ships-of-war, as the fact that it had once belonged to that brave old
philanthropist, Captain Thomas Coram of the Foundling Hospital. To him
it was presented in March, 1724, by one C. Jackson; and he afterwards
handed it on to a Mr. Mills. Pasted at the end is Coram's autograph
letter, dated "June 10th, 1746." "To Mr. Mills These. Worthy Sir I
happend to find among my few Books, Mr. Pepys his memoires, w'ch I
thought might be acceptable to you & therefore pray you to accept of it.
I am w'th much Respect Sir your most humble Ser't. THOMAS CORAM."

At the Foundling Hospital is a magnificent full-length of Coram, with
curling white locks and kindly, weather-beaten face, from the brush of
his friend and admirer, William Hogarth. It is to Hogarth and his
fellow-Governor at the Foundling, John Wilkes, that my next jotting
relates. These strange colleagues in charity afterwards--as is well
known--quarrelled bitterly over politics. Hogarth caricatured Wilkes in
the _Times_: Wilkes replied by a _North Briton_ article (No. 17) so
scurrilous and malignant that Hogarth was stung into rejoining with that
famous squint-eyed semblance of his former crony, which has handed him
down to posterity more securely than the portraits of Zoffany and
Earlom. Wilkes's action upon this was to reprint his article with the
addition of a bulbous-nosed woodcut of Hogarth "from the Life." These
facts lent interest to an entry which for years had been familiar to me
in the Sale Catalogue of Mr. H.P. Standly, and which ran thus: "The
NORTH BRITON, No. 17, with a PORTRAIT of HOGARTH in WOOD; _and a severe
critique on some of his works: in Ireland's handwriting_ is the
following--'_This paper was given to me by Mrs. Hogarth, Aug. 1782, and
is the identical North Briton purchased by Hogarth, and carried in his
pocket many days to show his friends_.'" The Ireland referred to (as
will presently appear) was Samuel Ireland of the _Graphic
Illustrations_. When, in 1892, dispersed items of the famous Joly