The seven and twentieth of May,
When Hogarth, Thornhill, Tothall, Scott,
And Forrest, who this journal wrote,
From Covent Garden took departure,
To see the world by land and water.”
It appears that their hearts were light, and those nether garments, now fallen almost into desuetude, save among grooms, footmen, blackrods, and members of the diplomatic service, were thin. They started, singing after a carouse, during the small hours of the morning, and went down the river to Billingsgate. At the noted “Dark-house” they met the same sort of company as Mr. Edward Ward introduces us to in the London Spy, and Hogarth took a portrait, unfortunately not preserved, of a waterside humorist, known as the “Duke of Puddledock.”
“Of Puddledock a porter grim,
Whose portrait Hogarth in a whim
Presented him in caricature,
He pasted on the cellar door.”