one else; by it impressions could be muÏtiplied indefinitely; and it was therefore during the latter part of the 16th and more than ever during the 17th centuries that caricatures became the potent weapons which they are in political warfare, and formidable instruments in working upon the feelings of the populace. noble achievements of our fathers, their discovery of the printing press carried hard-won liberties, their blood-shedding its boon to the caricaturist as to every and battles; their martyrdom and imprisonments, have been made the vehicles of the smart sentence and the inane jest. Nothing could be more odious to the writer, or more hurtful to the young than such a proceeding; how could they reverence past ages, their early acquaintance with which began with laughter? how could they worship a hero whose deeds had been a subject of jest? No; such is not the purpose of this paper; too much dulness is indeed a grave fault; but unbounded levity, often, as in the case of a modern revolution, the concomitant of impiety and cruelty, is a sin. But to our subject. But the reader must not fall into the common mistake of regarding this art as entirely comic. Nothing can be farther from the truth. In their earliest period they were seldom, if ever, pictures merely to provoke a laugh, but were serious affairs, frequently of a very savage nature, and made subservient to Caricature seems to be derived from the political warfare which was then an Italian word, caricare, to overload, going on, the character of which they, and therefore a caricature has been well of course, partook. The chief of our defined as a loaded, overcharged repre- English caricatures were imported from sentation. Caricature in painting, Holland, and they first came into exbears an affinity to Burlesque in poetry, tensive circulation and notoriety after and a finely drawn caricature would bear the revolution of 1688, which happily the same analogy to Raphael's picture placed the third William upon an Enof the Last Judgment, as Butler's Hu-glish throne. No doubt, this arose dibras does to Paradise Lost as an epic from the fact of England possessing no poem. Addison defines caricature, as artists of sufficient skill to enable them pictures "where the art consists in pre- to produce the plates rapidly and effecserving amidst distorted proportions tively. The caricatures, of which there and aggravated features, some distin- were plenty which satirized the Protecguishing likeness of the person." Such, tor Cromwell, were executed chiefly by indeed, is the style of caricature which was prevalent in his day, but we have arrived to a much more refined state of the art, and have been gradually progressing towards, perhaps, a perfection which the elder caricaturists little dreamt of. 66 the Dutch; and in the flood of this kind of pictures, which that stirring time of speculation, the days of the South Sea Bubble gave rise to, the large majority came from the Dutch. Their character was totally different to what we now understand by the same The application of pictures of a satiri- term. They were chiefly emblematical, cal kind to politics, which constitutes and in a folio volume of them, all relating the great body of the caricatures with to the speculating mania, which prewhich we shall have to deal, is, it has vailed both in Holland and France at been well observed, no new thing, and the time of Law and his Mississippi can be traced among every people with scheme, and which was published under whom, historically, we have any ac- the title of Her groote Tafereel de quaintance. In the very centre of the Devaasheid," (The great Picture of pyramids, upon Egyptian tombs, cari- Folly,) some of them are so difficult to catures have been found; and many an divine, and have so very little point, that old manuscript or sculptured piece of an authority on the subject has sugwood tells us that our most remote an-gested that the great sale of caricatures cestors enlivened the darkness of the made the booksellers look up old plates middle ages with pictorial satire. But published upon totally different subin those days the artists laboured under jects, and after adding new inscriptions immense disadvantages. Engraving and new explanations publish them as was indeed understood, but the art of caricatures on the Bubble. multiplying the impressions from the plate, and spreading them before the eyes of the Many was unknown. The of Thomas Wright, Esq., M.A., F.S.A., "History the House of Hanover." G This dulness and emblematical character seemed for a long time to pervade the artists of the day, and even Hogarth, when he turned his skilful pencil to this kind of art, seems to have been unable to disengage himself from the prevailing fault. In his second scene of the election, the "Canvass," the British Lion is represented as swallowing a golden fleur-de-lis, an emblem, we take it, of French gold being used plentifully as a means of bribery; and in the third plate, the "Polling," the carriage of Britannia is represented as overturning, whilst the coachman and footman on the box are playing at cards; another emblematic representation of the gaming propensities of the ministers, a madness shared by the whole aristocracy. But these are mild and favourable instances. Two celebrated publications of this artist, which are undoubted caricatures, "The Times," and drew upon the designer much odium, contain more glaring examples of this fault than those we have quoted. After Hogarth, the art of modern caricature