this work is not without its peculiar merit; and as it was written against a set of critics whom the world was willing enough to blame, the public read it with their ufual indulgence. In this performance he fhewed a peculiar happinefs of throwing his thoughts, if we may fo exprefs it, into poetical paragraphs; fo that the fentence fwells to the break or conclufion, as we find in profe. His fame being greatly extended by these productions, his improvement in morals did not feem by any means to correfpond: but while his writings amufed the town, his actions in fome measure difgufted it. He now quitted his wife, with whom he had cohabited for many years, and refigning his gown, and all clerical functions, commenced a complete man of the town, got drunk, frequented ftews, and giddy with falfe praife, thought his talents a fufficient atonement for all his follies. Some people have been unkind enough to fay, that Mrs. Churchill gave the firft juft caufe of feparation, but nothing can be more false than this rumour; and we can affure the public, that her conduct in private life, and among her acquaintances, was ever irreproachable. In fome measure to palliate the abfurdities of his conduct, he now undertook a poem called Night, written upon a general fubject indeed, but upon falfe principles; namely, that whatever our follies are, we should never undertake to conceal them. This, and Mr. Churchill's other poems, being fhewn to Mr. Johnfon, and his opinion being afked concerning them, he allowed them but little merit; which being told to the author, he refolved to requite this private opinion with a public one. In his next poem therefore of the Ghost, he has drawn this gentleman under the character of Pompofo; and those who difliked Mr. Johnfon, allowed it to have merit. But our poet is now dead, and justice may be heard without the imputation of envy; though we entertain no fmall opinion of Mr. Churchill's abilities, yet they are neither of a fize nor correctness to compare with thofe of the author of the Rambler; a work which has, in fome places, enlarged the circle of moral enquiry, and fixed more precife landmarks to guide philofophy in her inveftigation of truth. Mr. Johnfon's only reply to Mr. Churchill's abufe was, that he thought him a fhallow fellow in the beginning, and that he could fay nothing worse of him still. The poems of Night, and of the Ghost, had not the rapid fale the author expected; but his Prophecy of Famine foon made ample amends for the late paroxysm in his fame. Night was written upon a general fubject, and for that reafon no way alluring; the Ghoft was written in eight fyllable verse, in which kind of meafure he was not very fuccessful; but the Prophecy of Famine had all thofe circumstances of time, place, and party to recommend it, that the author could defire; or, let us ufe the words of Mr. Wilkes, who faid, before its publication, that he was fure it muft take, as it was at once perfonal, poetical, and political. It had accordingly a rapid and an extenfive fale; and it was often afferted by his admirers, that Mr. Churchill was a better poet than Mr. Pope. This exaggerated adu lation, lation, as it had before corrupted his morals, now began to impair his mind; feveral fucceeding pieces were published, which being written without effort, are read without pleasure. His Gotham, Independence, The Times, feem merely to be written by a man who defired to avail himself of the avidity of the public curiofity in his favour, and are rather aimed at the pockets than the hearts of his readers. How fhall I trace this thoughtlefs man through the latter part of his conduct; in which, leaving all the milder forms of life, he became entirely guided by his native turbulence of temper, and permitted his mind to harrafs his body thro' all the various modes of debauchery. His feducing a young lady, and afterwards living with her in fhameless adultery; his beating a man formerly his friend, without any previous provocation, are well known. Yet let us not be fevere in judging; happy were it for him, perhaps, if ours were the only tribunal at which he was to plead for those irregularities, which his mental powers rendered but more culpable. afterwards, as far as lay in his power, a benefactor. His father, being one of the lower orders of tradefmen, had no higher views for his fon than binding him apprentice to an engraver of pewter pots, which, it must be owned, is, of all species of the painting art, the loweft. In this humble fituation Hogarth wrought through his apprenticeship, and feemed, through the whole of his time, to have no higher views than thofe of his contemptible employment. Upon leaving his apprenticeship, he refolved upon higher aims, and purfued every method of improving himself