is a couplet in Smart's Hilliad.
The compliment from the Hilliad to Mr. Hogarth, Mr. Smart observes, "is reciprocal, and reflects a lustre on Mr. Garrick, both of them having similar talents, equally capable of the highest elevation, and of representing the ordinary scenes of life with the most exquisite humour."
[71] The pyramid, &c. This stroke of satire was retorted on Hogarth, and employed to express his advanced age and declining abilities; while the Cheshire cheese, with 3000 l. on it, seemed to imply that he himself merited an annual pension.
I received this explanation from an ingenious friend.—The late Mr. Rogers explained it thus: "Mr. Pitt is represented in it sitting at his ease [in the position of the great Sir Isaac Newton in Westminster-Abbey], with a mill-stone hanging over his head, on which is written 3000 l. in allusion to his saying, that Hanover was a mill-stone round the neck of England, on account of the expences attending it; and his afterwards adding himself to the public expences by accepting a pension of 3000 l. a year. He is firing a mortar-piece levelled at a Dove bearing an olive-branch (the symbol of peace) perched on the standard of England; and is supported by the City of London, denoted by the two Giants in Guildhall. Hogarth is flogging Wilkes and Churchill, and making them dance to the scrapings of a fidler; designed to represent a Nobleman [Earl Temple], who patronized them in 1763, and who, for his unmeaning face, has ever been described without a feature. See Trusler's Preface, p. vii."
[72] It may be worth observing, that in "Independence," a poem which was not published by Churchill till the last week of September, 1764, he considers his antagonist as a departed Genius:
"Hogarth would draw him (Envy must allow)
E'en to the life, was Hogarth living now."
How little did the sportive Satirist imagine that the power of pleasing was so soon to cease in both! Hogarth died in four weeks after the publication of this poem; and Churchill survived him but nine days. In some lines which were printed in November 1764, the compiler of these Anecdotes took occasion to lament that
"——Scarce had the friendly tear,
For Hogarth shed, escap'd the generous eye
Of feeling Pity, when again it flow'd
For Churchill's fate. Ill can we bear the loss
Of Fancy's twin-born offspring, close ally'd
In energy of thought, though different paths
They sought for fame! Though jarring passions sway'd
The living artists, let the funeral wreath
Unite their memory!"
[73] The Monthly Reviewer unintentionally reads supper, instead of dinner. As to this article of minute intelligence, whether it be true or false, it was communicated by Mrs. Lewis.
[74] Mr. Walpole once invited Gray the Poet and Hogarth to dine with him; but what with the reserve of the one, and a want of colloquial talents in the other, he never passed a duller time than between these representatives of Tragedy and Comedy, being obliged to rely entirely on his own efforts to support conversation.