  Who was William Kent? What is the record of the plump, self-satisfied dandy whose likeness may be seen at the National Portrait Gallery? PLATE V.—MARRIAGE À LA MODE Scene II. of this matchless series, the finest pictorial satire of the century. It is called “Shortly after Marriage.” We are in the peer’s breakfast-room. The clock marks twenty minutes after twelve in the morning, the candles beneath the portraits of the four saints in the inner room are guttering, a dog sniffs at a lady’s cap protruding from the husband’s pocket, and the book peeping from the coat of the old steward is called “Regeneration.” Hogarth never stayed his hand. The details are innumerable, amusing, italicised. What could be more exquisite than the characterisation of the lady, her pretty, dissolute, provocative face, and the abandon of the peer, too bored and tired, after his night’s debauch, even to think of remorse. This “pictur’d moral” series, containing six scenes, was painted by Hogarth in 1745, and was purchased by Mr. Lane of Hillingdon in 1751 for £126. Do you like this ruddy round-faced man with the eloquent eye, the double chin, and the thick lips? His clothes are certainly attractive—the red velvet turban and the fawn-coloured jacket open at the front showing the frilled shirt. Bartholomew Dandridge, that “eminent face painter,” painted this portrait. Yes; this is a striking presentment of William Kent, 1684-1748, who had many friends and many enemies. Among the enemies was William Hogarth, who hated Kent. When you visit the National Portrait Gallery, turn your gaze slightly to the left, and you will see the representation of Hogarth at his easel, painted by himself. What would Hogarth say if he could know that the portrait of his old enemy now hangs near his? Perhaps he would smile a welcome, for anger is subdued by Death the Reconciler. I return to the question: “Who was William Kent?” The legend beneath his portrait says: “Painter, sculptor, architect, and landscape gardener.” He was all these and much more—decorator, designer of furniture, man milliner, arbiter of taste, and general Kent lives also in one of Hogarth’s satirical prints, that called “The Man of Taste, Burlington Gate,” which does not strike me as either very funny or very cruel. Our taste in satire has changed since Hogarth’s time. This same Burlington Gate or colonnade, which once stood outside Burlington House in Piccadilly, may now, I believe, be found somewhere in the wilds of Battersea Park. Let us try to draw a little nearer to Kent. The queer thing is that this man who dominated his world does not seem to have been great in any of his activities. As a painter, Hogarth said of him: “Neither England nor Italy ever produced a more contemptible dauber.” Horace Walpole remarked that his painted ceilings were as “void of merit as his portraits.” Walpole also said that “Kent was not only consulted for furniture, frames of pictures, glass, tables, chairs, &c., but for plate, for a barge, and for a cradle, and so impetuous was fashion that two great ladies Did the ladies like their birthday gowns? The petticoat of one was decorated with the columns of the five orders, the other was copper-coloured satin with ornaments of gold. I have never seen the altar-piece Kent painted for the Church of St. Clement Danes in the Strand, but I seldom pass St. Clement’s without thinking of that “contemptible performance,” as Hogarth called it. It seems to have offended many others besides Hogarth, who satirised the altar-piece in the engraving that puzzled the boy mentioned in the preceding chapter. Walpole called it a parody, a burlesque on Kent’s altar-piece. Hogarth maintained that it was neither; that it was but a “fair and honest representation of a contemptible performance.” Terrible man, Hogarth, when he was on the war-path! Where is that altar-piece now? Mr. Wheatly says in his “Hogarth’s London” that it was “occasionally taken to the Crown and Anchor Tavern in the Strand for exhibition at the music meetings of the churchwardens of the parish.” They had strange enjoyments in the worst-mannered period in our history. Poor Kent! I try to plead for him. But it is difficult to be enthusiastic. He was chosen to supply (delightful word that, supply!) the statue of Shakespeare for the Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey. There it remains. It is no better than the marble effigies in the mason’s gardens in the Euston Road. Kent as an architect! There, surely, we have something sure and admirable. Holkam in Norfolk, Devonshire House in Piccadilly, and the Horse Guards are stated to be his work. That the Horse Guards from the park is a noble pile nobody can doubt, but is it all Kent’s? His hand also may be traced inside Devonshire House. Mr. Francis Lenygon, Kent’s modern champion, says that the two state apartments in Devonshire House are “certainly the finest in London, even if they can be surpassed in any palace in Europe.” Lord Burlington was Kent’s champion during his lifetime. He met him when the “arbiter of taste” was thirty-two, and gave him apartments in his town house, now the Royal Academy, for the remainder of his life. Kent came through. Hogarth, try as he would, could not wreck him. He died Master Carpenter to the King and I see nothing of charm in his portrait by Dandridge; but Dandridge was no psychologist. He looks pompous; Hogarth looks pugnacious; so they remain in death as in life; but their rivalry is over. Everybody recognises Hogarth as the “father of English painting”; let us be kind to Kent, and cherish him as the “father of modern gardening.” Walpole called him that. The ascription will offend nobody, not even Hogarth. To that magnificent Londoner gardens were nought except perhaps the garden of his villa at Chiswick. |
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