Between the ‘Analysis’ and Hogarth's next unfortunate experiment comes the whimsical frontispiece to Kirby's ‘Perspective’ (1753), cleverly embodying all the errors in that science of which ignorance could possibly be guilty, and even including a few that it could scarcely have committed. To this, heralded by the already-mentioned ticket entitled ‘Crowns, Mitres,’ &c., followed in 1755–8 the admirable ‘Election Series,’ four large plates engraved by Hogarth, C. Grignion, Morellon Le Cave, and F. Aviline. They are entitled separately ‘An Election Entertainment’ (24 Feb. 1755), ‘Canvassing for Votes’ (20 Feb. 1757), ‘Polling’ (20 Feb. 1758), and ‘Chairing the Members’ (1 Jan. 1758), and taken seriatim give a vivid idea of electioneering humours in the old rough-and-tumble, bribery-and-corruption days of the second George. A further pair of prints was prompted by the rumours of invasion current in 1756, when Hogarth came to the aid of patriotism with two rapidly executed plates, in one of which, ‘England,’ the natives of this island were represented as eagerly awaiting the descent of the invaders, while in the other, ‘France,’ the famished subjects of the Grand Monarque exhibit a most pitiful reluctance to embark upon their enterprise. ‘The Bench’ (1758) and ‘The Cockpit’ (5 Nov. 1759), the latter of which depicted, probably at its home in Birdcage Walk, a popular eighteenth-century pastime, with ‘The Five Orders of Periwigs’ (15 Oct. 1761) and a couple of frontispieces to vols. ii. and iv. of ‘Tristram Shandy,’ are the only other plates which require present mention. But Hogarth had not yet relinquished his aspirations after high art, and in 1756 executed for the altarpiece at St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, a set of sacred subjects, the ‘Sealing of the Sepulchre,’ the ‘Ascension,’ and the ‘Three Maries.’ These three pictures, for which he received the sum of 500l., are now in the Fine Arts Academy at Clifton.
On 6 June 1757 Hogarth was appointed serjeant-painter of all his majesty's works, succeeding his brother-in-law, John Thornhill, who resigned that office. He entered upon his duties on 16 July, and his nominal salary was 10l., but with ‘fees, liveries, profits,’ and the like, it came to about 200l. per annum. At this time he seems to have decided to confine himself to portrait-painting; but two years later he announced once more that he should quit the pencil for the graver, one of his chief reasons being that the retouching and repairing of his many plates was already becoming a laborious task. Before he bade a final adieu to the brush Lord Charlemont persuaded him to execute another picture. This was that known indifferently as ‘Picquet,’ or ‘The Lady's Last Stake,’ or ‘Virtue in Danger,’ one of the most attractive of his lesser works. It was engraved by Thomas Cheesman in 1825. Its popularity as a picture led to a further commission from Sir Richard (afterwards Lord) Grosvenor, the choice of subject being left as before to the artist. He selected Boccaccio's (or rather Dryden's) Sigismunda weeping over the heart of her murdered husband, Guiscardo, his object being to rival a so-called Correggio (it was really a Furini) with the same title, which had been sold at Sir Luke Schaub's sale in 1758 for 400l. Hogarth valued his ‘Sigismunda’ at no less. He took immense pains with it, and probably too much advice. When it was finished, Sir Richard, who would have preferred a humorous or satirical genre piece, rather meanly shuffled out of his bargain. The picture in consequence, greatly to the painter's mortification, remained upon his hands, and was not sold until his widow's death, when it was purchased by the Boydells for fifty-six guineas. What was worse, both the transaction and the work gave rise to much vexatious comment, and ‘Sigismunda,’ whose lineaments, as already stated, were those of Mrs. Hogarth, was frankly and even brutally criticised. To prove its merit Hogarth arranged to have it engraved, but the matter never, during his lifetime, advanced beyond an etching in outline by Basire and a subscription-ticket by himself. The latter, ‘Time smoking a Picture’ (1761), is one of the happiest of its class, and has for its English motto two quotations from an ‘Epistle to a Friend, occasioned by my picture of Sigismunda,’ of which, with the aid of Paul Whitehead, the painter delivered himself.
To Nature and your Self appeal
Nor learn of others, what to feel,
is one of these. The whole poem, if such it may be called, is to be found in the ‘Genuine Works,’ 1808, i. 322, and also at p. 281 of the ‘Anecdotes’ of J. B. Nichols, 1833. ‘Sigismunda’ was mezzotinted in 1793 (1 Feb.) by Robert Dunkarton, and engraved in line by B. Smith, 4 June 1795. The original picture and that of the ‘Lady's Last Stake’ were exhibited at the Spring Gardens exhibition of 1761. For the ‘Catalogue’ of this Hogarth executed a head-and tail-piece, both of which were engraved by Grignion. The former was a bid for the royal patronage of art; the latter, a monkey with an eyeglass watering some withered exotics, a supplementary blow at those travelled and unenlightened virtuosi who cherished the lifeless
