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early years). <strong>Hogarth</strong>'s teacaddy-shaped tomb also remains, though all design is<br />
worn away <strong>and</strong> the inscriptions have been restored. The Feathers Tavern still<br />
exists but probably not in its original location; the Burlington Arms still st<strong>and</strong>s<br />
in Church Street.<br />
<strong>Hogarth</strong>'s house is largely as it was, the sole alteration being the demolition<br />
of his stable <strong>and</strong> studio <strong>and</strong> the addition of a room, possibly where the studio<br />
once was (pl. 221). A visitor in the mid-nineteenth century said he saw the stu-<br />
dio over the stable. It had a large window <strong>and</strong> a very narrow stairway, <strong>and</strong> so<br />
"his paintings, I presume, would be let down through this window, for trans-<br />
mission, in his carriage, to town." 27 On one side of the house <strong>and</strong> walled garden<br />
is now the <strong>Hogarth</strong> Laundry with its sign an adaptation of <strong>Hogarth</strong> Painting<br />
the Comic Muse; on the other is the enormous expanse of Chiswick Products,<br />
whose most publicized ware is Cherry Blossom Shoe Polish. But inside Ho-<br />
garth's garden one feels much as he must have felt 200 years ago—as though the<br />
torrent of traffic outside did not exist. All is still <strong>and</strong> green here, <strong>and</strong> the mul-<br />
berry tree, from which the <strong>Hogarth</strong>s are supposed to have given the village chil-<br />
dren fruit every year, still produces fruit in September.<br />
The inside of the house was described by John Irel<strong>and</strong> in the 1780s, when it<br />
was still unchanged. None of <strong>Hogarth</strong>'s own prints were on the walls, but there<br />
were engravings of Thornhill's St. Paul paintings around the parlor, <strong>and</strong> the<br />
Houbraken heads of Shakespeare, Spenser, <strong>and</strong> Dryden. In the garden, over the<br />
gate, was "a cast of George the Second's mask, in lead," <strong>and</strong> in one corner "a<br />
rude <strong>and</strong> shapeless stone, placed upright against the wall," the marker for a pet<br />
bulfinch:<br />
ALAS, POOR DICK!<br />
OB. 1760<br />
AGED ELEVEN.<br />
Underneath were two bird crossbones surmounted by a heart <strong>and</strong> a death's head<br />
scratched with a nail, <strong>and</strong> at the bottom were <strong>Hogarth</strong>'s initials. 28<br />
In <strong>Hogarth</strong>'s time the house stood alone, <strong>and</strong> fields stretched beyond, across<br />
which he sketched <strong>and</strong> etched his friend Dr. John Ranby's house on what is now<br />
Corney Road (pl. 222). Thomas Morell lived nearby in Turnham Green, Ar-<br />
thur Murphy in Hammersmith Terrace, William Rose in Bradmore House in<br />
Chiswick Lane (where for thirty years he kept an academy), Ralph Griffiths of<br />
the Monthly Review in Linden House, <strong>and</strong> James Ralph in various houses in<br />
the neighborhood. Fielding had a house not far away at Fordhook, on the Ux-<br />
bridge Road, about a mile from the village of Acton, at the eastern extremity of<br />
Ealing. The only house other than <strong>Hogarth</strong>'s that has survived from the period<br />
is Chiswick House, the prototypical Palladian villa which Lord Burlington built<br />
<strong>and</strong> lived in, where he entertained William Kent <strong>and</strong> others, including Pope<br />
<strong>and</strong> <strong>Hogarth</strong>'s own friend Garrick. Indeed, in the summer of 1749 Garrick had<br />
81