exposed himself to their fury. Warrants were instantly issued to arrest
him and Churchill, as well as the publishers and printers. Wilkes was
newly arrested when Churchill walked into his room. Knowing that his
friend's name was also in the warrant, he adroitly said to Churchill,
"Good morrow, Mr Thomson; how is Mrs Thomson to-day; does _she dine in
the country?_" The poet took the hint--said that she was waiting on
him--took his leave, and retired to the country accordingly.

Immediately after occurred the controversy between Hogarth and our poet.
While Wilkes's case was being tried, and Chief-Justice Pratt, afterwards
Lord Camden, was about to give the memorable decision in favour of the
accused, and in condemnation of general warrants, Hogarth was sitting in
the court, and immortalising Wilkes's villanous squint upon the canvas.
In July 1763, Churchill avenged his friend's quarrel by the savage
personalities of his "Epistle to William Hogarth." Here, while lauding
highly the painter's genius, he denounces his vanity, his envy, and makes
an unmanly and brutal attack on his supposed dotage. Hogarth, within a
month, replied by caricaturing Churchill as a bear with torn clerical
bands, paws in ruffles, a pot of porter in his right hand, and a knot of
LIES and _North Britons_ in his left. Churchill threatened him with a
renewed and severer assault in the shape of an elegy, but was dissuaded
from it by his mistress.

This was Miss Carr, daughter of a respectable sculptor in Westminster,
whom Churchill had seduced. After a fortnight they were both struck with
remorse, agreed to separate, and, through the intercession of a friend,
the young lady was restored to her parents. Rendered miserable, however,
by the taunts of an elder sister, she, in absolute despair, cast herself
again on Churchill's protection, and they remained together till his
death. In his letters we find him, during one of his sober intervals,