Art in England | Page 9

defeated by his rival, Thornhill, probably as much from his
own want of management and self-confidence, as from any other cause.
He drew designs for engravers, and etched a Judgment of Midas.
Round the room of a tavern in Drury Lane, where was held a club of
virtuosi, he painted a Bacchanalian procession, and presented the house
with his labours.
He had many imitators; for there are followers of bad as well as of
good examples. Among others, Riario, Johnson, Brown, besides
Lanscroon, Scheffers, and Picard, who worked with him under Verrio.
His son and pupil, John Laguerre, manifested considerable ability, and
engraved a series of prints of 'Hob in the Well,'[3] which had a large
popularity, though they were but indifferently executed. He was fond of
the theatre, with a talent for music and singing; painted scenery and
stage decorations. He even appeared upon the boards as a singer.
[3] A favourite old ballad farce by Dogget, the comedian.
Laguerre, in his age, feeble and dropsical, attended Drury Lane on the
20th April 1721, to witness his son's performance in a musical version
of Beaumont and Fletcher's 'Island Princess;' but, before the curtain
rose, the poor old man was seized with an apoplectic fit, and died the
same night. He was buried in the Churchyard of St.
Martin's-in-the-Fields. The son subsequently quitted the stage, and
resumed his first profession. He etched a plate, representing Falstaff,
Pistol, and Doll Tearsheet, with other theatrical characters, in allusion
to a quarrel between the players and patentees. He died in very indigent
circumstances, in March 1748.
Time and the white-washer's double-tie brush have combined to
destroy most of the ceilings and staircases of Signor Verrio and
Monsieur Laguerre. For their art, there was not worth enough in it to
endow it with any lasting vitality. They are remembered more from
Pope's lines, than on any other account--preserved in them, like
uncomely curiosities in good spirits. To resort to the poet for verses

applicable, though familiar:--
'Pretty in amber to observe the forms Of hair, or straws, or dirt, or
grubs, or worms; The things we know are neither rich nor rare, But
wonder how the devil they got there!'

A SCULPTOR'S LIFE IN THE LAST CENTURY.
Horace Walpole, in his Anecdotes of Painting, having deplored the low
ebb to which the arts had sunk in Britain during the time of George the
First, proceeds to consider the succeeding reign with greater
complacency: accounting it, indeed, as a new and shining era. Under
George the Second he found architecture revived 'in antique purity;'
sculpture redeemed from reproach; the art of gardening, or, as he
prefers to call it, 'the art of creating landscape,' pressed forward to
perfection; engraving much elevated; and painting, if less perceptibly
advanced, still (towards the close of the reign, at any rate) ransomed
from insipidity by the genius of Sir Joshua Reynolds. The king himself,
it was conceded, had 'little propensity to refined pleasure;' but his
consort, Queen Caroline, was credited with a lively anxiety to reward
merit and to encourage the exertions of the ingenious.
This glowing picture of the period in its relation to the fine arts,
contrasts somewhat violently with what we learn elsewhere concerning
the poverty of Richard Wilson, the ill-requited labours of William
Hogarth, the struggles and sufferings of James Barry, and generally, of
the depressed condition of native professors of art during the eighteenth
century. That the portrait-painter (the 'face-painter' as Hogarth
delighted contemptuously to designate him) found sufficient
occupation is likely enough; but, otherwise, the British artist had
perforce to limit the aspirations of his genius to the decoration of
ceilings and staircases, and to derive his chief emoluments from
painting the sign-boards of the British tradesman: if not a very
dignified still a remunerative employment; for in those days every
London shop boasted its distinct emblem.

Nevertheless it is certain that in George the Second's reign Fashion
began to take up with Taste. Dilettanteism became the vogue. Objects
of virtù were now, for the first time, indispensable appendages of the
houses of the aristocratic and the rich. A rage for 'collecting' possessed
the town, and led to an expenditure as profuse as it was injudicious. Of
the vast sums disbursed, however, but a small share came to the native
artist. His works were passed over as beneath the notice of the
cognoscenti. The 'quality' gave their verdict against modern art and in
favour of the ancient masters. A race of old picture-brokers and jobbers
in antiquities sprang into existence to supply the increasing demand for
such chattels. The London Magazine for 1737, in an article attributed to
William Hogarth, inveighs bitterly against these speculators and their
endeavours to depreciate every English work in order to enhance the
value of their imported shiploads of