"_Upon seeing the picture of 'Sigismunda,' painted by Hogarth._ "Antiquity, be dumb! no longer boast Arts yet unrivall'd or invention lost: From Greece, whose taste was fashion'd into law, From far-fam'd Greece, one instance let us draw. Atrides' grief Timanthes strove to paint, But found his art was foil'd, his colours faint: A veil conceal'd the inexpressive face, And what was want of power was call'd 'a grace.' In Sigismund the mind no want supplies, The painter trusts his genius to your eyes; Passion's warm tints beneath his pencil glow, And from the canvas starts the living woe. At length be just--throw prejudice aside; The modern shows--what the Greek could but hide. Then from the ancient take the palm away, And crown the greatest Artist of his day." --HOWARD. [78] _N.B._--At Sir Luke Schaub's sale, Sir Richard Grosvenor bid four hundred pounds for a less picture, said to be a "Correggio," but really painted by an obscure French artist. [79] It appears by the subscription-book that it closed March 26. During this time there were fifty subscribers at half a guinea each; the receipts were given on the print of "Time Smoking a Picture." The first name is that of Dr. Garnier, for two prints; the last, who also subscribes for two prints, is Mr. Thomas Hollis. This gentleman would not receive back the guinea he had paid, and it was given to a public charity. Among the names are the late Philip Thicknesse, Dr. Hunter, Samuel Curteis of Wapping, and David Garrick; against each of the subscriptions is marked, "Money returned." Under the direction of Hogarth, Mr. Basire made an etching from "Sigismunda," but it was never finished. A drawing in oil was made from it by Mr. Edwards, and it was a few years since engraved in mezzotinto by Dunkerton. Mr. Ridley engraved it for Messrs. Boydell, and a reduced copy is in the first volume of _Hogarth Illustrated_. [80] The chosen band who then directed the storm, having dragged poor "Sigismunda" into their political vortex, the cannibal caricaturists of the day tore her in pieces as a carcase for the hounds, and rioted over her mangled remains. One of these political slaughtermen, in a print entitled "The Bruiser Triumphant," describes Sigismunda in the character of a harlot blubbering over a bullock's heart. In another, elegantly inscribed "Tit for Tat," Hogarth is represented painting Wilkes' portrait, and a bloated and filthy figure displayed in the background baptized Sigismunda. Many other wretched and contemptible squibs were hurled about on the same occasion. Besides this public abuse, some of the anonymous versifiers of the day, who were not yet important enough to figure in a newspaper or flutter in a magazine, condescended to notice his political errors, and for the gratification of the artist transmitted their effusions to Leicester Fields.