Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

tion of the London Medical Journal, it would have been bet ter to have paffed it over.-To this collection no remarks are fubjoined.

The Afiatic Researches; Fordyce's Treatife on Digeftion; Dr. Auftin's Treatife on the Origin and component Parts of the Stone in the Bladder; fome Papers from the Journal de Phyfique, October 1791; and fome from the Aunals of Chemistry for Auguft and September 1791; Extracts from the Memoirs of the Royal Academy at Turin 1788, and 1789; as well as from the fecond Part of the Philofophical Tranf actions of last Year, are the other works analyfed in this part of the Journal. From the Medical News we fhall felect two or three articles.

Extract of a Letter from Venice, Sept. 10, 1791.

• A poor man, lying under the frightful tortures of the hydrophobia, was cured with fome draughts of vinegar, given him by miftake inftead of another potion. A phyfician of Padua, cal led count Leoniffa, got intelligence of this event at Udine, and tried the fame remedy upon a patient that was brought to the Padua hofpital, adminiftering him a pint of vinegar in the morning, another at noon, and a third at fun fet, and the man was speedily and perfectly cured.'

In the Gazzette Salutaire it is faid, that M. Dufresnoy has cured twenty-eight cafes of confumption, la phithifie tuberculeuft, by the ufe of a fpecies of mushroom (agaricus piperatus et deliciofus Linn.) conjoined with an opiate-as mushrooms approximate to the nature of animal food, does not this fact corroborate the plan of treatment recommended by Dr. Percival, and other late writers ?'

Extra of a Letter from Edinburgh, Nov. 10.

[ocr errors]

Dr. Hamilton's method of treating dropfies by giving mer cury nearly to the point of falivation, previous to the exhibition of diuretics, is attended with great fuccefs. The New College will be a magnificent and commodious building. Dr. Black has efpoused the antiphlogistic doctrine, and ufes the French nomenclature in his clafs.-Dr. Gregory is faid to be engaged in a metaphysical work.'

Hogarth illuftrated, by John Ireland. 2 Vols. 8vo. 21. 125.6d. boards. Boydells. 1791.

THE

HE deserved popularity of the works of Hogarth renders any good commentary upon them a defirable publication. The meagre and uninformed work of Mr. Trufler, intituled,

Hogarth

Hogarth Moralifed, is defervedly fuperfeded by Mr. Ireland's fuperior labours: the plates in Trufler's book, engraved by one Dent, whofe name we recollect not to have seen affixed to other engravings, are retained in this work, and fome new plates are added.

The first feature which ftruck us, in perufing Mr. Ireland's commentary, is its garrulity, fometimes entertaining, fome times dull: the fecond is a fingular foppifh quaintnels of expreffion, which often ftains his pages. As to the plates, the new ones are well engraved; and it would have been more worthy of Meff. Boydells' opulence and tafte, and the favour they have received from the public, not to mention their own intereft and reputation, to have accompanied the work with a complete fet of new engravings, of the fame fize as the printed page, than to have been contented with late and bad impreffions of Dent's flat miniatures. The most proper form would have been an oblong octavo.

After having offered these general remarks, we fhall proceed to a particular specification of this work. Mr. Ireland's fhort Introduction, or rather advertisement, is in the following terms.

Mr. Hogarth frequently afferted, that no man was fo ill qua lified to form a true judgment of pictures as the profeffed connoiffeur; whose tafte being originally formed upon imitations, and confired to the manners of masters, had feldom any reference to nature. Under this conviction, his fubjects were felected for the crowd, rather than the critic; and explained in that univerfal language common to the world, rather than in the lingua technica of the arts, which is facred to the fcientific.

Without prefuming to fupport his hypothefis, I have endeavoured to follow his example; and not being vain enough to think I can make any material addition to the knowledge of either virtuofo or collector, with all due deference, make my apology.

[ocr errors]

My original defign was to have comprized, in two hundred pages, a moral and analytical defcription of about eighty prints; and during the progrefs of the first feries, this plan was adhered to. As the work advanced, fuch variety of anecdote, and long train of etcetera, imperceptibly clung to the narrative, that the limits were found too narrow. With the explanation of fifteen new plates, the letter prefs has expanded to more than seven hun dred pages.

Where the artift has been made a victim to poetical or poli tical prejudice, without meaning to be his panegyrift, I have endeavoured to rescue his memory from unmerited obloquy. Where his works have been mifconceived, or mifreprefented, I have attempted the true reading. In my effay at an illuftration of the C. R. N. AR. (IV.) April, 1792.

Ff

prints,

prints, with a defcription of what I conceive the comic and mo ral tendency of each, there is the best information I could procure, concerning the relative circumftances, occafionally interfperfed with fuch defultory conversation, as occurred in turning over a volume of his prints. Though thefe notes may not always have an immediate relation to the engravings, I hope they will feldom be found wholly unconnected with the fubjects.

• Such mottos as were engraved on the plates, are inferted; but where a print has been published without inscription, I have either selected or written one. Errors in either parody or verse, with the fignature E. the writer fubmits to that tribunal, from whofe candour he hopes pardon for every mistake, or inaccuracy, which may be found in his volumes."

We must beg leave to remind Mr. Ireland, that it is of alb things the easiest to expand a work by hafty compilation, careleffnefs, and want of felection, while it requires time and labour, and fome refpect for the public, to render a work short, and to lay before the world only the effence of one's thoughts and information; a compliment which it expects, and is entitled to receive, from every writer who afpires toany reputation. We do not wifh, however, to be fevere, as the very nature of Mr. Ireland's commentary, and of the original text, requires a portion of trivial information, which might become ridiculous if conveyed in a precife manner: but we think the happy medium for Mr. Ireland's book would have been a volume not exceeding 400 pages; as it is, there is a great wafte of paper, ink, and chit-chat.

