The following stanzas I found among his other papers, addressed "_To the Author of the Times._ "Why, Billy, in the vale of life, Show so much rancour, spleen, and strife? Why, Billy, at a statesman's whistle, Drag dirty loads and feed on thistle? Did any of the long-ear'd tribe E'er swallow half so mean a bribe? Pray have you no sinister end, Thus to abuse the nation's friend? His country's and his monarch's glory, Who prais'd no man as Whig or Tory. His country is his dearest mother, And every honest man his brother. Not so your patron can appear, He buys up scrip, and stops the arrear; His practice still, in every station, To serve himself and starve the nation. Then, Billy, in the vale of life, Desist from all this noise and strife; For though the hint perhaps is bold, I tell thee thou art growing old. Read coolly, o'er thy evening glass, Toledo's bishop in _Gil Blas_." Christening the author of the _North Briton_ "his country's and his monarch's glory," leads us to suspect that the ingenious gentleman who fabricated the above rhymes had some little portion of party prejudice. The Quaker who wrote the annexed letter and epigram, which, as well as the verses that follow, were amongst Hogarth's manuscripts, was moved by a very different spirit:-- "_Of the eighth month, the 20th day, 1763._ "FRIEND HOGARTH,--I am one of those people, by a sort of disrespectful appellation, called Quakers; for we strive to abound in the milk of human kindness, and prefer the dove to the serpent. I know thee not but by thy works and fame as an ingenious artist in thine own way. I have seen thy compositions and handy works, and think them not only ingenious, but moral, and even more than dramatic, perfectly epic; so that I think thou deservest the character of _the Epic painter_, which I hereby bestow upon thee, and by which thou shalt be distinguished in future generations; for if I do not much mistake the matter, thy name will be had in honour when thine adversaries shall have perished,--I would have said, and shall stink,--but _that_ they do already. I have hereby sent thee an epigram, such as my spirit dictated to me. I fear it hath too much in it of the gall of bitterness. But I will tell thee, friend Hogarth, I am a man of some small property and authority, having cattle under me; and when the brutes are poisoned, I cure them with wormwood. Let not thy noble spirit that is in thee be diverted from its true and masterly turn of exposing licentiousness, vice, hypocrisy, faction, and apostasy.--Thine in all brotherly and good wishes, "EPHRAIM KNOX." AN EPIGRAM. _To the Rev. Charles Churchill, Esquire, etc._