the health of Hogarth began to decline. He was aware of this, and purchased a small house at Chiswick, to which he retired during the summer, amusing himself with making slight sketches and retouching his plates. This house stood till lately on a very pretty spot; but the demon of building came into the neighbourhood, choked up the garden, and destroyed the secluded beauty of Hogarth's cottage. The garden, well stored with walnut, mulberry, and apple-trees, contained a small study, with a head-stone, placed over a favourite bullfinch, on which the artist had etched the bird's head and written an epitaph. The cottage contained many snug rooms, and was but yesterday the residence of a man of learning and genius-Mr. Carey, the translator of Dante. The change of scene, the free fresh air, and exercise on horseback, had for a while a favourable influence on Hogarth's health; but he complained that he was no longer able to think with the readiness, and work with the elasticity of spirit, of his earlier years. The friends of the artist observed, and lamented, this falling away; his enemies hastened to congratulate Churchill and Wilkes on the success of their malevolence; and these men were capable of rejoicing in the belief that the work of nature was their own. Though the health of Hogarth was declining, his spirits and powers of humour did not forsake him. In one of his memorandum-books he remarks, "I can safely assert that I have invariably endeavoured to make those about me tolerably happy; and my greatest enemy cannot say I ever did an intentional injury; though, without ostentation, I could produce many instances of men that have been essentially benefited by me. What may follow, God knows." This was written nigh the close of his life, and seems entitled to the respect of a rigid self-examination; a confession which has a sacred air deserves confidence. To Wilkes-on the whole rather than to Churchill, I must impute the vexation which aggravated his illness. Whatever merit there may be in disturbing the latter days of a man of genius, and in pouring additional bitterness into the parting cup, must be conceded to the former:— One, till now," thus Hogarth writes, "rather my friend and flatterer, attacked me in so infamous and malign a style, that he himself, when pushed even by his best friends, was driven to so poor an excuse as to say he was drunk when he wrote it. Being at that time very weak, and in a kind of slow fever, it could not but seize on a feeling mind." It would, however, be unjust to deny that Churchill did all he could to depreciate the genius and infest the dying bed of Hogarth. In his poem of Independence, published in the last week of September, 1764, he contemptuously considers him as already in the grave: these are his words "Hogarth would draw him, envy must allow It is painful enough to contemplate a sharp and malicious spirit anticipating the grave, and exulting over a dying man;—but it is still more sorrowful to think that the profligate Churchill has been commended for the cowardly rancour with which he thus insulted one so far superior to himself in worth as well as in genius. Hogarth left Chiswick on the 25th of October, 1764, and returned to his residence in Leicester Square. He was very weak, yet exceedingly cheerful; for as the decline of his health was slow, he experienced no violent attacks--nature was silently giving way; his understanding continued clear, he had full possession of his mental faculties, but wanted the vigour to exert them. With the nature of his disorder no physician seems to have made himself acquainted; nor is there any account of who attended him; yet we must not suppose that he was without the benefit of medical advice, or that he had no faith in physic. Next day, having received an agreeable letter from Dr. Franklin, he rough-wrote an answer, and finding himself exhausted, retired to bed. He had lain but a short while when he was seized with a vomiting, and, starting up, rung the bell with such violence that he broke it in pieces. Mary Lewis, a worthy and affectionate relative, came and supported him in her arms till, after two hours' suffering, he expired, from a suffusion of blood among the arteries of the heart. Hogarth was buried without any ostentation in the churchyard of Chiswick; where a monument, with the family arms, was erected to his memory, and inscribed with the following words :-"Here lieth the body of William Hogarth, Esq., who died October the 26th, 1764, aged 67 years." A mask, a laurel wreath, a palette, pencils, and book, inscribed Analysis of Beauty, are carved on one side of the monument, with some verses by Garrick. The tombstone of a man so original and eminent might have been expected to say something new; but David was contented with what follows. "Farewell, great painter of mankind! Who reached the noblest point of art, If Nature touch thee, drop a tear, For Hogarth's honoured dust lies here." Another and a higher hand, that of Dr. Johnson, supplied an epitaph more to the purpose, but still unworthy : "The hand of him here torpid lies That drew the essential forms of grace: VOL. I.-0 His sister Ann followed him to the grave in 1771, and his wife, who loved him living, and honoured him dead, was laid beside him, in November, 1789, în the 80th year of her age-and there was an end of the House of Hogarth. William Hogarth was rather below the middle size; his eye was peculiarly bright and piercing; his look shrewd, sarcastic, and intelligent; the forehead high and round. An accident in his youth had left a scar on his brow, and he liked to wear his hat raised so as to display it. He was active in person, bustling in manner, and fond of affecting a little state and importance. He was of a temper cheerful, joyous, and companionable; fond of mirth and goodfellowship; desirous of saying strong and pointed things;-ardent in friendship and in resentment. His lively conversation-his knowledge of characterhis readiness of speech-and quickness of retort, made many covet his company, who were sometimes the objects of his satire; but he employed his wit on those who were present, and spared or defended the absent. His personal spirit was equal to his satiric talents; he provoked, with his pencil, the temper of those whom it was not prudent to offend; with him no vice nor folly found shelter behind wealth, or rank, or power. As to the license of his tongue, he himself often said that he never uttered that sentence about a living man which he would not repeat gladly to his face as to his works, he always felt conscious of their merit, and predicted with equal openness that his name would descend with no decrease of honour to posterity. He loved state in his dress, good order in his household, and the success of his works enabled him to indulge in the luxuries of a good table and pleasant guests. No one, save Wilkes, ever questioned his domestic serenity; and his insinuation, which I shall not repeat, appears to have been made without the slightest cause, and for the sake of saying something sharp and annoying. He was a good husband, and Jane Thornhill was an indulgent wife. He felt the injurious insinuations of Wilkes, chiefly on his wife's account; and his widow resented the discourteous language of Walpole and the coarse invectives of Nichols, with a temper and a calmness which command all respect. "In his relations of husband, brother, friend, and master," says Ireland, "he was kind, generous, sincere, and indulgent; in diet abstemious, but in his hospitalities, though devoid of ostentation, liberal and free-hearted: not parsimonious, yet frugal;but so comparatively small were the rewards then paid to artists, that after the labour of a long life he left a very inconsiderable sum to his widow, with whom he must have received a large portion." this, Nichols reluctantly adds, that Hogarth was a punctual paymaster-was uniformly kind to his sisters and to his cousin Mary Lewis;-and-what I hold, though last, not least-that his domestics had remained many years in his service, and that he painted all their portraits and hung them up in his house. To By her husband's will Mrs. Hogarth received the sole property of his numerous plates, and the copyright was secured to her for twenty years by act of parliament. There were seventy-two plates-from which such a number of impressions were regularly. sold as produced a very respectable annual income. But she outlived the period of her right; and indeed, even before this was the case, through the fluctuation of public taste, the sale of the prints had so much diminished as to reduce Mrs. Hogarth to the bor der of want. The interposition of the king with the Royal Academy at length obtained for her an annu ity of £40; which she lived but two years to enjoy Nichols, a person who misconceived Hogarth's genius, since he said it was exclusively comic, and who was therefore likely to misunderstand his cha |