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Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2
1745
13 15/16” X 17 7/16” (H X W)
Engraved and etched from Hogarth's painting.
View the full resolution plate here.
View the painting here.
The sexual dalliances presaged in Plate I are more overt in Plate II. Austin Dobson delicately reports that the Viscount has returned from his "independent nocturnal expedition" (74). Cowley adds that, unlike the Rakewell's drunkenness with an undercurrent of sexual exhaustion, Squanderfield's pose indicates, "sexual exhaustion with only undercurrents of drunkenness and brawling" (58). These minor distinctions aside, it is clear that his lover's cap is visible in his pocket, and his sword lies broken on the floor in what Cowley calls an emblem of "inadequacy or impotence" (59). A dog, frequently an indicator of sexuality and sexual arousal in Hogarth’s plates, excitedly sniffs out the mistress’s cap.
The wife has been the source of more debate. Shesgreen notes that her occupation has been "much more innocent and middle-class than his debauchery" (52). The overturned card table confirms this observation. There is even a note of sympathy with the wife who "vainly attempts to win her husband's attention by her glance and outstretched foot" (Shesgreen 52). Cowley confirms that she "teases her exhausted husband with her sensuality" (75). Her failed attempts implicate him as the first to break their vows and somewhat vindicate her as she tries, at least at first, to make the marriage work. This action, coupled with her lack of interest in Silvertongue apparent in the first plate, mediates her blame for the impending downfall. Lichtenberg's commentary on the scene is torn:
With such a husband one might perhaps forgive her a night like the last. But with those folds in her gown which no longer lie as they did on her wedding day ... to carry on with cards and violins . . . till the early hours of the morning. Madam, that was really not nice, no matter how fashionable. (97)
Her demeanor can also be interpreted as sexual exhaustion. While she appears adequately covered for modern audiences, Cowley observes that eighteenth-century viewers would have found her “shameless for appearing before the servants with her lacings uncovered, her knees apart, and without her hoops” (60). Her pose also inspires commentary. Paulson calls it a “vulgar stretch” (Life vol. 1 484).
Signs of marital breakdown are abundant in the scene. The broken sword is one such indication. Another is the painting over the fireplace of Cupid vainly playing his bagpipes amidst the ruins. Paulson notes that this, along with the bust's broken nose (indicative of sexual problems) and "the candles burnt down to their sockets . . .are all emblems of a marriage out of harmony" (Graphic 270). Lawrence Stone relates that extramarital affairs among the aristocracy were "expected" if not morally sanctioned, and Hogarth explores the consequences of this expectation as Lady Squanderfield is driven perhaps by her husband's neglect, perhaps by societal permissiveness into the bed other waiting lover (330-331). Certainly she apes the actions other husband; the plate showing her indiscretions follows that which detail his.
No commentator has implicated the wife in anything more than participating in an all-night party and the seduction of her unwilling husband. However, the hints of her already-accomplished infidelity are present. The covered pornographic painting, which, as Cowley notes, may symbolize an adultery “not yet fully realized” (76) may point to the wife’s disloyalty as well as that of her husband. The paralleling of Plates III and IV, advanced by Cowley, as representation of the pair’s separate pleasures supports this reading. Furthermore, the overturned chair implies a hasty retreat, the pointing instrument case acting perhaps as an indicator of the direction of the lover’s (Silvertongue’s) departure. The wife’s seductive pose recalls A Harlot’s Progress and Moll’s attempt to seduce the merchant to divert his attention away from her escaping lover. The wife’s attempts are unsuccessful and unneeded as her husband slumps oblivious to the confusion around him.
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2
Shesgreen, Sean. Engravings by Hogarth. (1973)
Leading extravagant, vitiated lives, the husband and wife have become completely alienated from each other. It is 1:20 A.M.; they sit apart after a night of independent entertainments. Enervated and listless, the husband slumps back on a chair gazing dejectedly at the floor, unaware of his wife’s presence. A dog pulls his mistress’ cap from his pocket; before him lies the sword broken in a fight. His wife, stretching gracelessly, vainly attempts to win her husband’s attention by her glance and outstretched foot. Her entertainment, much more innocent and middle-class than his aristocratic debauchery, has been to remain at home and entertain guests at cards. “Hoyle on Whist” lies at her feet.
Above his head hangs a clock ornamented with the comically incongruous images of a cat, a fish, and a Buddha. The mantle is cluttered with tasteless, grotesque little statues; a Roman bust with a broken nose stands in the center. In a picture above the mantle, Cupid plays the bagpipes; his bow lies broken beside him.
The young nobleman has his father’s problems with money. His despairing Methodist steward (he carries a copy of “Regeneration” in his pocket) leaves with a sheaf of bills in one hands and a single one marked “Rec’d. June 4, 1744” in the other.
In a second room, every bit as disordered as the first, a sleepy, carelessly dressed servant leans against a chair. The room is decorated with a row of mirrors, and a picture so obscene that is covered is juxtaposed with portraits of Saints Matthew, John and Andrew. The candle stubs indicate the card party has been an all-night affair. One of the candles sets fire to a chair (52).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2
Uglow, Jenny. Hogarth: A Life and a World. (1997)
In Marriage A-la-Mode the aftermath of such a contract is inevitable. The newlyweds have nothing in common and live their lives quite separately. In the second picture, called variously 'After the Marriage' or 'Early in the Morning' the clock stands at twenty past twelve but the blinds are still drawn, and, as Rouquet put it, 'this encroachment of night on day, tells strongly of the disorder which governs the house'. The Viscount has come back shattered by a night's debauch. His broken-tipped sword speaks of a battle with the watch and the cap stuffed into his pocket, eagerly sniffed by the dog, smells of a session with his mistress. The Viscountess stretches, sensual and sly, noting her husband's pallid, hung-over disarray and thinking her own thoughts--her masquerade mask, the scattered cards in the salon and the copy of “Hoyle on Whist” (newly published in 1742), suggest what she has been doing. And someone else has been here, and has disappeared fast, leaving his violin uncased, his music book open and his chair overturned . . . Horrified, the prudish steward gestures to heaven as he tiptoes out with a copy of Regeneration stuck in his pocket. Only one receipt, marked '1743', is stuck on his spike, but he grasps a sheaf of unpaid bills.
Few would be surprised by this scene. Six years later, Horace Walpole noted:
'Lord Coke has demolished himself very fast; I mean his character; you know he was married but last spring; he is always drunk, he lost immense sums at play, and seldom goes home to his wife till eight in the morning …she married him extremely against her will.'
