ON HOGARTH'S "MARRIAGE A LA MODE."

THE superiority of the pictures of Hogarth to the common prints is confined chiefly to the "Marriage à la mode." We shall attempt to illustrate a few of their most striking excellences, more particularly with reference to the expression of character. Their merits are indeed so prominent, and have been so often discussed, that it may be thought difficult to point out any new beauties; but they contain so much truth of nature, they present the objects to the eye under so many aspects and bearings, admit of so many constructions, and are so pregnant with meaning, that the subject is in a manner inexhaustible.

Boccaccio, the most refined and sentimental of all the novel-writers, has been stigmatised as a mere inventor of licentious tales, because readers in general have only seized on those things in his works which were suited to their own taste, and have reflected their own grossness back upon the writer. So it has happened that the majority of critics having been most struck with the strong and decided expression in Hogarth, the extreme delicacy and subtle gradations of character in his pictures have almost entirely escaped them. In the first picture of the "Marriage à la mode" the three figures of the young nobleman, his intended bride, and her inamorato the lawyer, show how much Hogarth excelled in the power of giving soft and effeminate expression. They have, however, been less noticed than the other figures, which tell a plainer story and convey a more palpable moral. Nothing can

be more finely managed than the differences of character in these delicate personages. The beau sits smiling at the looking-glass, with a reflected simper of self-admiration and a languishing inclination of the head, while the rest of his body is perked up on his high heels with a certain air of tiptoe elevation. He is the Narcissus of the reign of George II., whose powdered peruke, ruffles, gold lace, and patches divide his self-love unequally with his own person-the true Sir Plume of his day :

"Of amber-lidded snuff-box justly vain,

And the nice conduct of a clouded cane."

There is the same felicity in the figure and attitude of the bride courted by the lawyer. There is the utmost flexibility and yielding softness in her whole person, a listless languor and tremulous suspense in the expression of her face.

It is the precise look and air which Pope has given to his favourite, Belinda, just at the moment of the Rape of the Lock." The heightened glow, the forward intelligence, and loosened soul of love in the same face, in the assignation scene before the masquerade, form a fine and instructive contrast to the delicacy, timidity, and coy reluctance expressed in the first. The lawyer in both pictures is much the same— perhaps too much so; though even this unmoved, unaltered appearance may be designed as characteristic. In both cases he has "a person and a smooth dispose, framed to make woman false." He is full of that easy good-humour and easy good opinion of himself with which the sex are delighted. There is not a sharp angle in his face to obstruct his success or give a hint of doubt or difficulty. His whole aspect is round and rosy, lively and unmeaning, happy without the least expense of thought, careless and inviting, and conveys a perfect idea of the uninterrupted glide and pleasing murmur of the soft periods that flow from his tongue.

The expression of the bride in the morning scene is the most highly seasoned, and at the same time the most vulgar in the series. The figure, face, and attitude of the husband

are inimitable. Hogarth has with great skill contrasted the pale countenance of the husband with the yellow-whitish colour of the marble chimney-piece behind him in such a manner as to preserve the fleshy tone of the former. The airy splendour of the view of the inner room in this picture is probably not exceeded by any of the productions of the Flemish School.

The young girl in the third picture, who is represented as the victim of fashionable profligacy, is unquestionably one of the artist's chefs-d'œuvre. The exquisite delicacy of the painting is only surpassed by the felicity and subtlety of the conception. Nothing can be more striking than the contrast between the extreme softness of her person and the hardened indifference of her character. The vacant stillness, the docility to vice, the premature suppression of youthful sensibility, the doll-like mechanism of the whole figure, which seems to have no other feeling but a sickly sense of pain-show the deepest insight into human nature, and into the effects of those refinements in depravity by which it has been good-naturedly asserted that "vice loses half its evil by losing all its grossness." The story of this picture is in some parts very obscure and enigmatical. It is certain that the nobleman is not looking straight forward to the quack, whom he seems to have been threatening with his cane, but that his eyes are turned up with an ironical leer of triumph to the procuress. The commanding attitude and size of this woman—the swelling circumference of her dress, spread out like a turkey-cock's feathers-the fierce, ungovernable, inveterate malignity of her countenance, which hardly needs the comment of the clasp-knife to explain her purpose-are all admirable in themselves, and still more so they are opposed to the mute insensibility, the as elegant negligence of the dress, and the childish figure of the girl who is supposed to be her protégée. As for the quack, there can be no doubt entertained about him. His face seems as if it were composed of salve, and his features exhibit all the chaos and confusion of the most gross, ignorant, and impudent empiricism.

