hamber from whence, it is said, Miss
Thornhill eloped with Hogarth.

Mr. Cary, in the note to which we have already alluded, says, "there can
hardly be a doubt that the house belonged to Sir James Thornhill, and
that Hogarth inherited it from him. Mrs. Hogarth lived there after her
husband's death, and left it by will to a lady from whose executor my
father bought it in the year 1814. The room from which Miss Thornhill is
said to have eloped is the inner room, on the first floor; this room was
used by my father as his study. Over the dining-room fireplace was a
spirited pencil sketch of five heads, and under them written 'five jolly
fellows,' by Hogarth--during an absence the servants of a tenant
carefully washed all out."

We can easily imagine how the union between Hogarth and his daughter,
commenced after such a fashion, outraged not only the courtliness, but
the higher and better feelings of Sir James Thornhill. Hogarth's innate
consciousness of power may at that time have appeared to him vulgar
effrontery; and it is not to be wondered at, that, until convinced of
his talent, he refused him all assistance. There is something so false
and wrong in the concealment that precedes an elopement, and the
elopement of an only child from an aged father, that we marvel how any
one can treat lightly the outraged feelings of a confiding parent.
Earnest tender love so deeply rooted in a father's heart may pardon, but
cannot reach forgetfulness as quickly as it is the custom of
play-writers and novelists to tell us it may do.

Sir James Thornhill was greatly the fashion; he was the successor of
Verrio, and the rival of La Guerre, in the decorations of our palaces
and public buildings. His demands for the painting of Greenwich Hall
were contested; and though La Fosse received two thousand pounds for his
works at Montague House, besides other allowances, Sir James, despite
his dignity as Member of Parliament for his native town of Weymouth,
could obtain but forty shillings a square yard for painting the cupola
of St. Paul's! Thus the patronage afforded "native talent" kept him
poor; and though it must have been necessary (one of the cruel
necessities induced by love of display in England), to have an
establishment suited to his public position in London, nothing could be
more unpretending than his _menage_ at Chiswick. Mrs. Hogarth, advised
by her mother, skilfully managed to let her father see one of her
husband's best producti