"taste of the town." He had at last the presumption to paint an altar-*piece for the church of St. Clement Danes. The worthy parishioners, men of no taste at all, burst into a yell of derision and horror at this astounding croûte. Forthwith, irreverent young Mr. Hogarth lunged full butt with his graver at the daub. He produced an engraving of Kent's Masterpiece, which was generally considered to be an unmerciful caricature; but which he himself declared to be an accurate representation of the picture. 'Twas the first declaration of his guerra al cuchillo against the connoisseurs. The caricature, or copy, whichever it was, made a noise; the tasteless parishioners grew more vehement, and, at last, Gibson, Bishop of London (whose brother, by the way, had paid his first visit to London in the company of Dominie Hogarth), interfered, and ordered the removal of the obnoxious canvas. "Kent's masterpiece" subsided into an ornament for a tavern-room. For many years it was to be seen (together with the landlord's portrait, I presume) at the "Crown and Anchor," in the Strand. Then it disappeared, and faded away from the visible things extant.
With another bookseller's commission, I arrive at another halting-place in the career of William Hogarth. In 1726-7 appeared his eighteen illustrations to Butler's Hudibras. They are of considerable size, broadly and vigorously executed, and display a liberal instalment of the vis comica, of which William was subsequently to be so lavish. Ralpho is smug and sanctified to a nicety. Hudibras is a marvellously droll-looking figure, but he is not human, is generally execrably drawn, and has a head preternaturally small, and so pressed down between the clavicles, that you might imagine him to be of the family of the anthropophagi, whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders. There is a rare constable, the perfection of Dogberryism-cum-Bumbledom, in the tableau of Hudibras in the stocks. The widow is graceful and beautiful to look at. Unlike Wilkie, Hogarth could draw pretty women;[*] the rogue who chucks the widow's attendant under the chin is incomparable, and Trulla is a most truculent brimstone. The "committee" is a character full study of sour faces. The procession of the "Skimmington" is full of life and animation; and the concluding tableau, "Burning rumps at Temple Bar," is a wondrous street-scene, worthy of the ripe Hogarthian epoch of The Progresses, The Election, Beer Street and Gin Lane. This edition of Butler's immortal satire had a great run; and the artist often regretted that he had parted absolutely, and at once, with his property in the plates.
So now then, William Hogarth, we part once more, but soon to meet again. Next shall the moderns know thee—student at Thornhill's Academy—as a painter as well as an engraver. A philosopher—quoique tu n'en doutais guère—thou hast been all along.
- "They said he could not colour," said old Mrs. Hogarth one day to John Thomas
Smith, showing him a sketch of a girl's head. "It's a lie; look there: there's flesh and blood for you, my man."
