IN: William Hogarth was born at Bartholomew Close in London to Richard Hogarth, a poor Latin school teacher and textbook writer, and Anne Gibbons. In his youth he was apprenticed to the engraver Ellis Gamble in Leicester Fields, where he learned to engrave trade cards and similar products. Young Hogarth also took a lively interest in the street life of the metropolis and the London fairs, and amused himself by sketching the characters he saw. Around the same time, his father, who had opened an unsuccessful Latin-speaking coffee house at St John's Gate, was imprisoned for debt in Fleet Prison for five years.

In 1743-1745, Hogarth painted the six pictures of Marriage a-la-mode (National Gallery, London), a pointed skewering of upper-class 18th-century society. This moralistic warning shows the miserable tragedy of an ill-considered marriage for money. This is regarded by many as his finest project and may be among his best-planned story serials.  Marital ethics were the topic of much debate in 18th-century Britain. The many marriages of convenience and their attendant unhappiness came in for particular criticism, with a variety of authors taking the view that love was a much sounder basis for marriage. Hogarth here painted a satire - a genre that by definition has a moral point to convey - of a conventional marriage within the English upper class. All the paintings were engraved and the series achieved wide circulation in print form. The series, which is set in a Classical interior, shows the story of the fashionable marriage of Viscount Squanderfield, the son of bankrupt Earl Squander, to the daughter of a wealthy but miserly city merchant, starting with the signing of a marriage contract at the Earl's mansion and ending with the murder of the son by his wife's lover and the suicide of the daughter after her lover is hanged at Tyburn for murdering her husband.  William Makepeace Thackeray wrote:  This famous set of pictures contains the most important and highly wrought of the Hogarth comedies. The care and method with which the moral grounds of these pictures are laid is as remarkable as the wit and skill of the observing and dexterous artist. He has to describe the negotiations for a marriage pending between the daughter of a rich citizen Alderman and young Lord Viscount Squanderfield, the dissipated son of a gouty old Earl ... The dismal end is known. My lord draws upon the counselor, who kills him, and is apprehended while endeavouring to escape. My lady goes back perforce to the Alderman of the City, and faints upon reading Counsellor Silvertongue's dying speech at Tyburn (place of execution in old London), where the counselor has been 'executed for sending his lordship out of the world. Moral: don't listen to evil silver-tongued counselors; don't marry a man for his rank, or a woman for her money; don't frequent foolish auctions and masquerade balls unknown to your husband; don't have wicked companions abroad and neglect your wife, otherwise you will be run through the body, and ruin will ensue, and disgrace, and Tyburn.

What does marriage a la mode mean?

OUT: In 1743-1745, Hogarth painted the six pictures of Marriage a-la-mode (National Gallery, London), a pointed skewering of upper-class 18th-century society.


IN: Abhay Charanaravinda Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (Abhoy Charonarobindo Bhoktibedanto Shwamy Probhupad; 1 September 1896 - 14 November 1977) was a Gaudiya Vaishnavism spiritual teacher (guru) and the founder preceptor (Acharya) of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), commonly known as the "Hare Krishna Movement". Adherents of the ISKCON movement view Prabhupada as a divine avatar and messenger of Krishna. Born Abhay Charan De in Calcutta, he was educated at the Scottish Church College in Calcutta. Before adopting the life of a pious renunciant (vanaprastha) in 1950, he was married with children and owned a small pharmaceutical business.

In 1922, when he first met his spiritual master, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, he was requested to spread the message of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in the English language. In 1933 he became a formally initiated disciple of Bhaktisiddhanta. In 1944, (from his front room at Sita Kanta Banerjee, Calcutta), he started the publication called Back to Godhead, for which he acted as writer, designer, publisher, editor, copy editor and distributor. He personally designed the logo, an effulgent figure of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu in the upper left corner, with the motto: "Godhead is Light, Nescience is darkness" greeting the readers. In his first magazine he wrote:  Under the circumstances since 1936 up to now, I was simply speculating whether I shall venture this difficult task and that without any means and capacity; but as none have discouraged me, I have now taken courage to take up the work.  In 1947, the Gaudiya Vaishnava Society recognised his scholarship with the title Bhaktivedanta, (bhakti-vedanta) meaning "one who has realised that devotional service to the Supreme Lord is the end of all knowledge" (with the words Bhakti, indicating devotion and Vedanta indicating conclusive knowledge).  His later well known name, Prabhupada, is a Sanskrit title, literally meaning "he who has taken the shelter of the lotus feet of the Lord" where prabhu denotes "Lord", and pada means "taking shelter." Also, "at whose feet masters sit". This name was used as a respectful form of address by his disciples from late 1967 early 1968 onwards. Previous to this, as with his early disciples, followers used to call him "Swamiji".  From 1950 onwards, he lived at the medieval Radha-Damodar mandir in the holy town of Vrindavan, where he began his commentary and translation work of the Sanskrit work Bhagavata Purana. Of all notable Vrindavana's temples, the Radha-Damodara mandir had at the time the largest collection of various copies of the original writings of the Six Gosvamis and their followers - more than two thousand separate manuscripts, many of them three hundred, some even four hundred years old. His guru, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura, had always encouraged him to print books, and beholding his spiritual master, Abhay felt the words deeply enter his own life - "If you ever get money, print books."  referring to the need of literary presentation of the Vaishnava culture.

did he spread the message?

OUT:
he started the publication called Back to Godhead, for which he acted as writer, designer, publisher, editor, copy editor and distributor.