appears to have taken its rise from the pencils of a number of known and unknown amateur artists, (amongst whom we may mention the notorious George Townshend,) who were actively engaged in the political intrigues of George II. These carried on the attack and defence for some time; in the earlier years of his successor, the rage for this kind of pictures became great, and then for a while died out to grow brighter, stronger, and more popular than ever, under the pencil, and by the conceptions of the fertile Gilray. This artist was succeeded by others who have not let the art die, and who have carried down the chain of caricaturists to our own day. So that all of their works collected and arranged with accompanying explanations would form a better and more copious political history of the time than any we have at present. In writing the biographies of a class of men who have produced, or rather who have greatly assisted in producing such memorable events as have the caricaturists, it would be an omission not to include the name of WILLIAM HOGARTH, but it would also be an injustice to assume that he was nothing more than a mere caricaturist, for although he dealt largely in that spe cies of humorous composition, his finer works are so far removed from it, that they should rather be held as fine and deep satires upon humanity, satires moreover partaking more largely of Tragedy than of Comedy. "Recollec tion," says Charles Lamb, "of the manner in which his prints (the Harlot's and Rake's Progresses) affected me, has often made me wonder when I have heard Hogarth described as a mere comic painter, as one whose chief ambition was to raise a laugh. To deny that there are throughout the prints I have mentioned, circumstances introduced of a laughable tendency, would be to run counter to the common notions of mankind; but to suppose that in their ruling character they appeal chiefly to the risible faculty, and not first and foremost to the very heart of man, its best and most serious feelings, would be to mistake no less grossly their aim and purpose. A set of severer satires (for they are not so much comedies, which they have been likened to, as they are strong and masculine satires,) less mingled with anything of mere fun, were never written upon paper or graven upon copper. They resemble Juvenal, or the satiric touches in Timon of Athens."* Bearing the foregoing in mind, we will proceed. WILLIAM HOGARTH was born on the 19th of December, 1697, in the parish of St. Bartholomew, London. He was descended from a Westmoreland family, which had borne the name of Hogard, or Hogart; his father being the youngest of three brothers, the eldest of whom lived and died as a yeoman, the second as a farmer, whilst the third, Hogarth's father, came up to London, being, perhaps, more educated and having more learning than the two eldest, and earned * Swift, who might just as well be set down as a merely comic (i. e. that which is understood by the modern and somewhat peurile word funny) writer, as Hogarth solely as a caricaturist, seemed to have entertained the same ideas as Lamb. "How I want thee, humorous Hogart! A Character, &c., of the " Legion Club," 173. he adds, "my exercises at school were more remarkable for the ornaments which adorned them than for the exercise itself. In the former I soon found that blockheads, with better memories, would soon surpass me; but for the latter I was particularly distinguished." With such an intuition the choice he made was a happy one. Demi-lions, a precarious living as a corrector for the press. He married one whose name or kindred no one has mentioned; kept a small school in Ship Court, Old Bailey, and having in vain sought distinction as an author, sank under disappointed hope and incessant labour, and died in 1721, leaving one son and two daughters, Ann and Mary. As soon as William could be pro-griffins, hydras, cockatrices, and seaperly called master of his name, he, like the poet Malloch, who called himself Mallet, and the author Foe, who insisted on the "De" before his name, determined to improve its euphony by adding the final "h." The troubles of his father had an effect upon the boy which we cannot regret. The father 66 lions, and all the fabulous monsters of heraldry exercised his young hand, and gave it facility and precision. Before his apprenticeship, the long term of seven years, had expired, he had gone beyond these things, and had conceived the great ambition of being an engraver on copper-plate. Engraving on copwas a scholar and a man of varied ac-per was at twenty years of age my quirements, but the son refused to make utmost ambition. To attain this it was these his own. "I saw," he says, " the necessary that I should learn to draw difficulties under which my father la- something like nature." To arrive at boured; the many inconveniences he this desired end, he scouted the common endured from his dependence, living path of continually copying other men's chiefly on his pen; and the cruel treat- works, which he considered was like ment he met with from booksellers and pouring wine out of one vessel into printers .. it was therefore con- another; he therefore early practised formable to my own wishes that I was himself in acquiring and retaining in taken from school, and served a long his memory, we use his own words, apprenticeship to a silver plate en- perfect ideas of the things he meant to graver." He was apprenticed to Ellis draw, considering that he "who could do Gamble, a silversmith, in Cranbourne so would have as clear a knowledge of Alley, Leicester Square. The place the figure as he who can write freely has disappeared in the recent improve- hath of the twenty-five letters of the ments, but one side of Cranbourne Street marks the spot where it stood. The profession which he embraced consists not only in engraving spoons and forks with crests or cyphers, but also in ornamenting the larger and more costly articles of plate, and in engraving thereon the armorial bearings of the possessors. It includes, therefore, or should include, a knowledge of heraldry, and, indeed, the silver engravers of that day were also the heraldic engravers. Hugh Clark, the author of the best small introduction to heraldry which we have, was a silver engraver, and the book-plates of the nobility were done by artists on silver. Many of these done by Hogarth himself are now in the portfolios of collectors, regarded as objects of great value and curiosity. The taste which led Hogarth to choose such an occupation was manifested at a very early age, even when a mere child he was employed at every possible opportunity in making drawings. He learnt not to write, but to "draw the alphabet with great correctness," and alphabet, and their infinite combinations." Filled with this, he began to turn every opportunity to account, and to sketch almost everything he had seen, carrying the idea away in his retentive memory. If, however, a very singular face struck him, he would, rather than lose its expression, copy it on the nail of his thumb, and carry it home to enlarge upon at leisure. Like the present Præ-Raphaelites he went at once to nature. "Înstead of burthening the memory with musty rules, or tiring the eye with copying dry or damaged pictures, I have ever found studying from nature the shortest and safest way of obtaining knowledge in my art." We quote these sentences, and linger thus upon the threshold of his life, in the hopes that they may perhaps inspire some young devotee of art with a determination of following out so good a plan, and may strengthen a preconceived determination to go to the fountain of originality and excellence, Nature herself. Keeping strictly to this determination, lington Gate." Those vicious amusements, then very prevalent, masquerades, are held up to ridicule; multitudes are represented as crowding to one of those assemblies, led by a figure, appropriately tricked out with cap and bells. On the summit of the gate, the arbiter elegantiarum of the day, William Kent,* an architect and artist, much in vogue, is brandishing his pencils, with Michael Angelo and Raphael for his supporters. But a more important personage, no less than Alexander Pope, also suffers from the artist's satire. The poet is Hogarth did not let slip any opportunity of exercising his art, under the tutorship of nature. On one occasion, he, in company with Hayman, the painter, strolled into a low pot-house, where two loose women were drunk, and quarrelling. One of them filled her mouth with brandy, and dexterously spirted it into the eyes of her antagonist. "See! see!" cried Hogarth, and taking out his note-book, sketched her. This figure afterwards was put to use, and forms a principal one in his Modern Midnight Conversation." Such an anecdote as this offends many, as it did introduced as "A. P-pe, plasterer, Horace Walpole, who from it has pre-whitewashing and bespattering;" drawn sumed that the painter was a man of as a deformed dwarf, Pope is mounted loose habits and low conversation, an on a scaffolding, whitewashing the gate, idea very far from the truth; but the conscientious biographer must chronicle a fact which throws a light upon the modus operandi of the artist. 66 66 whilst, by his awkwardness, he sends a Soon after the appearance of this plate the booksellers began to employ him as an illustrator, and draughtsman of embellishments and frontispieces. He illustrated Moutraye's "Travels," Apuleius' "Golden Ass," and Beaver's 66 After his apprenticeship was served, Hogarth had some difficulty in maintaining himself. 'Owing," he says, "to my desire for qualifying myself for engraving upon copper, &c., I could do little more than maintain myself till I was near thirty;" and he adds a sentence which does him honour: "but even then I was a punctual paymaster. I remember the time when I have gone moping into the city with scarce a shilling, but as soon as I have Military Punishments." He engraved, obtained ten guineas there for a plate, I moreover, subjects very foreign to his have returned home, put on my sword, power, viz.: his illustrations to Miland sallied forth again with all the con- ton's "Paradise Lost." In 1726, he was fidence of a man who has thousands in employed to illustrate Butler's " Huhis pockets." So it ever is with rising dibras;" little of the genius of the poet talent; at first hard to be distinguished, seems to have descended upon the ilit wins for its owner a scant and pre-lustrator. The plates are common carious existence; but when acknow- enough to this day, but the figures are ledged it reaps, as it should do, the certainly clumsy and awkward. At harvest which it deserves. The nature this time Hogarth was in such indifof Hogarth was too confident and bold ferent circumstances, that he sold to to sink under difficulties which would Bowles, the print-seller, some plates have daunted others. Richard Wilson just then completed by weight, at the repined and grew melancholy under rate of half-a-crown a pound, avoirduthe pressure of