The gradations of ridiculous affectation in the music scene are finely imagined and preserved. The preposterous, overstrained admiration of the lady of quality; the sentimental, insipid, patient delight of the man with his hair in papers and sipping his tea; the pert, smirking, conceited, half-distorted approbation of the figure next to him; the transition to the total insensibility of the round face in profile, and then to the wonder of the negro boy at the rapture of his mistress, form a perfect whole. The sanguine complexion and flame-coloured hair of the female virtuoso throw an additional light on the character. This is lost in the print. The continuing the red colour of the hair into the back of the chair has been pointed out as one of those instances of alliteration in colouring of which these pictures are everywhere full. The gross, bloated appearance of the Italian singer is well relieved by the hard features of the instrumental performer behind him, which might be carved of wood. The negro boy holding the chocolate, both in expression, colour, and execution, is a masterpiece. The gay, lively derision of the other negro boy, playing with the Acteon, is an ingenious contrast to the profound amazement of the first. Some account has already been given of the two lovers in this picture. It is curious to observe the infinite activity of mind which the artist displays on every occasion. An instance occurs in the present picture. He has so contrived the papers in the hair of the bride as to make them look almost like a wreath of half-blown flowers, while those which he has placed on the head of the musical amateur very much resemble a cheval de frise of horns, which adorn and fortify the lack-lustre expression and mild resignation of the face beneath.

The night scene is inferior to the rest of the series. The attitude of the husband, who is just killed, is one in which it would be impossible for him to stand or even to fall. It resembles the loose pasteboard figures they make for children. The characters in the last picture, in which the wife dies, are all masterly. We would particularly refer to the captious, petulant self-sufficiency of the apothecary, whose face and figure are

constructed on exact physiognomical principles, and to the fine example of passive obedience and non-resistance in the servant, whom he is taking to task, and whose coat of green-and-yellow livery is as long and melancholy as his face. The disconsolate look, the haggard eyes, the open mouth, the comb sticking in the hair, the broken, gapped teeth, which, as it were, hitch in an answer—everything about him denotes the utmost perplexity and dismay. The harmony and gradations of colour in this picture are uniformly preserved with the greatest nicety, and are well worthy the attention of the artist.

It has been observed that Hogarth's pictures are exceedingly unlike any other representations of the same kind of subjects— that they form a class, and have a character peculiar to themselves. It may be worth while to consider in what this general distinction consists.

In the first place, they are, in the strictest sense, historical pictures; and if what Fielding says be true, that his novel of Tom Jones ought to be regarded as an epic prose poem, because it contained a regular development of fable, manners, character, and passion, the compositions of Hogarth will, in like manner, be found to have a higher claim to the title of epic pictures than many which have of late arrogated that denomination to themselves. When we say that Hogarth treated his subjects historically, we mean that his works represent the manners and humours of mankind in action, and their characters by varied expression. Everything in his pictures has life and motion in it. Not only does the business of the scene never stand still, but every feature and muscle is put into full play; the exact feeling of the moment is brought out and carried to its utmost height, and then instantly seized and stamped on the canvas for ever. The expression is always taken en passant, in a state of progress or change, and, as it were, at the salient point. Besides the excellence of each individual face, the reflection of the expression from face to face, the contrast and struggle of particular motives and feelings in the different actors in the scene-as of anger, contempt, laughter, compassion—are conveyed in the happiest and most lively manner. His figures