The Four Stages of Cruelty: The Second Stage, by William Hogarth (1697-1764)

The Four Stages of Cruelty: The Second Stage

William Hogarth (1697-1764)

Etching and engraving

380 x 320 mm

Modern Moral Series

Source: Wellcome Collection

Image download and commentary below by Jacqueline Banerjee

[Image available on the Wellcome Collection website on the Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.

The Second Stage in Hogarth's cruelty series is when boyhood nastinesses has progressed from such abuses as hanging a kitten to beating a horse or lamb. The rhyme below the engraving, a piece of "moral embroidery" with which Hogarth was helped by the Rev. James Townley (see Paulson 35, 272), reads:

The tender Lamb o'er drove and faint,
Amidst expiring Throws
Bleats forth its innocent complaint
And dies beneath the Blows

The generous Steed in hoary Age
Subdued by Labour lies,
And many a cruel Master's rage,
While Nature strength denies.

Inhuman Wretch! Say whence proceeds
This coward Cruelty?
What int'rest springs from barb'rous deeds?
What Joy from Misery?

Notice the bewigged lawyers on the overturned carriage who do nothing to intervene. One, with open mouth, is either impotently shocked or (more likely) simply yawning, and another is pointedly looking the other way. A bystander or a postillion) seems to be writing a report of the incident. In the background on the same side, a terribly overloaded donkey is being beaten, while closer, on the other side, a child with a hoop is being run over by a dray with a drunkard on board. Cruelty towards animals leads to cruelty towards human beings. But there was, as yet, no protection in law for the animals, and therefore no stopping this escalation.

Related Material

The Victorians and Their Animals: Introduction

Bibliography

Hogarth: Hogarth's Modern Moral Series (for engraving's dimensions). Tate. Web. 14 October 2020.

Paulson, Ronald. Hogarth, Vol. II: High Art and Low, 1732-1750. Cambridge: Lutterworth, 1992.

Created 14 October 2020