Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/625

1760.] sale, but put forth an advertisement in such caustic terms, as he reflected on the result of his former auction, that he effectually kept away purchasers, and only obtained a hundred and twenty pounds for what Mr. Angerstein afterwards gave a thousand pounds for. These are now in the National Gallery, as well as his own portrait. His "March to Finchley" being sent for the royal inspection, be impressed George II. with the idea that it was a caricature of his guards, that, though the engraving of it was dedicated to him, he ordered the picture out of his sight, with expressions of great indignation. Hogarth quietly substituted the name of the king of Prussia in the dedication, as "an encourager of the arts." He presented the picture to the Foundling Hospital, where it remains.

Soon after appeared his twelve plates of "Industry and Idleness," and in 1753 he published a work called "The Analysis of Beauty," in which he attempted to prove that the foundation of beauty and grace consists in a flowing, serpentine line. He gave numerous examples of it, and supported his theory with much ingenious argument. The book brought down upon him a perfect tempest of critical abuse from his envious and enraged contemporaries. In 1757 he visited France, and being engaged in sketching in Calais, he was seized and underwent very rough treatment from "the poorest nation in the world," under an impression that he was employed by the English government to make drawings of the fortifications. This adventure he has commemorated in his picture of "Calais Gate." In the following year he painted his "Sigismunda."

Besides those enumerated, "The Four Election Scenes," "The Enraged Musician," "The Distressed Poet," and "England and France"—all made familiar to the public by engravings—are amongst his best works. In 1730 occurred the first exhibition of pictures by British artists, the works of Hogarth being an actuating cause. He had presented to the Foundling Hospital, besides his "March to Finchley," his "Marriage a la Mode," and his "Moses brought before Pharaoh's Daughter," his most successful picture of that kind; and Hayman and other artists having followed his example, a company of artists conceived the idea that an exhibition of the works of living artists might be made profitable. Hogarth fell readily into the plan, till it was proposed to add to this a royal academy of arts, which he opposed with all his might. Hogarth had the more English idea that the arts would succeed best by public rather than royal favour, and for the time he prevailed, and, to mark his on a strong feeling on the subject, he etched a couple of satiric vignettes, showing the mischief of royal patronage, and these were printed in their catalogue of the following year. In his later years he was engaged in a bitter quarrel with John Wilkes, the politician, and Churchill, the satirist, in which he as relentlessly caricatured them with his pencil as they abused him with tongue and pen. The following remarks on Hogarth's style and merit as an artist, by Dr. Waagen, give a just idea of his merits:—"What surprises me," he says, "is the eminent merit of these works as paintings, since Hogarth's own countryman, Horace Walpole, says he had but little merit as a painter. All the most delicate shades of his humour are marked in his heads with consummate skill and freedom, and every other part executed with the same decision, and, for the most part, with care. Though the colouring, on the whole, is weak, and the pictures, being painted in dead colours with hardly any glazing, have more the look of water-colours than of oil paintings, yet the colouring of the flesh is often powerful, and the other colours are disposed with so much refined feeling for harmonious effect, that, in this respect, these pictures stand in a far higher rank than many of the productions of the modern English school, with its glaring, inharmonious colours." Hogarth died in 1764, and was buried in the churchyard at Chiswick, where also lies by his side his wife, who survived him twenty-five years.

SCULPTURE. In sculpture at this period we stood much lower than in painting. Here we had no Hogarth, nor even a Thornhill. All that was of any value in this art proceeded from the chisels of foreigners, and even in that what an immense distance from the grand simplicity of the ancients! The sculpture of Italy and France was in the ascendant, but Bernini and Republic had little in common with Phidias and Praxiteles, and our own sculptors presented a melancholy contrast to the work of artists of the worst age of Greece or Rome; we have scarcely a name that is worth mentioning. The best of our native sculptors was John Bushnell, who was employed by Wren to execute the statues of the kings at Temple Bar; and Francis Bird, who was also employed later by Wren to execute "The Conversion of St. Paul," in the pediment of the new cathedral, the bas-reliefs under the portico, and the group in front, all of a very ordinary character. His best work is the monument of Dr. Busby in the transept of Westminster Abbey. Besides this he executed the monument of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, also at Westminster, and the bronze statue of Henry VI., in the quadrangle of Eton College, both very indifferent. Gibbs and Bird executed the ponderous and tasteless monument of Holles, duke of Newcastle, at Westminster, and that fine old minster is disgraced by a crowd of still more contemptible productions at this period. These can only be equalled in wretchedness by the works of a trading school, who supplied copies in lead of ancient gods, goddesses, shepherds, shepherdesses, &c., for the gardens of the nobility, which soon swarmed in legions in all the gardens and areas in and around the metropolis. Amongst the chief dealers in this traffic were Cheere and Charpentier, who employed foreign artists, even, for such images, and it was the fortune of Republic to commence his English career with the former of these traders.

The three chief foreigners of this period were Rysbrach, Scheemakers, and Roubiliac, who were copyists of the French sculptors Coysevox, Bouchardon, and Le Moyne, as they had been of Bernini. Rysbrach, like Roubiliac, was at first employed by the image-makers, and he then worked for the architects. Kent and Gibbs employed him, and took the credit of his skill; but he soon asserted his own right, and became the leading sculptor in this country for a long time. He executed the monuments of Sir Issac Newton and lord Stanhope, which bear the name of Kent, and that of Prior, in conjunction with Coysevox, which bears the name of Gibbs. To these may be added those of admiral Vernon and Sir Godfrey Kneller, all at Westminster; that of George II., at Greenwich, and of Dr. Radcliffe, at Oxford. They are all