I, Hogarth

by Michael Dean

  She handed back the drawing, yawning. ‘I’m tired.’

  ‘Don’t be.’ I spoke softly. Then … ‘The next step is to sell the engravings. We’ll start with the South Sea one …’

  ‘Where will you sell it?’

  ‘I’ll go round the booksellers. Frenchy-Felix has promised to come with me. He’s been a good friend. A good help to me.’

  ‘John would help you. He’s most fond of you, you know, William.’

  I was with John last night. We visited three bagnios, rogering a total of six whores before returning to my shop, exhausted, at four in the morning, where we slept on the floor. John knew about my trysts with his sister, but seemed unconcerned. He would not have been the least use with booksellers. I realised I had spoken this last thought aloud.

  ‘Oh, John wouldn’t be any use.’

  She was silent. We stayed unspeaking for a while. She was the only person I could be silent with. My arm was getting stiff, so I took it from the back of the settle. I felt I may have upset or offended her but, against all logic, it was at this moment that I took her hand for the first time. She allowed it, looking me seriously in the eye, wide eyed. More silence. And then …

  ‘William, I know you dislike the copying you do at my father’s academy.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘William, I have spoken with my father. I told him I have seen your drawings. I praised them.’

  ‘What? Did you …?’ My hand tightened on hers.

  ‘I’m afraid I gave my father the impression that our meeting was more by chance than it in fact was. And also that it only happened the once.’

  ‘Good!’

  ‘But he said you could help him, with his paintings. As his assistant. Should you like to.’ She turned on the settle, facing me even more. ‘Is that what you would like?’

  ‘I would like nothing more!’ I roared out, so fervently she laughed. ‘Oh, you are wonderful, Jane. You make gold of the base metal of my life, you know?’

  ‘Oh, William, don’t!’

  ‘Why! Why? It’s the truth! It’s my heart speaking. My lost heart. My heart that belongs to you.’

  ‘I believe you, William.’ Her eyes widened; they filled the world.

  ‘But …’

  ‘But! No buts, please. I hate buts. Buts are anathema. Anathema, buts.’

  She laughed. ‘William, I’m so young.’

  I let go her hand, so I could clap mine together. ‘I have the solution! Jane, I have it! You must get older. See? You will achieve this by ageing. As for me, I have a plan. Here it is: I shall wait while you get older. I shall talk to you and be with you. Maybe I shall take you in my arms, but I swear before God and man that all that side of it comes a distant second. It is you, Jane, wonderful Jane, you I want.’

  She started to cry. I kissed her gently, chastely, on the lips, which she allowed. She took an embroidered handkerchief from her sleeve, dabbing her eyes with it. We held hands again, she smiling. Which was the tableau when her mother came in.

  I had seen Lady Judith before, naturally; we had exchanged pleasantries, but no more than that. She was dark, shrewd, smaller than her daughter. She had the mien of a small furry, burrowing animal: a mole, say, or, less benignly, a ferret.

  The small beady, dark-eyed gaze was hard on her daughter, ignoring me, as she saw, burrowed, searched beneath the surface of her flesh and blood, reading her like a book or a painting. The reading completed, she turned to me, closing the daughter out, now.

  ‘William Hogarth.’

  I had already released Jane’s hand, indeed with alacrity. Now I sprang up from the settee like a jack-in-the-box. ‘At your service, madam.’

  The beady gaze flicked back to Jane, then me, as if she did not wish to encompass us both for fear of compromising Jane. ‘My daughter looks happy, Master Hogarth. Let us see if we can keep it that way, shall we?’

  ‘Always, madam.’ For a mad moment it occurred to me to propose to Jane, there and then, in front of her mother. It was one of the few occasions in my life when cooler counsels within me have prevailed over those more heated. ‘Always,’ I repeated.

  ‘Always is a long time, Master Hogarth.’ Her eyes flicked round the extensive room, as if cleaning, or rather purging, it with her gaze. Then back to me. ‘You are monopolising my family, young William Hogarth. A pupil at my husband’s art class, now conversation with my daughter. Last night, I believe, an evening in the company of my son.’

