The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures, Bons Mots, Puns, and Hoaxes of Theodore HookHook, Theodore Edward
General
The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures, Bons Mots, Puns, and Hoaxes of Theodore Hook
Hook, Theodore Edward
English wit and humor
Mr. Haydon, a sonnet-writing Cockney, ranking high in the
administration of the smoky kingdom of Cockaigne, distinguished
himself last year, by exhibiting a picture of the "Entry into
Jerusalem," which, like Tom Thumb's Cow, was "larger than the largest
size." Elated with the success of this immense performance, (of which
one group only was at all finished,) Mr. Haydon, this year, put forth
a work representing "the Agony in the Garden:" the divine subject
saved the silly artist, and we were upon that account silent; else,
for Mr. Haydon, who wears his shirt collars open, and curls his hair
in long ringlets, because Rafaele did so, and who, if it did not
provokingly turn down over his mouth, would turn up his nose at the
Royal Academy, indeed we should have felt very little tenderness.
But with respect to Mr. Ward's allegorical picture of Waterloo, we
had different feelings--the picture had good principle about it,
and the weeks, months, and years which have been bestowed upon it
demanded some recompense; the idlers of Piccadilly did not feel the
occasional disbursement of a shilling. In pleasant society Ward's
exhibition-room was as good a place wherein to "laugh a sultry hour
away" as any other; and anxious that Mr. Ward, after having expended
so much time, canvas, and colour, should get something by it, we
have patiently let him draw his reward from the pockets of those
good easy folks, who read newspaper puffs and believe them; and who
go and vow all over London that a picture is wonderful and sublime,
merely because the painter, at the trifling charge of seven shillings
and sixpence, has thought proper to tell them that it is so, in the
public journals.
But when we find that this picture was painted for the directors
of the British Institution, founded "for the express purpose
of encouraging the Fine Arts," and is about to be engraved and
disseminated throughout the country, as a specimen of the works taken
under the especial care of that Institution; it really becomes a duty
to save the nation from a charge of bad taste so heavy as must arise
out of the patronage of such a ludicrous daub.
This may be a picture painted for the Institution at their desire,
and the execution of it is no proof of their want of judgment,
because they desired to have such a picture, and they have got it,
and we have thereby no proof of their approbation; but since they
have got themselves into a scrape, they certainly should not allow a
print to be made from it, even if they suffer the painting to remain
in existence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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