William Hogarth, Characters and Caricaturas

I do not have the refined eye of an art critic, and I can't keep track of whatever aesthetic happens to be fashionable at the moment, but I do know what I like, and I remain curious enough to ask myself why a certain image may speak to me with more vigor than another. 

Over time, I have begun to identify certain styles and methods that succeed at making me both think and feel in wonderfully unexpected ways. My love of the three Williams—Hogarth, Blake, and Turner—is my own peculiar way of approaching art as if it were the reflection of a most elegant philosophy. 

I know that my preferences are viewed as odd, and so I do not take offense when they are scorned by the in-crowd. I notice how Hogarth is quite often criticized by my peers, on the grounds that he was little more than a vulgar popularizer, and so it doesn't surprise me to see that he was also condemned in his own time. 

This print, I am told, was a deliberate response by Hogarth to the claims that he depicted people in grossly exaggerated ways, merely as heavy-handed caricatures, with little sense of their human depths and subtleties, thereby failing to present them as genuine characters. 

On the bottom left, Hogarth copied three character studies by Raphael, and on the bottom right he copied four caricatures by Carracci, Ghezzi, and da Vinci. He also added a quick line drawing, a sort of comical doodle, to show their pedigree. Above, he then offered a hundred faces representative of his own work. 

The viewer is thus invited to decide for himself whether Hogarth was selling cheap parodies or celebrating nuanced realities. 

I will only comment that I find great pleasure in carefully studying these hundred faces, puzzling about the temperaments and attitudes that stand behind them. I swear that I recognize many of them as folks I have known, with all their quirks and complexities. 

At first, I worried that Hogarth was indeed distorting people's noses too much, until I bothered to carefully observe those around me in crowded places, like trains and restaurants. I was startled to see how truly diverse and peculiar noses can be, bizarre objects that would appear downright ridiculous if they weren't placed right in the middle of our faces. 

Truth can indeed be stranger than fiction. 

William Hogarth, Characters and Caricaturas (1743) 

William Hogarth, Taste in High Life

I would say that the mania for fashion is merely ridiculous, if I did not also see how much harm it does to its flunkies. Every follower believes himself to be the trendsetter, and we end up with a remarkable contradiction, where conformity is taken to be originality. 

If one blindly follows the herd, for a lack of confidence in simply being oneself, the only way to stand out from the crowd is to take the latest trend to ever greater extremes. Once the ungainly apparatus collapses under its own weight, we turn to the next craze, and the entire process repeats itself, driven by an intensity of passion at the expense of a modesty in reason. 

I have now been around long enough to see many extravagant styles come and go, and even to see those same styles return once more, as if they were entirely new. What we mocked a decade ago is again in vogue, with little hope of convincing the hapless consumers that they have unwittingly turned themselves into slaves. 

It is most noticeable in clothing or in music, but it seeps into every aspect of our lives, because it is really about the quality of our thinking. Before we know it, we are bound to obedience in our religion, our politics, and our morals. Needless to say, this is not the life suitable for a creature gifted with the power of free judgment. 

So many of Hogarth's works are critical of restrictive standards, exposing how a surrender to the mob is a surrender of one's conscience. This particular painting is a work of lighthearted satire, yet one must wonder how the little vanities in the parlor are indicative of much greater vanities in the wider world. 

An older, well-to-do couple are decked out in the latest attire of the 1740's, quite oblivious to how superficial and decadent they have become. The woman's exaggerated hoop dress stands out the most, though I also can't help but notice the man's overblown hat, his pointy shoes, and the long braid on his wig. They are engrossed in examining a cup and a saucer, while a pet monkey, also dressed for success, is looking over a receipt for their recent purchase at an auction. 

To the left, a younger woman pets a young African servant, whose grin could just as easily be one of mockery as of deference. Her elaborate dress and his gaudy turban cannot hide the condescension of the gesture. The entire scene is so artificially cultured that is has fallen right back into being vulgar. 

The pictures on the wall continue to lampoon the outsized hooped skirts, with one pasted on a classical nude, and another causing a woman to become trapped in a sedan chair. I think of the bell-bottoms in the 1970's, the parachute pants of the 1980's, and the baseball caps of the 1990's. The more things change, the more they stay the same. . . . 

