DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2152#0183
1^4 ENGLAND.
In the first group, a young peasant, who aspires
to a niche in the Temple of Fame, preferring the
service of Mars to that of Ceres, and the dignified
appellation of Soldier, to the plebeian name of
Farmer, offers to enlist. Standing with his back
against the halberd to ascertain his height, and
finding he is rather under the mark,* he endea-
vours to reach it by rising on tiptoe. This artifice,
to which he is impelled by towering ambition, the
serjeant seems disposed to connive at—and the
serjeant is a hero, and a great man, in his way.
" Your hero always must be Bill, you know."
To evince that the polite arts were then in a
very flourishing state, and cultivated by more than
the immediate professors, a gentleman artist, who
to common eyes must pass for a grenadier, is
making a caricature of le Grand Munarque. The
sovereign of France was in that day, as general a
subject for copper satire as Mr, Fox is in this. T
• Among the number of ingenious allusions which the
seekers of Hogarth's meanings have pointed out, I have
never heard it remarked, that the standard waves immedi-
ately over this under-sized hero, who is eonsequently under
tbc standard. The pun is not much worse than others of
the day.
■f Since that time, satirical prints are as much changed in
their objects as their execution. Tben, their pointless darts
were aimed at foreign subsidies, foreign treaties, foreign
troops: now, their heavy artillery is pointed at domestic pe-
culations, domestic coalitions, domestic orations, tic. etc.
In the first group, a young peasant, who aspires
to a niche in the Temple of Fame, preferring the
service of Mars to that of Ceres, and the dignified
appellation of Soldier, to the plebeian name of
Farmer, offers to enlist. Standing with his back
against the halberd to ascertain his height, and
finding he is rather under the mark,* he endea-
vours to reach it by rising on tiptoe. This artifice,
to which he is impelled by towering ambition, the
serjeant seems disposed to connive at—and the
serjeant is a hero, and a great man, in his way.
" Your hero always must be Bill, you know."
To evince that the polite arts were then in a
very flourishing state, and cultivated by more than
the immediate professors, a gentleman artist, who
to common eyes must pass for a grenadier, is
making a caricature of le Grand Munarque. The
sovereign of France was in that day, as general a
subject for copper satire as Mr, Fox is in this. T
• Among the number of ingenious allusions which the
seekers of Hogarth's meanings have pointed out, I have
never heard it remarked, that the standard waves immedi-
ately over this under-sized hero, who is eonsequently under
tbc standard. The pun is not much worse than others of
the day.
■f Since that time, satirical prints are as much changed in
their objects as their execution. Tben, their pointless darts
were aimed at foreign subsidies, foreign treaties, foreign
troops: now, their heavy artillery is pointed at domestic pe-
culations, domestic coalitions, domestic orations, tic. etc.