The society that accepted contractual marriages also accepted their consequences. Since the Restoration, aristocratic husbands had assumed a natural right to have mistresses, making no secret either of their amours or their bastards. And although female chastity-- for reasons of property, not propriety--was considered imperative until an heir was born, after that high-born women soon claimed equal rights. Succeeding generations of earnest bourgeoisie were shocked to think this élite culture of adultery might spread downwards, becoming the fashion of the town for women as much as for men. However much Pope might say that 'every woman is at heart a rake', nothing could be further from the ideal of the middle classes, as expressed by the Letter of Genteel and Moral Advice, which went through eight editions between 1740 and 1766:
'There is great discretion required, to keep love alive after marriage; and the conversation of a married couple cannot be agreeable for years together without an earnest endeavour to please on both sides. If the love of a wife be tempered with a tolerable share of good sense, she will be sure never to have any private views of her own; nor do anything of consequence, which her husband may possibly dislike, without consulting him.
One witness to the Viscountess's social-climbing is her willingness to drop such bourgeois submissiveness (377-378).
Hogarth's wit had never been so assured. Each scene had a different kind of humour. The marriage contract, like the opening of a comedy of manners, introduced formal contrasts of class; the bourgeois and the aristocrat conform to convention - the Alderman stooping, feet wide apart, the Earl lying back with a pseudo-Watteauesque grace. The morning scene, so acute and penetrating in its psychological study of the young couple, damned both the idle rich and the doom-demanding Methodist servant (381).
Most details carry sexual innuendoes. In the gallery behind the couple, where the yawning servant snuffs the candles, among the paintings of saints hangs on canvas so shocking it has to be covered by a curtain with only a good peeping out (384).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2
Dobson, Austin. William Hogarth. (1907)
The next scene is laid in a splendid saloon (This room was copied from the drawing-room of No. 5 Arlington Street, where once lived Horace Walpole. The late Lord Houghton acquainted the present writer with this fact; and in one of his letters he speaks of hearing in his bed “the horses of Piccadilly coaches, which Horace Walpole, who lived here, and Hogarth who painted here, might have listened to in their time”—“Life,” by Sir Wemyss Reid, 1890, ii, 364). According to a contemporary commentator it is “an apartment furnished without taste, and costly without elegance.” A clock shows the time to be twenty minutes past twelve; but the lights are still smouldering in the heavy chandelier, and a yawning footman in curl-papers is languidly arranging the furniture in the background. From the cards and “Hoyle” on the floor, the two violins and the music-book, it must be inferred that the establishment is but now awaking from the fatigues of a prolonged entertainment. At a round table by the fire, with a teapot and one cup upon it, sits, in a coquettish night-cap and morning jacket, the lady of the house, holding a pocket mirror (?) in her right hand. She stretches her arms wearily, with a sidelong glance at her husband, who reclines upon, or rather is supported by, a chair at the opposite side of the fireplace. Nothing is Hogarth is finer than this latter figure, for which, it is stated, Hayman the painter served as model. Worn out and nauseated, my Lord Squanderfield has returned from some independent nocturnal expedition. His rich black velvet coat and his waistcoat are thrown open; his disordered hair has lost its ribbon; his hands are plunged deeply into his small clothes. In undisguised disregard for the presence of his plebian partner, he still wears his laced hat. His sword, which he has unbuckled and thrown upon the floor, is broken ignominiously in its sheath; and a lap-dog snuffs at a woman’s cap half-thrust into his pocket. His whole appearance, the physical prostration of his posture, the tired and cynical disgust upon his features, bear witness to the reaction after excess in a constitution which dissipation has already undermined. Hazlitt, in his review of these pictures at the Exhibition of 1814, points out how skillfully the pallid unhealthy face is contrasted with the yellow-whitish colour of the mantelpiece behind. He seems in a stupor of lassitude; and neither he nor his wife pays any regard to the Methodist steward (the only other personage in the picture besides the footman) who, after vainly attempting to attract attention to his accounts, quits the room with uplifted eyes and a single paid bill on his file. From his pocket peeps book labeled “Regeneration.”
The sumptuous apartment in which this scene takes place affords a further illustration of the interiors of the Georgian era. It is divided into two by an arch supported on dark-blue marble columns. The pictures visible on the walls, one of which is partially veiled by a curtain, disclosing only one naked human foot, are less striking than the decorations in Scene I. Indeed, those in the background appear to be figures of the Apostles. Over the mantelpiece is Cupid playing upon the bagpipes in the midst of ruins; immediately below him is a bust with mended nose, which Lichtenberg conjectures to represent a “Faustina.” On either side, the shelf is crowded with Indian pagods and auction monstrosities—toads, and the “fat squabs” whose “dropsical dignity” is so neatly hit off in Cowper’s couplet:
Gorgonius sits, abdominous and wan,
Like a fat squab upon a Chinese fan.
On the right hand of the mantelpiece hangs a nondescript trophy of leafage in brass surrounding a clock, and surmounted by a cat in china, life-size. Fishes appear among the leaves below. The hole, like the jumble of bad architecture in Scene I., is probably a supplementary satire on William Kent, who designed everything, from picture-frames to petticoats.
That the viscount and his lady have elected to take their pleasures is evident. What those pleasures are, is specifically indicated in the third and fourth pictures (74-76).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2
Paulson, Ronald. Hogarth’s Graphic Works. (1965)
The scene is the young couple’s home. The fireplace and the mantle, center of the picture, is a horrible example of William Kent interior decoration. The clock, a part of an elaborate girandole full of rococo or "rock-work," shows 1:20 A.M., and consists of a grove in which appear a fat figure (probably Chinese) sitting on a bower of leaves, with two candles attached, and a life-size cat on top of this foliage hungrily eyeing two fish. "If the branches were tenanted by the feathered tribe," J. Ireland comments (i, 28), "it would be no more than we see every day; it would be vulgar nature. To make it uncommonly grand, and peculiarly magnifique, they are occupied by two fishes." In the center of the mantel is an antique Roman bust with a broken nose, with Chinese and Indian objects, statuettes and bottles, clustered about it. Behind the bust is a painting of a cupid blowing on bagpipes, his bow un-strung, amid ruins. These, together with the candles burnt down to the sockets (in the next room), are all emblems of a marriage out of harmony, collapsing, burnt out, etc.
