. On application being made to this venerable and
good old man, to know whether a subscription being opened for his
benefit would not offend him, he gave this noble answer: "I have not
wasted the little wealth of which I was formerly possessed in
self-indulgence or vain expenses, and am not ashamed to confess, that in
this my old age I am poor."

This singularly humane, persevering, and memorable man died at his
lodgings near Leicester-square, March 29, 1751, and was interred,
pursuant to his own desire, in the vault under the chapel of the
Foundling Hospital, where an historic epitaph records his virtues, as
Hogarth's portrait has preserved his honest countenance.

"The portrait which I painted with most pleasure," says Hogarth, "and in
which I particularly wished to excel, was that of Captain Coram for the
Foundling Hospital; and if I am so wretched an artist as my enemies
assert, it is somewhat strange that this, which was one of the first I
painted the size of life, should stand the test of twenty years'
competition, and be generally thought the best portrait in the place,
notwithstanding the first painters in the kingdom exerted all their
talents to vie with it.

"For the portrait of Mr. Garrick in Richard III. I was paid two hundred
pounds, (which was more than any English artist ever received for a
single portrait,) and that too by the sanction of several painters who
had been previously consulted about the price, which was not given
without mature consideration.

"Notwithstanding all this, the current remark was, that portraits were
not my province; and I was tempted to abandon the only lucrative branch
of my art, for the practice brought the whole nest of phyzmongers on my
back, where they buzzed like so many hornets. All these people have
their friends, whom they incessantly teach to call my women harlots, my
Essay on Beauty borrowed, and my composition and engraving contemptible.

"This so much disgusted me, that I sometimes declared I would never
paint another portrait, and frequently refused when applied to; for I
found by mortifying experience, that whoever would succeed in this
branch, must adopt the mode recommended in one of Gay's fables, and make
divinities of all who sit to him. Whether or not this childish
affectation will ever be done away is a doubtful question; none of those
who have attempted to reform it have yet succeeded; nor, unless portrait
painters in general become more honest, and th