Hogarth: His Life, Art, and Times

60
"Such a general had so many men, &c." Hogarth "remarked, that the muscles of
Lovat's neck appeared of unusual strength, more so than he had ever seen."
Hogarth returned to London and made a simple etching (pl. 207), one of his
most accomplished works, and published it on 25 August: Lovat had reached
the Tower on the fifteenth, Lords Kilmarnock and Balmerino and others had
been executed and other indictments lodged on the eighteenth, and more
rebels arrived in London on the twentieth, with three more rebel officers exe-
cuted two days later. 4 The moment was opportune, and although the presses
worked through the night for a whole week, not enough impressions could be
made to meet the demand. For several weeks thereafter the etchings were said
to have brought Hogarth £12 a day; and the story circulated (said of other
works as well) that when the plate was finished he was offered its weight in gold
by a rival printseller. At a shilling a sheet, and assuming that many of these
must have been sold wholesale to other print dealers, he would have sold some-
thing like 10,000 impressions and earned upward of £300. Nor was the sale a
matter of weeks: the prints were much in evidence at Lovat's trial the following
March. Joseph Spence wrote his friend Massingberd on 23 March 1746/7:
all the world here has been taken up with my L d Lovat's Tryal. There is a
print of him, from a drawing of Hogarth, which is not unlike him; & a
friend of mine has the design of a Satir's head, by Rubens, which is a good
deal more like him: but, to say the truth, they are both likenesses of the
caricatura-kind; for there is something of the Gentleman mixt in his ap-
pearance, w ch is quite sunk in the other. 5
Hogarth would have been amused if not annoyed to hear "caricature" extended
to any representation that did not appear gentlemanly. Vertue was more compli-
mentary of the print, though still critical of the moral implications:
in august, the picture of L d Lovat sketchd drawn by M r Hogarth & etchd
by him from the life in his drole nature & manner, was thought to be sur-
prisingly like, and from his humorous Character, was greatly cryd up &
sold every where at pr. 1 sh many many hundreds.
this is according to the old saying of a Man that has the Vilest character.
and the hatred of all partyes. & besides that a barefaced Rebel. if some per-
sons had Engravd and publisht his picture, it had been highly Criminal—
but as some are winkt at that steal a horse, whilst another is hangd for look-
ing over a hedge.—but in this case Art overcomes Malice— 6
Perhaps the financial success of a shilling print, quickly etched and yet sup-
porting some thousands of impressions, convinced Hogarth that he should
undertake more of the same. Deep and repeated biting produced lines strong
enough to approximate the durability of an engraving, with much less time ex-
pended and no assistance needed. Nonetheless, the next few months were de-