in the art of drawing, of which his former master had given him but a very rude conception. The ambition of the poor is ever productive of diftrefs; fo it was with Hogarth, who, while he was furnishing materials for his fubfequent excellence, felt all that contempt and indigence could produce. I have heard it from an intimate friend of his, that being one day arrefted, for fo trifling a fum as twenty fhillings, and being bailed by one of his friends, in order to be revenged of the woman who arrefted him (for it was his landlady), he drew her picture as ugly as poffible, or, as painters exprefs it, in Caricatura; and in that fingle figure gave marks of the dawn of fuperior genius. a How long he continued in this ftate of indigence and obfcurity, I cannot learn; but the first time he diftinguished himself as painter, was in the Figures of the Thefe are Wandsworth Assembly. drawn from the life, and without any circumftances of his burlesque manner. The faces are faid to be extremely extremely like, and the colouring is rather better than in fome of his beft fubfequent pieces. But we muft obferve in general of this excellent painter, that his colouring is dry and difpleafing, and that he could never get rid of the appellation of a manerift, which was given him early in life. His next piece was probably that excellent picture of the Pool of Bethesda, which he prefented to St. Bartholomew's hofpital, in which parish, as we have already faid, he was born. We have hitherto only feen him in grave history paintings; a walk in which he has many competitors; but he foon launched out into an unbeaten track, in which he excelled all that ever came before, or have fince fucceeded him. His being first employed to draw defigns for a new edition of Hudibras, was the inlet to his future excellence in the burlefque. We mean in his life pictures, for fuch we will venture to call them. It is unjuft to give these the character either of burlefque or grotefque pieces, fince both the one and the other convey to us a departure from nature, to which Hogarth almoft always ftrictly adhered. The work of this kind, which firft appeared, was his Harlot's Progrefs. The ingenious Abbé Du Bos has often complained, that no history painter of his time went through a series of actions, and thus, like an hiftorian, painted the fucceffive fortunes of an hero from the cradle to the grave. What Du Bos withed to fee done, Hogarth performed. He launches out his young adventurer a fimple girl upon the town, and conducts her through all the viciffitudes of wretchednefs to a premature death. This was painting to the reafon and to the heart: none had ever before made the art fubfervient to the purpofes of morality and inftruction; a book like this is fitted to every foil and every obferver, and he that runs may read. The Rake's Progrefs fucceeded the former, which, though not equal to it, came fhort only of that fingle excellence, in which no other could come near him that way. His great excellence confifted in what we may term the furniture of his pieces; for as in fublime fubjects, and hiftory pieces, the fewness of little circumftances capable of taking the fpectator's attention from the principal figures, is reckoned a merit; fo in life-painting, a great variety of thofe little domef tic images gives the whole a greater degree of force and refemblance. Thus in the Harlot's Progress we are not difpleafed with James Dalton's wig-box on the bedtefter of her lodgings in Drury lane; particularly too if it be remembered, that this James Dalton was a noted highwayman of that time. In the pieces of Marriage Alamode, what can be more finely or fatirically conceived, than his introducing a gouty lord, who carries his pride even into his infirmities, and has his very crutches marked with a coronet." But a comment or panegyric on pictures is of all fubjects the most difpleafing; and yet the life before us offers little elfe. We may indeed, in the manner of biographers, obferve that he travelled to Paris for improvement; but scarce any circumftance remains by which he was diftinguished in this journey from the rest of mankind who go go thither without defign, and return without remark. Perhaps his general character of the French may be thought worth remembering; which was, that their houfes were gilt and b-t. 1 About the year 1750 he published his Analysis of Beauty, which, though it was ftrongly oppofed, yet was replete with thofe ftrokes which ever characterise the works of genius. In this performance he fhews, by a variety of examples, that round fwelling figures are moft pleafing to the eye; and the truth of this has of late been further confirmed by an ingenious writer on the fame fubject. Little elfe remains of the circumstances of this