The young nobleman and his bride are as separate as they were in the first plate, the fireplace between them now. He has come in from a night of revelry and collapses in a chair, ignoring his plebeian wife. The dog sniffs suspiciously at the woman's cap that hangs out of his pocket (J. Ireland, i, 25, thinks that the dog's interest in the cap suggests that he originally belonged to the woman who owns it). His sword and belt lie on the floor, the sword broken. His wife seems to have been at home having a large card party. "Hoyle on Whist" (Edmund Hoyle, Short Treatise on the Game Whist, 1742) lies in the middle of the carpet, and a pile of playing cards can be seen on the floor of another room. Within the second room is a sleepy servant, ungartered, his nightcap on. One picture on the wall shows only a naked human foot; the rest is apparently so shocking as to be concealed by a curtain. The other paintings are of saints--Matthew leaning on a sword, John the Evangelist, Andrew, and another hidden behind the chandelier. The lower row consists of mirrors.
The other person present is the young nobleman's steward, carrying one pile of papers marked "Bill" and another, with only one paper marked "Recd June 4, 1744." The book sticking out of his coat pocket, marked "Regeneration," shows him to be a Methodist, and so his horror at their lack of concern is magnified.
The poses of the two main characters in this plate may have been suggested by Jan Steen's Effects of Intemperance (coll. of Percy B. Meyer). Oppé has pointed out the print's general resemblance to Cochin's print La Soirée (the drawing is in the Ashmolean), engraved by Claude Gallimard in 1739. Cochin's female figure holding a mask may have suggested the countess' pose with her pocket mirror raised. The room, Lord Houghton told Dobson (1902 ed., p. 75 n.), "was copied from the drawing-room of No. 24 Arlington Street, where once lived Horace Walpole." The model for the young nobleman was said to be Francis Hayman, the painter (Gen. Works, 3, 241) (270-271).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2
Paulson, Ronald. Hogarth: His Life, Art and Times. (1971)
In Plate 2 the young married couple sit with the yawning fireplace between them—its empty mouth topped with meaningless bric-a-brac, suggesting the emptiness of their marriage and the absent third party (implied by the cap hanging from the count’s pocket, sniffed at by an inquisitive dog) (vol. 1 485.).
The first shows the earl’s quarters with the old masters he collects, pictures of cruelty and compulsion from which his present act of compulsion naturally follows, his portrait of himself as Jupiter furens, and his coronet stamped on everything he owns. Plate 2 shows the next generation’s house, with its fashionable Kent decorations, its saints and curtained pornography, its order and emptiness. . . . Here art has become an integral part of Hogarth’s subject matter: it is here for itself, a comment on itself, and also on its owners and on the actions that go on before it. In no other series is the note so insistent . . . it dominates every room, every plate. The old masters have come to represent the evil that is the subject of their series: not aspiration, but the constriction of old, dead customs and ideals embodied in bad art. Both biblical and classical, this art holds up seduction, rape, compulsion, torture, and murder as the ideal, and the fathers act accordingly and force these stereotypes on their children (vol. 1 488-489).
The trends toward art as theme and reader as active participant are further underlined by the importance placed on viewing. . . . In Plate 2 the steward turns away, and his disdainful face is repeated in the Roman bust on the mantle, even to the broken nose of one and the pug nose of the other. One is turning away from the scene with pious horror, the other is regarding it (The steward’s gesture makes the erect saints on the wall of the dining room appear to be averting their gaze in the same way from the naked foot protruding from a curtain drawn over the picture.) (vol. 1 489).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2
Paulson, Ronald. Popular and Polite Art in the Age of Hogarth. (1979)
The nature of the game [Whist] was to be summed up in its name, which came “from the silence that is to be observed at it.” “Talking is not allowed at Whist,” we read in The Compleat Gamester of 1734; “the very Word implies, Hold your Tongue.” As early as 1745, “Hoyle on Whist” had been absorbed into a sign into Hogarth’s second plate of Marriage à la Mode, where, in the context of the errant husband returning from a mistress and the bored wife from a wild night of card playing and perhaps more, it signifies: Keep quiet about what has taken place here (or there). As a floating signifier, the name served to reflect both the intellectual character assumed by the game in the eighteenth century (Keep quiet, I am thinking) and the rhetorical decorum of the period (85-86).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2
Quennell, Peter. Hogarth’s Progress. (1955)
The marriage is solemnised, and we discover the pair at breakfast. A healthy, sensuous girl turned loose among all the pleasures of the fashionable end of London, the future Countess is learning to enjoy herself; and her party, with music and cards, has lasted until the break of day. How voluptuously she stretches and yawns, casting a sidelong glance, sleepy but sharp, at her exhausted husband, who has just staggered in after a party of his own, probably at Tom King’s or the Rose Tavern! A woman’s cap is stuffed into his pocket; and his wife’s little “shock dog” sniffs at it inquisitively. Hogarth makes an acute distinction between the characters of husband and wife; for whereas the wife, though capricious and greedy and idle, has a middle-class robustness inherited from her merchant forebears and enjoys every crowded moment of the fashionable life she leads, her husband is perpetually bored and prematurely disillusioned. The young woman stretches deliciously: the young man lolls despondently. The droop of his head, the sprawl of the silk-stockinged legs thrust out straight in front of him, as if every joint ached and every fibre and muscle sagged, combine to produce an impression of overwhelming lassitude; while the pallor of his skin (Hazlitt observed) is set off by the “yellow whitish colour of the marble chimney-piece”. Since neither of them is in the mood for business, the old Dissenting steward, who carries a sheaf of unpaid bills, has been told to come back another day. Beyond the blue marble pillars that frame the further room, we catch sight of a tired footman. The walls are hung with large Italian pictures, one of which has so indelicate a subject that it is protected by a heavy curtain; but the folds have been pulled aside to reveal a naked foot (172-173).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2
Lichtenberg, G.Ch. Lichtenberg’s Commentaries on Hogarth’s Engravings. (1784-1796). Translated from the German by Innes and Gustav Herdan (1966)
The old Earl, it seems, is already disintegrated and gathered to the bosom of William the Conqueror! Neither the son nor the daughter-in-law whom we see sitting here appears to be specially moved by the fact that Death has won at last his eighty-year-old lawsuit against the old gentleman. They, too, are contending here, not with Death, but with his half-brother, Sleep, and as one sees, with rather unequal success. She, certainly, is fast losing her case, and he, since his own ill-humour is taking his part, will certainly win his. They have both slept little or not at all last night; she, in this house here, and he in another, perhaps a mile distant. The course of the story is as follows.
