"Think not to find one meant resemblance there; We lash the vices, but the persons spare. Prints should be priz'd, as authors should be read, Who sharply smile prevailing Folly dead. So Rabelais laught, and so Cervantes thought; So Nature dictated what Art has taught." [Illustration: MIDNIGHT MODERN CONVERSATION.] Notwithstanding this inscription, which was engraved on the plate some time after its publication, it is very certain that most of these figures were intended for individual portraits; but Mr. Hogarth, not wishing to be considered as a personal satirist, and fearful of making enemies among his contemporaries, would never acknowledge who were the characters. Some of them the world might perhaps mistake; for though the author was faithful in delineating whatever he intended to portray, complete intoxication so far caricatures the countenance, that, according to the old though trite proverb, "the man is not himself." His portrait, though given with the utmost fidelity, will scarcely be known by his most intimate friends, unless they have previously seen him in this degrading disguise. Hence it becomes difficult to identify men whom the painter did not choose to point out at the time; and sixty years having elapsed, it becomes impossible,--for all who composed the group, with the artist by whom it was delineated, "Shake hands with dust, and call the worm their kinsman." Mrs. Piozzi told me that the divine with a corkscrew,[114] occasionally used as a tobacco-stopper, hanging upon his little finger, was the portrait of Parson Ford, Dr. Johnson's uncle; though upon the authority of Sir John Hawkins, of anecdotish memory, it has been generally supposed to be intended for Orator Henley.[115] As I have been told that both these worthies were distinguished by that clerical rubicundity of face with which it is marked, the reader may decree the honour of a sitting to which he pleases. We may say of either one or the other: "No loftier theme his thought pursues, Than punch, good company, and dues. Easy, and careless what may fall, He hears, assents, and fills to all; Proving it plainly by his face, That cassocks are no signs of grace."[116] The roaring Bacchanalian who stands next him, waving his glass in the air, has pulled off his wig, and in the zeal of his friendship crowns the divine's head. He is evidently drinking destruction to fanatics and success to Mother Church, or a mitre to the jolly parson whom he addresses. The lawyer who sits near him is a portrait of one Kettleby, a vociferous bar-orator, who, though an utter barrister, chose to distinguish himself by wearing an enormous full-bottom wig, in which he is here represented. He was further remarkable for a diabolical squint and a Satanic smile. In the _Causidicade_ are a number of lines dedicated to the honour of this amiable person. They begin with--