  I could feel myself blushing. Surely John hadn’t … HIS MOTHER! He can’t have told … I remembered Sally, one of the whores we had both had, then hastily cleansed my mind.

  ‘A good supper at the Bedford Arms, I believe,’ said the Lady Judith Thornhill, drily. ‘I’m told they always do a good meal there.’

  ‘Er … Yes, indeed, ma’am.’

  ‘And now you are to become assistant to my husband? Following the advances you

  have made …’ she shot Jane a glance, ‘… in the art class.’

  I, too, looked at Jane, not bothering to hide not only my gratitude but my blazing love. Why should I? I was bloody proud of it. It was the best thing about me.

  ‘I …’

  ‘Be here at ten tomorrow. Oh …’ she stopped a touch theatrically, as if she had just thought of this. Which she hadn’t. I’d wager she’d planned every pause and inflection. ‘What about your shop? The … um … engraving business, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. I’ll shut the shop. And I’ll shut it permanently the second I can make my living from painting.’

  ‘That is your intention, is it? Your ambition?’

  ‘Very much so, ma’am. I shall be a painter. A successful one.’

  ‘His drawings really are very good, mama,’ said Jane gently, pleading.

  ‘I’m sure they are,’ said Lady Judith. ‘At least …’ she continued hastily to forestall my attempt to pull them out and show them, ‘at least my daughter believes they are, and that is good enough for me. Which rather brings us full circle, William, in this little tête-à-tête of ours, does it not? By which I mean that I will follow my daughter’s lead in the matter of you, providing she remains happy.’

  ‘I …’

  ‘Yes, don’t say it again. Fanny will see you out.’ Fanny the maid appeared magically on cue. ‘And don’t trust the other household staff. My husband can pay them more than I can, and they know it. Fanny loves me, don’t you Fanny?’

  Fanny, who I must say was really extremely pretty, smiled and curtsied. ‘Yes, ma’am. And I love my Lady Jane even more.’

  ‘Cheeky minx! Ten o’clock tomorrow, then, Master Hogarth. Bring your brushes. Oh, I tell you what. Come at half past nine, then you can spend half an hour with my daughter. If you’d like that?’

  I advanced on Lady Judith and took her hand. ‘Thank you, ma’am. I won’t let you down, not in any respect. You can be certain of that.’

  Lady Judith did not withdraw her hand from my grasp, nor her gaze from mine as our eyes locked. ‘Do you know, William, I think you may be right about that.’

  8

  ‘IT’S £3 for a square yard of ceiling, £1 for a square yard of wall,’ Sir James’s West Country words rolled forwards precisely, as if afraid they may trip over if they did not watch their step. ‘It’s not much, but I demand the same as Kent. Always ask for as much as or more than your rivals, William.’

  I nodded, taking from all that speech only the implication that one day it would be me, naming my price against my rivals. Who knows? Life can deliver amazing surprises. One minute I was bobbing by skiff to Greenwich with one John Rakesby, the next I bobbed again with Sir James Thornhill, who turned out to be Rakesby’s father; Rakesby, meanwhile, turned out not to be Rakesby. With luck like that you should trust to your lucky stars, you Spitalfields Billy, you, young William Hogarth.

  Sir James was waving at the huge wall of the Upper Hall of the Royal Naval Hospital. His wave was a little unsteady, even at this early hour he had sunk a few brandies. He disl
iked beer, he had already confided in me, as the bulk of it pushed his stomach out. He also disliked drinking alone. Being unused to the tipple, my customary swagger had nearly tipped me over twice, and all we had so far done was unpacked the paints and walked up and down.

  ‘I’m glad you are here to assist me, William.’

  ‘I’m glad to be here, sir.’

  ‘It’s too much for one man. It really is, especially at my age.’

  ‘Why? How old are you, sir?’

  Sir James did not laugh, as I rather tipsily hoped he would, but neither did he take offence.

  ‘Within the sight of fifty, William. And I do believe, within the sight of my maker, too.’

  ‘Oh, surely not, sir!’

  Sir James started that strange pirouette he did back at his home. I believed he was dizzy, or perhaps just trying to remain upright. I liked him enormously. Once you got used to him, there was much less difference between him and me than I had expected.

