WILLIAM HOGARTH. 
395 
quarrel with Mr. Wilkes ; and though he did not commence direct 
hostilities on the latter, he at least obliquely gave the first offence, 
by an attack on the friends and party of that gentleman. This con- 
duct was the more surprising, as he had all his life avoided dipping 
his pencil in political contests, and had early refused a very lucrative 
offer that was made, to engage him in a set of prints against the head 
of a court party. Without entering into the merits of the cause, 
I shall only state the fact. In September 1763, Mr. Hogarth published 
his print of “ The Times.” It was answered by Mr. Wilkes ftii a 
severe paper in the ‘North Briton.’ On this the painter exhibited 
the caricature of the writer. Mr. Churchill, the poet, then engaged 
in the war, and wrote his ‘Epistle to Hogarth,’ not the brightest of 
his works, and in which the severest strokes fell on a defect that the 
painter had neither caused, nor could amend, namely, his age, which 
however, was neither remarkable nor decrepit, much less had it im- 
paired his talents, as appeared by his having composed, but six months 
before, one of his most capital works, the satire on the Methodists. 
In revenge for his epistle, Hogarth caricatured Churchill, under the 
form of a canonical bear, with a club and a pot of porter, &c. (vituld 
tu dignus et hie,) — never did two angry men, of their abilities, throw 
mud with less dexterity. 
“ When Mr. Wilkes was the second time brought from the Tower 
to Westminster-hall, Mr. Hogarth skulked behind in a corner 
of the gallery of the Court of Common Pleas ; and while the 
chief justice Pratt, with the eloquence and courage of old Rome, 
was enforcing the great principles of Magna Charta and the English 
constitution ; while every breast from him caught the holy flame of 
liberty ; the painter was wholly employed in caricaturing the person 
of the man, while all the rest of his fellow-citizens were animated in 
bis cause, for they knew it to be their own cause, that of their country, 
and of its laws. It was declared to be so a few hours after by the 
unanimous sentence of the judges of that court, who were all present. 
“ The print of Mr. Wilkes,” says a writer of that day, was soon 
after published, “ drawn from the life by William Hogarth.” It must 
be allowed to be an excellent compound caricature, or a caricature of 
w hat nature had already caricatured. I know but one short apology 
that can be made for this gentleman, or, to speak more pro- 
perly, for the person of Mr. Wilkes. It is, that he did not make 
himself, and I never heard that he once hung over the glassy stream, 
like another Narcissus, admiring the image in it, nor that he ever stole 
an amorous look at his counterfeit in a side-mirror. His form, such 
as it was, ought to give him no pain, because it was capable of giving 
pleasure to others. I fancy he found himself tolerably happy in the 
clay-cottage to which he was tenant for life, because he had learnt 
to keep it in good order. While the share of health and animal spi- 
rits, which heaven had given him held out, I can scarcely imagine 
he was one moment peevish about the outside of so precarious, so 
temporary, a habitation, or was ever brought to own, — that his 
earthly tabernacle was too homely for his dignity. 
“ Mr. Churchill was exasperated at this personal attack on his 
friend# He soon after published the ‘ Epistle to William Hogarth,’ 
