THE LAUGHING AUDIENCE.

THE BENCH.THE BENCH.

"Let him laugh now, who never laugh'd before;And he who always laugh'd, laugh now the more."

"From the first print that Hogarth engraved, to the last that he published, I do not think," says Mr. Ireland, "there is one, in which character is more displayed than in this very spirited little etching. It is much superior to the more delicate engravings from his designs by other artists, and I prefer it to those that were still higher finished by his own burin.

"The prim coxcomb with an enormous bag, whose favours, like those of Hercules between Virtue and Vice, are contended for by two rival orange girls, gives an admirable idea of the dress of the day; when, if we may judge from this print, our grave forefathers, defying Nature, and despising convenience, had a much higher rank in the temple of Folly than was then attained by their ladies. It must be acknowledged that, since that period, the softer sex have asserted their natural rights; and, snatching the wreath of fashion from the brow of presuming man, have tortured it into such forms that, were it possible, whichcertesit is not, to disguise a beauteous face——But to the high behest of Fashion all must bow.

"Governed by this idol, our beau has a cuff that, for a modern fop, would furnish fronts for a waistcoat, and a family fire-screen might be made of his enormous bag. His bare and shrivelled neck has a close resemblance to that of a half-starved greyhound; and his face, figure, and air, form a fine contrast to the easy and degagée assurance of the Grisette whom he addresses.

"The opposite figure, nearly as grotesque, though not quite so formal as its companion, presses its left hand upon its breast, in the style of protestation; and, eagerly contemplating the superabundant charms of a beauty of Rubens's school, presents her with a pinch of comfort. Every muscle, every line of his countenance, is acted upon by affectation and grimace, and his queue bears some resemblance to an ear-trumpet.

"The total inattention of these three polite persons to the business of the stage, which at this moment almost convulses the children of Nature who are seated in thepit, is highly descriptive of that refined apathy which characterises our people of fashion, and raises them above those mean passions that agitate the groundlings.

"One gentleman, indeed, is as affectedly unaffected as a man of the first world. By his saturnine cast of face, and contracted brow, he is evidently a profound critic, and much too wise to laugh. He must indisputably be a very great critic; for, likeVoltaire's Poccocurante, nothing can please him; and, while those around open every avenue of their minds to mirth, and are willing to be delighted, though they do not well know why, he analyses the drama by the laws of Aristotle, and finding those laws are violated, determines that the author ought to be hissed, instead of being applauded. This it is to be so excellent a judge; this it is which gives a critic that exalted gratification which can never be attained by the illiterate,—the supreme power of pointing out faults, where others discern nothing but beauties, and preserving a rigid inflexibility of muscle, while the sides of the vulgar herd are shaking with laughter. These merry mortals, thinking with Plato that it is no proof of a good stomach to nauseate every aliment presented them, do not inquire too nicely into causes, but, giving full scope to their risibility, display a set of features more highly ludicrous than I ever saw in any other print. It is to be regretted that the artist has not given us some clue by which we might have known what was the play which so much delighted his audience: I should conjecture that it was either one of Shakespear's comedies, or a modern tragedy. Sentimental comedy was not the fashion of that day.

"The three sedate musicians in the orchestra, totally engrossed by minims and crotchets, are an admirable contrast to the company in the pit."

THE LAUGHING AUDIENCE.THE LAUGHING AUDIENCE.

"'Twas at the gate of Calais, Hogarth tells,Where sad despair and famine always dwells;A meagre Frenchman, Madame Grandsire's cook,As home he steer'd, his carcase that way took,Bending beneath the weight of famed sirloin,On whom he often wish'd in vain to dine;Good Father Dominick by chance came by,With rosy gills, round paunch, and greedy eye;And, when he first beheld the greasy load,His benediction on it he bestow'd;And while the solid fat his fingers press'd,He lick'd his chops, and thus the knight address'd:'O rare roast beef, lov'd by all mankind,Was I but doom'd to have thee,Well dress'd, and garnish'd to my mind,And swimming in thy gravy;Not all thy country's force combined,Should from my fury save thee!'Renown'd sirloin! oft times decreedThe theme of English ballad,E'en kings on thee have deign'd to feed,Unknown to Frenchman's palate;Then how much must thy taste exceedSoup-meagre, frogs, and salad!'"