It is still early morning here, the clock on the wall may show what time it will; they are still yawning, still stretching themselves, and still break- fasting. Whether this is right or not is none of the plebeian sun's business. It is, of course, a somewhat topsy-turvy state of affairs, but then so are the fishes up there in the trees. It is the custom in this household and it cannot be helped. The young gentleman who, by the way, has aged over-night through rather heavy debauchery, seems to have just flung himself down in here after being unloaded from his carriage. Obviously, he has stumbled over the chair with the fine Cremona violins, has fallen and broken his sword. The figure is a masterpiece, and undoubtedly one of the best Hogarth has ever done. It is a true picture of impotence after the wildest debauchery of every kind. Nothing holds together in him through inner force. His position has been reached through force of gravity, through mechanical reaction, and, passively, through the shape of the chair. Waistcoat and stockings hang upon him just like his hat and his hair. The hair-bag is gone, the watch is gone and the money is gone. In place of money there are now only empty hands which search for it and find nothing but a melancholy support for themselves, and for the long heavy arms which have become limp as leather through sleeplessness and excesses. What has suffered least in the tumult is the black seal of the Faculty behind the ear. On what does his gaze rest? Outwards it certainly reaches no farther than half-way towards the overturned chair; inwards it must look uncommonly deep on this mom of domestic peace. Even through the mists of headache which hover round his brow it is still possible to recognize some traces of deeper heartache. This is what happens to little fishes once an over-frivolous jump has thrown them too far out of their element. Intoxication, which, at its onset and during its progress, raises the drinker above his usual state of mind and heart, lowers him again at its expiration below that state, so that in every kind of mood he can usually find some rung on this ladder from which he can, without much trouble, survey his whole being. He seems to calculate; but no, he only feels in a dull sort of way what would happen if he attempted to calculate. This is the ill-humour which, as we said, takes the young gentleman's part against Sleep. However prostrate he may be though, he has not left the battlefield wholly without booty. From his coat-pocket there hangs an object of muslin and ribbon which only rarely, and never without some great unheaval, finds its way into male coat-pockets. It is some small perfumed head-gear which has been discovered by the lady's lap-dog with its Boulognaise sagacity, and at which it is sniffing with peace-loving cautiousness. Thus, what could hardly be regarded as an adequate security for a mere hair-bag has now become, apparently, the whole substitute for purse and watch! So much for the activities of the young gentleman last night, of which the little dog here has the scent—and now a word on the activities of the young lady, which the young gentleman himself is scenting out.
The whole night long she has entertained there in the magnificent Egyptian drawing-room, a company of card-players, young gentlemen and such-like, with a little tea, a little music, and a little dancing. They have gambled long and wildly; the candles are burning low; they burn up the daylight, as the saying goes, although it is a winter's day. One of the tables has its cards scattered on the ground; the Pandectae of Whist, ‘Hoyle on Whist’, have been trampled underfoot, and perhaps that chair with its costly woodwork—the violins—was also thrown over during some turmoil in this darkish corner. For apart from the glimmering light of the coal fire and the rather distant glow of the candelabra, there was no special illumination here, evidently with intention. At any rate the two candles near the clock have not been lit. An excellent touch it seems to me! A few unlit candles on each candelabra would have provided sufficient evidence of how little the people here cared for enlightenment; that in addition we find the unburnt candles near the clock shows how little they cared for time either. Indeed, the proper time for the deeds of twilight as well as of darkness can be found without any clock; or if one needed to use a clock, it would be at a time when neither hands nor dial were visible.
The young lady is thus very, very tired; she shows it by certain gestures in which there is indeed very little breeding or, if there is any at all it is very, very half-baked. She stretches a little, or, as they say in some parts she threatens her spouse with the sign of the horns. She is certainly healthy, perhaps too healthy. Even the sleepy expression is not without force and indicates, like her whole attitude, a surplus of everything in which her poor husband is so sadly lacking. It appears she has slept a little, in the chair, and is soon going to sleep again if the conversation between her and her beloved is to continue with the same vivacity with which it began. What the little empty box or étui in her hand signifies is not easy to say. If there were a little mirror in the lid then the matter—and greatly to her credit—would not be difficult to decide. It would obviously mean that on waking up she was fulfilling one of the primary obligations, I mean the duty of self-examination; that her face has passed that examination fairly well may then be clearly inferred from the placid stretching which immediately followed.
She has breakfast in front other. It is, as one sees—and how could it be otherwise after such a matrimonial night?—laid and meant for one. If only the lady were too! With such a husband one might perhaps forgive her a night like the last. But with those folds in her gown which no longer lie as they did on her wedding day, and which, alas!, on account of the new shoot on William the Conqueror's family tree can no longer lie like that— to carry on with cards, violins, and Pandectae till the early hours of the morning. Madam, that was really not nice, no matter how fashionable The gentleman, too, has just had his breakfast. It must have tasted abominably, for the old steward who had brought it in is carrying it away again completely untouched. It consisted of a sheaf of bills which were due to be paid that morning, and of which only one is receipted, and that is dated June 4th, whereas now it is obviously winter. The paid one is signed and hangs on the steward's file. It was, of course, a nasty bit to swallow, and yet these were but little pieces of bread and butter compared with the loaf which he carries under his arm—the ledger. That can hardly have been even sniffed at this morning. To try to comment on the steward's head and the meaning of his expression and the gesture of his hand in words would surely be the most unforgivable misuse of alphabetic writing that could possibly be perpetrated. This is not what printing type was meant for in the world. The most scrupulous preparation of foot- notes, according to their two great divisions, would come to grief with a text like this: not only those which expound in order to help understanding, but also the much more learned ones whose aim is to hinder understanding. If I were to say, 'Look, that's how it stands with his Lordship's finances', and pointed at that household god there, would anybody still ask, 'but what is the real state of his Lordship's finances?' Not a soul, to be sure— at least, not between Cape St Vincent and Nova Zembla. Conversely, that head is meant to help us in our interpretation of the rest, and we therefore count confidently in advance upon our readers' indulgence if, perhaps, in some of the following passages, nothing more is said by way of explanation but: videatur the Steward!
