were blooded by her lover's heart, that lay before her like that of a
sheep for her dinner;--"

Mr. C. observes, "this is very severe, very pointed, and very untrue.
The Sigismunda of Hogarth is not tearing off her ornaments, nor are her
fingers bloodied by her lover's heart. It is said that the picture
resembled Mrs. Hogarth, who was a very handsome woman; and to this
circumstance Wilkes maliciously alludes in his unprincipled attack on
her husband. 'If the Sigismunda,' says this polite patriot, 'had a
resemblance of any thing ever seen on earth, or had the least pretence
to either meaning or expression, it was what he had seen, or perhaps
made--in real life--his own wife in an agony of passion; but of what
passion no connoisseur could guess.' That Mrs. Hogarth sat for the
picture of Sigismunda seems to have been known to conscientious John,
and this is supported by that lady's conduct to Walpole. This noble
biographer sent her a copy of his Anecdotes, accompanied by a courtly
and soothing note; but she was so much offended by his description of
the Sigismunda, that she took no notice of his present. The widow of the
artist was poor--and an opinion so ill-natured--so depreciating--and so
untrue, injured the property which she wished to sell: she loved too the
memory of her husband, and resented in the dignity of silence the
malicious and injurious attack. She considered the present as an insult
offered when she had no one to protect her. I love her pride and
reverence her affection."

Of Hogarth's house at Chiswick, we have the following slight notice:--

"The time was now approaching when superstition, and folly, and vice,
were to be relieved from the satiric pencil which had awed them so
long--the health of Hogarth began to decline. He was aware of this, and