  The business we engaged on, over the coming weeks, was a portrait of the king and his family, among gods and angels: Hercules prominent, with St Paul’s in the background. The king himself was outlined at the top of five steps, with the deities piling to heaven. Sir James himself began work on the king’s face, sending me up a ladder to create a sky and clouds around St Paul’s.

  I eased on the thin underpainting – off-white usually, or grey, as he showed me – not worrying overmuch, as he assured me, if I went over his line to indicate the dome of St Paul’s or the outstretched arm of the topmost angel. I enjoyed it, my work was even, it was well applied. Then, at some time during our work together, I believe quicker than he originally intended, I blocked in a blue-verditer sky and some lead-white impasto for the clouds. My heaven!

  Sir James could not see my work as it proceeded, up there in the sky, so I made my own firmament and would show him afterwards, as often as not at the end of the day. BLOCKS OF COLOUR, BLOCKS OF COLOUR, SOLID BLOCKS OF COLOUR. I understood that I was finding myself, up there in Sir James’s heaven, though not yet exactly what I was finding nor how I was to use it. I was becoming a painter, I knew that much. And my engraving shop remained thankfully closed, and would do, while I was transported to my Greenwich heaven.

  We spoke little, Sir James and I, and never of deeper matters of opinion or the more secret aspects of our lives. In this way, we created a placidity for our days, an ease: even a gentle joy. He was easy company, an emollient being.

  To my surprise, he never guided my work, beyond indicating where I should start for the day and what I should represent. So this was Hogarth’s sky, Hogarth’s clouds, one Hogarth pillar, as against two from Sir James, and even a Hogarth dome of St Paul’s.

  Sir James had mastered the art of drinking just enough to elevate the perceptions, without tipping into blackness of any sort. I climbed down from above our St Paul’s to partake of brandy at regular intervals, with the occasional interpolation of a game pie, leg of mutton or suchlike, brought from the kitchens of Sir James’s home in a basket with a chequered linen cover over it.

  I was a painter. At least, over those next few weeks, I became one. BLOCKS OF COLOUR, BLOCKS OF COLOUR. It was so simple, almost meaningless, yet it was the key for me as a painter, as it showed the way forward, even if I could not put it into words, or even thoughts, which made sense.

  I neglected my engraving at the shop more and more, participating in the copying lessons at Sir James’s house only so I might see my Jane. I told Jane about the painting and my love for Jane went into the painting. To me all the angels and goddesses we painted were Jane, even the king’s consort.

  Sir James told me that this was one Sophia of somewhere or other near Hanover. Nobody knew what she looked like – Sir James assured me, slurring his words, drunk as a lord – so we could make it up. And anyway, the king couldn’t stand her. Later on, he told me this Sophia was the king’s cousin, so I suggested, half-mischievously, that he make her look like the king.

  Sir James took me seriously: neither the first nor the last time my facetious teasing had been thus received. Sophia and George ended up looking like brother and sister. As Sophia was, for some reason, standing a step higher than George, as angels and goddesses crowded in on them, she gave the impression of his older sister. When Sir James was not there I gave her features a tweak, so she looked more like Jane.

  Then, out of the blue, so to speak, Sir James said something that made my heart leap. ‘I am to be away for a while, William. I have another commission to fulfil, at Headley Park, in Hampshire. Can you paint on alone here for a while?’

  ‘Why, yes, Sir James,’ I cried. ‘I can paint on here. Then I can come to the country, paint with you there, be your assistant on all your projects.’ TOO MUCH, TOO MUCH, HOGARTH.

  Sir James smiled. ‘Whoa! Not so fast. One thing at a time, my dear William. One thing at a time.’

  ‘Yes, of course. ‘I’m sorry, Sir James …’

  ‘No need to apologise, my dear boy.’

  ‘May I be so bold as to ask who the commission is for in Hamp … in the country.’

  ‘Why? You know people there?’

  ‘Er … Not exactly.’

  ‘You may know the name. He spends most of his time in London, after all. My patron for this particular commission is one John Huggins. Is the name familiar to you?’

