Mr. _Walpole_ has remarked, that if our artist "indulged his spirit of ridicule in personalities, it never proceeded beyond sketches and drawings," and wonders "that he never, without intention, delivered the very features of any identical person." But this elegant writer, who may be said to have received his education in a Court, perhaps had few opportunities of acquaintance among the low popular characters with which _Hogarth_ occasionally peopled his scenes.[16] The Friend to whom I owe this remark was assured by an ancient gentleman of unquestionable veracity and acuteness of observation, that almost all the personages who attend the levee of the Rake were undoubted portraits; and that, in _Southwark Fair_ and the _Modern Midnight Conversation_, as many more were discoverable. In the former plate he pointed out _Essex_ the dancing-master; and in the latter, as well as in the second plate to the _Rake's Progress, Figg_ the prize-fighter.[17] He mentioned several others by name, from his immediate knowledge both of the painter's design and the characters represented; but the rest of the particulars, by which he supported his assertions, have escaped the memory of my informant. I am also assured, that while _Hogarth_ was painting the _Rake's Progress_, he had a summer residence at _Isleworth_; and never failed to question the company who came to see these pictures, if they knew for whom one or another figure was designed. When they guessed wrong, he set them right. Mr. _Walpole_ has a sketch in oil, given to him by _Hogarth_, who intended to engrave it. It was done at the time when the House of Commons appointed a committee to inquire into the cruelties exercised on prisoners in the _The Fleet_, to extort money from them. "The scene," he says, "is the committee; on the table are the instruments of torture. A prisoner in rags, half-starved, appears before them; the poor man has a good countenance, that adds to the interest. On the other hand is the inhuman gaoler. It is the very figure that _Salvator Rosa_ would have drawn for _Iago_ in the moment of detection. Villainy, fear, and conscience, are mixed in yellow and livid on his countenance; his lips are contracted by tremor, his face advances as eager to lie, his legs step back as thinking to make his escape; one hand is thrust precipitately into his bosom, the fingers of the other are catching uncertainly at his button-holes. If this was a portrait, it is the most striking that ever was drawn; if it was not, it is still finer." The portrait was that of _Bambridge_[18] the warden of _The Fleet_; and the sketch was taken in the beginning of the year 1729, when _Bambridge_ and _Huggins_ (his predecessor)[19] were under examination. Both were declared "notoriously guilty of great breaches of trust, extortions, cruelties, and other high crimes and misdemeanors;" both were sent to _Newgate_; and _Bambridge_ was disqualified by act of