kitchen of an inn; out of the door, astride on a bench, inhaling copious draughts from a leathern bottle, Sancho gives some life to a little landscape. in the distance.-Vide Shelton, p. 60. PLATE IX. SANCHO'S Feast. "Sancho's dread doctor and his wand were there." THOUGH Don Quixote is the ostensible hero of this admirable history, I have sometimes thought that Sancho was the author's favourite character. He is here represented as Governor of Barataria, and seated in the spacious hall of a sumptuous palace, surrounded with all the pompous parade of high rank, and encircled by numerous attendants.1 A band of musicians in an adjoining gallery strike up a symphony to gratify his ear, and a table is spread with every dainty to feast his eye and fret his soul; for however magnificent the appendages of this mock monarch, the instant he attempts to taste the solid comforts of government, the loaves and fishes evade his grasp, are touched by the black rod, and vanish! "In plenty starving, tantaliz'd in state," he curses the gaudy unsubstantial pageant, vows 1 Let it not be said in objection that many of the attendants are idle lookers on, and most of them laughing at their governor; for I am told a similar practice has sometimes prevailed in more regular govern ments. vengeance on the Doctor, and swears that he will offer up both him and every physical impostor in the island as a sacrifice to his injured and insulted appetite. Hogarth has here caught the true spirit of the author, and given to this scene the genuine humour of Cervantes. The rising choler of our Governor is admirably contrasted by the assumed gravity of Doctor Pedro Rezio. The starch and serious solemnity of a straight-haired student who officiates as chaplain, is well opposed by the broad grin of a curl-pated blackamoor. The suppressed laughter of a man who holds a napkin to his mouth forms a good antithesis to the open chuckle of a fat cook. Sancho's two pages bear a strong resemblance to the little punchmaker in the Election Feast, and though well conceived, might have had more variety; they present a front and back view of the same figure. To two females on the Viceroy's right hand there may be a similar objection. The original print was designed and engraved at a very early period of Hogarth's life. As it was finished with more neatness than any of the eight which he afterwards etched for the same work, the copy is attempted in a similar style. In the drawing, Sancho was originally portrayed with a full face; but Hogarth, judiciously thinking a profile would be preferable, fixed a bit of paper |