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© Great Caricatures
2023
HOGARTH:
COMPARING THE TEXTS
Evening
by William Hogarth
Lifetime Edition, 2nd state, 1738
Boydell Edition, c. 1800
Heath Edition, 1822
This description by John Nichols is from The Works of William Hogarth from the Original Plates Restored by James Heath, Esq., published by Baldwin and Crodock, 1822
On the side of the New River, near Sadler's Wells, where the scene in this Plate is laid, lies one of the wooden pipes employed in the water-works.
There still remains the sign of Sir Hugh Middleton's Head, which Hogarth
has here introduced.
It is not easy to imagine fatigue better delineated than in the appearance
of this amiable pair. In a few of the earliest impressions, Mr. Hogarth printed
the hands of the man in blue, to show that he was a dyer, and the face and
neck of the woman in red, to intimate her extreme heat. The Hope of the Family,
with a cockade in his hat, and riding upon papa's cane, seems much dissatisfied
with female sway. Nothing can be better imagined than the group in the alehouse:
they have been taking a refreshing walk into the country, and, being determined
to have a cooling pipe, seat themselves in a chair-lumbered closet, with
a low ceiling; where every man putting off his wig, and throwing a pocket
handkerchief over his head, inhales the fumes of hot punch, the smoke
of half a dozen pipes, and the dust from the road. The old gentleman
in a black bag-wig, and the two women near
him, sensibly enough, take their seats in the open air. From a woman
milking a cow, we conjecture the hour to be about five in the afternoon;
and from
the same circumstance, I am inclined to think this agreeable party
are going to their pastoral bower, rather than returning from it. The
cow and
dog appear as much inconvenienced by heat as any of the party; the
former is whisking off the flies; and the latter creeps unwillingly
along, and
casts a longing look at the crystal river, in which he sees his own
shadow. A remarkably hot summer is intimated by the luxuriant state
of a vine creeping
over an alehouse window.
This Print was engraved by Baron; but some touches of Hogarth's burin are visible on the faces. Our artist inserted the little girl with the fan as an after-thought, some friend having asked him what the boy cried for; which circumstance shows that this great genius did not think himself above advice.