aid to be painted by Correggio, probably by Furino, but no
matter by whom. It is impossible to see the picture, or read Dryden's
inimitable tale, and not feel that the same soul animated both. After
many essays Hogarth at last produced his "Sigismonda," but no more
like "Sigismonda" than I to Hercules. Hogarth's performance was more
ridiculous than anything he had ever ridiculed. He set the price of
L400 on it, and had it returned on his hands by the person for whom it
was painted. He took subscriptions for a plate of it, but had the
sense at last to suppress it. I make no more apology for this account
than for the encomiums I have bestowed on him. Both are dictated by
truth, and are the history of a great man's excellences and errors.
Milton, it is said, preferred his "Paradise Regained" to his immortal
poem.

The last memorable event of our artist's life was his quarrel with Mr.
Wilkes; in which, if Mr. Hogarth did not commence direct hostilities
on the latter, he at least obliquely gave the first offense by an
attack on the friends and party of that gentleman. This conduct was
the more surprizing, 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, 1762, Mr. Hogarth published his
print of _The Times_. It was answered by Mr. Wilkes in a severe _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--his age; and which, however, was neither remarkable
nor decrepit, much less had it impaired 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 this epistle,
Hogarth caricatured Churchill under the form of a canonical bear, with
a club and a pot of porter--_Et vitula tu dignus et hic_. Never did
two angry men of their abilities throw mud with less dexterity.

Mr. Hogarth, in the year 1730, married the only daughter of Sir James
Thornhill, by whom he had no children. He died of a dropsy in his
breast at his house in Leicester Fields, October 26, 1764.

II