"Friend Hogarth,—I am one of those people, by a sort of disrespectful appellation, called Quakers; for we strive to abound in the milk of human kindness, and prefer the dove to the serpent. I know thee not but by thy works and fame as an ingenious artist in thine own way. I have seen thy compositions and handy works, and think them not only ingenious, but moral, and even more than dramatic, perfectly epic; so that I think thou deservest the character of the Epic painter, which I hereby bestow upon thee, and by which thou shalt be distinguished in future generations; for if I do not much mistake the matter, thy name will be had in honour when thine adversaries shall have perished,—I would have said, and shall stink,—but that they do already. I have hereby sent thee an epigram, such as my spirit dictated to me. I fear it hath too much in it of the gall of bitterness. But I will tell thee, friend Hogarth, I am a man of some small property and authority, having cattle under me; and when the brutes are poisoned, I cure them with wormwood. Let not thy noble spirit that is in thee be diverted from its true and masterly turn of exposing licentiousness, vice, hypocrisy, faction, and apostasy.—Thine in all brotherly and good wishes,
"Ephraim Knox."
An Epigram.
To the Rev. Charles Churchill, Esquire, etc.
"Thou boast'st, vain Churchill, with thy gray goose quill,
Thou'st kill'd, or surely wilt poor Hogarth kill.
Alas! he (with the world) will only smile
At self-importance in a frippery style.
'Churchill, stand forth!'—I call thee not my friend;—
The sober dictates of my lines attend.