftatuaries, and medallifts, in the reign of George the Second. We fhall lay before our Readers part of what he fays concerning Ryfbrach.

Our tafte in monuments, till Ryfbrach's time, depended more on masonry and marbles than ftatuary. Gothic tombs owed their chief grandeur to rich canopies, fretwork, and abundance of fmall niches and trifling figures. Bishops in cumbent attitudes, and crosslegged Templars, admitted no grace, nor required any. In the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James the First, a single figure, reclining at length on the elbow, in robes or Sergeant's gowns, was commonly overwhelmed and furrounded with diminutive pillars, and obelisks of various marbles; and if particularly fumptuous, of alabafter gilt. Gibbs, in the Duke of Newcattle's monument in the Abbey, feems to have had an eye to that kind of talleless expence. From the reign of Charles the First al ar-tombs or mural tablets, with cherubims and flaming arms, generally fatisfied the piety of families. Bird, indeed, beflowed bufts and bas-reliefs on thofe he decorated, but Sir Cloudefley Shovel's, and other monuments by him, made men of tafte dread fuch honours. Now and then had appeared a ray of fimplicity, as in Sir Francis Vere's and Captain Hollis's tombs. The abilities of Ryfbrach taught the age to depend on ftatuary for its best ornaments, and though he was too fond of pyramids for backgrounds, his figures are well difpofed, fimple, and great. We feem fince to have advanced into fcenery. Mr. Nightingale's tomb, though finely thought, and well executed, is more theatric than fepulchral. The crouds and clusters of tombs in the Abbey have impofed hard conditions on our fculptors, who have been reduced to couch obelisks in flanting windows, and rear maffes into the air, while St. Paul's re

mains naked of ornaments; though it had better remain fo, than be subjected to the indifcriminate expence of all who are willing to indulge their vanity.

Befides numbers more, Ryfbrach executed the monument of Sir Ifaac Newton and of the Duke of Marlborough at Blenheim, and the equestrian statue in bronze of King William at Bristol in 1733, for which he received 18col. Scheemaker's model, which was rejected, was however fo well defigned, that the city of Brillol made him a prefent of 501. for his trouble. Ryfbrach made alfo a great many bufts, and most of them very like, as of Mr. Pope, Gibbs, Sir Ro bert Walpole, the Duke and Duchefs of Argyle, the Duchefs of Marlborough, Lord Bolingbroke, Wootton, Ben Jonson, Butler, Milton, Cromwell, and himfelf; the ftatues of King George the First, and of King George the Second, at the Royal Exchange; the heads in the Hermitage at Richmond, and thofe of the English worthies in the Elyfian fields at Stowe.

This enjoyment of deserved fame was at length interrupted by the appearance of Mr. Scheemaker's Shakspeare in WestminsterAbbey, which, befides its merit, had the additional recommendation of Mr. Kent's fashionable name. I fhall fay fomething hereafter on the defects of that defign. It however hurt the vogue of Mr. Ryf. Brach, who, though certainly not obfcured, found his bufinefs decline, as it was affected confiderably afterwards by the competition of Mr. Roubiliac; and no merit can chain the fickleness of fashion. Piqued at Mr. Scheemaker's fuccefs, Ryfbrach produced his three ftatues of Palladio, Inigo Jones, and Flamingo, and at last his chefd'œuvre, his Hercules; an exquifite fummary of his skill, knowledge, and judgment. This athletic ftatue, for which he borrowed the head of the Farnelian God, was compiled from various parts and limbs of feven or eight of the flrongest and best made men in London, chiefly the bruifers and boxers of the then flourishing amphitheatre for boxing, the fculptor feleding the parts which were the most truly formed in each. The arms were Broughton's, the breast a celebrated coachman's, a bruifer, and the legs were thofe of Ellis the painter, a great frequenter of that gymnafium. As the games of that Olympic academy frequently terminated to its heroes at the gallows, it was foon after fuppreffed by act of parliament, fo that in reality Ryfbrach's Hercules is the monument of thofe gladiators. It was purchafed by Mr. Hoare, and is the principal ornament of the noble temple of Stourhead, that beautiful affembly of art, tafte, and landfcapes.'

Mr. Walpole beftows only a few lines on Roubiliac, who, we are told, had little bufinefs till Sir Edward Walpole recommended him to execute half the bufts at Trinity College, Dublin. By the fame patron's interest he was employed on the monument of John Duke of Argyle, in Weftminfter-Abbey, on which the ftatue of Eloquence is very mafterly and graceful; but his ftatue of Handel, in the garden at Vauxhall, fixed his fame. Two of his principal works, our Author fays, are the monuments of the late Duke and Duchefs of Montague in Northamptonshire, well performed and magnificent, but wanting fimplicity.

The fixth chapter of this volume contains an account of the architects in the reign of George the Second, a reign, in which; Mr. Walpole fays, Architecture resumed all her rights. Noble publications of Palladio, Jones, and the antique, recalled her to true principles and correct tafte; fhe found men of genius to execute her rules, and patrons to countenance their labours.

• She found more, continues our Author, and what Rome could not boast, men of the first rank who contributed to embellish their country by buildings of their own defign in the pureft style of antique compofition. Before the glorious clofe of a reign that carried our arms and victories beyond where Roman eagles ever flew, ardour for the arts had led our travellers to explore whatever beauties of Grecian or Latin tafte ftill fubfifted in provinces once fubjected to Rome; and the fine editions in confequence of those researches have established the throne of Architecture in Britain, while itself languishes at Rome, wantons in tawdry imitations of the French in other parts of Europe, and ftruggles in vain at Paris to furmount their prepoffeffion in favour of their own errors-for fickle as we call that nation, their mufic and architecture prove how long their ears and eyes can be conftant to difcord and difproportion.'

Mr. Walpole now proceeds to give a very short account of Leoni, Servandoni, Thomas Ripley, Batty Langley, and then goes on to Henry Herbert Earl of Pembroke The foul of Inigo Jones, fays he, who had been patronized by his anceftors, feemed ftill to hover over its favourite Wilton, and to have affifted the Muses of Arts in the education of this noble perfon. The towers, the chambers, the fcenes which Holbein, Jones, and Vandyck had decorated, and which Earl Thomas had enriched with the fpoils of the best ages, received the last touches of beauty from Earl Henry's hand. He removed all that obftructed the views to or from his palace, and threw Palladio's theatric bridge over his river: the prefent Lord has crowned the fummit of the hill with the equestrian ftatue of Marcus Aurelius, and a handsome arch defigned by Mr. Chambers.

No man had a purer tafte in building than Earl Henry, of which he gave a few fpecimens, befides his works at Wilton. The new lodge in Richmond Park, the Countess of Suffolk's houfe at Marblehill, Twickenham, the water-houfe in Lord Orford's Park at Houghton, are inconteftible proofs of Lord Pembroke's tafte. It was more than tafte, it was paffion for the utility and honour of his country, that engaged his Lordship to promote and affiduously overlook the conftruction of Westminster Bridge, by the ingenious Monfieur Labelye, a man that deferves more notice than this flight encomium can beftow.-Charles Labelye died at Paris in the beginning of 1762. I know no particulars of his life: a monument he cannot want while the bridge exifls.'

Our Author introduces his account of Richard Boyle Earl of Burlington with obferving, that protection and wealth. were never more generously and more judiciously diffused than by this great perfon, who had every quality of a genius and

2

artift,

« AnteriorContinuar »