On the 26th day of October 1764, died William Hogarth. Very ailing and feeble in body, but still with his heart up and his mind, as ever, alert and vigorous and full of life, he had moved on the day before from his pleasant snug cottage at Chiswick to his town house in Leicester Fields. He turned now and then in his bed uneasily, as he felt the venomous slanders of Wilkes and Churchill still wounding and stinging him like mosquito bites; else was the good little man at peace. 'I have invariably endeavoured to make those about me tolerably happy.' 'My greatest enemy cannot say I ever did an intentional injury.' So he wrote at the close of his life. And there was much love for him in the world--culminating in his own household. His servants all had been years and years in his service; he had painted their portraits and hung these on his walls; there is credit to both master and servants in the fact. After all, a man may, if he chooses, be a hero even to his valet-de-chambre. None could have dreamt the end was so near. It is not known that any doctor was attending him. He had read and answered a letter in the morning; fatigued with the effort, he had retired to bed. He was alone when the fatal attack came on: the 'suffusion of blood among the arteries of the heart.' Starting up, he rang the bell with a violence that broke it in pieces; they had not thought so much strength remained to him. He fell back fainting in the arms of Mary Lewis, his wife's niece; she had lived in his house all her life, and was his confidential assistant in publishing and selling his prints. She supported the poor creature for two hours, and he drew his last breath in her arms.