Hogarth: His Life, Art, and Times

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lar strain in Hogarth's work. Between Finchley and the Election come Beer
Street, Gin Lane, and The Four Stages of Cruelty, continuing the return to the
tabula in their own way.
Something of the effect Hogarth wished to achieve with his "popular" prints
can be seen in Fielding's efforts in the same direction. Industry and Idleness
appeared in October 1747, and on 28 March 1748 Fielding opened a puppet
theater in Panton Street, just a block from Leicester Fields, which operated
with great popular success until he closed it in June. 52 Fielding had expressed
in the True Patriot of 11-18 February 1746 his desire for a return from sophisti-
cated modern plays to the vigor of the ancient Punch and Judy show (specifically,
he adds, as a vehicle for satire). With the success of Hogarth's "George Barnwell"
morality play before him, he opened his theater, which to evade the Licensing
Act he passed off as entertainment accompanying "breakfast." His fare con-
sisted of the old puppet plays seen by generations of Londoners at the fairs:
Bateman, Fair Rosamond, and Whittington and his Cat—plus, significantly, a
revival of his own Covent Garden Tragedy. The whole subject came up again
in Book XII, Chapter V, of Tom Jones, where Tom argues for the truth and vigor
of Punch and Judy shows as against the Provok'd Husbands of today. Hogarth
may have had these matters in mind a few years later when he introduced a
Punch and Judy show on the signboard in the second plate of The Election.
In 1747-48 Fielding edited a pro-Pelham periodical, the Jacobite's Journal,
for which Hogarth is said to have designed the headpiece. 53 Then in the winter
of 1748-49 he became a Westminster magistrate. Tom Jones, which he was still
writing as he took up his puppet theater and his police duties, came out at the
end of the year, with its quota of Hogarth references. 54 But Fielding was now
devoting himself wholeheartedly to the business of presiding over the Bow
Street police court and his efforts to reform the community. His last novel,
Amelia, reflects this experience; in the meantime he was writing tracts urging
practical solutions to the problem of crime in London.
Fielding faced criminals day after day in his courtroom. Hogarth's personal
contact with the encroachments of poverty, crime and violence in the metropolis
was less direct. He lived in a respectable and elegant square. The usual news-
paper notices describe the physical improvements inhabitants were making in
their park. The Penny London Post for 3-5 August. 1748 announces that "The
Inhabitants of Leicester-square have ordered the Statue of his Majesty King
George I. lately put up there, to be gilt with all Expedition." The park, however,
demanded attention of another sort; the St. James' Evening Post of 8-10 Sep-
tember, 1747, reports that
as a Fellow, who appeared almost naked, and goes by the Name of the
Trembling Beggar, was stationed in Leicester-fields upon his usual Occu-