The account of Hogarth, which follows, is in a great meafure taken from Mr. Nichols's anecdotes of this great painter of nature; and we could wifh to have feen our author more frequently acknowledge his obligations to the fame fource, in the other pages of his motley mifcellany. In this divifion of the work is given the explanation of a new plate (for fo we fhall ftyle thofe not to be found in Trufler's book), the battle of the pictures. Mr. Ireland, in a note, offers fome well-timed remarks on the grofs impofitions of picture-dealers: as a caution on this fubject cannot be too widely diffufed, and as ridiculum acri fortius et melius, &c. we fhall prefent our virtuofi readers with the following bill, not found a true bill, but ben trovato, and dated 1791.

• Monfieur Varnish to Benjamin Bifter, debtor. 1.
To painting the woman caught in adultery,
upon a green ground, by Hans Holbein
To Solomon's wife judgment, on pannel, by
Michael Angelo Buenorati

To painting and canvas for a naked Mary Mag-
dalen, in the undoubted ftyle of Paul Veronefe

S.

330

212 6

2 2

d.

To brimftone, for fmoking ditto

Paid Mrs. W- for a live model to fit for Diana bathing, by Tinteretto

Paid for the hire of a layman, to copy the robes of a cardinal, for a Vandyke

* Portrait of a nun doing penance, by Albert Du

rer

* Paid the female figure for fitting thirty minutes in a wet fheet, that I might give the dry manner of that mafler

The Tribute-money rendered, with all the exactness of Quintin Methus, the famed blackfmith of Antwerp

0 2 6

0 16 8

5

2 2

1

[ocr errors][merged small]

To Ruth at the feet of Boaz, upon an oak board, by Titiano

St. Anthony preaching to the Fishes, by Salvator Rofa

The Martydom of St. Winifred, with a view
of Holywell bath, by old Frank

To a large allegorical altar-piece, confifting of
men and angels, horfes and river gods; 'tis
thought most happily hit off for a Rubens
To Sufannah bathing; the two Elders in the
back-ground, by Castiglione

To the Devil and St. Dunstan, high finished by
Teniers

To the Queen of Sheba falling down before Solo-
mon, by Morillio

To a Judith in the tent of Holofernes, by Le
Brun

To a Sicera in the tent of Jael, its companion,
by the fame

Paid for admiffion into the Houfe of Peers, to take a sketch of a great character, for a picture of Mofes breaking the Tables of the Law, in the darkeft manner of Rembrandt, not yet finished.'

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

In the account of Hogarth are alfo introduced the two plates of the Analyfis of Beauty, the ill-fated Sophonisba, and Time fmoking a picture. The author's remarks on the Sophoniba we shall tranfcribe. He quotes the objections of Mr. Walpole (now lord Orford) and thus replies:

The author of the Myfterious Mother, fought for fublimity, where the artist strictly copied nature, of whom all his figures are the archetypes, but which the painter, who fears into fancy's fairy Ff2

regions,

[ocr errors]

regions, muft in a degree defert. Confidered with this reference, though the picture has faults, Mr. Walpole's fatire is furely too fevere. It is built upon a compa:ifon with works painted in a language of which Hogarth knew not the idiom, trying him before a tribunal, whofe authority he did not acknowledge, and, from the picture having been in many refpects altered after the critic faw it, fome of the remarks become unfair. To the frequency of thefe alterations we may attribute many of the errors: the man who has not confidence in his own knowledge of the leading principles on which his work ought to be built will not render it perfect by following the advice of his friends. Although Meffrs. Wilkes and Churchill dragged his heroine to the altar of politics, and mangled her with a barbarifm that can hardly be paralleled, except in the history of her husband, the artift retained his partiality; which feems to have increafed in exact proportion to their abufe. The picture being thus contemplated through the medium of party prejudice, we cannot wonder that all its improprieties were exaggerated. The painted harlot of Babylon had not more approbrious epithets from the first race of reformers, than the painted Sigif monda of Hogarth from the last race of patriots. When a favourite child is chaftifed by his preceptor, a partial mother redoubles. her careffes. Hogarth, eftimating this picture by the labour he had beltowed upon it, was certain that the public were prejudiced, and requested, if his wife furvived him, fhe would not fell it for lefs than five hundred pounds. Mrs. Hogarth acted in conformity to his wifhes, but fince her death the painting has been purchased by Meffrs. Boydell, and is now in the Shaktpeare Gallery. The colouring, though not brilliant, is harmonious and natural: the attitude, drawing, &c. will be more univerfally known from a print now engraving by Mr. Ridley. I am much inclined to think, that if fome of those who have been moft fevere in their cenfures, had confulted their own feelings, inftead of connoiffeurs, poor Sigifmonda would have been in higher eftimation. It has been faid that the firft fketch was made from Mrs. Hogarth, at the time the was weeping over the core of her mother.'

In p. cxiv. and cxv. we learn that, on the death of Mrs. Hogarth, the plates of our great painter's works paffed, by her will, to Mrs. Lewis; who, on condition of receiving an anuity for life, transferred to Meflrs. Boydell her right in all the plates; and fince in their poffeffion they have not been touched upon by a burin. Every plate has been carefully cleaned: and the rolling-preffes now in ufe being on an improved principle, the paper fuperior, and the art of printing better understood, impreffions are more clearly and accurately taken elf than they have been at any preceding period.

Proceeding to the work, we must again cenfure the poor ex

ecution

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »