By his first print of The Times, our artist, observes Mr. Ireland, roused two very formidable adversaries; and they treated him with as much ceremony as two deputies from the Bow Street magistrates would an incendiary or an assassin. They did not consider him as a man whose conduct it was needful to investigate, or whose opinions it was necessary to confute, but as criminal whose aggravated crimes had outraged every law of society, and whom they would therefore drag to the place of execution. To defend himself from these furious assailants, he had no shield but a copperplate-no weapons but a pencil and a burin. The use he made of them may be seen in the two last prints; but, though this print was engraved during the time of the contest, it was not published while he lived.  Whether a sudden change in politics- a supposed ambiguity in part of his design- of the advice of judicious or timid friends, induced him to suppress his work, cannot now be ascertained; but whatever were the reasons, his widow’s respect for his memory induced her to adopt the same conduct. She retained a reverence for even the dust of her husband, and dreaded its being raked from the sepulchre where he had quietly been immured, mixed with the poisonous aconite of party, and by sacrilegious hands cast into the agitated caldron of politics. If we add to this the specimen of political candour which she had experienced in her own person, can we wonder that she cautiously avoided whatever could be tortured into a provocation to the renewal of hostilities? From these considerations, she never suffered more than one impression to be taken, and that was struck off at the earnest request of Lord Exeter.

     In withholding this plate from the public she acted prudently; in the attempting to describe it we should be thought to act otherwise. To enter into discrimination of characters who now live, or step upon ashes which are not yet cold, is liable to invidious construction.

     The judicious Mr. Ireland also observes of this plate, “That though several of the figures are marked in a style so obtrusive that they cannot be mistaken, there are others where I can only guess at the originals.  From those who were engaged in the politics of the day, I have sought information,, but their communications have been neither important nor consistent with each other; they generally ended in an acknowledgement, ‘that in thirty years they have forgotten much that they once knew, and which, if now recollected, would materially elucidate.’ To this was added, what I am compelled to admit, that parts of the print was engraved is not positively ascertained, but it is conjectured to have been some time in the year 1762. A small  part of the sky was left unfinished, and in that state still remains.

STEEL ENGRAVING - “THE TIMES - PLATE II” from the original engraving by William Hogarth, published in the mid 1800’s.  This engraving is in good condition. The actual engraving measures 5” x 6 1/2”, and is matted to 11" x 14" for easy framing.  The description is from “The Complete Works of William Hogarth”. SHIPPING AND HANDLING - First Class Mail $4.50