Hogarth still bearing in mind this transaction, in which he thought himself very ill-used, continues his narrative, and concludes with a recital of the circumstances which occasioned his quarrel with Mr. Wilkes, etc.; this much hurt his feelings, and in the progress of it I have ever thought he was unjustly and most inhumanly treated:-- "As the most violent and virulent abuse thrown on 'Sigismunda' was from a set of miscreants, with whom I am proud of having been ever at war, I mean the expounders of the mysteries of old pictures, I have been sometimes told they were beneath my notice. This is true of them individually; but as they have access to people of rank, who seem as happy in being cheated as these merchants are in cheating them, they have a power of doing much mischief to a modern artist. However mean the vendor of poisons, the mineral is destructive; to me its operation was troublesome enough. Ill-nature spread so fast, that now was the time for every little dog in the profession to bark, and revive the old spleen which appeared at the time of the _Analysis_.[80] The anxiety that attends endeavouring to recollect ideas long dormant, and the misfortunes which clung to this transaction, coming at a time when nature demands quiet, and something besides exercise to cheer it, added to my long sedentary life, brought on an illness which continued twelve months. But when I got well enough to ride on horseback I soon recovered. This being at a period when war abroad and contention at home engrossed every one's mind, prints were thrown into the background; and the stagnation rendered it necessary that I should do some timed thing, to recover my lost time and stop a gap in my income. This drew forth my print of 'The Times,' a subject which tended to the restoration of peace and unanimity, and put the opposers of these humane objects in a light which gave great offence to those who were trying to foment destruction in the minds of the populace. One of the most notorious among them, till now rather my friend and flatterer, attacked me in a _North Briton_, in so infamous and malign a style, that he himself, when pushed even by his best friends, was driven to so poor an excuse as to say, 'he was drunk when he wrote it.' Being at that time very weak, and in a kind of slow fever, it could not but seize on a feeling mind. My philosophical friends advise me to laugh at the nonsense of party writing--who would mind it?--but I cannot rest myself: 'Who steals my gold steals trash; 'tis something, nothing; 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands: But he that filches from me my good name, Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.' "Such being my feelings, my great object was to return the compliment, and turn it to some advantage.