The ministers in this struggle had found a powerful ally in Hogarth, who, though he had been friendly with Wilkes and Churchill, had been high in Bute's favour, even before the accession of George III, and now saw an opportunity to repay his patron. The quarrel between the painter and the agitator had begun with Hogarth's political cartoon, "The Times," in which Wilkes was ignominiously portrayed; and Wilkes, who let no man attack him with impunity, had replied in "The North Briton" with a violent onslaught upon the caricaturist. When Wilkes appeared in the Court of King's Bench, Hogarth, it is said, from behind a screen made a sketch for a caricature of the accused, in which the latter's squint was most malignantly exaggerated. Wilkes took this in good part, and, indeed, in later days said jocularly that he found himself every day growing more and more like the unflattering portrait; but Churchill, who was devoted to his friend, replied in "An Epistle to William Hogarth," in which—after the model furnished by Pope in his immortal reprimand to Addison—while praising Hogarth's genius, he poured vitriolic scorn upon his vanity and other weaknesses, concluding with a tremendous indictment of the painter's supposed dotage.

"Sure, 'tis a curse which angry fates impose,
To mortify man's arrogance, that those
Who're fashioned of some better sort of clay,
Much sooner than the common herd decay.
What bitter pangs must humbl'd Genius feel
In their last hours to view a Swift and Steele!
How must ill-boding horrors fill her breast,
When she beholds men mark'd above the rest
For qualities most dear, plunged from that height,
And sunk, deep sunk, in second-childhood's night!
Are men, indeed, such things? and are the best
More subject to this evil than the rest?
To drivel out whole years of idiot breath,
And set the monuments of living death?
Oh, galling circumstance to human pride!
Abasing thought, but not to be denied!
With curious art the brain, too finely wrought,
Preys on herself, and is destroyed by thought.
Constant attention wears the active mind,
Blots out her powers, and leaves a blank behind.
But let not youth, to insolence allied,
In heat of blood, in full career of pride,
Possess'd of genius, with unhallow'd rage
Mock the infirmities of reverend age;
The greatest genius to this fate may bow;
Reynolds, in time, may be like Hogarth now."

Hogarth replied to the "Epistle" by a savage caricature of Churchill, entitled, "The Bruiser, C. Churchill (once the Reverend!) in the character of a Russian Hercules, regaling himself after having killed the monster Caricatura, that so sorely-galled his virtuous friend, the Heaven-born Wilkes." The poet is portrayed as a bear, with torn clerical bands and ruffles, seated upon Massinger's "A New Way to Pay Old Debts," and "A List of the Subscribers to 'The North Briton,' etc., one arm holding a quart pot, and the other round a massive club, on which the knots are inscribed "Lye 1," "Lye 3," "Lye 5," "Lye 8," "Fallacy," etc.

A caricature of C. Churchill by Wm. Hogarth

THE BRUISER

Ministers, having been defeated on a point of law, were now determined to ruin Wilkes,[253] and proceeded, so far as lay in their power, to damn his reputation for all time, although, as will be seen, the method adopted did not have the desired effect.

That Wilkes was a man of high moral character, as some few of his eulogists have endeavoured to sustain, is a theory incapable of acceptance, though perhaps his lack of principle in early days has been more severely castigated than it deserved, considering that morality is, after all, comparative, and that a dragon of virtue in the days that were earlier would now be looked upon as a monster of iniquity. The son of a rich merchant, Wilkes was educated in England and at Leyden, and on his return to England at the age of two-and-twenty, had been persuaded by his father to espouse a wealthy woman ten years his senior. Not unnaturally the marriage was unhappy, and, indeed, Wilkes never even professed to regard it except as a convenience, but notwithstanding this circumstance his behaviour to his wife leaves the deepest stain on his character. He squandered her money in debauchery, and, after they had separated, endeavoured to deprive her of an annuity of £200 a year, all she had kept of her estates. He was initiated by Sir Francis Dashwood into the brotherhood of Medmenham Abbey, where he fraternised with Lord Sandwich,[254] Thomas Potter,[255] and other men of fashion, and with them proceeded to outrage all canons of decency.[256] In connexion with the brotherhood Potter and Wilkes in collaboration composed an obscene parody of Pope's "Essay on Man" called "An Essay on Woman," which, in imitation of the original poem, was furnished with notes under the name of Bishop Warburton; and to the burlesque was attached a blasphemous paraphrase of Veni Creator.

Without setting up any defence of these compositions, it may in extenuation be said that the circulation was limited to twelve or thirteen copies, which were distributed among members of the club, that it was printed at Wilkes's house, and that the latter took the greatest care to prevent the workmen from carrying away any sheets. Disgraceful as the amusement was, at least it could be pleaded it had no evil effect upon the circle of vicious men who inspired it; but it gave the Government a handle against their uncompromising foe of which they were not slow to take advantage.