'O rare roast beef, lov'd by all mankind,Was I but doom'd to have thee,Well dress'd, and garnish'd to my mind,And swimming in thy gravy;Not all thy country's force combined,Should from my fury save thee!

'Renown'd sirloin! oft times decreedThe theme of English ballad,E'en kings on thee have deign'd to feed,Unknown to Frenchman's palate;Then how much must thy taste exceedSoup-meagre, frogs, and salad!'"

The thought on which this whimsical and highly-characteristic print is founded, originated in Calais, to which place Mr. Hogarth, accompanied by some of his friends, made an excursion, in the year 1747.

Extreme partiality for his native country was the leading trait of his character; he seems to have begun his three hours' voyage with a firm determination to be displeased at every thing he saw out of Old England. For a meagre, powdered figure, hung with tatters,a-la-mode de Paris, to affect the airs of a coxcomb, and the importance of a sovereign, is ridiculous enough; but if it makes a man happy, why shouldhe be laughed at? It must blunt the edge of ridicule, to see natural hilarity defy depression; and a whole nation laugh, sing, and dance, under burthens that would nearly break the firm-knit sinews of a Briton. Such was the picture of France at that period, but it was a picture which our English satirist could not contemplate with common patience. The swarms of grotesque figures who paraded the streets excited his indignation, and drew forth a torrent of coarse abusive ridicule, not much to the honour of his liberality. He compared them to Callot's beggars—Lazarus on the painted cloth—the prodigal son—or any other object descriptive of extreme contempt. Against giving way to these effusions of national spleen in the open street, he was frequently cautioned, but advice had no effect; he treated admonition with scorn, and considered his monitor unworthy the name of Englishman. These satirical ebullitions were at length checked. Ignorant of the customs of France, and considering the gate of Calais merely as a piece of ancient architecture, he began to make a sketch. This was soon observed; he was seized as a spy, who intended to draw a plan of the fortification, and escorted by a file of musqueteers to M. la Commandant. His sketch-book was examined, leaf by leaf, and found to contain drawings that had not the most distant relation to tactics. Notwithstanding this favourable circumstance, the governor, with great politeness, assured him, that had not a treaty between the nations been actually signed, he should have been under the disagreeable necessity of hanging him upon the ramparts: as it was, he must be permitted the privilege of providing him a few military attendants, who should do themselves the honour of waiting upon him, while he resided in the dominions of "the grande monarque." Two sentinels were then ordered to escort him to his hotel, from whence they conducted him to the vessel; nor did they quit their prisoner, until he was a league from shore; when, seizing him by the shoulders, and spinning him round upon the deck, they said he was now at liberty to pursue his voyage without further molestation.

So mortifying an adventure he did not like to hear recited, but has in this print recorded the circumstance which led to it. In one corner he has given a portrait of himself, making the drawing; and to shew the moment of arrest, the hand of a serjeant is upon his shoulder.

The French sentinel is so situated, as to give some idea of a figure hanging in chains: his ragged shirt is trimmed with a pair of paper ruffles. The old woman, and a fish which she is pointing at, have a striking resemblance. The abundance of parsnips, and other vegetables, indicate what are the leading articles in a Lenten feast.

Mr. Pine, the painter, sat for the friar, and from thence acquired the title of Father Pine. This distinction did not flatter him, and he frequently requested that the countenance might be altered, but the artist peremptorily refused.

GATE OF CALAIS. "O THE ROAST BEEF OF OLD ENGLAND."GATE OF CALAIS."O THE ROAST BEEF OF OLD ENGLAND."

"A politician should (as I have read)Be furnish'd in the first place with a head."

One of our old writers gives it as his opinion, that "there are onlie two subjects which are worthie the studie of a wise man," i.e. religion and politics. For the first, it does not come under inquiry in this print,—but certain it is, that too sedulously studying the second, has frequently involved its votaries in many most tedious and unprofitable disputes, and been the source of much evil to many well-meaning and honest men. Under this class comes the Quidnunc here pourtrayed; it is said to be intended for a Mr. Tibson, laceman, in the Strand, who paid more attention to the affairs of Europe, than to those of his own shop. He is represented in a style somewhat similar to that in which Schalcken painted William the third,—holding a candle in his right hand, and eagerly inspecting the Gazetteer of the day. Deeply interested in the intelligence it contains, concerning the flames that rage on the Continent, he is totally insensible of domestic danger, and regardless of a flame, which, ascending to his hat,—

"Threatens destruction to his three-tail'd wig."

