This plate, in its _first state_, exhibits the inside of the Court of Common Pleas, the king's arms at top. Portraits of the following judges are beneath it:--Hon. William Noel; Sir John Willes, Lord Chief Justice; Hon. Mr. Justice, afterwards Earl Bathurst; Sir Edward Clive. Over the print is written "Character;" under it, "Of the different meanings of the words Character, Caricatura, and _Outré_, in painting and drawing." This is followed by a long explanatory inscription engraved on another piece of copper. The original picture, which is somewhat different from the print, was once the property of Sir George Hay, and is now in the possession of Mr. Edwards. _Present state_ of the plate--The word Character is effaced, and the king's arms discarded, and its place supplied by eight caricatured heads, on which the artist worked the day before he died. Below the inscription is inserted-- "The unfinished group of heads in the upper part of this print was added by the author in October 1764, and was intended as a further illustration of what is here said concerning character, caricatura, and _outré_. He worked upon it the day before his death, which happened the 26th of that month." The mistakes which Hogarth's friends frequently made in the meaning of the words character, caricatura, etc., seem to have dwelt much on his mind. In one of his MSS. he has given the following thoughts on the subject:-- "I have ever considered the knowledge of character, either high or low, to be the most sublime part of the art of painting or sculpture, and caricatura as the lowest--indeed, as much so as the wild attempts of children when they first try to draw: yet so it is, that the two words, from being similar in sound, are often confounded. When I was once at the house of a foreign face-painter, and looking over a legion of his portraits, Monsieur, with a low bow, told me that he infinitely admired my caricatures! I returned his _congé_, and assured him that I equally admired his.