But although the meaning of that face needs no words, the man's history requires a few. The face is said to be the portrait of a certain Edward Swallow, an old honest wine-steward of the then Archbishop of Canterbury. Hogarth, who was at that time in search of a model for the steward's head, had long been minded to fix on that one, on account of its honest simplicity. At last a friend of the Archbishop took Hogarth to Lambeth. There the painter sketched him unobserved and as he re-entered his carriage he whispered to his companion, 'Now I have him!' The square- toed shoes, the old-fashioned coat, the uncurled hair, all indicate that the man does not belong to this world, and least of all the world to which nine- tenths of the English servants of such homes now belong. He appears to be a Methodist, at least that is what Hogarth has made of him, perhaps out of mischievousness, for out of his pocket peeps a book On Regeneration, and, as is well known, the word regeneration is the permanent pass-word of that spiritual Corps. Moreover, discussions on the subject form a pious occupation in many of their gatherings, a sort of spiritual whist, and in this way Hoyle and Whitfield come very well into the picture here together—Pagina iungit amicos. But the sly rogue, which Mr Ireland sees in that figure, I am quite unable to discover. It would have been easy enough for Hogarth to find the appropriate physiognomy for such a character, and it is my firm conviction that the old and therefore tried domestics of an Archbishop of Canterbury will be surely the last class of humanity, not only in England but perhaps in the world, where a painter would think of finding rogue physiognomies.
Behind there, in the temple of the aristocratic Bacchante, among the candles which, as we remarked, are burning the daylight, there seems to be one which has run its course and is in the act of setting fire to the chair- back. It is really already alight. The matter could become serious. But fortunately another chair-back, against which a servant has dozed off while standing, becomes aware of the catastrophe, threatens to throw off its rider, and in this way will probably be the saving of its brother. The young fellow rubs and scratches head and breast to rouse himself, and does everything a low-grade domestic can do. For that is all he is; the properly uniformed ministry is still asleep.
The pictures in the drawing-room are not fearful and sanguinary as those in the betrothal room; on the contrary, they aim at pure, cold-blooded edification. Most of them represent saints with their haloes. Although it is not possible to see the halo of the fourth on account of the lights in front, we can assume its presence from the rest of the company and the uniform frames. Mr Ireland takes them to be the Four Evangelists. Now this is just what they are not. The central figure of the three is evidently Saint Andrew with the cross of his name, while the figure hanging on his right is a she-saint, perhaps a Madonna with a chalice, and the fourth holds a sword in his hand. What use would a sword be to an Evangelist? One does not write gospels with a sword in one's fist; one only interprets them with it, and that is a more recent innovation. The most sacred figure among them all appears to be the one of which the curtain permits us to see only the little naked foot. What a pity! Had we come earlier, when the young gentlemen were still here, we could have seen everything. Oh! Madam, Madam!
Just as our artist has indicated, through the lascivious contrast in the pictures of the drawing-room, the moral principles of our young couple, so he shows us now their aesthetic principles in the decoration of the ante-room. This is a point which ought not to be overlooked, especially in these Plates. For Hogarth has, with great delicacy and wherever he could, tried to expose the complete lack of feeling for beauty and art in these two families, especially in the aristocratic one. It must have been his intention to show how much better it would have been for this house had the taste of its owner been a little better formed in his youth. It cannot be denied that at least the blunders on a grand scale which are a source of misfortune within the family and, according to the perpetrator's calibre, for whole countries, proceed as a rule from people who combine with great fortune or great power a complete lack of feeling for beauty, except perhaps in women.
The whole mantelpiece here is covered with the most abominable works of art from north-east Asia: Chinese gods, apparently in an advanced state of pregnancy, sit there naked so that the folds of their garments should not come out of crease. Others have their hands outstretched from their shoulders, wanting to make the sign of the horns but unable to. Vases stiff as railings and little bottles dumpy as corks alternate with curious objects of nature and with artefacts such as chance will sometimes produce. Most ludicrous of all is an antique bust. It is a pity that its head is new and the nose still newer than the head. It must have been bought for a Faustina. On the whole there reigns among this junk an admirable symmetry and the most meticulous order. Every little bottle has its counter-bottle, and every freak its freak to match. This seems to be the most orderly spot in the house. As one sees, they are quite capable of keeping order under that roof when it suits them, and when it does not suit the object. The picture on the overmantle represents a Cupid who has had a miserable fate, or at least has it now. His temple has collapsed, his bow has no string and his quiver no arrows; nothing remains for him but the bagpipes and the pipe upon which he now fingers his monotonous lament.
No matter how ridiculous the clock looks up there, with its fishes in the trees and its cat among the fishes, it is possibly not only the greatest work of art in the room, but even the greatest masterpiece of the clockmaker's art. I believe, in fact, that we may conclude from the solemn position of the cat, which seems to do nothing but just sit there idly, that the clock is a cat-clock which mee-ows the hours just as there are cuckoo-clocks which cuckoo them. A clock upon which a very finely carved dog barks the hours has, as a friend of mine writes, been offered for sale by an Englishman not long ago, and at a very high price. This gives not a little support to my assumption. But Lord Squanderfield's clock exceeds that one by far, especially if one considers that the quarters might perhaps be mee-owed in a different tone, or even by kittens. From what I hear, a pupil of Le Drozl is said to be even now employed in constructing a clock on which a wild boar grunts the hours in short snorts. Probably he had the idea from the celebrated Pig Concert of the conductor Pepusch in Berlin, in which the voices of the pigs were blown on bassoons as porco primo, porco secundo, and which earned such resounding applause.
The eighteenth century has thus given us, among many other novel inventions, a menagerie of clocks under which we shall surely sleep more merrily in future than with the eternal memento mori stroke of our tolling bells, which properly belong on steeples. The two fishes look to me as if they too were stuck in a wave which is connected with the clock. Who knows whether they may not make their hourly carp-jump as well? It would be a delightful idea, and all the more remarkable in that it takes place in the tree-tops—an event only rarely indeed encountered in Nature (95-101).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Cards
The cards scattered on the floor are evidence of Lady Squanderfield’s activities of the previous evening.
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Cards
Dobson
From the cards and “Hoyle” on the floor, the two violins and the music-book, it must be inferred that the establishment is but now awaking from the fatigues of a prolonged entertainment (74).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Cards
Paulson, Hogarth's Graphic Works
A pile of playing cards can be seen on the floor of another room (270).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Cards
Lichtenberg
One of the tables has its cards scattered on the ground (96).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Dog
Paulson, Hogarth's Graphic Works
The dog sniffs suspiciously at the woman's cap that hangs out of his pocket (J. Ireland, i, 25, thinks that the dog's interest in the cap suggests that he originally belonged to the woman who owns it) (270).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Dog
Lichtenberg
So much for the activities of the young gentleman last night, of which the little dog here has the scent (96).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Hoyle
The copy of “Hoyle on Whist” shows that Lady Squanderfield has adopted the aristocratic enjoyment of cards.