From the tie-wig, stockings, high-quartered shoes, and sword, I should suppose it was painted about the year 1730, when street robberies were so frequent in the metropolis, that it was customary for men in trade to wear swords, not to preserve their religion and liberty from foreign invasion, but to defend their own pockets from "domestic collectors."

The original sketch Hogarth presented to his friend Forrest; it was etched by Sherwin, and published in 1775.

THE POLITICIAN.THE POLITICIAN.

The picture from which this print was copied, Hogarth painted by the order of Miss Edwards, a woman of large fortune, who having been laughed at for some singularities in her manners, requested the artist to recriminate on her opponents, and paid him sixty guineas for his production.

It is professedly intended to ridicule the reigning fashions of high life, in the year 1742: to do this, the painter has brought into one group, an old beau and an old lady of the Chesterfield school, a fashionable young lady, a little black boy, and a full-dressed monkey. The old lady, with a most affected air, poises, between her finger and thumb, a small tea-cup, with the beauties of which she appears to be highly enamoured.

The gentleman, gazing with vacant wonder at that and the companion saucer which he holds in his hand, joins in admiration of its astonishing beauties!

"Each varied colour of the brightest hue,The green, the red, the yellow, and the blue,In every part their dazzled eyes behold,Here streak'd with silver—there enrich'd with gold."

This gentleman is said to be intended for Lord Portmore, in the habit he first appeared at Court, on his return from France. The cane dangling from his wrist, large muff, long queue, black stock, feathered chapeau, and shoes, give him the air of

"An old and finish'd fop,All cork at heel, and feather all at top."

The old lady's habit, formed of stiff brocade, gives her the appearance of a squat pyramid, with a grotesque head at the top of it. The young one is fondling a little black boy, who on his part is playing with a petite pagoda. This miniature Othello has been said to be intended for the late Ignatius Sancho, whose talents and virtueswere an honour to his colour. At the time the picture was painted, he would have been rather older than the figure, but as he was then honoured by the partiality and protection of a noble family, the painter might possibly mean to delineate what his figure had been a few years before.

The little monkey, with a magnifying glass, bag-wig, solitaire, laced hat, and ruffles, is eagerly inspecting a bill of fare, with the following articlespour diner; cocks' combs, ducks' tongues, rabbits' ears, fricasee of snails,grande d'œufs buerre.

In the centre of the room is a capacious china jar; in one corner a tremendous pyramid, composed of packs of cards, and on the floor close to them, a bill, inscribed "Lady Basto, Drto John Pip, for cards,—£300."

The room is ornamented with several pictures; the principal represents the Medicean Venus, on a pedestal, in stays and high-heeled shoes, and holding before her a hoop petticoat, somewhat larger than a fig-leaf; a Cupid paring down a fat lady to a thin proportion, and another Cupid blowing up a fire to burn a hoop petticoat, muff, bag, queue wig, &c. On the dexter side is another picture, representing Monsieur Desnoyer, operatically habited, dancing in a grand ballet, and surrounded by butterflies, insects evidently of the same genus with this deity of dance. On the sinister, is a drawing of exotics, consisting of queue and bag-wigs, muffs, solitaires, petticoats, French heeled shoes, and other fantastic fripperies.

Beneath this is a lady in a pyramidical habit walking the Park; and as the companion picture, we have a blind man walking the streets.

The fire-screen is adorned with a drawing of a lady in a sedan-chair—

"To conceive how she looks, you must call to your mindThe lady you've seen in a lobster confined,Or a pagod in some little corner enshrined."

As Hogarth made this design from the ideas of Miss Edwards, it has been said that he had no great partiality for his own performance, and that, as he never would consent to its being engraved, the drawing from which the first print was copied, was made by the connivance of one of her servants. Be that as it may, his ridicule on the absurdities of fashion,—on the folly of collecting old china,—cookery,—card playing, &c. is pointed, and highly wrought.

At the sale of Miss Edwards's effects at Kensington, the original picture was purchased by the father of Mr. Birch, surgeon, of Essex-street, Strand.

TASTE IN HIGH LIFE.TASTE IN HIGH LIFE.

"The snares are set, the plot is laid,Ruin awaits thee,—hapless maid!Seduction sly assails thine ear,Andgloating, foul desireis near;Baneful and blighting are their smiles,Destruction waits upon their wiles;Alas! thy guardian angel sleeps,Vice clasps her hands, and virtue weeps."

