Unrivall'd praise to the most distant age!"
Being unrivalled, I do not see why he should dread a rival; nor can I conceive he could be jealous of talents which he must be conscious were inferior to his own.
After some very harsh lines on envy, in no degree applicable to Hogarth, and the rhapsody about Wilkes and Liberty, which I have noticed in the preceding plate, this high priest of the Temple of Cruelty, rejoicing in his strength and triumphing in the pride of his youth, without any reverence for gray hairs or respect for superior talents, sets up the war-whoop, and springs upon a feeble old man with the ferocity of a hungry cannibal:
"With all the symptoms of assur'd decay,
With age and sickness pinch'd and worn away,
Pale quivering lips, lank cheeks, and faltering tongue,
The spirits out of tune, the nerves unstrung,
The body shrivell'd up, the dim eyes sunk
Within their sockets deep; the weak hams shrunk,
The body's weight unable to sustain,