had given her. None of the sober grief, no dignity of suppressed anguish, no involuntary tear, no settled meditation on the fate she meant to meet, no amorous warmth turned holy by despair; in short all was wanting that should have been there; all was there that such a story would have banished from a mind capable of conceiving such complicated wo; wo so sternly felt and yet so tenderly. Hogarth's performance was more ridiculous than any thing he had ever ridiculed. He set the price of four hundred pounds on it, and had it returned on his hands by the person for whom it was painted. He took subscriptions for a plate of it, but had the sense, at last, to suppress it."

From this failure of Hogarth, may be deduced this useful lesson; that men, even of superlative genius, cannot step beyond the bounds in which nature designed them to move, without betraying the weakness of their understanding, and covering themselves with confusion, ridicule and contempt.

The last memorable event in the life of our artist, was his quarrel with Mr. Wilkes. Though Hogarth did not commence direct hostilities on that gentleman, he, at least, gave the first offence by an attack on his party and friends. This conduct was the more surprising, 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. It has, however, been surmised, that his conduct on this occasion, was guided by the expectation of obtaining an addition to his salary as serjeant-painter. Be this as it may, in September, 1762, Hogarth published his print of The Times, which satized Lord Temple and Mr. Pitt, afterwards carl of Chatham. This called forth the pen of Mr. Wilkes, who, in the next number of the North Briton, in vindicating his friends, made a direct attack on the king's serjeant-painter.

Wilkes, Churchill and Hogarth had been intimate friends, and such they might have continued, had not the demon of politics and party sown discord among them, and dissolved their union. No enemies are so inveterate as those who have once been united in the bonds of friendship. So it proved in this case; the breach once made, daily grew wider and wider. In revenge for the animadversions of Mr. Wilkes in the North Briton, Hogarth exhibited a caricature of the writer. Churchill then engaged in the war, and published an epistle to Hogarth, in which the severest strokes fell on a defect which the painter had neither caused nor could amend his age, though it was neither remarkable nor decrepit. In revenge for this epistle, Hogarth caricatured Churchill under the form of a canonical bear, with a club and a pot of porter. "Never," says Mr. Wal

pole, "did two angry men of their abilities throw mud with less dexterity."

At the time these hostilities were carrying on in a manner so virulent and so disgraceful to all the parties, the health of Hogarth was visibly declining. In 1762, he complained of an inward pain, which brought on a general decay that proved incurable. The last year of his life he employed in retouching his plates, with the assistance of several engravers whom he took with him to his house at Chiswick, where he for many years resided during the

summer.

In 1764, a few months before he was seized with the malady which was the immediate cause of his death, he proposed to his matchless pencil the work he has entitled Finis or the Tail-Piece, the first idea of which is said to have been started in company, while the convivial glass was circulating round his own table. "My next undertaking," said Hogarth, "shall be the end of all things." "If that is the case," replied one of his friends, "your business will be finished; for there will be an end of the painter." "There will so," answered Hogarth with a deep sigh, "and, therefore, the sooner my work is done the better." He accordingly began the next day, and prosecuted his design with a diligence which seemed to indicate an apprehension that he should not live till he had completed it. This, however, he did with the utmost ingenuity, grasp

ing every object which could denote the end of all things-a broken bottle-an old broom worn to the stump-the butt end of an old musket-a cracked bell-a bow unstrung-a crown tumbled in pieces-towers in ruins-the sign-post of a tavern, called the World's End, tumbling—the moon in her wane-the map of the globe burning—a gibbet falling, the body gone, and the chain which held it dropping down-Phoebus and his horses dead in the clouds a vessel wrecked-Time, with his hour-glass and scythe broken, a tobacco-pipe in his mouth, the last whiff of smoke going out -a play-book opened, with Exeunt omnes stamped in the corner-an empty purse-and a statute of bankruptcy taken out against nature. "So far, so good," exclaimed Hogarth. "Nothing remains but this,"-taking his pencil in a sort of prophetic fury, and dashing off the similitude of a painter's pallet brokenFinis," cried he, "the deed is done-all is over!"-It is remarkable that he died about a month after the completion of this tail-piece, and it is also well known that he never afterwards took a pencil in his hand.

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It is worth observing, that in "Independence," a poem which was not published by Churchill till the last week in 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.

The sporting satirist little imagined that the power of pleasing was so soon to cease in both. Hogarth died within four weeks after the publication of this poem, and Churchill survived him only nine days.

On the 25th of October, our artist was conveyed from Chiswick to Leicester Fields, in a very weak condition, but remarkably cheerful. On retiring to bed the same night, he was suddenly taken ill, and expired in the space of two hours. His body was interred at Chiswick, where a monument is erected to his memory.

JOSEPH CLARK.

A VERY extraordinary posture master of Pall Mall. Though a well made man, and rather gross than thin, he exhibited, in a most natural manner, almost every species of deformity and dislocation. He frequently diverted himself with the tailors, by sending for one of them to take measure of him, and would so contrive it as to have an immoderate rising in one of his shoulders: when the clothes were brought home, and tried upon him, the deformity was removed into the other shoulder; upon which the tailor asked pardon for the inistake, and altered the garments as expeditiously as possible: