Page:Anecdotes of painters, engravers, sculptors and architects, and curiosities of art (IA anecdotesofpaint01spoo).pdf/190



Hogarth, in his early career, was once greatly distressed to raise the paltry sum of twenty shillings, to satisfy his landlady, who endeavored to enforce payment. To be revenged on her, he painted her an ugly and malicious hag, her features so truthfully drawn, that every person who had seen her at once recognized the individual. Woe betided the man who incurred his ire; he crucified him without mercy. In his controversy with Wilkes, he caricatured him in his print of "The Times;" and Churchill, the poet, he represented as a canonical bear, with a ragged staff, and a pot of porter.

HOGARTH'S METHOD OF SKETCHING.

It was Hogarth's custom to sketch on the spot any remarkable face that struck him. A gentleman being once with him at the Bedford Coffee House, observing him to draw something on his thumb nail, inquired what he was doing, when he was shown the likeness of a comical looking person sitting in the company.

HOGARTH'S MARRIAGE.

Hogarth married the only daughter of Sir James Thornhill, who was dissatisfied with the match. Soon after this period, he began his Harlot's Progress, and was advised by Lady Thornhill to place some of the prints in the way of his father-in-law. Accordingly, early one morning, Mrs. Hogarth con