I can say little, Sir, for my stupidity or forgetfulness about Hogarth’s poetry, which I still am not sure I ever heard, though I knew him so well; but it is an additional argument for my distrusting myself, if my memory fails, which is very possible.  A whole volume of Richardson’s poetry has been published since my volume was printed, not much to the honour of his muse, but exceedingly so to that of his piety and amiable heart.  You will be pleased, too, Sir, with a story Lord Chesterfield told me (too late too) of Jervas, who piqued himself on the reverse, on total infidelity.  One day that he had talked very indecently in that strain, Dr. Arbuthnot, who was as devout as Richardson, said to him, “Come, Jervas, this is all an air and affectation; nobody is a sounder believer than you.”  “I!” said Jervase, “I believe nothing.”  “Yes, but you do,” replied the Doctor; “nay, you not only believe, but practise:  you are so scrupulous an observer of the commandments, that you never make the likeness of any thing that is in heaven, or on the earth beneath, or,” etc.

I fear, Sir, this letter is too long for thanks, and that I have been proving what I have said, of my growing superannuated; but, having made my will in my last volume, you may look on this as a codicil.

P. S. I had sealed my letter, Sir, but break it open, lest you should think soon, that I do not know what I say, or break my resolution lightly.  I shall be able to send you in about two months a very curious work that I am going to print, and is actually in the press; but there is not a syllable of my writing in it.  It is a discovery just made of two very ancient manuscripts, copies of which were found in two or three libraries in Germany, and of which there are more complete manuscripts at Cambridge.  They are of the eleventh century at longest, and prove that painting in oil was then known, above three hundred years before the pretended invention of Van Dyck.  The manuscripts themselves will be printed, with a full introductory Dissertation by the discoverer, Mr. Raspe, a very learned German. formerly librarian to the Landgrave of Hesse, and who writes English surprisingly well.  The manuscripts are in the most barbarous monkish Latin, and are much such works as our booksellers publish of receipts for mixing colours, varnishes, etc.  One of the authors, who calls himself Theophilus, was a monk; the other, Heraclitis, is totally unknown; but the proofs are Unquestionable.  As my press is out of order, and that besides it would take up too much time to print them there, they will be printed here at my expense, and if there is any surplus, it will be for Raspe’s benefit.

(402) Now first collected.

(403) The notorious Colonel Francis Charteris, to whom Hogarth has accorded a conspicuous place in the first plate of his Harlot’s Progress.  Pope describes him as “a man infamous for all manner of vices,” and thus introduces him into his third Moral Essay:—­