William Hogarth, Taste in High Life (painting, c. 1742) 

William Hogarth, Taste in High Life (engraving, 1746) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 80.5

I often feel called upon to use the following illustration, and it seems to me that none expresses more effectively this drama of human life, wherein we are assigned the parts which we are to play so badly. Yonder is the man who stalks upon the stage with swelling port and head thrown back, and says: 
 
“Lo, I am he whom Argos hails as lord,
Whom Pelops left the heir of lands that spread
From Hellespont and from th’ Ionian sea
E’en to the Isthmian straits.”
 
And who is this fellow? He is but a slave; his wage is five measures of grain and five denarii.
 
Yon other who, proud and wayward and puffed up by confidence in his power, declaims: 
 
“Peace, Menelaus, or this hand shall slay thee!” 
 
receives a daily pittance and sleeps on rags. 
 
You may speak in the same way about all these dandies whom you see riding in litters above the heads of men and above the crowd; in every case their happiness is put on like the actor’s mask. Tear it off, and you will scorn them. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 80 
 
I have gradually learned not to confuse my preferences with principles, to avoid treating my particular tastes as if they were universal laws. I’m afraid I will still slip into the old habit, so common among pseudo-intellectuals, of dismissing any opinion that doesn’t happen to be my own, but I usually catch myself before I have done too much damage. 
 
One instance of my presumption has been an intense dislike of stage plays, especially those that aspire to serious drama. As much as I now immensely enjoy reading Shakespeare, I cringe at what I take to be exaggerated performances, painfully conscious of being duped by histrionics. Am I expected to believe that this spectacle is sincere? 
 
It finally dawned on me how the aversion was less about anyone else’s method of acting, and more about my own cynicism: I am uncomfortable with acting because I assume it is an attempt at deception. I should rightly distinguish between the thespian who wishes to expose a deeper truth, and the charlatan who poses as a far better man than he actually is. 
 
So Seneca’s example helps me to not only look behind the mask, but also to examine the motive for the disguise: some acting reveals, and some acting conceals. I should not allow my personal baggage over trickery to get in the way of appreciating the theater, just as a child should not fear clowns on account of John Wayne Gacy. 
 
Nonetheless, let me always remember why the appearance should never be confused with the reality. Some priests paint their own vanity to look like the will of God, some lawyers seek a cold profit under the guise of caring service, and some friends will cast you aside after speaking fine words of undying love. 
 
Most importantly, let me not become a pretender myself, masquerading as righteous when I am wicked, as fulfilled when I am restless. Perhaps it will, at least for a time, fool others, but I can never run away from myself. 

—Reflection written in 11/2013 

IMAGE: William Hogarth, David Garrick as Richard III (c. 1745) 

William Hogarth, Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn

So much of Hogarth's work combines exquisite detail with subtle meanings that works on many different levels, and this engraving is an ideal example. The original painting was unfortunately lost to a fire in 1874. 

A traveling theater company has made use of an old barn as a dressing room, leading to this surreal scene. The actors play Roman gods and goddesses, contrasting the worlds of the divine and the mortal, the lofty and the mundane. 

The playbill, in the lower left, identifies the production as The Devil to Pay in Heaven, and Hogarth may be poking fun at the church-sponsored morality plays so common at the time. A contemporary viewer would also have been aware that Parliament had recently passed a new law, which heavily censored dramatic productions and outlawed unlicensed troupes. This will be their bittersweet final performance. 

In the center, Diana practices her pose, though she hardly looks like a chaste goddess. To the right, two children dressed as devils drink from a mug of beer, as if taking an offering from an altar, while to the left Flora, the goddess of the spring, dusts her hair in front of a broken mirror. 

A woman grasps a cat as an actress playing a ghost draws blood from its tail, which was apparently a folk remedy for an injury from a fall. Below them, Juno memorizes her lines, Night darns her stocking, and a monkey urinates into a prop helmet. 

To the top left, Cupid recover a pair of stockings for Apollo, and below, a Siren gives Ganymede a drink to help numb his toothache. Aurora is frustrated with fixing Ganymede's dress. An actress dressed as Juno's eagle feeds a child, with the bowl resting on a crown and a copy of the Act against Strolling Players. The playbill is precariously perched over a chamberpot. 

My favorite element of the picture is a caricature of a vanitas painting at the bottom, where two kittens are playing with an orb and a harp. And if you look very closely, a man is peering down through a hole in the roof, referencing the myth of Actaeon seeing Diana naked. 

