When a favourite child is chastised by his preceptor, a partial mother
redoubles her caresses. Hogarth, estimating this picture by the labour
he had bestowed upon it, was certain that the public were prejudiced,
and requested, if his wife survived him, she would not sell it for less
than five hundred pounds. Mrs. Hogarth acted in conformity to his
wishes, but after her death the painting was purchased by Messrs.
Boydell, and exhibited in the Shakspeare Gallery. The colouring, though
not brilliant, is harmonious and natural: the attitude, drawing, etc.
may be generally conceived by the print. I am much inclined to think,
that if some of those who have been most severe in their censures, had
consulted their own feelings, instead of depending upon connoisseurs,
poor Sigismonda would have been in higher estimation. It has been said
that the first sketch was made from Mrs. Hogarth, at the time she was
weeping over the corse of her mother.

Hogarth once intended to have appealed from the critics' fiat to the
world's opinion, and employed Mr. Basire to make an engraving, which was
begun, but set aside for some other work, and never completed.

[Illustration: SIGISMONDA, WITH THE HEART OF HER HUSBAND.]

MARTIN FOLKES, ESQ.

Martin Folkes was a mathematician and antiquary of much celebrity in the
philosophical annals of this country. He was at the early age of
twenty-four admitted a member of the Royal Society, where he was greatly
distinguished. Two years afterwards he was chosen one of the council,
and was named by Sir Isaac Newton himself as vice president: he was
afterwards elected president, and held this high office till a short
time before his death, when he resigned it on account of ill-health. In
the Philosophical Transactions are numerous memoirs of this learned man:
his knowledge in coins, ancient and modern, was very extensive: and the
last work he produced was concerning the English Silver Coin from the
Conquest to his own time. He was president of the Society of Antiquaries
at the time of his death, which happened on the 28th of June, 1754, at
the age of sixty-four. A few days before his death he was struck with a
fit of the palsy, and never spoke after this attack.

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF MARTIN FOLKES, ESQ.]

THE COCKPIT.

The scene is probably laid at Newmarket, and in this motley group of
peers,--pick-pockets,--butchers,--jockies,--rat-catchers,--gentlemen,
--gamblers of every denomin