Note 49 — Chapter VI · JOHN WILKES AS A POPULAR REPRESENTATIVE.
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As concerned Churchill and the artist, they both departed, it may be said, “warring to the very verge of the grave,” in 1764. Less than a month before the painter’s death appeared Churchill’s familiar lines, treating his antagonist as already slain by his satire:—
“Hogarth would draw him (Envy must allow) E’en to the life, was Hogarth living now.”
Curiously enough, five weeks after these lines appeared, the poet was likewise gathered to those shades to which he had with sportive venom prematurely consigned his antagonist, in all probability without anticipating the literal fulfilment of his prophecy.