“Then to our Swans returning, there Was borrowed a great wooden chair, And plac’d it in the open street Where in much state did Hogarth sit To draw the townhouse, church and steeple, Surrounded by a crowd of people. Tagrag and bobtail stood quite thick there And cried ‘What a sweet pretty picture!’” There is certainly nothing very elevated in good Mr. Forrest’s Hudibrastics; yet the jingle of his verse is by no means disagreeable; and from his simple description it is easy to form a definite notion of sturdy little Will Hogarth “sitting in much state” in the great wooden chair borrowed from the “Swans” at Queensborough, and gravely sketching with the tagrag and bobtail staring open-mouthed around him. [Illustration: BREAKFASTING &c. A. _The Fisherman Shaving._ B. _Mr Thornhill._ C. _Mr Tothall shaving himself._ D. _Mr Hogarth drawing this Drawing._ E. _Mr Forrest at Breakfast._ F. _Mr Scott finishing a Drawing._] A still better word-picture by Forrest illustrates Hogarth’s drawing of _Shaving in the Isle of Sheppey_: “Till six o’clock we quiet lay And then got out for the whole day; To fetch a barber out we send; Stripp’d and in boots he doth attend, For he’s a fisherman by trade; Tann’d was his face, and shock his head; He flours our heads and trims our faces, And the top barber of the place is; A bowl of milk and toasted bread Are brought, of which, while Forrest eats, To draw our pictures Hogarth sits; Thornhill is in the barber’s hands; Shaving himself, Will Tothall stands; While Scott is in a corner sitting, And an unfinished sketch completing.” There is also a very droll tailpiece of Hogarth’s design, and freely, vigorously and racily touched. [Illustration] The “Hudibrastics,” when the accounts were duly audited—and a rare chronicle these accounts are of pots of ale, cans of flip, bowls of punch, lobsters and tobacco—were handsomely bound to be preserved as a perpetual memorial of this famous expedition. By way of motto, Forrest prefixed to his poem a quotation of the inscription over Dulwich college porch, _Abi tu, et fac similiter_.