This plan was new, startling, and unproductive. It was probably planned to prevent biddings by proxy, and so secure to the artist the price which men of wealth and rank might be induced to offer publicly for works of genius. “A method so novel,” observes Ireland, “probably disgusted the town; they might not exactly understand this tedious formula of entering their names and places of abode in a book open to indiscriminate inspection; they might wish to humble an artist who, by his proposals, seemed to consider that he did the world a favor in suffering them to bid for his works; or the rage for paintings might be confined to the admirers of the old masters.” Be that as it may, he received only four hundred and twenty-seven pounds seven shillings for his nineteen pictures--a price by no means equal to their merit.
The prints of the Harlot’s Progress had sold much better than those of the Rake’s; yet the paintings of the former produced only fourteen guineas each, while those of the latter were sold for twenty-two. That admirable picture, Morning, brought twenty guineas; and Night, in every respect inferior to almost any of his works, six and twenty. Such was the reward, then, to which these patrons of genius thought his works entitled. More has since been given, over and over again, for a single painting, than Hogarth obtained for all his paintings put together.
A short time before Hogarth was seized with the malady which deprived society of one of its brightest ornaments, he proposed to his matchless pencil the work he has entitled the _Tail Piece_. The first idea of this picture is said to have been started in company, while the convivial glass was circulating round his own table. “My next undertaking,” said Hogarth, “shall be the _end of all things_.” “If that is the case,” replied one of his friends, “your business will be finished, or there will be an end to the painter.” “The fact will be so,” answered Hogarth, sighing heavily, “and therefore the sooner my work is done, the better.” Accordingly he began the next day, and continued his design with a diligence that seemed to indicate an apprehension that he should not live to complete it. This however he did, and in the most ingenious manner, by grouping everything that could denote the end of all things: a broken bottle; an old broom worn to the stump; the butt-end of an old musket; a cracked bell; a bow unstrung; a crown tumbled to pieces; towers in ruins; the sign-post of a tavern called the World’s End falling down; the moon in her wane; the map of the globe burning; a gibbet falling, the body gone, and the chains which held it dropping down; Phœbus and his horses lying dead in the clouds; a vessel wrecked; Time, with his hour-glass and scythe broken; a tobacco-pipe, with the last whiff of smoke going out; a play-book opened, with _exeunt omnes_ stamped in the corner; an empty purse; and a statute of bankruptcy taken out against Nature. “So far so good,” said Hogarth, on reviewing his performance; “nothing remains but this;” taking his pencil, and sketching the resemblance of a painter’s palette broken. “Finis!” he then exclaimed, “the deed is done; all is over.” It is a very remarkable fact, and not generally known, that Hogarth never again took the palette in his hand, and that he died in about a month after he had finished this _Tail Piece_.