Rehearsal of the Oratorio of Judith.

“O cara, cara! silence all that train,

Joy to great chaos! let division reign.”

The Oratorio of Judith, Mr. Ireland observes, was written by Esquire William Huggins, honoured by the music of William de Fesch, aided by new painted scenery and magnifique decoration, and in the year 1733 brought upon the stage. As De Fesch2 was a German and a genius, we may fairly presume it was well set; and there was at that time, as at this, a sort of musical mania, that paid much greater attention to sounds than to sense; notwithstanding all these points in her favour, when the Jewish heroine had made her theatrical début, and so effectually smote Holofernes,
——"As to sever

His head from his great trunk for ever and for ever.”

the audience compelled her to make her exit. To set aside this partial and unjust decree, Mr. Huggins appealed to the public, and printed his oratorio. Though it was adorned with a frontispiece designed by Hogarth, and engraved by Vandergucht, the world could not be compelled to read, and the unhappy writer had no other resource than the consolatory reflection, that his work was superlatively excellent, but unluckily printed in a tasteless age; a comfortable and solacing self-consciousness, which hath, I verily believe, prevented many a great genius from becoming his own executioner.

To paint a sound is impossible; but as far as art can go towards it, Hogarth has gone in this print. The tenor, treble, and bass of these ear-piercing choristers are so decisively discriminated, that we all but hear them.

The principal figure, whose head, hands, and feet are in equal agitation, has very properly tied on his spectacles; it would have been prudent to have tied on his periwig also, for by the energy of his action he has shaken it from his head, and, absorbed in an eager attention to true time, is totally unconscious of his loss.

A gentleman — pardon me, I meant a singer — in a bag wig, immediately beneath his uplifted hand, I suspect to be of foreign growth. It has the engaging air of an importation from Italy.

The little figure in the sinister corner, is, it seems, intended for a Mr. Tothall, a woollen-draper, who lived in Tavistock-court, and was Hogarth’s intimate friend.

The name of the performer on his right hand,
——"Whose growling bass

Would drown the clarion of the braying as............