The general aim of historical painters, says Mr. Ireland, has been to emblazon some signal exploit of an exalted and distinguished character. To go through a series of actions, and conduct their hero from the cradle to the grave, to give a history upon canvass, and tell a story with the pencil, few of them attempted. Mr. Hogarth saw, with the intuitive eye of genius, that one path to the Temple of Fame was yet untrodden: he took Nature for his guide, and gained the summit. He was the painter of Nature; for he gave, not merely the ground-plan of the countenance, but marked the features with every impulse of the mind. He may be denominated the biographical dramatist of domestic life. Leaving those heroic monarchs who have blazed through their day, with the destructive brilliancy of a comet, to their adulatory historians, he, like Lillo, has taken his scenes from humble life, and rendered them a source of entertainment, instruction, and morality.

This series of prints gives the history of a Prostitute. The story commences with her arrival in London, where, initiated in the school of profligacy, she experiences the miseries consequent to her situation, and dies in the morning of life. Her variety of wretchedness, forms such a picture of the way in which vice rewards her votaries, as ought to warn the young and inexperienced from entering this path of infamy.

The first scene of this domestic tragedy is laid at the Bell Inn, in Wood-street, and the heroine may possibly be daughter to the poor old clergyman who is reading the direction of a letter close to the York waggon, from which vehicle she has just alighted. In attire—neat, plain, unadorned; in demeanor—artless, modest, diffident: in the bloom of youth, and more distinguished by native innocence than elegant symmetry; her conscious blush, and downcast eyes, attract the attention of a female fiend, who panders to the vices of the opulent and libidinous. Coming out of the door of the inn, we discover two men, one of whom is eagerly gloating on the devoted victim. This is a portrait, and said to be a strong resemblance of Colonel Francis Chartres.

The old procuress, immediately after the girl's alighting from the waggon, addresses her with the familiarity of a friend, rather than the reserve of one who is to be her mistress.

Had her father been versed in even the first rudiments of physiognomy, he would have prevented her engaging with one of so decided an aspect: for this also is the portrait of a woman infamous in her day: but he, good, easy man, unsuspicious as Fielding's parson Adams, is wholly engrossed in the contemplation of a superscription to a letter, addressed to the bishop of the diocese. So important an object prevents his attending to his daughter, or regarding the devastation occasioned by his gaunt and hungry Rozinante having snatched at the straw that packs up some earthenware, and produced

"The wreck of flower-pots, and the crash of pans!"

From the inn she is taken to the house of the procuress, divested of her home-spun garb, dressed in the gayest style of the day; and the tender native hue of her complexion incrusted with paint, and disguised by patches. She is then introduced to Colonel Chartres, and by artful flattery and liberal promises, becomes intoxicated with the dreams of imaginary greatness. A short time convinces her of how light a breath these promises were composed. Deserted by her keeper, and terrified by threats of an immediate arrest for the pompous paraphernalia of prostitution, after being a short time protected by one of the tribe of Levi, she is reduced to the hard necessity of wandering the streets, for that precarious subsistence which flows from the drunken rake, or profligate debauchee. Here her situation is truly pitiable! Chilled by nipping frost and midnight dew, the repentant tear trickling on her heaving bosom, she endeavours to drown reflection in draughts of destructive poison. This, added to the contagious company of women of her own description, vitiates her mind, eradicates the native seeds of virtue, destroys that elegant and fascinating simplicity, which gives additional charms to beauty, and leaves, in its place, art, affectation, and impudence.

Neither the painter of a sublime picture, nor the writer of an heroic poem, should introduce any trivial circumstances that are likely to draw the attention from the principal figures. Such compositions should form one great whole: minute detail will inevitably weaken their effect. But in little stories, which record the domestic incidents of familiar life, these accessary accompaniments, though trifling in themselves, acquire a consequence from their situation; they add to the interest, and realise the scene. In this, as in almost all that were delineated by Mr. Hogarth, we see a close regard paid to things as they then were; by which means his prints become a sort of historical record of the manners of the age.

THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS. PLATE 1. ENSNARED BY A PROCURESS.THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS.PLATE 1.ENSNARED BY A PROCURESS.

