4. _Henry Fielding_, ætatis 48. _W. Hogarth delin. James Basire sculp._ From a drawing with a pen made after the death of Mr. _Fielding_. "That gentleman," says Mr. _Murphy_, "had often promised to sit to his friend _Hogarth_, for whose good qualities and excellent genius he always entertained so high an esteem, that he has left us in his writings many beautiful memorials of his affection. Unluckily, however, it so fell out that no picture of him was ever drawn; but yet, as if it was intended that some traces of his countenance should be perpetuated, and that too by the very artist whom our author preferred to all others, after Mr. _Hogarth_ had long laboured to try if he could bring out any likeness of him from images existing in his own fancy, and just as he was despairing of success, for want of some rules to go by in the dimensions and outlines of the face, Fortune threw the grand _desideratum_ in the way. A lady, with a pair of scissars, had cut a profile, which gave the distances and proportions of his face sufficiently to restore his lost ideas of him. Glad of an opportunity of paying his last tribute to the memory of an author whom he admired, Mr. _Hogarth_ caught at this outline with pleasure, and worked, with all the attachment of friendship, till he finished that excellent drawing which stands at the head of this work, and recalls to all, who have seen the original, a corresponding image of the man." Notwithstanding this authentic relation of Mr. _Murphy_, a different account of the portrait has been lately given in one of the news-papers. Mr. _Garrick_, it is there said, dressed himself in a suit of his old friend's cloaths, and presented himself to the painter in the attitude, and with the features, of _Fielding_. Our _Roscius_, however, I can assert, interfered no farther in this business than by urging _Hogarth_ to attempt the likeness, as a necessary adjunct to the edition of _Fielding's_ works. I am assured that our artist began and finished the head in the presence of his wife and another lady. He had no assistance but from his own memory, which, on such occasions, was remarkably tenacious.[1] [1] To this sketch so great justice was done by the engraver, that Mr. _Hogarth_ declared he did not know his own drawing from a proof of the plate before the ornaments were added. This proof is now in the collection of Mr. _Steevens_. * * * * * 1763. 1. _John Wilkes_, Esq. _Drawn from the life, and etched in aquafortis by Wm. Hogarth._ Price 1_s_. It was published with the following oblique note. This is "a direct contrast to a print of SIMON LORD LOVAT."[1] Mr. _Wilkes_, with his usual good humour, has been heard to observe, that he is every day growing more and more like his portrait by _Hogarth_.