admirable man's life, except his late conteft with Mr. Churchill: the circumftances of this are too recent in every memory to be repeated. It is well known that both met at Weftminfter-hall; Hogarth, to catch a ridiculous likeness of the poet; and Churchill, to furnish a natural defcription of the painter. Hogarth's picture of Churchill was but little efteemed, and Churchill's letter to Hogarth has died with the fubject; fome pretend, however, to fay, that it broke the latter's heart; but this we can, from good authority, fay is not true; indeed, the report falls of itfelf; for we may as well fay that Hogarth's pencil was as efficacious as the poet's pen, fince neither long furvived the conteft. and has a wife and féveral fmall children, whom he endeavours to maintain by great application to his bufinefs, and by teaching children to read and write, which is all the learning he ever received himfelf, being taken from fchool at feven years old. He lives at the village of Rowley, near Hales-Owen, about feven miles from Birmingham in Staffordshire, and two miles from an eftate of the late Mr. William Shenftone, called the Leafowes. After he was taken from school he had no means of gratifying his infatiable thirst after reading and knowledge but by procuring the magazines with fuch little perquifites as he could pick up, till about five years ago, when an accident brought him acquainted with Mr. Shenstone. That gentleman, who, by improving nature with a true tafte of her beauties, has rendered the Leafowes the admiration of all who have feen the place, used to fuffer his delightful walks to be open to every body, till the mifchief that was done by the thoughtless, or the malicious, obliged him to exclude all but fuch as fhould have his fpecial permiffion on a proper application for that purpofe. Woodhoufe, who was more a lofer by this prohibition than almost any other perfon whom it excluded, applied to Mr. Shenftone, for leave to indulge his imagination among the fcenes, which had fo often delighted him before, by a copy of verfes. This immediately procured him the liberty he folicited, and introduced him to Mr. Shenftone himself. The poem appeared to be fo extraordinary for a perfon in fo obfcure a flation, who had had been taken from a school at feven years old, and had fince read nothing but magazines, that he offered him the ufe not only of his garden, but his library. Woodhoufe, however, did not fuffer his love of poetry or his defire of knowledge to intrude upon the duties of his ftation: as his work employed only his hands, and left his mind at liberty, he used to place a pen and ink at his fide, while the laft was in his lap, and when he had made a couplet he wrote it down on his knee; his feafons for reading, he borrowed not from thofe which others of his rank ufually devote to tipling, or fkittles, but from the hours that would other wife have been loft in fleep. The verfification of this extraordinary writer is remarkably harmonious, his language is pure, his images poetical, and his fentiments uncommonly tender and elegant. His poem to Mr. Shenftone was written when he was about three and twenty; and tho' in the character of a fuitor, and with a proper fenfe of the inferiority of his ftation, yet there is a consciousness of that equality of nature, which petitioners and dedicators too often proftitute or forget. After an addrefs to Mr. Shenftone, in which he encourages himfelf by confidering the general kindness of his character, he fays: Shall he, benevolent as wife, difdain I boaft the fame original divine : Tho' niggard fate with-held her fordid ore, Yet lib'ral nature gave her better store ; Whofe influence early did my mind inspire To read her works, and praise her mighty Sire. A copy of this poem, and of another addreffed to the fame gentleman, were fent by Mr. Shenftone's direction, with fome manufcript poems of his own, to a friend in London; this friend fhewed them to fome of his acquaintance, and a small collection was made for the author, which produced an ode on Benevolence : By this ode he appears to have profited by Mr. Shenfione's library, for he talks of Palladian skill, Sappho's art, Phidias's chiffel, and the pencil of Titian. But his force of thought, and fkill in poetical expreflion, appear to greater advantage in a poem of 50 ftanzas, each confifting of 4 verfes, intituled Spring: this contains a ftriking picture of the infelicities of his fituation, and the keennefs and delicacy of his fenfations. After regretting the vacant chearfulness of his earlier days, before domeftic connections condemned him to inceffant labour, and abforbed him in care and folitude, he exhibits this picture of the pain and pleasure that are mingled in his conjugal and paternal character. |