"Ah! why so vain, though blooming in thy spring,Thou shining, frail, adorn'd, but wretched thingOld age will come; disease may come before,And twenty prove as fatal as threescore!"

Entered into the path of infamy, the next scene exhibits our young heroine the mistress of a rich Jew, attended by a black boy,[1]and surrounded with the pompous parade of tasteless profusion. Her mind being now as depraved, as her person is decorated, she keeps up the spirit of her character by extravagance and inconstancy. An example of the first is exhibited in the monkey being suffered to drag her rich head-dress round the room, and of the second in the retiring gallant. The Hebrew is represented at breakfast with his mistress; but, having come earlier than was expected, the favourite has not departed. To secure his retreat is an exercise for the invention of both mistress and maid. This is accomplished by the lady finding a pretence for quarrelling with the Jew, kicking down the tea-table, and scalding his legs, which, added to the noise of the china, so far engrosses his attention, that the paramour, assisted by the servant, escapes discovery.

The subjects of two pictures, with which the room is decorated, are David dancing before the ark, and Jonah seated under a gourd. They are placed there, not merely as circumstances which belong to Jewish story, but as a piece of covert ridicule on the old masters, who generally painted from the ideas of others, and repeated the same talead infinitum. On the toilet-table we discover a mask, which well enough intimates where she had passed part of the preceding night, and that masquerades, then a very fashionable amusement, were much frequented by women of this description; a sufficient reason for their being avoided by those of an opposite character.

Under the protection of this disciple of Moses she could not remain long. Riches were his only attraction, and though profusely lavished on this unworthy object, herattachment was not to be obtained, nor could her constancy be secured; repeated acts of infidelity are punished by dismission; and her next situation shows, that like most of the sisterhood, she had lived without apprehension of the sunshine of life being darkened by the passing cloud, and made no provision for the hour of adversity.

In this print the characters are marked with a master's hand. The insolent air of the harlot, the astonishment of the Jew, eagerly grasping at the falling table, the start of the black boy, the cautious trip of the ungartered and barefooted retreating gallant, and the sudden spring of the scalded monkey, are admirably expressed. To represent an object in its descent, has been said to be impossible; the attempt has seldom succeeded; but, in this print, the tea equipage really appears falling to the floor; and, in Rembrandt's Abraham's Offering, in the Houghton collection, now at Petersburg, the knife dropping from the hand of the patriarch, appears in a falling state.

Quin compared Garrick in Othello to the black boy with the tea-kettle, a circumstance that by no means encouraged our Roscius to continue acting the part. Indeed, when his face was obscured, his chief power of expression was lost; and then, and not till then, was he reduced to a level with several other performers. It has been remarked, however, that Garrick said of himself, that when he appeared in Othello, Quin, he supposed, would say, "Here's Pompey! where's the tea-kettle?"

THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS. PLATE 2. QUARRELS WITH HER JEW PROTECTOR.THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS.PLATE 2.QUARRELS WITH HER JEW PROTECTOR.

"Reproach, scorn, infamy, and hate,On all thy future steps shall wait;Thy furor be loath'd by every eye,And every foot thy presence fly."

We here see this child of misfortune fallen from her high estate! Her magnificent apartment is quitted for a dreary lodging in the purlieus of Drury-lane; she is at breakfast, and every object exhibits marks of the most wretched penury: her silver tea-kettle is changed for a tin pot, and her highly decorated toilet gives place to an old leaf table, strewed with the relics of the last night's revel, and ornamented with a broken looking-glass. Around the room are scattered tobacco-pipes, gin measures, and pewter pots; emblems of the habits of life into which she is initiated, and the company which she now keeps: this is farther intimated by the wig-box of James Dalton, a notorious street-robber, who was afterwards executed. In her hand she displays a watch, which might be either presented to her, or stolen from her last night's gallant. By the nostrums which ornament the broken window, we see that poverty is not her only evil.

The dreary and comfortless appearance of every object in this wretched receptacle, the bit of butter on a piece of paper, the candle in a bottle, the basin upon a chair, the punch-bowl and comb upon the table, and the tobacco-pipes, &c. strewed upon the unswept floor, give an admirable picture of the style in which this pride of Drury-lane ate her matin meal. The pictures which ornament the room are, Abraham offering up Isaac, and a portrait of the Virgin Mary; Dr. Sacheverell and Macheath the highwayman, are companion prints. There is some whimsicality in placing the two ladies under a canopy, formed by the unnailed valance of the bed, and characteristically crowned by the wig-box of a highwayman.

