Note 2 — CATALOGUE OF HOGARTH'S PRINTS.[1] (continued 3)
Reading edition
The intimate friend of Hogarth, at that time a Commissioner of the Admiralty; afterwards Sir George Hay, knight, Dean of the Arches, Judge of the Prerogative Court, and also of the High Court of Admiralty, who died October 6, 1778, aged 63. He was possessed of several of Hogarth's paintings, which are now the property of Mr. Edwards, and have been mentioned in p. 98. Our honourable Judge has the following character in a work of great authority.
On the trial of her Grace the Duchess of Kingston, for bigamy, before the House of Lords, in April 1776, the present Lord Chancellor Thurlow (then Attorney-General) thus speaks of Sir George as a judge:—"The most loose and unconsidered notion, escaping in any manner from that able and excellent judge, should be received with respect, and certainly will; if the question were my own, with the choice of my court, I should refer it to his decision." State Trials, XI. 221.