This unfortunate picture, which was the source of so much vexation to Mr. Hogarth, at least made a versifier of him, and furnished vent to his anger in the following lines; which, as I know of no other specimen of his poetry,[60] may serve to gratify the curiosity of the reader. The old adage facit indignatio versum, seems scarcely to have been realised in this splenetic effusion, which is intituled "An Epistle to a Friend," occasioned by Sir Richard Grosvenor (now lord) returning the picture of Sigismunda on our artist's hands:
"To your charge, the other day
About my picture and my pay,
In metre I've a mind to try,
One word by way of a reply.
"To risque, you'll own, 'twas most absurd,
Such labour on a rich man's word;
To lose at least an hundred days
Of certain gain, for doubtful praise;
Since living artists ne'er were paid;
But then, you know, it was agreed,
I should be deem'd an artist dead.
Like Raphael, Rubens, Guido Rene,
This promise fairly drew me in;
And having laid my pencil by,[61]
What painter was more dead than I?
But dead as Guido let me be,
Then judge, my friend, 'twixt him and me
If merit crowns alike the piece,
What treason to be like in price;
Because no copied line you trace,
The picture can't be right, you're sure;
But say, my critic connoisseur,
Moves it the heart as much or more
Than picture ever did before?
This is the painter's truest test,
And this Sir Richard's self confess'd.
Nay, 'tis so moving, that the knight
Can't even bear it in his sight;
Then who would tears so dearly buy,
As give four hundred pounds to cry?
I own, he chose the prudent part,
Rather to break his word than heart;
And yet, methinks, 'tis ticklish dealing,
With one so delicate—in feeling.
"However, let the picture rust,
Perhaps time's price-enhancing dust,
As statues moulder into earth,
When I'm no more, may mark its worth;
And future connoisseurs may rise,
Honest as ours, and full as wise,
To puff the piece and painter too,
And make me then what Guido's now."
"The last memorable event in our artist's life," as Mr. Walpole observes, "was his quarrel with Mr. Wilkes, in which, if Mr. Hogarth did not commence direct hostilities on the latter, he at least obliquely gave the first offence, by an attack on the friends and party of that gentleman. This conduct was the more surprizing, as he had all his life avoided dipping his pencil in political contests, and had early refused a very lucrative offer that was made to engage him in a set of prints against the head of a court-party. Without entering into the merits of the cause, I shall only state the fact. In September 1762, Mr. Hogarth published his print of The Times. It was answered by Mr. Wilkes in a severe North Briton.[62] On this the painter exhibited the caricatura of the writer. Mr. Churchill, the poet, then engaged in the war, and wrote his epistle to Hogarth, not the brightest of his works,[63] in which the severest strokes fell on a defect that the painter had neither caused nor could amend—his age;[64] and which, however, was neither remarkable nor decrepit; much less had it impaired his talents, as appeared by his having composed but six months before one of his most capital works, the satire on the Methodists. In revenge for this epistle, Hogarth caricatured Churchill, under the form of a canonical bear, with a club and a pot of porter—et vitulá tu dignus & hic—never did two angry men of their abilities throw mud with less dexterity."
The concluding observation of Mr. Walpole is mortifyingly true. It may be amusing to compare the account given of this squabble, which long engrossed the attention of the town, with the narrative of it printed by Mr. Wilkes; who states the circumstances of it in the following manner:
"Mr. Hogarth was one of the first who, in the paper war begun by lord Bute on his accession to the Treasury, sacrificed private friendship at the altar of party madness. In 1762, the Scotch minister took a variety of hirelings into his pay, some of whom were gratified with pensions, others with places and pensions. Mr. Hogarth was only made serjeant-painter to his majesty, as if it was meant to insinuate to him, that he was not allowed to paint any thing but the wainscot of the royal apartments. The term means no more than house-painter, and the nature of the post confined him to that business. He was not employed in any other way. A circumstance can scarcely be imagined more humiliating to a man of spirit and genius, who really thought that he more particularly excelled in portrait-painting.
"The new minister had been attacked in a variety of political papers. The North Briton in particular, which commenced the week after The Briton, waged open war with him. Some of the numbers had been ascribed to Mr. Wilkes, others to Mr. Churchill, and Mr. Lloyd. Mr. Hogarth had for several years lived on terms of friendship and intimacy with Mr. Churchill and Mr. Wilkes. As the Buckinghamshire militia, which this gentleman had the honour of commanding, had been for some months at Winchester guarding the French prisoners, the Colonel was there on that duty. A friend wrote to him, that Mr. Hogarth intended soon to publish a political print of The Times, in which Mr. Pitt, Lord Temple, Mr. Churchill, and himself, were held out to the public as objects of ridicule. Mr. Wilkes, on this notice, remonstrated by two of their common friends to Mr. Hogarth, that such a proceeding would not only be unfriendly in the highest degree, but extremely injudicious; for such a pencil ought to be universal and moral, to speak to all ages, and to all nations, not to be dipt in the dirt of the faction of a day, of an insignificant part of the country, when it might command the admiration of the whole. An answer was sent, that neither Mr. Wilkes nor Mr. Churchill were attacked in The Times, though Lord Temple and Mr. Pitt were, and that the print should soon appear. A second message soon after told Mr. Hogarth, that Mr. Wilkes should never believe it worth his while to take notice of any reflections on himself; but if his friends were attacked, he should then think he was wounded in the most sensible part, and would, as well as he was able, revenge their cause; adding, that if he thought the North Briton would insert what he sent, he would make an appeal to the public on the very Saturday following the publication of the print. The Times soon after appeared, and on the Saturday following [Sept. 25, 1762,] N° 17, of the North Briton, which is a direct attack on the king's serjeant-painter.[65] If Mr. Wilkes did write that paper, he kept his word better with Mr. Hogarth, than the painter had done with him.
"It is perhaps worth remarking, that the painter proposed to give a series of political prints, and that The Times were marked Plate I. No farther progress was however made in that design. The public beheld the first feeble efforts with execrations, and it is said that the caricaturist was too much hurt by the general opinion of mankind, to possess himself afterwards sufficiently for the execution of such a work.