When Theodore, the unfortunate king of Corsica, was so reduced as to lodge in a garret in Dean-street, Soho, a number of gentlemen made a collection for his relief. The chairman of their committee informed him, by letter, that on the following day, at twelve o'clock, two of the society would wait upon his majesty with the money. To give his attic apartment an appearance of royalty, the poor monarch placed an arm-chairon his half-testered bed, and seating himself under the scanty canopy, gave what he thought might serve as the representation of a throne. When his two visitors entered the room, he graciously held out his right hand, that they might have the honour of—kissing it!

A magistrate, cautiously entering the room, with his attendant constables, commits her to a house of correction, where our legislators wisely suppose, that being confined to the improving conversation of her associates in vice, must have a powerful tendency towards the reformation of her manners. Sir John Gonson, a justice of peace, very active in the suppression of brothels, is the person represented. Ina View of the Town in 1735, by T. Gilbert, fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, are the following lines:

"Though laws severe to punish crimes were made,What honest man is of these laws afraid?All felons against judges will exclaim,As harlots tremble at a Gonson's name."

Pope has noticed him in his Imitation of Dr. Donne, and Loveling, in a very elegant Latin ode. Thus, between the poets and the painter, the name of this harlot-hunting justice, is transmitted to posterity. He died on the 9th of January, 1765.

THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS. PLATE 3. APPREHENDED BY A MAGISTRATE.THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS.PLATE 3.APPREHENDED BY A MAGISTRATE.

With pallid cheek and haggard eye,And loud laments, and heartfelt sigh,Unpitied, hopeless of relief,She drinks the bitter cup of grief.In vain the sigh, in vain the tear,Compassion never enters here;But justice clanks her iron chain,And calls forth shame, remorse, and pain.

With pallid cheek and haggard eye,And loud laments, and heartfelt sigh,Unpitied, hopeless of relief,She drinks the bitter cup of grief.

In vain the sigh, in vain the tear,Compassion never enters here;But justice clanks her iron chain,And calls forth shame, remorse, and pain.

The situation, in which the last plate exhibited our wretched female, was sufficiently degrading, but in this, her misery is greatly aggravated. We now see her suffering the chastisement due to her follies; reduced to the wretched alternative of beating hemp, or receiving the correction of a savage task-master. Exposed to the derision of all around, even her own servant, who is well acquainted with the rules of the place, appears little disposed to show any return of gratitude for recent obligations, though even her shoes, which she displays while tying up her garter, seem by their gaudy outside to have been a present from her mistress. The civil discipline of the stern keeper has all the severity of the old school. With the true spirit of tyranny, he sentences those who will not labour to the whipping-post, to a kind of picketing suspension by the wrists, or having a heavy log fastened to their leg. With the last of these punishments he at this moment threatens the heroine of our story, nor is it likely that his obduracy can be softened except by a well applied fee. How dreadful, how mortifying the situation! These accumulated evils might perhaps produce a momentary remorse, but a return to the path of virtue is not so easy as a departure from it.

To show that neither the dread, nor endurance, of the severest punishment, will deter from the perpetration of crimes, a one-eyed female, close to the keeper, is picking a pocket. The torn card may probably be dropped by the well-dressed gamester, who has exchanged the dice-box for the mallet, and whose laced hat is hung up as a companion trophy to the hoop-petticoat.

One of the girls appears scarcely in her teens. To the disgrace of our police, these unfortunate little wanderers are still suffered to take their nocturnal rambles in the most public streets of the metropolis. What heart, so void of sensibility, as not to heave a pitying sigh at their deplorable situation? Vice is not confined to colour, for a black woman is ludicrously exhibited, as suffering the penalty of those frailties, which are imagined peculiar to the fair.

The figure chalked as dangling upon the wall, with a pipe in his mouth, is intended as a caricatured portrait of Sir John Gonson, and probably the production of some would-be artist, whom the magistrate had committed to Bridewell, as a proper academy for the pursuit of his studies. The inscription upon the pillory, "Better to work than stand thus;" and that on the whipping-post near the laced gambler, "The reward of idleness," are judiciously introduced.