The little things that happen on Earth are like reflections of the grand drama we imagine is playing itself out in the Heavens, sometimes as a comedy, and sometimes as a tragedy. Do the gods also have to worry about intrusive politicians, or how to feed the baby after losing one's livelihood? 

William Hogarth, Strolling Actresses Dressing in a Barn (1738) 

William Hogarth, The Company of Undertakers

Doctors get a lot of flak, surpassed only by the invectives hurled at lawyers. Though any man, in any trade, has it within himself to become a total scoundrel, I suspect that the quacks and the shysters have targets painted on their backs, because their vocations ought to be so noble, and yet far too many of them are instead seduced by fortune and fame. 

Did you honestly think those mercenary mothers nagged their daughters to marry a surgeon on account of  the rich moral lives they would surely share together? 

In my own neck of the woods, I can confirm that academics are just as likely to be vainglorious blowhards, but the difference is that only other academics will bother to notice. Furthermore, an incompetent plumber will quickly lose his customers, while an incompetent doctor can still hide behind the magnificent appearance of his profession. 

When students see this work by Hogarth, their first reaction is invariably to comment on how ignorant people were back then, and how blessed we are to now be so scientifically enlightened. I encourage them to see the human condition more broadly, and to recognize how charlatans can be found in any time or place, but they remain convinced that modern medicine can do no wrong. I fear some of them will learn otherwise, sooner rather than later. 

Of all the parish priests I had in my adult years, only one stood out as a man of true faith, and the rest were abusers or frauds. Similarly, of all the doctors who ever treated my family, only one was a true healer, and the rest left us both sicker and poorer. You can counter with your clever statistics, and I will rely on my education from the school of hard knocks. I will leave it at that. . . . 

Hogarth presents his doctors in a caricature of a coat of arms, with three infamous snake oil peddlers of his time on the top—John Taylor, Sarah Mapp, and Joshua Ward—and a dozen "reputable" physicians below them. The "quack-heads" and the "cane-heads" differ only by their professional trappings. In modern terms, one dispenses his cures from a storefront in a seedy strip mall, while the other receives junkets from the pharmaceutical corporations. 

The description further mocks their posturing with the refined language of heraldry: 

The company of undertakers beareth, sable, a urinal, proper, between twelve quack-heads of the second, and twelve cane-heads, or consultant. On a chief, nebulae, ermine, one complete doctor, issuant, checkie, sustaining, in his right hand, a baton of the second. On his dexter and sinister sides two demi-doctors, issuant, of the second, and two cane-heads, issuant of the third; the first having one eye, couchant, towards the dexter side of the escutcheon; the second, faced, per pale, proper, and gules guardant. With this motto—Et plurima mortis imago. 

"And many are the faces of death." 

William Hogarth, A Consultation of Physicians, or the Company of Undertakers (1736) 

William Hogarth, The Enraged Musician

This was intended as a companion piece to the print version of The Distrest Poet, and there was apparently a plan to add a third installment about a painter, which was sadly never completed. 

Once again, there is the humorous element, where the refined violinist can't bear all the noise of the rabble outside of his window. How dare the workers and the street musicians get in the way of his high art! The urinating boy dragging a piece of slate across the ground is a classic Hogarth touch. 

On a more serious level, I have been told that this is also a commentary on the state of the contemporary English musical scene, as evidenced by the poster for a performance of The Beggar's Opera, indicating the new popularity of a folksier British style, in contrast to the previous reverence for the fancier Italian tradition. Hogarth apparently approved of this change in fashion. 

I further enjoy another interpretation, that the comely milkmaid, who is certainly the center of visual attention, is singing a lovely song, and yet the violinist is closing his ears to its homespun beauty. 

I understand why the fellow is so frustrated, as I also enjoy my peace and quiet when I am reading, writing, listening to Bach, or smoking my pipe. Nevertheless, there are those times when the sounds of the city are as wonderful as the finest concerto. 

William Hogarth, The Enraged Musician (1741) 

William Hogarth, The Distrest Poet

This image is full of tension for me, since it can be taken as either comic or tragic, and one may either condemn or sympathize with the hapless writer. 

