Page:Anecdotes of painters, engravers, sculptors and architects, and curiosities of art (IA anecdotesofpaint01spoo).pdf/197



A short time before Hogarth was seized with the malady which deprived society of one of its brightest ornaments, he proposed to his matchless pencil the work he has entitled the Tail Piece. The first idea of this picture is said to have been started in company, while the convivial glass was circulating round his own table. "My next undertaking," said Hogarth, "shall be the end of all things." "If that is the case," replied one of his friends, "your business will be finished, or there will be an end to the painter." "The fact will be so," answered Hogarth, sighing heavily, "and therefore the sooner my work is done, the better." Accordingly he began the next day, and continued his design with a diligence that seemed to indicate an apprehension that he should not live to complete it. This however he did, and in the most ingenious manner, by grouping everything that could denote the end of all things: a broken bottle; an old broom worn to the stump; the butt-end of an old musket; a cracked bell; a bow unstrung; a crown tumbled to pieces; towers in ruins; the sign-post of a tavern called the World's End falling down; the moon in her wane; the map of the globe burning; a gibbet falling, the body gone, and the chains which held it dropping down; Phœbus and his horses lying dead in the clouds; a vessel wrecked; Time, with his hour-glass and scythe broken; a tobacco-pipe, with the last whiff of smoke going out; a play-book opened, with ex-*