did he succeed, that Hogarth immediately caught the likeness, and exclaimed with exultation, "Now I have him. Keep still, my dear Davy." To work he went with pen and ink, and the likeness was finished by their mutual recollections. This sketch has been engraved from the original drawing, and is preserved in the illustrated copy of Lysons's Environs, vol. ii. p. 544, in the King's Library, British Museum.

"CREDULITY, SUPERSTITION, AND FANATICISM."

:

In this remarkable work-the Medley, designed and engraved by Hogarth, and published in 1762, his object is to literally represent the strange effects resulting from low conceptions of sacred things; and of the idolatrous tendency of pictures in churches, and prints in religious books. He has pictured a fierce preacher and a startled congregation in his right hand he shakes a god, reserving in the other a devil: one hearer has sprung to his feet; a second has his hair standing on end; a third has fallen into a swoon; a fourth hugs an image; a fifth is fainting with extacy; and a sixth, a woman overcome by the tempter, is dropping the image of her patron saint from her bosom. A Turk, smoking, looks in at the window, and seems chuckling at superstition which surpasses his own. Among the follies satirized are Mrs. Veale's ghost, Julius Cæsar's apparition, and the shade of Sir George Villiers; Whitefield's Journal placed upon King James's Demonology; Mrs. Tofts and her Rabbits; the Cocklane Ghost and the Tedworth Drummer. Every inscription is the work of a writing-engraver. Hogarth published a similar print-Enthusiasm Delineated, which Walpole considered "for useful and deep satire, was the most sublime of all Hogarth's works;" but Ireland thinks these words more applicable to the Medley.

PORTRAIT OF WILKES.

In 1763, Hogarth drew from the life, and "etched in aquafortis" the notorious John Wilkes, and the print was published as 66 a direct contrast to the print of Simon Lord Lovat." The original drawing of Wilkes was thrown by Hogarth into the fire, but was snatched out of it by a lady, and passed into the hands of S. Ireland. Wilkes good-humouredly said of this portrait, that he was every day growing more like it.

Writing to his friend Churchill, he says: "I take it for granted you have seen Hogarth's print against me. Was ever anything so contemptible? I think he is fairly felo de seI think not to let him off in that manner, although I might safely leave him to your notes.* He has broken into my pale of private life, and set that example of illiberality which I wished-of that kind of attack which is ungenerous in the first instance, but justice in the return." Nichols was told by a copper-plate printer that nearly 4000 copies of this caricature were worked off on its first publication.

HOGARTH'S QUARREL WITH WILKES AND CHURCHILL.

Hogarth was smarting under the attacks upon his Sigismunda, which were but a revival of the spleen that appeared at the time of the Analysis, when he got into a violent quarrel with Wilkes and Churchill, which embittered the few remaining days of the great artist's life.

In his anger, Hogarth repaired to Westminster Hall, when Wilkes was the second time brought thither from the Tower; and in Wilkes's own words, "Skulking behind in the Court of Common Pleas," Hogarth was seen in the corner of the Court, pencil and sketch-book in hand, fixing that famous caricature, from which, as long as caricature shall last, Wilkes will squint upon all posterity. Nor was it his first pictorial offence: the caricaturing had begun some little time before, greatly to the grief both of Wilkes and Churchill; for Hogarth was on friendly terms with both; and, indeed, had within the past two years drank "divine milk-punch" with them and Sir Francis Dashwood, in the neighbourhood of Medmenham Abbey. Disregarding their earnest remonstrance, he assailed Pitt and Temple at the close of the preceding year in his first print of the Times.+ The North Briton retaliated in an attack on "The King's Sergeant-Painter, William Hogarth." It was sharp and malicious; and Wilkes, hearing that Hogarth contemplated a rejoinder, requested him not to meddle with moral subjects and as the same request suited Churchill, it was made in both their names. Precious advice to Hogarth!

*

Referring to the edition of his works which Churchill, in his Will, desired that Wilkes should publish, with remarks and explanations. The Times, Plate 2, was engraved soon after Plate 1, but withheld from the public till after Mrs. Hogarth's death, when the Plate was published by Messrs. Boydell, in 1790.

A coarse woodcut portrait of Hogarth headed this paper, the motto of which was

Its proper power to hurt each creature feels,

Bulls aim their horns, and asses lift their heels.

The caricature-the bodily and mental image of John Wilkes-appeared; he is seated in the civic chair-this patron saint of purity and liberty-a mark for perpetual laughter and loathing. It stung Churchill-Wilkes's toadeater-past the power of silence.

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As a rejoinder, in July, 1763, Churchill put the North Briton into verse in the Epistle to William Hogarth. It struck Hogarth where he was weakest, in that subjection to vanity which his friends confessed in him. But it spread his genius. Amid its savage ferocity against the man, it was remarkable for a noble tribute to the artist. It predicted the duration of his works to the most distant age; and the great painter's power to curse and bless it rated as that of “ a little god below." But it was of terrible severity: the passage beginning"Hogarth, I take thee, candour, at thy word," is literally appalling. All who knew the contending parties stood aghast. Pray let me know," wrote Garrick, then visiting at Chatsworth, to Colman, "how the town speaks of our friend Churchill's Epistle. It is the most bloody performance that has been published in my time. I am very desirious to know the opinion of people, for I am really much, very much hurt at it. His description of his age and infirmities is surely too shocking and barbarous. Is Hogarth really ill, or does he meditate revenge? Every article of news about these matters will be most agreeable to me. Pray write me a heap of stuff, for I cannot be easy till I know all about Churchill and Hogarth." And, of course, the lively actor sends his "loves" both to Churchill and Hogarth. "Send me Churchill's poem on Hogarth," writes old moneyloving Lord Bath, from Spa; "but if it be long, it will cost a large sum in postage."

