The unfinished group of heads in the upper part of this print was added by the author in October 1764, and was intended as a further illustration of what is here said concerning character, caricature, and outré. He worked upon it the day before his death, which happened the 26th of that month.
The system which Mr. Hogarth has laboured to establish in the above inscription, and which I think the genuine system, he has not illustrated with his usual felicity in the print to which it is annexed.
It was published in 1758, and in its first state exhibited a view of the Court of Common Pleas, and portraits of the four sages who then sat on that Bench.[214] Lord Chief-Justice Sir John Willes is the principal figure; on his right hand is Sir Edward Clive, and on his left Mr. Justice Bathurst, and the Honourable William Noel.
In this state the print gave character only; for though the robes of my Lord Chief-Justice may have a shade of the outré, they in no degree approach to that caricature which the unfinished group added to the plate in 1764 was intended to display. Had the artist lived to finish them, they might have given weight to his assertions, but in their present state do not much illuminate his doctrine.
The picture, from which each of the prints considerably vary, was originally the property of Sir George Hay, and is now in the possession of Mr. Edwards.
THE BEGGARS' OPERA.
"The charge is prepar'd; the lawyers are met;
The judges all rang'd (a terrible show!)
I go undismayed,—for death is a debt,