Cured thee of starting in thy sleep? or made The darkness pleasant when thou wak'st at midnight? With even step and quiet cheerfulness? Yet, yet, thou mayst be saved It is the fashion with those who cry up the great Historical School in this country, at the head of which Sir Joshua Reynolds is placed, to exclude Hogarth from that school, as an artist of an inferior and vulgar class. Those persons seem to me to confound the painting of subjects in common or vulgar life with the being a vulgar artist. The quantity of thought which Hogarth crowds into every picture would alone unvulgarise every subject which he might choose. Let us take the lowest of his subjects, the print called Gin Lane. Here is plenty of poverty and low stuff to disgust upon a superficial view, and accordingly a cold spectator feels himself immediately disgusted and repelled. I have seen many turn away from it, not being able to bear it. The same persons would, perhaps, have looked with great complacency upon Poussin's celebrated picture of the Plague at Athens. Disease and death and bewildering terror, in Athenian garments, are endurable, and come, as the delicate critics express it, within the "limits of pleasurable sensation." But the scenes of their own St. Giles's, delineated by their own countryman, are too shocking to think of. Yet if we could abstract our minds from the fascinating colours of the picture, and forget the coarse execution (in some respects) of the print, intended as it was to be a cheap plate, accessible to the poorer sort of people, for whose instruction it was done, I think we could have no hesitation in cónferring the palm of superior genius upon Hogarth, comparing this work of his with Poussin's picture. There is more of imagination in it-that power which draws all things to one-which makes things animate and inanimate, beings with their attributes, subjects and their accessories, take one colour, and serve to one effect. Everything in the print, to use a vulgar expression, tells. Every part is full of "strange images of death." It is perfectly amazing and astounding to look at. Not only the two prominent figures-the woman and the half-dead man-which are as terrible as anything which Michael Angelo ever drew, but everything else in the print contributes to bewilder and stupify, the very houses, as I heard a friend of mine express it, tumbling all about in various directions, seem drunk-seem absolutely reeling from the effect of that diabolical spirit of frenzy which goes forth over the whole composition. To show the poetical and almost prophetical conception in the artist, one little circumstance may serve. Not content with the dying and dead figures which he has strewed in profusion over the proper scene of the action, he shows you what (of a kindred nature) is passing beyond it. Close by the shell in which, by the direction of the parish beadle, a man is depositing his wife, is an old wall, which, partaking of the universal decay around it, is tumbling to pieces. Through a gap in this wall are seen three figures, which appear to make a part in some funeral procession which is passing by on the other side of the wall, out of the sphere of the composition. This extending of the interest beyond the bounds of the subject could only have been conceived by a great genius. Shakspere, in his description of the Painting of the Trojan War, in his Tarquin and Lucrece,' has introduced a similar device, where the painter made a part stand for the whole : "For much imaginary work was there, Conceits deceitful, so compact, so kind, This he well calls imaginary work, where the spectator must meet the artist in his conceptions half-way; and it is peculiar to the confidence of high genius alone to trust so much to spectators or readers. Lesser artists show everything distinct and full, as they require an object to be made out to themselves before they can comprehend it. When I think of the power displayed in this (I will not hesitate to say) sublime print, it seems to me the extreme narrowness of system alone, and of that rage for classification, by which, in matters of taste at least, we are perpetually perplexing instead of arranging our ideas, that would make us concede to the work of Poussin above mentioned, and deny to this of Hogarth, the name of a grand serious composition. We are for ever deceiving ourselves with names and theories. We call one man a great historical painter, because he has taken for his subjects kings or great men, or transactions over which time has thrown a grandeur. We term another the painter of common life, and set him down in our minds for an artist of an inferior class, without reflecting whether the quantity of thought shown by the latter may not much more than level the distinction which their mere choice of subjects may seem to place between them; or whether, in fact, from that very common life a great artist may not extract as deep an interest as another man from that which we are pleased to call history. I entertain the highest respect for the talents and virtues of Reynolds, but I do not like that his reputation should overshadow and stifle the merits of such a man as Hogarth, nor that to mere names and classifications we should be content to sacrifice one of the greatest ornaments of England. I would ask the most enthusiastic admirer of Reynolds, whether in the countenances of his Staring and Grinning Despair, which he has given us for the faces of Ugolino and dying Beaufort, there be anything comparable to the expression which Hogarth has put into the face of his broken-down Rake, in the last plate but one of the 'Rake's Progress,' where a letter from the manager is brought to him to say that his play "will not do!" Here all is easy, natural, undistorted; but withal, what a mass of woe is here accumulated!—the long history of a mis-spent life is compressed into the countenance as plainly as the series of plates before had told it; here is no attempt at Gorgonian looks, which are to freeze the beholder, no grinning at the antique bed-posts, no facemaking, or consciousness of the presence of spectators in or out of the picture, but grief kept to a man's self-a face retiring from notice with the shame which great anguish sometimes brings with it- -a final leave taken of hope—the coming on of vacancy and stupefaction—a beginning alienation of mind looking like tranquillity. Here is matter for the mind of the beholder to feed on for the hour together-matter to feed and fertilise the mind. It is too real to admit one thought about the power of the artist who did it. When we compare the expression in subjects which so fairly admit of comparison, and find the superiority so clearly to remain with Hogarth, shall the mere contemptible difference of the scene of it being laid, in the one case in our Fleet or King's Bench Prison, and in the other in the State Prison of Pisa, or the bed-room of a cardinal-or that the subject of the one has never been authenticated, and the other is matter of history-so weigh down the real points of the comparison, as to induce us to rank the artist who has chosen the one scene or subject (though confessedly inferior in that which constitutes the soul of his art) in a class from which we exclude the better genius (who has happened to make choice of the other) with something like disgrace? 