Again, Swift may have suppressed the "th" for mere rhythmical reasons; just as Pope, aux abois between dactyls and spondees, barbarized a name which undeniably before had been pronounced "Saint John" into "Sinjin." But, on the other hand, Jonathan Swift was not so dizzy when he wrote the Legion Club to have lost one pin's point of his marvellous memory; and he was too rich in rhymes to have resorted to the pusillanimous expedient of cutting off a letter. If ever a man lived who could have found an easy rhyme to "Hippopotamus," it was the Dean of St. Patrick's. I opine, therefore, that when Swift first heard of Hogarth—in the early days of George I.—he was really called "Hogart;" that such a name was carried by the dean with him to Dublin, and that the change to "Hogart" only took place when the great Drapier was dying "in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole."
Richard Hogart—whatever he called himself in the scholastic Latinity that converted "Saumaise" into "Salmasius," and a Dutch logician, "Smygel" into "Smeglesius,"—was educated at St. Bees' College, in Westmoreland; was too poor, it is thought, after his college course to take orders, and kept school for a time in his native county. His classical accomplishments were considerable. In the manuscript department of the British Museum are preserved some Latin letters by him; and he wrote besides a Latin-English dictionary, and a school-book entitled Grammar Disputatations, which has not attained the fame or immortality of the works of Cocker and Walkingame. It is stated that Richard Hogart was occasionally employed as a corrector of the press; an office then frequently discharged by trustworthy scholars quite extraneous to the recognized staff of die printing-office.
It is certain that, William and Mary reigning, Dominic Hogart came to London, and established himself as a schoolmaster, in Ship Court, Old Bailey. He had married, as it is the wont of poor schoolmasters to do, and his wife bare him two daughters and one son. The girls were Mary and Anne; and have only to be mentioned to pass out of this record:—Who cares about Joseph Mallard Turner's nephews and nieces? The boy, William Hogarth, was born on the 10th of November, 1697, and stands in the parish register of St. Bartholomew the Great, as having been baptized, November the 28th.
You do not expect me to tell who nursed little chubby-baby Hogarth, whether he took to his pap kindly, and at what age he first evinced an affection for sweet-stuff? Making, however, a very early halt in his nonage, I am compelled to shake my head at a very pretty legend about him, and as prettily made into a picture, some years ago. According to this, little boy Hogarth was sent to a dame's school, where he much vexed the good woman who boasted "unruly brats with birch to tame," by a persistence in drawing caricatures on his slate. The picture represents him in sore disgrace, mounted on the stool of repentance, crowned with the asinine tiara of tribulation, holding in one hand the virgal rod of anguish, and in the other the slate which has brought him to this evil