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Hoyle
Dobson
From the cards and “Hoyle” on the floor, the two violins and the music-book, it must be inferred that the establishment is but now awaking from the fatigues of a prolonged entertainment (74).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Hoyle
Paulson, Popular and Polite Art
The nature of the game [Whist] was to be summed up in its name, which came “from the silence that is to be observed at it.” “Talking is not allowed at Whist,” we read in The Compleat Gamester of 1734; “the very Word implies, Hold your Tongue.” As early as 1745, “Hoyle on Whist” had been absorbed into a sign into Hogarth’s second plate of Marriage à la Mode, where, in the context of the errant husband returning from a mistress and the bored wife from a wild night of card playing and perhaps more, it signifies: Keep quiet about what has taken place here (or there). As a floating signifier, the name served to reflect both the intellectual character assumed by the game in the eighteenth century (Keep quiet, I am thinking) and the rhetorical decorum of the period (85-86).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Steward
Shesgreen
The young nobleman has his father’s problems with money. His despairing Methodist steward (he carries a copy of “Regeneration” in his pocket) leaves with a sheaf of bills in one hands and a single one marked “Rec’d. June 4, 1744” in the other (52).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Steward
Uglow
Horrified, the prudish steward gestures to heaven as he tiptoes out with a copy of Regeneration stuck in his pocket. Only one receipt, marked '1743', is stuck on his spike, but he grasps a sheaf of unpaid bills (378).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Steward
Dobson
the Methodist steward (the only other personage in the picture besides the footman) who, after vainly attempting to attract attention to his accounts, quits the room with uplifted eyes and a single paid bill on his file. From his pocket peeps book labeled “Regeneration” (75).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Steward
Paulson, Hogarth's Graphic Works
The other person present is the young nobleman's steward, carrying one pile of papers marked "Bill" and another, with only one paper marked "Recd June 4, 1744." The book sticking out of his coat pocket, marked "Regeneration," shows him to be a Methodist, and so his horror at their lack of concern is magnified (270).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Steward
Paulson, His Life, Art and Times
In Plate 2 the steward turns away, and his disdainful face is repeated in the Roman bust on the mantle, even to the broken nose of one and the pug nose of the other. One is turning away from the scene with pious horror, the other is regarding it. (The steward’s gesture makes the erect saints on the wall of the dining room appear to be averting their gaze in the same way from the naked foot protruding from a curtain drawn over the picture.) (vol. 1 489).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Steward
Quennell
Since neither of them is in the mood for business, the old Dissenting steward, who carries a sheaf of unpaid bills, has been told to come back another day. Beyond the blue marble pillars that frame the further room, we catch sight of a tired footman (173).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Steward
Lichtenberg
The gentleman, too, has just had his breakfast. It must have tasted abominably, for the old steward who had brought it in is carrying it away again completely untouched. It consisted of a sheaf of bills which were due to be paid that morning, and of which only one is receipted, and that is dated June 4th, whereas now it is obviously winter. The paid one is signed and hangs on the steward's file. It was, of course, a nasty bit to swallow, and yet these were but little pieces of bread and butter compared with the loaf which he carries under his arm—the ledger. That can hardly have been even sniffed at this morning. To try to comment on the steward's head and the meaning of his expression and the gesture of his hand in words would surely be the most unforgivable misuse of alphabetic writing that could possibly be perpetrated. This is not what printing type was meant for in the world. The most scrupulous preparation of foot- notes, according to their two great divisions, would come to grief with a text likethis: not only those which expound in order to help understanding, but also the much more learned ones whose aim is to hinder understanding. If I were to say, 'Look, that's how it stands with his Lordship's finances', and pointed at that household god there, would anybody still ask, 'but what is the real state of his Lordship's finances?' Not a soul, to be sure— at least, not between Cape St Vincent and Nova Zembla. Conversely, that head is meant to help us in our interpretation of the rest, and we therefore count confidently in advance upon our readers' indulgence if, perhaps, in some of the following passages, nothing more is said by way of explanation but: videatur the Steward! (97-98).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Saints
The pictures of saints demonstrate that Hogarth still sees the young couple as being martyred.
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Saints
Paulson, Hogarth's Graphic Works
The other paintings are of saints--Matthew leaning on a sword, John the Evangelist, Andrew, and another hidden behind the chandelier. The lower row consists of mirrors (270).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Saints
Lichtenberg
The pictures in the drawing-room are not fearful and sanguinary as those in the betrothal room; on the contrary, they aim at pure, cold-blooded edification. Most of them represent saints with their haloes. Although it is not possible to see the halo of the fourth on account of the lights in front, we can assume its presence from the rest of the company and the uniform frames. Mr Ireland takes them to be the Four Evangelists. Now this is just what they are not. The central figure of the three is evidently Saint Andrew with the cross of his name, while the figure hanging on his right is a she-saint, perhaps a Madonna with a chalice, and the fourth holds a sword in his hand. What use would a sword be to an Evangelist? One does not write gospels with a sword in one's fist; one only interprets them with it, and that is a more recent innovation. The most sacred figure among them all appears to be the one of which the curtain permits us to see only the little naked foot. What a pity! Had we come earlier, when the young gentlemen were still here, we could have seen everything. Oh! Madam, Madam! (99-100).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Sleepy
A servant yawns and scratches his head, demonstrating that his domestic services had been required all night.
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Sleepy
Shesgreen
A sleepy, carelessly dressed servant leans against a chair (52).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Sleepy
Dobson
a yawning footman in curl-papers is languidly arranging the furniture in the background (74).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Sleepy
Paulson, Hogarth's Graphic Works
Within the second room is a sleepy servant, ungartered, his nightcap on (270).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Sleepy
Lichtenberg
Behind there, in the temple of the aristocratic Bacchante, among the candles which, as we remarked, are burning the daylight, there seems to be one which has run its course and is in the act of setting fire to the chair- back. It is really already alight. The matter could become serious. But fortunately another chair-back, against which a servant has dozed off while standing, becomes aware of the catastrophe, threatens to throw off its rider, and in this way will probably be the saving of its brother. The young fellow rubs and scratches head and breast to rouse himself, and does everything a low-grade domestic can do. For that is all he is; the properly uniformed ministry is still asleep (99).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Groom
Austin Dobson delicately reports that the Viscount has returned from his "independent nocturnal expedition" (74). Cowley adds that, unlike the Rakewell's drunkenness with an undercurrent of sexual exhaustion, Squanderfield's pose indicates, "sexual exhaustion with only undercurrents of drunkenness and brawling" (58). These minor distinctions aside, it is clear that his lover's cap is visible in his pocket, and his sword lies broken on the floor in what Cowley calls an emblem of "inadequacy or impotence" (59).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Groom
Dobson
Worn out and nauseated, my Lord Squanderfield has returned from some independent nocturnal expedition. His rich black velvet coat and his waistcoat are thrown open; his disordered hair has lost its ribbon; his hands are plunged deeply into his small clothes. In undisguised disregard for the presence of his plebian partner, he still wears his laced hat. His sword, which he has unbuckled and thrown upon the floor, is broken ignominiously in its sheath; and a lap-dog snuffs at a woman’s cap half-thrust into his pocket. His whole appearance, the physical prostration of his posture, the tired and cynical disgust upon his features, bear witness to the reaction after excess in a constitution which dissipation has already undermined. Hazlitt, in his review of these pictures at the Exhibition of 1814, points out how skillfully the pallid unhealthy face is contrasted with the yellow-whitish colour of the mantelpiece behind. He seems in a stupor of lassitude (74-75).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Groom
Paulson, Hogarth's Graphic Works
He has come in from a night of revelry and collapses in a chair, ignoring his plebeian wife (270).
