394 
WILLTA?,! HOG ART If., 
letter to Dr. iloadley, thus; “To the Doctor at Chelsea.” This 
epistle, however, by good luck, did not miscarry ; and was preserved 
by the late chancellor of Winchester, as a precious memorial of his 
friend’s extraordinary inattention. Another remarkable instance of 
Hogarth’s absence was related by one of his intimate friends. Soon 
after he set up his carriage, he had occasion to pay a visit to the 
lord mayor, Mr. Beckford. When he went, the weather was fine, but 
business detained him till a violent shower of rain came on. He 
was let out of the mansion-house by a different door from that which 
he entered ; and, seeing the rain, began immediately to call for a 
hackney-coach. Notone was to be met with on any of the neighbour- 
ing stands; and the artist sallied forth to brave the storm, and ac- 
tually reached Leicester-fields, without ever bestowing a thought on 
his own carriage, till Mrs. Hogarth, surprised to see him so wet and 
splashed, asked him where he had left it. 
A specimen of Hogarth’s propensity to merriment on the most tri- 
via! occasions, is observable in one of his cards, requesting the com- 
pany of Dr. Arnold King to dine with him at the Mitre. Within a 
circle, to wliich a knife and fork are the supporters, the written part 
is contained, in the centre is drawn a pie, with a mitre on the top 
of it; and the invitation concludes with the following sport on three 
of the Greek letters — to Eta Beta Pi. The rest of the inscription is 
not very accurately spelt. 
A quibble by Hogarth is surely as remarkable as a conundrum by 
Swift. In one of the early exhibitions at Spring-gardens, a very 
pleasing small picture by Hogarth made its first appearance. It was 
painted for the earl of Charlemont, in whose collection it remains, 
and was entitled “ Picquet, or Virtue in Danger,” and shews us a 
young lady, who, during a tete-a-tete, had just lost all her money 
and jewels to a handsome officer of her own age. He is re- 
presented in the act of offering her the contents of his hat, in which 
are bank-notes, jewels, and trinkets, with the hopes of exchanging them 
for a more delicate plunder. On the chimney-piece is a watch-case, 
and a figure of Time over it, with this motto — “ Nunc.^’ Hogarth has 
caught his heroine during this moment of hesitation, this struggle 
with herself, and has marked her feelings with uncommon success. 
In the “ Miser’s Feast,” Mr. Hogarth thought proper to pillory Sir 
Isaac Shard, a gentleman proverbially avaricious. Hearing this, the 
son of sir Isaac, the late Isaac P. Shard, esq. a young man of 
spirit, just returned from his travels, called at the painter’s to see the 
picture; among the rest, asking the Cicerone “ whether that odd 
figure was intended for any particular person on his replying, “ that 
it was thought to be very like one Sir Isaac Shard,” he immediately 
drew his sword, and slashed the canvass. Hogarth appeared instantly 
in great wrath ; to wffiora Mr. Shard calmly justified what he had done, 
saying that this was a very unwarrantable license, that he was the 
injured party’s son, and that he was ready to defend any suit at law ;” 
which, however, was never instituted. 
About 1757 his brother-in-law Mr. Thornhill resigned the place of 
king’s sergeant painter in favour of Mr. Hogarth. “ The last memo- 
rable event in our artist’s life,” as Mr. Walpole observes, “ was his 
