THE BAY WINDOW. HOGARTH’S HOUSE.
But he could not be satisfied to keep away from London, and on 25th October was conveyed from Chiswick to his house in Leicester Square, “very weak,” says Nichols, “but remarkably cheerful, and, receiving an agreeable letter from Dr. Franklin” (Benjamin Franklin was, by the way, dwelling at this time in Bartholomew Close; he did not remove to 7 Craven Street, Strand, until three years later), “he drew up a rough draft of an answer to it; but, going to bed, was seized with a vomiting, upon which he rang the bell with such violence that he broke it, and expired about two hours afterwards in the arms of Mrs. Mary Lewis, who was called up on his being suddenly taken ill.”
He was buried in Chiswick Churchyard; and in 1771 his friends erected a monument over him, the epitaph on which was written by Garrick:—
“Farewell, great Painter of Mankind,
Who reached the noblest point of Art,
Whose pictured morals charm the Mind,
And through the eye correct the Heart.
If Genius fire thee, Reader, stay;
If Nature touch thee, drop a tear;
If neither move thee, turn away,
For Hogarth’s honoured dust lies here.”
Garrick sent his verses to Dr. Johnson, who frankly criticised them, and offered him a revised version, the first lines of which were a distinct improvement:—
“The hand of Art here torpid lies
That traced the essential form of Grace;
Here Death has closed the curious eyes
That saw the manners in the face.”...
Garrick preferred his own composition, slightly altered, as it now appears; but Johnson’s was certainly the better effort of the two.
Mrs. Hogarth retained possession of the Leicester Square house until her death in 1789, but she resided principally at Chiswick. Sir Richard Phillips saw her there, when he was a boy, and had vivid recollections of her as a stately old lady, wheeled to the parish church on Sundays in a bath-chair, and sailing in up the nave with her raised head-dress, silk sacque, black calash, and crutched cane, accompanied by a relative (the Mary Lewis who was with Hogarth when he died), and preceded by her grey-haired man-servant, Samuel, who carried her prayer-books, and, after she was seated, shut the pew door on her.
From 1824 to 1826 the Hogarth villa was inhabited by the Rev. H. F. Cary, the translator of Dante, who was one of Charles Lamb’s many friends, and wrote the feeble epitaph that is on his tomb at Edmonton.