SLEEPY CONGREGATION.
The clergyman preaching is supposed to represent Dr. Desaguliers. But why Hogarth has assigned him this post of honour, does not appear. This gentleman was the son of a French Protestant clergyman; was educated at Cambridge, and held the donative of Whitchurch, in Middlesex. He was the first lecturer on experimental philosophy in the capital, and published his lectures in two vols. 4to. He died at his lodgings at the Bedford Coffeehouse, Covent Garden, Feb. 29, 1744, and was buried, March 26, at the Savoy. He is spoken of as a man of considerable talents, but possibly might have had a peculiarly inanimate mode of delivering his sermons, which occasioned Hogarth's satire. The original painting from which this print was engraved was lately in the possession of the late John Follett, Esq., of the Temple, London. It differs in some little particulars from the print.