  Huggins! I could hear his voice in my head. ‘£1 6s 8d for the fetters.’ I could smell his oily skin, his filthy clothes. I could feel his touch on my mother’s hand as he took our money, in exchange for not torturing my darling pater further. John Huggins, keeper, governor of the Fleet Prison. ‘No, sir. I know no John Huggins; our paths have not crossed.’

  ‘Pity. He’s a genial fellow. I’m looking forward to his company.’

  9

  BUSINESS! I was marching through London, chest out, head back, hell-bent on making my first sale as an artist. The engraving shop was closed. Good King George and the consort Sophia, not to mention angels, goddesses and St Paul’s looked down, I imagined, alone and blankly unfinished at Greenwich. And marching by my side, struggling to keep up even though his legs were longer, was Felix Frenchy Pellett: tutor, friend, guide and occasional molly-boy.

  The offering which made up my first sale was clutched under my left arm, allowing the right to swing in rhythm with my bantam-cock strut. It was a print of an engraving depicting the collapse of the South Sea scheme.

  I needed much less help than I expected from Felix with South Sea, a tribute to my ease of learning, not to mention the great progress I was making at the calling which had chosen me. But now I descended from the apex of creation to fight my way into the market place, among the throng of those scrabbling at the base, who I was at this moment merely joining.

  I had the route of the print shops we would visit fixed in my head like a pattern of dots on the shape of the streets. We would begin at the outer rim, working inwards. We would begin with the booksellers I knew, the ones who swindled my father, or at least some of them; the egregious, squinting Curll-cur was too much for me to stomach.

  Felix, calm, even as happy as his name, paced by my side as we reached Charles Acker’s print shop in St John’s Close, north of Smithfield, not far from Clerkenwell Green. The last time I was there, father did the talking. His ghost appeared as I entered.

  Charles Ackers, it appeared, was no more; a young cousin, John, looked at my prints. There was a silence.

  ‘Topical,’ he intoned at South Sea. ‘Perhaps a little too topical.’

  I started to speak, to make vigorous protest, in fact, but Frenchy-Felix rammed me hard in the ribs with his elbow. I punched him on the arm and glared at him.

  If John Ackers noticed us squabbling, he made no comment. ‘How much can you contribute to the printing costs?’ he said.

  ‘How much …? What …? Contribute …?’ I squared up to Ackers, clenching my fists.

  ‘We can perhaps come up with a formula per copy for you, but that would depend on ho
w much you can put in.’

  I saw my father’s dear face in front of me, in all its haggard suffering after these rabid dogs had eaten his flesh. ‘These are my prints!’ I yelled at him in inconsequential fury. ‘My work … my effort … my …’

  It was going to be ‘My talent’ but Frenchy-Felix grabbed my arm and hauled me away from the printer, who was backing off in alarm. Felix kept pulling, spinning me round, until I was dragged, apoplectic and still yelling from the print shop, back outside to the street.

  ‘Here, give me the print,’ said Felix. ‘You don’t want to crease it after we’ve come all this way.’

  I let Felix take the print. He checked it for damage, which calmed me.

  ‘They often ask for money towards the printing,’ he said. ‘As a beginner, you may have to pay. This time at least. But he thinks they will sell, this Ackers, I could see that.’

  Against my will, I was pleased by Ackers’ good opinion. CRAVEN, HOGARTH, CRAVEN!

  We headed south again, so fast in my anger Felix could barely keep up. Next we visited Bowes’ in St Paul’s Churchyard, right near the Thornhill place, where Curll also has a stall, then Regnier’s in Great Newport Street, Hennekin’s at the corner of Hemmings Row, and lastly Overton’s at the market at the corner of Pall Mall.

  More and more I let Felix do the talking. It was the first time, on my own account, that I appeared as supplicant to people with considerably less talent than myself, but it was by no means the last.

  It is the fate of the artist to be so cast down by those who have one life, and that a base one, usually; whereas the artist has two, for he inhabits the world of his art, alongside the quotidian world of clay and mud in which we all subsist and work and fornicate and belch and piss.

  These people. THESE PEOPLE the artist had to deal with. Regnier wanted to keep the original plate at his shop to prevent extra unauthorised copies, he said, except by him, of course. Hennekin offered me extra money to make more copies, with the ingenious argument that many people would pirate my work, so I may as well be one of them.