The model for the young nobleman was said to be Francis Hayman, the painter (Gen. Works, 3, 241) (271).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Groom
Quennell
[Squanderfield] has just staggered in after a party of his own, probably at Tom King’s or the Rose Tavern! A woman’s cap is stuffed into his pocket; and his wife’s little “shock dog” sniffs at it inquisitively . . . [the] husband is perpetually bored and prematurely disillusioned. The young woman stretches deliciously: the young man lolls despondently. The droop of his head, the sprawl of the silk-stockinged legs thrust out straight in front of him, as if every joint ached and every fibre and muscle sagged, combine to produce an impression of overwhelming lassitude; while the pallor of his skin (Hazlitt observed) is set off by the “yellow whitish colour of the marble chimney-piece” (172-173).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Groom
Lichtenberg
The young gentleman who, by the way, has aged over-night through rather heavy debauchery, seems to have just flung himself down in here after being unloaded from his carriage. Obviously, he has stumbled over the chair with the fine Cremona violins, has fallen and broken his sword. The figure is a masterpiece, and undoubtedly one of the best Hogarth has ever done. It is a true picture of impotence after the wildest debauchery of every kind. Nothing holds together in him through inner force. His position has been reached through force of gravity, through mechanical reaction, and, passively, through the shape of the chair. Waistcoat and stockings hang upon him just like his hat and his hair. The hair-bag is gone, the watch is gone and the money is gone. In place of money there are now only empty hands which search for it and find nothing but a melancholy support for themselves, and for the long heavy arms which have become limp as leather through sleeplessness and excesses. What has suffered least in the tumult is the black seal of the Faculty behind the ear. On what does his gaze rest? Outwards it certainly reaches no farther than half-way towards the overturned chair; inwards it must look uncommonly deep on this mom of domestic peace. Even through the mists of headache which hover round his brow it is still possible to recognize some traces of deeper heartache. This is what happens to little fishes once an over-frivolous jump has thrown them too far out of their element. Intoxication, which, at its onset and during its progress, raises the drinker above his usual state of mind and heart, lowers him again at its expiration below that state, so that in every kind of mood he can usually find some rung on this ladder from which he can, without much trouble, survey his whole being. He seems to calculate; but no, he only feels in a dull sort of way what would happen if he attempted to calculate. This is the ill-humour which, as we said, takes the young gentleman's part against Sleep. However prostrate he may be though, he has not left the battlefield wholly without booty. From his coat-pocket there hangs an object of muslin and ribbon which only rarely, and never without some great unheaval, finds its way into male coat-pockets. It is some small perfumed head-gear which has been discovered by the lady's lap-dog with its Boulognaise sagacity, and at which it is sniffing with peace-loving cautiousness. Thus, what could hardly be regarded as an adequate security for a mere hair-bag has now become, apparently, the whole substitute for purse and watch! So much for the activities of the young gentleman last night, of which the little dog here has the scent—and now a word on the activities of the young lady, which the young gentleman himself is scenting out (95-96)..
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Bride
The wife has been the source of more debate. Shesgreen notes that her occupation has been "much more innocent and middle-class than his debauchery" (52). The overturned card table confirms this observation. There is even a note of sympathy with the wife who "vainly attempts to win her husband's attention by her glance and outstretched foot" (52). Cowley confirms that she "teases her exhausted husband with her sensuality" (75). Her failed attempts implicate him as the first to break their vows and somewhat vindicate her as she tries, at least at first, to make the marriage work.
Her demeanor can also be interpreted as sexual exhaustion. While she appears adequately covered for modern audiences, Cowley observes that eighteenth-century viewers would have found her “shameless for appearing before the servants with her lacings uncovered, her knees apart, and without her hoops” (60). Her pose also inspires commentary. Paulson calls it a “vulgar stretch” (Life vol. 1 484).
The wife’s seductive pose recalls A Harlot’s Progress and Moll’s attempt to seduce the merchant to divert his attention away from her escaping lover.
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Bride
Shesgreen
His wife, stretching gracelessly, vainly attempts to win her husband’s attention by her glance and outstretched foot. Her entertainment, much more innocent and middle-class than his aristocratic debauchery, has been to remain at home and entertain guests at cards (52).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Bride
Uglow
The Viscountess stretches, sensual and sly, noting her husband's pallid, hung-over disarray and thinking her own thoughts--her masquerade mask, the scattered cards in the salon and the copy of “Hoyle on Whist” (newly published in 1742), suggest what she has been doing (377-378).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Bride
Dobson
the lady of the house, holding a pocket mirror (?) in her right hand. She stretches her arms wearily, with a sidelong glance at her husband, who reclines upon, or rather is supported by, a chair at the opposite side of the fireplace. Nothing is Hogarth is finer than this latter figure, for which, it is stated, Hayman the painter served as model (74).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Bride
Paulson, Hogarth's Graphic Works
Oppé has pointed out the print's general resemblance to Cochin's print La Soirée (the drawing is in the Ashmolean), engraved by Claude Gallimard in 1739. Cochin's female figure holding a mask may have suggested the countess' pose with her pocket mirror raised (271).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Bride
Quennell
the future Countess is learning to enjoy herself; and her party, with music and cards, has lasted until the break of day. How voluptuously she stretches and yawns, casting a sidelong glance, sleepy but sharp, at her exhausted husband, who has just staggered in after a party of his own, probably at Tom King’s or the Rose Tavern! (172). the wife, though capricious and greedy and idle, has a middle-class robustness inherited from her merchant forebears and enjoys every crowded moment of the fashionable life she leads (173).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Bride
Lichtenberg
The young lady is thus very, very tired; she shows it by certain gestures in which there is indeed very little breeding or, if there is any at all it is very, very half-baked. She stretches a little, or, as they say in some parts she threatens her spouse with the sign of the horns. She is certainly healthy, perhaps too healthy. Even the sleepy expression is not without force and indicates, like her whole attitude, a surplus of everything in which her poor husband is so sadly lacking. It appears she has slept a little, in the chair, and is soon going to sleep again if the conversation between her and her beloved is to continue with the same vivacity with which it began. What the little empty box or étui in her hand signifies is not easy to say. If there were a little mirror in the lid then the matter—and greatly to her credit—would not be difficult to decide. It would obviously mean that on waking up she was fulfilling one of the primary obligations, I mean the duty of self-examination; that her face has passed that examination fairly well may then be clearly inferred from the placid stretching which immediately followed (97).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Sword
The Viscount’s sword lies broken on the floor in what Cowley calls an emblem of "inadequacy or impotence" (59). However, Squanderfield will be redeemed in death—his sword is rigid and resurrected in the fifth plate.
