Hogarth's Works, with life and anecdotal descriptions of his pictures. Volume 1 (of 3)Ireland, John
General
Hogarth's Works, with life and anecdotal descriptions of his pictures. Volume 1 (of 3)
Ireland, John
Hogarth, William, 1697-1764
[55] Following the Doctor's name are the letters S.T.P., _sanctæ
theologiæ professor_. A fellow not knowing the import of these
dignifying capitals, well enough translated them, SAUCY TROUBLESOME
PUPPY.
[56] When Theodore, the unfortunate king of Corsica, was so reduced
as to lodge in a garret in Dean Street, Soho, a number of gentlemen
made a collection for his relief. The chairman of their committee
informed him by letter, that on the following day, at twelve o'clock,
two of the society would wait upon his Majesty with the money. To
give his _Attic_ apartment an appearance of royalty, the poor monarch
placed an arm-chair on his half-testered bed, and seating himself
under the scanty canopy, gave what he thought might serve as the
representation of a throne. When his two visitors entered the room,
he graciously held out his right hand, that they might have the
honour of--kissing it!
[57] Sir John Gonson, a justice of peace, very active in the
suppression of brothels. In a view of the town in 1735, by T. Gilbert
(Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge), are the following lines:--
"Though laws severe to punish crimes were made,
What honest man is of these laws afraid?
All felons against judges will exclaim,
As harlots tremble at a Gonson's name."
Pope has noticed him in his Imitation of Dr. Donne, and Loveling in a
very elegant Latin Ode. Thus, between the poets and the painter, the
name of this harlot-hunting justice is transmitted to posterity. He
died on the 9th of January 1765.
[58] Such well-dressed females are rarely met with in our present
house of correction; but her splendid appearance is sufficiently
warranted by the following paragraph in the _Grub Street Journal_ of
September 14, 1730:--
"One Mary Moffat, a woman of great note in the hundreds of Drury,
who about a fortnight ago was committed to hard labour in Tothill
Fields Bridewell, by nine justices, brought his Majesty's writ of
_habeas corpus_, and was carried before the Right Honourable the
Lord Chief-Justice Raymond, expecting to have been either bailed
or discharged; but her commitment appearing to be legal, his
lordship thought fit to remand her back again to her former place
of confinement, where she is now beating hemp in a gown very richly
laced with silver."
[59] The notorious breaches of trust and cruelties of which
Bainbridge, Cuthbert, and other keepers of prisons were about this
time guilty, attracted the attention of the House of Commons,
who appointed a committee to inquire into the abuses, which were
afterwards in a degree corrected.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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