The usual interpretation I come across is that this foolish man has squandered his prospects by committing himself to the arts, while his family is reduced to poverty out of his vanity and indolence. As he struggles with his writer's block, the child cries, the wife darns the old clothes, the dog runs off with their last morsel of food, and the cupboard is empty. The milkmaid demands that her bill be paid. 

While the poor poet attempts to write a work about riches, sitting in his nightgown, there are still signs of the life he has so recklessly abandoned: he is sloppily wearing his wig, a gentleman's sword is on the floor, and his lace cuffs are drying by the fire. Through it all, it seems that he still partakes of his beer and his pipe. 

From the perspective of proper society, this man is a failure, because he refuses to do proper work, to make something of himself. I imagine most viewers take it this way: "Get a job, you lazy bum!" 

At the same time, I can't help but wonder about the relative merits of being a rich man and being a romantic, of selling out to convenience or standing firm on principle. Couldn't he do both, by going to the office by day and expressing his soul by night? That would be ideal, but we all know what happens when we try to serve two masters. 

I am sure Hogarth intends for us to heed a grim warning here, and yet I suspect he may also be asking us to feel a touch of pity. No man should let his child go hungry on account of his daydreaming, and yet what kind of world do we live in, when success is defined by accumulating more and more property, instead of loving the true, the good, and the beautiful? 

"Sure, buddy, but he needs to put food on the table before he has the luxury of thinking!" 

Indeed, that would certainly be the case if we defined the merit of a man by his wallet, not by his virtues, by his gut in the place of his head. If the world has so much room for bankers and lawyers, shouldn't it also have some room for poets? 

I dare to suggest that the problem with this distressed fellow is not a commitment to higher values, but rather his self-imposed blindness to the mundane. He can't really be a good poet if he isn't first a virtuous man, and a virtuous man wouldn't just sit back as his family wastes away. 

Art isn't the problem, and money isn't the problem—the presence or absence of character is the problem, whether it be in the slums or on an estate. 

William Hogarth, The Distrest Poet (painting, c. 1736) 

William Hogarth, The Distrest Poet (engraving, 1741) 

William Hogarth, Four Times of the Day 4

The more things change, the more they stay the same. I have learned the hard way that very little good ever comes from going out late at night, and this image merely confirms the point. A drunken freemason is being escorted home through a neighborhood of pubs and brothels, a coach has overturned next to a festive bonfire, and a boozy barber perilously plies his trade. The landlord watering down the wine looks remarkably like a sleazy bartender I once knew. And always be wary of the flying contents from a chamber pot. 

William Hogarth, Four Times of the Day: Night (painting, 1736) 

William Hogarth, Four Times of the Day: Night (engraving, 1738) 

William Hogarth, Four Times of the Day 3

On what must be a hot evening, as shown by the pregnant woman fanning herself and the panting dog, a family walk in the suburbs, perhaps having attended the theater. I am told he must have been a dyer, from his stained hands, and he clearly looks harried. The clever placement of the cow's horns identify him as a cuckold, and one wonders which of the children are actually his. The daughter and the son mirror this unhealthy relationship, as she angrily demands his gingerbread man. The placement of the cane is surely not an accident. Those in the pub are hardly escaping the heat by producing clouds of smoke from their clay pipes. 

William Hogarth, Four Times of the Day: Evening (painting, 1736) 

William Hogarth, Four Times of the Day: Evening (engraving, 1738) 

William Hogarth, Four Times of the Day 2

Refined Huguenots leave their church service, the old somber and the young carefree, in stark contrasts to the rough inhabitants of the slum. A dead cat lies between them. A man gropes a woman's breast, and the spilling from her pie dish perhaps reflects the precarious state of her character. A boy cries after breaking his plate, and a girl eats the pie from the ground. In the window of the shop, with a sign of "Good Eating" and the image of the head of St. John the Baptist, a couple argue, as she drops her leg of mutton into the street. 

William Hogarth, Four Times of the Day: Noon (painting, 1736) 

William Hogarth, Four Times of the Day: Noon (engraving, 1738) 

William Hogarth, Four Times of the Day 1

This series is more light-hearted and humorous, without the grave moralizing of many other works by Hogarth, and so it was, oddly enough, not nearly as popular. 

A lady on her way to church is shocked by the sight of bawdy men groping the market girls. Children dawdle before going to school. Revelers have been up all night in the coffee house, and are now fighting. In the print, Father Tine stands over the clock, with the inscription of Sic transit gloria mundi. 

