Churchill,
who put the _North Briton_ attack into heroic verse, and published his
_Epistle to Hogarth_. Hogarth replied by that caricature of Wilkes, in
which the patriot still figures before us, with his Satanic grin and
squint, and by a caricature of Churchill, in which he is represented as a
bear with a staff, on which, "Lie the first", "Lie the second", "Lie the
tenth", are engraved in unmistakable letters. There is very little mistake
about honest Hogarth's satire: if he has to paint a man with his throat
cut, he draws him with his head almost off; and he tried to do the same
for his enemies in this little controversy. "Having an old plate by me,"
says he, "with some parts ready, such as the background, and a dog, I
began to consider how I could turn so much work laid aside to some
account, and so patched up a print of Master Churchill, in the character
of a bear; the pleasure and pecuniary advantage which I derived from these
two engravings, together with occasionally riding on horseback, restored
me to as much health as I can expect at my time of life."

And so he concludes his queer little book of _Anecdotes_: "I have gone
through the circumstances of a life which till lately passed pretty much
to my own satisfaction, and I hope in no respect injurious to any other
man. This I may safely assert, that I have done my best to make those
about me tolerably happy, and my greatest enemy cannot say I ever did an
intentional injury. What may follow, God knows."

A queer account still exists of a holiday jaunt taken by Hogarth and four
friends of his, who set out, like the redoubted Mr. Pickwick and his
companions, but just a hundred years before those heroes; and made an
excursion to Gravesend, Rochester, Sheerness; and adjacent places.(145)
One of the gentlemen noted down the proceedings of the journey, for which
Hogarth and a brother artist made drawings. The book is chiefly curious at
this moment from showing the citizen life of those days, and the rough,
jolly style of merriment, not of the five companions merely, but of
thousands of jolly fellows of their time. Hogarth and his friends,
quitting the "Bedford Arms", Covent Garden, with a song, took water to
Billingsgate, exchanging compliments with the bargemen as they went down
the river. At Billingsgate, Hogarth made a "caracatura" of a facetious
porter, called the Duke of Puddledock, who agreeably entertained the party
with the humours of the place. Hence they to