misfortune, and in pois. He next published a print of a another walk of art, young Chatterton curious nature, the trial of Bambridge, destroyed himself; but Hogarth, confi- the jailor of Newgate. This man was dent in the future, bore his disappoint- tried and found guilty of cruelty to his ments manfully, and finally triumphed prisoners, of extortion, and breach of over them. trust. The figure of Bambridge has The first work of much merit which appeared from his graver, was called "The Taste of the Town," published in 1724. This was a legitimate caricature, and the prevalent follies were terribly lashed. Young satirists are always severe. The print is now termed "Bur *Kent's judgment was considered paramount in all things. Walpole relates that "so impetuous was fashion, that two great ladies prevailed on him to design their birthday gowns. The one he dressed in a petticoat decorated with other like a bronze, in a copper-coloured satin columns of the five orders of architecture; the with ornaments of gold." been highly praised by Horace Walpole is wonderfully like. This excellent man for the expression of villany, fear, and having laid out his entire fortune in the working of conscience it contains. acts of benevolence, was reduced to "If this was a portrait," says Walpole, great poverty in his old age. To the "it is the most striking ever painted- honour of the nation, an annuity of if it was not, it is still finer." Another one hundred pounds was purchased and caricature of his old enemy-Kent, pro- presented to him. On receiving it he cured Hogarth the friendship of Sir said, "I did not waste the wealth which J. Thornhill, who regarded Kent as an I possessed in self-indulgence or vain opponent, and in 1829, on the 23rd of expense, and in my old age, I am not March, our artist, then in his 32nd ashamed to own that I am poor." A year, married Jane, the only daughter second portrait of remark is that of of Sir James. This match, not an im- Fielding, the novelist, painted from prudent one on the part of the lady, who recollection, from a paper cutting, and had passed the bloom of youth, was un- from the mimicry of Garrick dressed in dertaken without the consent of her the departed author's clothes. So runs parents, and her father was offended. the story. Fielding himself, a rare At the time Hogarth was scarcely con- instance among men of any celebrity, sidered a painter, and Sir James was never sat for his portrait. A third serjeant and history-painter to the portrait brings us closely home to our king, he therefore considered the match subject, and is that of the notorious beneath his daughter's rank. Two John Wilkes. It has been styled a years, however, and Hogarth's increas- caricature, but is in fact so little so that ing fame, served to appease Thornhill's Wilkes himself owned the likeness. anger. The entreaties of his wife, the "I am growing," he writes, "every day submission of his daughter, and the more and more like my portrait by rising reputation of his son-in-law, were Hogarth." The portrait is the work of the arguments which prevailed. Ho- a genius, and speaks for itself. The garth laid aside his satiric designs, took notorious author of the "Essays on a house in Leicester Fields, and com- Woman," the chairman of the "H-1menced the profession of portrait fire Club," and one of the most profane, painter-an art in which, to say the yet able men of the day, is seated in truth, he was not qualified to succeed an easy and not ungraceful attitude, largely, wanting grace and prettiness with a wand in his hand, at the top of in his portraits, and being a man which is a Phrygian cap, bearing that whose talent was certainly not flatter- word which was by the mob so often ing, nor his talent adapted to look on coupled with his own name, Wilkes vanity without a sneer.' His facility and Liberty." The portrait is correct, of catching likenesses, however, drew but the touch of the artist has prehim a considerable quantity of business served scarcely anything human in the for some time, and he also added face, which reveals only the sensualist novelty to his art by painting small and the fiend. The sinister eyes, the conversational pictures, which he says slightly open mouth, the wig, with its succeeded for a few years, but even curls so placed as to look like horns, this he says, was "but a less kind of all proclaim sensuality and hypocrisy, drudgery, and as I could not bring and the demon stands confessed. Wilkes myself to act like some of my brethren, has lately had his champions, and there and make it a sort of manufactory, to is little doubt that he was not so deeply be carried on by the help of back- sunk in every vice as some have repregrounds and drapery painters, it was sented him, but that he was a profligate not sufficiently profitable to pay the and abandoned man there is little doubt, expenses my family required." The and the portrait by Hogarth will, to best of the portraits he painted at this use the words of Pope, transmit him to time, is perhaps, that of Captain Coram, posterity, the 66 philanthropic founder of the Foundling Hospital. Captain Coram, as represented in Hogarth's portrait, has a dignity and sweet benevolence in his face, which we hear from contemporary authority was not in the original; yet the portrait "Damned to everlasting fame." The last portrait which can be mentioned here is that of "Garrick as Richard III." After working for some time at these, he designed and etched the first portion of the "Harlot's Progress," |