Mary Hogarth Charles Dickens when Mary was aged 14, on Dickens' first visit to the Hogarth household in Brompton, London. Whilst Dickens and Catherine were courting, Mary was a constant companion and chaperone to both of them. After Charles and Catherine Dickens married in 1836, Hogarth lived with them for a month in a three bedroom apartment at the Furnival's Inn in Holborn, London. From March 1837, Hogarth lived with the couple at 48 Doughty Street, where she helped her sister with household chores, as Catherine was pregnant with her first child. Hogarth was described by those who knew her as "sweet,
The Bench (Hogarth) the art of character painting as the "wild attempts of children". In his own comments on "The Bench" he compared character, caricature, and "outré" to comedy, tragedy, and farce in the theatre. Comedy, which he aligned with character, showed a true view of nature, as nothing was outside reality. Tragedy, which he compared to caricature, heightened reality, exaggerating aspects of its subjects. Farce and "outré" both took this heightening of features to ridiculous extremes. Hogarth scholar Ronald Paulson suggests that by the time he produced "The Bench" Hogarth had become very sensitive to the criticisms levelled at him as a