The Bruiser, C. Churchill … in the character of a Russian Hercules …
‘The Bruiser, C. Churchill … in the character of a Russian Hercules …’, 1763. The poet Charles Churchill is depicted as a bear in a clerical collar, with a mug of beer in one a hand and a club in the other – a slovenly clergyman who drinks and writes brutal satires. A dog sits in front of him, with its front paws resting on a page inscribed; An epistle to Hogarth by C Churchill. Hogarth made the engraving in retaliation for a satirical attack made on him by Churchill in the epistle, itself in retaliation for a previous satirical engraving Hogarth had made of the politician John Wilkes, a friend of Churchill’s.
