Catherine Dickens to publish his statement in "Punch" as they thought it unsuitable for a humorous periodical. Another public statement appeared in the "New York Tribune", which later found its way into several British newspapers. In this statement Dickens declared that it had been only Georgina Hogarth who had held the family together for some time: Dickens and Catherine had little correspondence after their separation, but she remained attached and loyal to her husband and to his memory until her own death from cancer. On her deathbed in 1879 Catherine gave the collection of letters she had received from Dickens to her
William Hogarth a truthful, vivid full-length portrait of his friend, the philanthropic Captain Coram for the Thomas Coram Foundation for Children, now in the Foundling Museum, and his unfinished oil sketch of a young fishwoman, entitled "The Shrimp Girl" (National Gallery, London), may be called masterpieces of British painting. There are also portraits of his wife and his two sisters, and of many other people, among them Bishop Hoadly and Bishop Herring. For a long period of his life, Hogarth tried to achieve the status of history painter, but had no great success in this field. Examples of his history pictures are