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Tacky Art
Signs of marital breakdown are abundant in the scene. The broken sword is one such indication. Another is the painting over the fireplace of Cupid vainly playing his bagpipes amidst the ruins. Paulson notes that this, along with the bust's broken nose (indicative of sexual problems) and "the candles burnt down to their sockets . . .are all emblems of a marriage out of harmony" (Graphic 270).
The couple has horrible taste in art—Hogarth mocks it with a menagerie of tacky items.
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Tacky Art
Shesgreen
Above his head hangs a clock ornamented with the comically incongruous images of a cat, a fish, and a Buddha. The mantle is cluttered with tasteless, grotesque little statues; a Roman bust with a broken nose stands in the center. In a picture above the mantle, Cupid plays the bagpipes; his bow lies broken beside him (52).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Tacky Art
Dobson
Over the mantelpiece is Cupid playing upon the bagpipes in the midst of ruins; immediately below him is a bust with mended nose, which Lichtenberg conjectures to represent a “Faustina.” On either side, the shelf is crowded with Indian pagods and auction monstrosities—toads, and the “fat squabs” whose “dropsical dignity” is so neatly hit off in Cowper’s couplet:
Gorgonius sits, abdominous and wan,
Like a fat squab upon a Chinese fan.
On the right hand of the mantelpiece hangs a nondescript trophy of leafage in brass surrounding a clock, and surmounted by a cat in china, life-size. Fishes appear among the leaves below. The hole, like the jumble of bad architecture in Scene I., is probably a supplementary satire on William Kent, who designed everything, from picture-frames to petticoats (75-76).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Tacky Art
Paulson, Hogarth's Graphic Works
The fireplace and the mantle, center of the picture, is a horrible example of William Kent interior decoration. The clock, a part of an elaborate girandole full of rococo or "rock-work," shows 1:20 A.M., and consists of a grove in which appear a fat figure (probably Chinese) sitting on a bower of leaves, with two candles attached, and a life-size cat on top of this foliage hungrily eyeing two fish. "If the branches were tenanted by the feathered tribe," J. Ireland comments (i, 28), "it would be no more than we see every day; it would be vulgar nature. To make it uncommonly grand, and peculiarly magnifique, they are occupied by two fishes." In the center of the mantel is an antique Roman bust with a broken nose, with Chinese and Indian objects, statuettes and bottles, clustered about it. Behind the bust is a painting of a cupid blowing on bagpipes, his bow un-strung, amid ruins (270).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Tacky Art
Paulson, His Life, Art and Times
the young married couple sit with the yawning fireplace between them—its empty mouth topped with meaningless bric-a-brac, suggesting the emptiness of their marriage (vol. 1 485).
Marriage a la Mode: Plate 2: Tacky Art
Lichtenberg
The whole mantelpiece here is covered with the most abominable works of art from north-east Asia: Chinese gods, apparently in an advanced state of pregnancy, sit there naked so that the folds of their garments should not come out of crease. Others have their hands outstretched from their shoulders, wanting to make the sign of the horns but unable to. Vases stiff as railings and little bottles dumpy as corks alternate with curious objects of nature and with artefacts such as chance will sometimes produce. Most ludicrous of all is an antique bust. It is a pity that its head is new and the nose still newer than the head. It must have been bought for a Faustina. On the whole there reigns among this junk an admirable symmetry and the most meticulous order. Every little bottle has its counter-bottle, and every freak its freak to match. This seems to be the most orderly spot in the house. As one sees, they are quite capable of keeping order under that roof when it suits them, and when it does not suit the object. The picture on the overmantle represents a Cupid who has had a miserable fate, or at least has it now. His temple has collapsed, his bow has no string and his quiver no arrows; nothing remains for him but the bagpipes and the pipe upon which he now fingers his monotonous lament.
No matter how ridiculous the clock looks up there, with its fishes in the trees and its cat among the fishes, it is possibly not only the greatest work of art in the room, but even the greatest masterpiece of the clockmaker's art. I believe, in fact, that we may conclude from the solemn position of the cat, which seems to do nothing but just sit there idly, that the clock is a cat-clock which mee-ows the hours just as there are cuckoo-clocks which cuckoo them. A clock upon which a very finely carved dog barks the hours has, as a friend of mine writes, been offered for sale by an Englishman not long ago, and at a very high price. This gives not a little support to my assumption. But Lord Squanderfield's clock exceeds that one by far, especially if one considers that the quarters might perhaps be mee-owed in a different tone, or even by kittens. From what I hear, a pupil of Le Drozl is said to be even now employed in constructing a clock on which a wild boar grunts the hours in short snorts. Probably he had the idea from the celebrated Pig Concert of the conductor Pepusch in Berlin, in which the voices of the pigs were blown on bassoons as porco primo, porco secundo, and which earned such resounding applause.
The eighteenth century has thus given us, among many other novel inventions, a menagerie of clocks under which we shall surely sleep more merrily in future than with the eternal memento mori stroke of our tolling bells, which properly belong on steeples. The two fishes look to me as if they too were stuck in a wave which is connected with the clock. Who knows whether they may not make their hourly carp-jump as well? It would be a delightful idea, and all the more remarkable in that it takes place in the tree-tops—an event only rarely indeed encountered in Nature (100-101).