Hogarth: His Life, Art, and Times

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larly a scene of the shore with an immense piece of beef landing for the Lion
d'Argent, the English inn at Calais, and several hungry friars following it. They
were much diverted with his drawing, and dismissed him." It sounds as though
Walpole talked to Hogarth in his studio as The Gate of Calais was unfolding on
the easel, and the story grew in the telling. 19
Nichols got his account from Dr. Ducarel, who had it from the Rev. William
Gostling of Canterbury, with whom Hogarth stayed the night after his return to
England, and whom he regaled with the story. After being carried before the
governor as a spy, and "after a very strict examination," he was "committed a
prisoner to Grandsire, his landlord, on his promising that Hogarth should not
go out of his house till it was to embark for England." Then Nichols adds: "The
same incident, however, has been more circumstantially related by an eminent
English Engraver, who was abroad when it happened." This may have been
Robert Strange, who was in France between 1748 and '50, or Thomas Major,
who was there between 1745 and '48. If it was Major, the story becomes more
poignant, for he had himself been seized one night in October 1746 and taken
to the Bastille, in reprisal for the French and Irish prisoners taken after Cul-
loden, and was only released after the strenuous intercession of Le Bas and
Gravelot with the Marquis d'Argenson. 20 This engraver's account, written down
(and demonstrably embroidered) by Steevens, comes out as follows:
While Hogarth was in France, wherever he went, he was sure to be dis-
satisfied with all he saw. If an elegant circumstance, either in furniture, or
the ornaments of a room, was pointed out as deserving approbation, his
narrow and constant reply was, 'What then? but it is French! Their houses
are all gilt and b -------- t.' 21 In the streets he was often clamorously rude. A
tattered bag, or a pair of silk stockings, with holes in them, drew a torrent of
imprudent language from him. In vain did my informant (who knew that
many Scotch and Irish were often within hearing of these reproaches, and
would rejoice at least in an opportunity of getting our Painter mobbed) ad-
vise him to be more cautious in his public remarks. He laughed at all such
admonition, and treated the offerer of it as a pusillanimous wretch, un-
worthy of a residence in a free country, making him the butt of his ridicule
for several evenings afterwards. This unreasonable pleasantry was at length
completely extinguished by what happened while he was drawing the Gate
at Calais; for, though the innocence of his design was rendered perfectly
apparent on the testimony of other sketches he had about him, which were
by no means such as could serve the purpose of an Engineer, he was told by
the Commandant, 'that, had not the Peace been actually signed, he should
have been obliged to have hung him up immediately on the ramparts.'
Two guards were then provided, to convey him on shipboard; nor did they
quit him till he was three miles from the shore. They then spun him round