With his rejoinder, such as it was, Hogarth lost little time. "Having an old plate by me," he says, "with some parts readily sunk as a background, I began to consider how I could turn so much work laid aside to some account-and so patched up a print of Master Churchill in the character of a bear;" and he issued for a shilling, before the month was out, "The Bruiser, C. Churchill, (once the Rev.) in the character

of a Russian Hercules, regaling himself after having killed the monster Caricatura, that so sorely galled his virtuous friend, the heaven-born Wilkes.” It was a bear, in torn clerical bands, and with paws in ruffles; a pot of porter that has just visited his jaws hugged on his right, and a knotted club of Lies and North Britons clutched on his left; to which, in a later edition of the same print, was added a scaffolding caricature of Pitt, Temple, and Wilkes.

In a second edition, Hogarth added on a label a group representing himself as a bear-master, forcing the bear, Churchill, and the monkey, Wilkes, to dance under the infliction of a severe castigation: the monkey holds a North Briton in his hand.

Churchill, meanwhile, wrote to Wilkes, and told him that Hogarth, having violated the sanctities of private life in this caricature, he meant to pay it back with an Elegy, supposing him dead; but that a lady at his elbow was dissuading him with the flattery that Hogarth was already killed.

In his poem of Independence, published in the last week of September, 1764, Churchill contemptuously considers the painter already in his grave: these are his words of savage exultation:

"Hogarth would draw him, envy must allow,

E'en to the life, were Hogarth living now."

This Walpole and others also affirmed; and Colman boldly avouched in print that the Epistle had snapped the last cord of poor Hogarth's heart-strings. Churchill had such faith in the terrors of his own verse, that his vanity was pleased when he heard the death of Hogarth was imputed to his satire. But Churchill himself died within nine days of the painter! Thus the assailed and the assailant passed away; and thus was prevented the reconciliation which would surely, sooner or later, have vindicated their common genius, the hearty English feeling which they shared, and their common cordial hatred of the falsehood and pretences of the world.” (Edinburgh Review, No. 163.)

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Stacie, the landlord of the Bedford, in Covent Garden, told J. T. Smith that Churchill's quarrel with Hogarth began at a shilling rubber club, held in the parlour of the Bedford;*

* Woodward the comedian, who mostly resided at the Bedford Arms, was intimate with Stacie, and gave him his portrait with a mask in his hand, one of the early pictures of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Stacie related to Smith that he was allowed to play an excellent game at whist. One

when Hogarth used very insulting language towards Churchill, who resented it in the Epistle.

On the whole, this quarrel showed more venom than wit. Never," says Walpole, "did two angry men of their abilities throw mud with less dexterity."

Wilkes bore Hogarth's caricature bravely. He said truly, in allusion to his own portrait, that he did not make himself, and cared little about the beauty of the case that contained his soul. He wrote to Earl Temple: "Mr. Hogarth is said to be dying of a broken heart. It grieves me much. He says that he believes I wrote that paper (the North Briton), but he forgives me, for he must own I am a thorough goodhumoured fellow, only Pitt-bitten.”

"FINIS; OR THE TAIL-PIECE."

This strange print, engraved in 1764, the year in which Hogarth died, is stated by Nichols and others to have originated as follows; though the title of the print may, probably, have suggested the story. "My next undertaking," said Hogarth, one evening, at his own table, "shall be the end of all things." "If that is the case," said one of the artist's friends, "your business will soon be finished, for there will be an end of the painter." "There will so," replied Hogarth, sighing heavily, "and the sooner my work is done the better." Accordingly, he began the next day, and worked at the picture without intermission until he had finished it: the story runs -that he never again took up his palette.

The design of the Tail-piece is to group such objects as denote the end of time, and to ridicule the gross absurdities to be seen in some of the serious works of the old masters. Hogarth named it the Bathos, or manner of sinking in sublime paintings, and inscribed the Plate to the dealers in dark pictures. On the left is a ruined tower, with a decayed dial-plate; at its base is a tombstone sculptured with a skull; and leaning upon part of the shaft of a column is Time breathing out "Finis;" his scythe and hour-glass are broken; in one hand he holds a parchment scroll bearing his Will, in which he bequeathes all to Chaos; the Fates, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos executors. Beneath the Will lies a shoemaker's last, entwined with a cobbler's end. To the left are an empty ragged purse, a commission of bankruptcy against poor Dame Nature, and a play-book

morning, about two o clock, one of his waiters awoke him, to tell him that a nobleman had knocked him up, and had desired him to call his master to play a rubber with him for one hundred guineas. Stacie got up, dressed himself, won the money, and was in bed and asleep, all within an hour.