William Hogarth, Four Times of the Day: Morning (painting, 1736) 

William Hogarth, Four Times of the Day: Morning (engraving, 1738) 

William Hogarth, Before and After

On one level, of course, these scenes are comical, and yet, as with so much of Hogarth's work, they are also biting social satire and a grave moral warning. 

I tend to avoid any public assertions on matters of sex, not because I am prudish, but because I find that very few people are willing to honestly reflect on the role of desire in nature—the discussion inevitably degrades into rage or ridicule. I will only say that too many of our troubles come from the confusion between lust and love; a mind and a will overwhelmed by appetites, of any sort, are dangerous things.  

The facial expressions in all three version are priceless, and can tell us far more about the peculiar weaknesses of both men and women than any scholarly essay. 

In the prints, I am especially taken by the details of the books in the drawer, a text on piety in front of a trashy novel, and the two paintings on the wall of a cherub with a rocket. The dog is yipping in one scene, and sleeping in the next, while another book on the floor proclaims "every animal is sad after sex." 

William Hogarth, Before and After (first painted version, 1731) 

William Hogarth, Before and After (second painted version, 1731) 

William Hogarth, Before and After (engraving, 1736) 

William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress 8

On a surface level, we can now say that Tom has reaped what he sowed, and his vices have finally brought him to Bethlem, London's infamous "hospital" for the insane. In Twelve Step programs, the old-timers will often warn about the three places that await us if we don't address our compulsions: prisons, asylums, and morgues. There is a bitter wisdom to this prediction, and while the method may seem crude, there is nothing quite like being scared straight. 

And though I could say that Tom gets what he deserved, on a deeper level the scene fills me with sorrow, and inspires me to compassion. There but for the grace of God go I. For all of his mistakes, Tom still possesses the dignity of a man, and I now find myself less concerned about blaming him than on how we go about treating those who struggle with their own inner demons in this life. 

Most modern viewers will note the barbarism of Hogarth's "ignorant" times, and yet I have experienced more than enough of how we still cast aside those we deem to be criminal, deranged, or undesirable. The poor lie in the streets, the addicted are thrown into cells, and the sick find no comfort unless they can pay for it handsomely. 

Tom Rakewell just wanted more money, after all, and in this he seems no different than the decadent world that raised him up. If Fortune had acted only slightly differently, he would still be back in his fancy parlor, instead of rotting in the madhouse. Would we consider Tom a success in life if he had, by chance, continued living the high life, despite the blackness remaining within his soul? 

For me, this final installment in the series asks me to ponder how the world of the asylum sadly reflects the insanity of the world at large, Tom is no longer the object of pity—our whole crooked society is the object of pity. 

The rich ladies come to view the freaks for their amusement. An astronomer and a cartographer have lost their minds seeking the secrets of the stars and the solution to calculating longitude. A tailor brandishes his measuring tape, though it is not clear if he knows what he is measuring. One man pretends to be the Pope, while another, probably engaged in a lewd act, pretends to be the King. A zealot has surrendered his reason to the frenzy of religion. A dog barks at a depressed and suicidal fellow, a noose still around his neck from the last attempt to take his own life. 

And through it all, there is one figure of hope, one standard of unconditional love who offers her care to the bitter end. Sarah Young still stands by his side, having gained absolutely nothing in her circumstances, but having gained absolutely everything in her character. 

William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress VIII: The Madhouse (1734) 

William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress 7

Though I have thankfully never been in prison, I spent some time working in prison ministry during my Wilderness Years, and the experience is indelibly burned into my brain. 

However cold and brutal the physical surroundings might be, I noticed that the most powerful effect it had on the inmates was a nagging feeling of hopelessness, which, if not deliberately managed, could easily lead to a sort of insanity. Even those who looked forward to an imminent release were consumed by this dread, as if they somehow suspected that being back on the outside still could not redeem them. 

Tom has been locked up for his debts, and I imagine he is finally realizing that he has passed the point of no return. His "wife" will only scold him, while Sarah faints from the awareness that he will never be the father and the husband she had once hoped for, and that there is absolutely nothing she can now do for him. 