55.-OF THE INCONVENIENCE OF GREATNESS. MONTAIGNE. [THE Essays of Michel, Lord of Montaigne, offer a signal example of the power of genius to convert what belongs to the individual into matters of universal and lasting interest. It is nearly three hundred years ago that these Essays were written. This author was a gentleman living in the retirement of a remote province of France, while the violent feuds of Catholic and Protestant were going on all around him. Letters were little cultivated; the language was scarcely formed. Yet he produced a book which can never be antiquated, because it reflects, not the conventional opinions of his own semi-barbarous times, but the frank and genuine thoughts of his own mind upon large questions which affect humanity in every country and every age. There are things in Montaigne's writings that a good man would rather not read; but their general tendency is to cherish a sound practical philosophy, and to cultivate benevolent feelings. There is a capital English translation of Montaigne by Cotton, the friend of Isaac Walton; and an earlier one by Florio, an Italian, who lived in England at the end of the sixteenth century. Montaigne was born in 1533, and died in 1592.] Since we cannot attain unto it, let us revenge ourselves by railing at it; and yet it is not absolutely railing against anything to proclaim its defects, because they are in all things to be found, how beautiful or how much to be coveted soever. It has in general this manifest advantage, that it can grow less when it pleases, and has very near the absolute choice of both the one and the other condition. For a man does not fall |from all heights; there are several from which one may descend without falling down. It does indeed appear to me that we value it at too high a rate, and also over-value the resolution of those whom we have either seen or heard have contemned it, or displaced themselves of their own accord. Its essence is not evidently so commodious, that a man may not without a miracle refuse it: I find it a very hard thing to undergo misfortunes; but to be content with a competent measure of fortune, and to avoid greatness, I think a very easy matter. "T is, methinks, a I virtue to which I, who am none of the wisest, could, without any great endeavour, arrive. What, then, is to be expected from them that would yet put into consideration the glory attending this refusal, wherein there may lurk worse ambition than even in the desire itself and fruition of greatness? Forasmuch as ambition never comports itself better according to itself than when it proceeds by obscure and unfrequented ways, I incite my courage to patience, but I rein it as much as I can towards desire. I have as much to wish for as another, and allow my wishes as much liberty and indiscretion: but yet it never befell me to wish for either empire or royalty, for the eminency of those high and commanding fortunes. I do not aim that way; I love myself too well. When I think to grow greater, 't is but very moderately, and by a compelled and timorous advancement, such as is proper for me; in resolution, in prudence, in health, in beauty, and even in riches too. But this supreme reputation, and this mighty authority, oppress my imagination; and, quite contrary to some others, I should, peradventure, rather choose to be the second or third in Perigourd, than the first at Paris—at least, without lying, the third than the first at Paris. I would neither dispute, a miserable unknown, with a nobleman's porter, nor make crowds open in adoration as I pass. I am trained up to a moderate condition, as well by my choice as fortune; and have made it appear, in the whole conduct of my life and enterprises, that I have rather avoided, than otherwise, the climbing above the degree of fortune wherein God has placed me by my birth; all natural constitution is equally just and easy. My soul is so sneaking and mean, that I measure not good fortune by the height, but by the facility. But, if my heart be not great enough, 't is open enough to make amends at any one's request freely to lay open its weakness. Should any one put me upon comparing the life of L. Thorius Balbus, a brave man, handsome, learned, healthful, understanding, and abounding in all sorts of conveniences and pleasures, leading a quiet life, and all his own; his mind well prepared against death, superstition, pains, and other incumbrances of human necessity; dying at last in battle with his sword in his hand, for the defence of his country, on the one part; and on the other part, the life of M. Regulus, so great and high as is known to every one, and his end admirable; the one without name and without dignity, the other exemplary and glorious to a wonder: I should doubtless say as Cicero did, could I speak as well as he. But if I was to touch it in my own phrase, I should then also say, that the first is as much according to my capacity and desire, which I conform to my capacity, as the second is far beyond it; that I could not approach the last but with veneration, the other I would willingly attain by custom. But let us return to our temporal greatness, from which we are digressed. I disrelish all dominion, whether active or passive. Otanes, one of the seven who had right to pretend to the kingdom of Persia, did as I should willingly have done; which was, that he gave up to his concurrents his right of being promoted to it, either by election or by lot, provided that he and his might live in the empire out of all authority and subjection, those of the ancient laws excepted, and might enjoy all liberty that was not prejudicial to them, as impatient of commanding as of being commanded. The most painful and difficult employment in the world, in my opinion, is worthily to discharge the office of a king. I excuse more of their mistakes than men commonly do, in consideration of the intolerable weight of their function, which does astonish me. "T is hard to keep measure in so immeasurable a power. Yet so it is, that it is, to those who are not the best-natured men, a singular incitement to virtue to be seated in a place where you cannot do the least good that shall not be put upon record; and where the least benefit redounds to so many men; and where your talent of administration, like that of preachers, does principally address itself to the people, no very exact judge, easy to deceive, and easily content. There are few things wherein we can give a sincere judgment, by reason that there are few wherein we have not in some sort a particular interest. Superiority and inferiority, dominion and subjection, are bound to a natural envy and contest, and must necessarily perpetually |