[111] This etching is so nearly a fac-simile of the original, that when it was brought home Hogarth mistook it for his own drawing, which, considering of no value, he threw into the fire, whence it was snatched by Mrs. Lewis, though not before the paper was scorched.
Hogarth made a very whimsical design for Fielding's tragedy of tragedies, Tom Thumb the Great. It was engraved by Vandergucht, and is prefixed to the play published by Lowndes, etc.
[112] Mr. King, in his Observations on Ancient Castles, observes that "Lord Lovat was one of the last chieftains that preserved the rude manners and barbarous authority of the early feudal ages. He resided in a house which would be esteemed but an indifferent one for a very private plain country gentleman in England, as it had properly only four rooms on a floor, and those not large. Here, however, he kept a sort of court, and several public tables, and a numerous body of retainers always attending. His own constant residence, and the place where he always received company, even at dinner, was the very same room where he lodged; and his lady's sole apartment was her bedroom; and the only provision for the lodging of the servants and retainers was a quantity of straw, which they spread every night on the floors of the lower rooms, where the whole inferior part of the family, consisting of a very great number of persons, took up their abode!"—Archæologia, vol. iv.
[113] By a book on the table, inscribed Memoirs, Hogarth seems to allude to the manuscript.
[114] In the name by which the old peer supposed the Maiden was to be distinguished in a future age, he was mistaken. The Guillotine is an improvement of the Maiden; so that, though France has been the first to bring it into universal practice, Scotland is entitled to the whole honour of the invention.
[115] The mad peer in Pope's imitation of Horace was not very grateful to the d—d doctor:
"Who, from a patriot of distinguished note,
Blister'd and bled him to a single vote."
[116] A complete set of reduced copies from his prints are now publishing at Gottingen, with illustrations in the German and French languages.
[117] Jarvis and Smollett have strangely translated it "spindle-shanked," which by no means accords with the rest of his figure.