The very idea of a debtor's prison, where there is little prospect of ever escaping from a vicious cycle, might seem cruel to us, and yet I would argue that most forms of contemporary punishment still remain as the infliction of one harm for another harm. Tom cannot pay the jailer his fees, and he cannot pay the boy bringing him ale. 

Tom is clutching at straws, desperate to find a way out, as a rejection letter from a publisher shows. His cellmates are also on the verge of madness, one who is writing a book about solving the national debt, though he ironically cannot manage his own, and another who is engaged in all sort of experiments. 

The odd harness with the wings, over the bed, is surely a reference to Icarus, and tells us how these prisoners' dreams of escape are just as doomed. 

William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress VII: The Prison (1734) 

William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress 6

Over the years, I have flirted with many vices, though thankfully gambling has not been one of them. I should, of course, be careful of what I say, because I don't want to jinx it! 

Accordingly, I can't relate directly to Tom's obsession, but I can certainly turn to examples of my own peculiar fixations to understand how quickly an object of desire can enslave my powers of reason and choice. Furthermore, I know all too well how my distorted perceptions can make me believe that, despite the experience of one disaster after another, this next time will somehow be magically different. 

The gamblers are so absorbed in their addiction that they do not even notice how a fire has broken out. Tom, with his wig discarded, raises his fist to Heaven, for like so many who are seduced by sin, he is surely convinced that God is to blame for his failure. I am all too familiar with the feeling that Fortune has wronged me, when all along I have only wronged myself. 

A highwayman, identifiable by the pistol and the mask in his pocket, drinks to forget his losses, while another fellow bites his nails in torment. A man who has just lost pulls his hat over his eyes. Two men are pleased with their ill-gotten gains, while two other men are in the midst of a dispute. A well-dressed gentleman borrows from a loan shark, who might remind the viewer of Tom's father. 

A mad dog reflects the hysteria of the entire scene. Is it safe to say that Tom has now used up all the possible escapes from his foolhardiness? For a man who has thought of nothing but acquiring money, what will become of him now that his wealth is finally gone for good? 

William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress VI: The Gaming House (1734) 

William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress 5

I would like to think that a close call like the encounter with the bailiff would have set me straight, and that I would thereby completely reconsider my values, yet I know all too well how fierce the force of habit can be. Tom is so fixated on his vision of becoming an idle and libertine "gentleman" that he can only conceive of the accumulation of wealth as a solution to his problems. 

The grasping man is all too familiar with the ways that love can be twisted around for the sake of selfish gain, such that marriage becomes nothing more than to tool for social advancement. Here Tom is being wed to a rich old woman, either an old maid or a widow, and while she seems to gaze at the priest quite happily, the groom is already leering past her in longing for her young servant. 

The dilapidated church surely says something about the state of a society where such mercenary unions are blessed. Observe how the tablets with the ten commandments are cracked, and the poor box is covered in cobwebs, next to a pew reserved for those who can afford to pay for the privilege. 

In the background Sarah, along with Tom's child, have come to stop the marriage, and her mother is having it out with the churchwarden. The two dogs are a perverse mockery of the whole event, symbolizing how ridiculous the game has become. 

For my own generation, marriage had already become far less relevant, but of those I know who did marry, some did so out of lust, and a good many more did it for the sake of status. I am acutely aware of how easily love is confused with the desire for pleasure or profit. 

William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress V: The Marriage (1734) 

William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress 4

Whenever I complain that life isn't fair, I try to remember how wickedness will inevitably catch up with any of us, whether in this way or that, whether sooner or later. You can call it Providence, or you can call it natural law, or you can call it karma, but happiness and misery are always in proportion to virtue and vice. 

It might not come back in quite the manner we expect, but it is certain to come back. 

Tom has had his fun for a few frames, and now he begins to reap what he sowed. Even then, however, he is unwilling to learn his lesson, and he fails to see all the opportunities for good around him, continuing to take advantage of those who only wish the best for him. 

Tom has frittered away his money, and he has built up substantial gambling debts. A bailiff intercepts Tom as he is being carried along in a sedan chair, presenting a warrant for his arrest. Now this would normally mean being dragged to jail, but it turns out that Tom has a guardian angel. 

Sarah Young, who we last saw in the first image, happens to be passing by, and she pays her savings to cover Tom's debts. We can tell she is now a milliner from the spilled contents of her bag, a humble yet fine woman who works hard for her money, unlike Tom who only knows how to spend it. 

