the
over-measure which it delights in giving, as if it felt its stores
were exhaustless; the dumb rhetoric of the scenery,--for tables, and
chairs, and joint-stools in Hogarth are living and significant
things; the witticisms that are expressed by words (all artists but
Hogarth have failed when they have endeavored to combine two mediums
of expression, and have introduced words into their pictures), and
the unwritten numberless little allusive pleasantries that are
scattered about; the work that is going on in the scene, and beyond
it, as is made visible to the "eye of mind," by the mob which chokes
up the doorway, and the sword that has forced an entrance before its
master; when he shall have sufficiently admired this wealth of
genius, let him fairly say what is the _result_ left on his mind. Is
it an impression of the vileness and worthlessness of his species? or
is it not the general feeling which remains, after the individual
faces have ceased to act sensibly on his mind, a _kindly one in favor
of his species?_ was not the general air of the scene wholesome? did
it do the heart hurt to be among it? Something of a riotous spirit to
be sure is there, some worldly-mindedness in some of the faces, a
Doddingtonian smoothness which does not promise any superfluous
degree of sincerity in the fine gentleman who has been the occasion
of calling so much good company together; but is not the general cast
of expression in the faces of the good sort? do they not seem cut out
of the _good old rock_, substantial English honesty? would one fear
treachery among characters of their expression? or shall we call
their honest mirth and seldom-returning relaxation by the hard names
of vice and profligacy? That poor country fellow, that is grasping
his staff (which, from that difficulty of feeling themselves at home
which poor men experience at a feast, he has never parted with since
he came into the room), and is enjoying with a relish that seems to
fit all the capacities of his soul the slender joke, which that
facetious wag his neighbor is practising upon the gouty gentleman,
whose eyes the effort to suppress pain has made as round as
rings--does it shock the "dignity of human nature" to look at that
man, and to sympathize with him in the seldom-heard joke which has
unbent his careworn, hard-working visage, and drawn iron smiles from
it? or with that full-hearted cobbler, who is honoring with the grasp
of an honest fist the unused palm