It was towards the close of Hogarth’s career that James Barry, from Cork--destined to make his mark in art--caught sight of a bustling, active, stout little man, dressed in a sky-blue coat, in Cranbourne Alley, and recognising in him the Hogarth whom he almost worshipped, followed him down the east side of the square towards Hogarth’s house. The latter, however, the owner did not enter, for a fight between two boys was going on at the corner of Castle Street, and Hogarth, who, like the statesman Windham, loved to see such encounters, whether the combatants were boys or men, had joined in the fray. When Barry came up Hogarth was acting ‘second’ to one of the young pugilists, patting him on the back, and giving such questionable aid in heightening the fray as he could furnish in such a phrase as, ‘Damn him if I would take it of him! At him again!’ There is another version, which says that it was Nollekens who pointed out to Northcote the little man in the sky-blue coat, with the remark, ‘Look! that’s Hogarth?’ Hogarth seems to have been one of the first to set his face against the fashion of giving vails to servants by forbidding his own to take them from guests. In those days, not only guests but those who came to a house to spend money, were expected to help to pay the wages of the servants for the performance of a duty which they owed to their master. It was otherwise with Hogarth in Leicester Square. ‘When I sat to Hogarth’ (Cole’s MSS. collections, quoted in Cunningham’s ‘London’) ‘the custom of giving vails to servants was not discontinued. On taking leave of the painter at the door I offered the servant a small gratuity, but the man very politely refused it, telling me it would be as much as the loss of his place if his master knew it. This was so uncommon, and so liberal in a man of Hogarth’s profession at that time of day, that it much struck me, as nothing of the kind had happened to me before.’ Leicester Square will ever be connected with Hogarth at the _Golden Head_. It was not, at his going there, in a flourishing condition, but it improved. In the year 1735, in Seymour’s ‘Survey,’ Leicester Fields are described as ‘a very handsome open square, railed about and gravelled within. The buildings are very good and well inhabited, and frequented by the gentry. The north and west rows of buildings, which are in St. Anne’s parish, are the best (and may be said to be so still), especially the north, where is Leicester House, the seat of the Earl of Leicester; being a large building with a fair court before it for the reception of coaches, and a fine garden behind it; the south and east sides being in the parish of St. Martin’s.’