Note 119 — HOGARTH ILLUSTRATED.
Reading edition
Those gentlemen who wish to enjoy
"The feast of reason and the flow of soul,"
would find some use in adopting the old threadbare adage, "Not more than the Muses, nor fewer than the Graces." Poor Mortimer the painter, whose convivial talents were hardly to be paralleled, had such a dislike to large companies, that he used to say, "If he invited the twelve apostles to supper, he would certainly take two evenings to receive them, six being a sufficient number, be the society ever so good."