A man filling a street lantern spills some oil as he look on, reflecting the old symbolic use of anointing as a sign of a blessing. This will sadly be a blessing wasted. A boy sneakily steals Tom's cane during all the excitement. 

At all the times I believe the odds are stacked against me, there is invariably an opportunity for me to somehow make it right. Let me not be like Tom, and let me change my ways, before it is too late. 

William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress IV: The Arrest (1734) 

William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress 3

Whenever I look at this picture, I immediately think of my time at college. Now you may assume this means I was a partying frat boy, but that was hardly the case. While I do enjoy wine, women, and song very much, and sometimes too much, my years of so-called higher education, which they tell me were supposed to be my best years, were sadly filled with disappointment and despair. 

What was claimed to be one of the top 50 universities in the country was ultimately little more than a place for rich kids to fall down drunk and hook up with strangers. I'm afraid that's not my idea of a good life. 

The students were certainly bright, and yet most of them only saw their studies as a necessary chore to later win fancy jobs. My peers showed up to class, if they actually bothered to show up at all, in sweatpants they had probably slept in, and stinking of stale beer. There was usually much whispering around me during a lecture,  inevitably about who had "bagged" whom the night before. 

Do not think me a prude, though I do believe that sex is meant to be joined with love, and a fine bottle of whiskey is meant to cement genuine friendships. Love and friendship were, unfortunately, a rare commodity on my campus. So I was a lonely soul, because what I craved in life was nowhere to be found. 

What happens to a fellow when you give him the luxury of wealth, without first making sure he has taken the time to build up his character? You end up with a Tom Rakewell. You end up with thousands upon thousands of lost souls, hardly men at all but stunted boys, who will put on tailored suits during the day and cheat on their trophy wives at night. 

So you will please forgive me when I look at this picture and don't just see a raucous party. I see Tom well on his way to losing everything, by which I don't just mean his inheritance. He is throwing away his very human dignity. It is the saddest thing to watch happening to any person. 

Observe how the prostitutes, covered in syphilitic sores, are stealing Tom's watch. His unsheathed sword gives a clear indication of where his drunken night is going. Though you can really only see it in the the engraved version, there are portraits of Roman emperors lining the walls, and all have been defaced, expect for Nero. How tragically fitting! The portrait of Pontac, also still intact, refers to a trendy restaurant of the time. 

One of the prostitutes is burning a world map with a candle, with all the symbolism that entails. By Tom's feet you will note a lantern and a staff, stolen from a night watchman during the evening's escapades. This reminds me of how a popular college pastime involved stealing street signs after drinking binges, which were then proudly displayed in dorm rooms. 

William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress III: The Orgy (1734) 

William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress 2

Tom is now "holding court" in the morning, surrounded by a variety of spongers, supplicants, and tradesmen. The times have hardly changed that much, since so many people today will still define their value in society in precisely the same way, The more we are seen, and the more we are admired and pursued, the more we think we have "arrived" as people of worth. 

I once briefly had the unpleasant job of being the personal assistant to a self-important administrator, and I would watch as he made his way through his string of appointments, complaining all the time what a great burden it was to deal with the petitioners, even as it was crystal clear how much he enjoyed the attention. He would strut about, grinning from ear to ear, all the while referring to his work as a "service" to the community. 

I am told that the entourage here includes a composer at the harpsichord, perhaps meant to be Handel, a dancing master with his violin, instructors in fencing and the quarterstaff, a garden designer, a burly bodyguard, a fox-hunting bugler, and a jockey, complete with trophy, who has raced Tom's horse. Further in the background are a wig maker, a hat maker, and a poet. 

My eyes always go to the French dancing master in the center, with his effete pose, who reminds me of a flamboyant Rector I knew years ago. Each day was a new opportunity for him to put on a show. 

The painting in the middle represents the Judgment of Paris, that fateful moment when a choice made out of desire led to the downfall of so many. On both sides are picture of roosters, which my old professor said stood for the practice of cockfighting, a favorite pastime for spoiled men. 

Look how good Tom has it! Doesn't he? 

William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress II: The Levée (1734) 

Stoic Snippets 205

Penetrate inwards into men's leading principles, and you will see what judges you are afraid of, and what kind of judges they are of themselves. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.18 

IMAGE: William Hogarth, The Bench (1758)