In this print the composition is good: the figures in the back-ground, though properly subordinate, are sufficiently marked; the lassitude of the principal character, well contrasted by the austerity of the rigid overseer. There is a fine climax of female debasement, from the gaudy heroine of our drama, to her maid, and from thence to the still object, who is represented as destroying one of the plagues of Egypt.

Such well dressed females, as our heroine, are rarely met with in our present houses of correction; but her splendid appearance is sufficiently warranted by the following paragraph in the Grub-street Journal of September 14th, 1730.

"One Mary Moffat, a woman of great note in the hundreds of Drury, who, about a fortnight ago, was committed to hard labour in Tothill-fields Bridewell, by nine justices, brought his majesty's writ ofhabeas corpus, and was carried before the right honourable the Lord Chief Justice Raymond, expecting to have been either bailed or discharged; but her commitment appearing to be legal, his lordship thought fit to remand her back again to her former place of confinement, where she is now beating hemp in a gown very richly laced with silver."

THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS. PLATE 4. SCENE IN BRIDEWELL.THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS.PLATE 4.SCENE IN BRIDEWELL.

With keen remorse, deep sighs, and trembling fearsRepentant groans, and unavailing tears,This child of misery resigns her breath,And sinks, despondent, in the arms of death.

Released from Bridewell, we now see this victim to her own indiscretion breathe her last sad sigh, and expire in all the extremity of penury and wretchedness. The two quacks, whose injudicious treatment, has probably accelerated her death, are vociferously supporting the infallibility of their respective medicines, and each charging the other with having poisoned her. The meagre figure is a portrait of Dr. Misaubin, a foreigner, at that time in considerable practice.

These disputes, it has been affirmed, sometimes happen at a consultation of regular physicians, and a patient has been so unpolite as to die before they could determine on the name of his disorder.

"About the symptoms how they disagree,But how unanimous about the fee!"

While the maid servant is entreating them to cease quarrelling, and assist her dying mistress, the nurse plunders her trunk of the few poor remains of former grandeur. Her little boy, turning a scanty remnant of meat hung to roast by a string; the linen hanging to dry; the coals deposited in a corner; the candles, bellows, and gridiron hung upon nails; the furniture of the room; and indeed every accompaniment; exhibit a dreary display of poverty and wretchedness. Over the candles hangs a cake of Jew's Bread, once perhaps the property of her Levitical lover, and now used as a fly-trap. The initials of her name, M. H. are smoked upon the ceiling as a kind ofmemento morito the next inhabitant. On the floor lies a paper inscribed "anodyne necklace," at that time deemed a sort of charm against the disorders incident to children; and near the fire, a tobacco-pipe, and paper of pills.

A picture of general, and at this awful moment, indecent confusion, is admirably represented. The noise of two enraged quacks disputing in bad English; the harsh, vulgar scream of the maid servant; the table falling, and the pot boiling over, must produce a combination of sounds dreadful and dissonant to the ear. In this pitiable situation, without a friend to close her dying eyes, or soften her sufferings by a tributary tear; forlorn, destitute, and deserted, the heroine of this eventful history expires! her premature death, brought on by a licentious life, seven years of which had been devoted to debauchery and dissipation, and attended by consequent infamy, misery, and disease. The whole story affords a valuable lesson to the young and inexperienced, and proves this great, this important truth, thatA DEVIATION FROM VIRTUE IS A DEPARTURE FROM HAPPINESS.

The emaciated appearance of the dying figure, the boy's thoughtless inattention, and the rapacious, unfeeling eagerness of the old nurse, are naturally and forcibly delineated.

The figures are well grouped; the curtain gives depth, and forms a good back-ground to the doctor's head; the light is judiciously distributed, and each accompaniment highly appropriate.

THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS. PLATE 5. EXPIRES WHILE THE DOCTORS ARE DISPUTING.THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS.PLATE 5.EXPIRES WHILE THE DOCTORS ARE DISPUTING.

"No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear,Pleas'd thy pale ghost, or grac'd thy mournful bier:By harlots' hands thy dying eyes were clos'd;By harlots' hands thy decent limbs compos'd;By harlots' hands thy humble grave adorn'd;By harlots honour'd, and by harlots mourn'd."

The adventures of our heroine are now concluded. She is no longer an actor in her own tragedy; and there are those who have considered this print as a farce at the end of it: but surely such was not the author's intention.

The ingenious writer of Tristram Shandy begins the life of his hero before he is born; the picturesque biographer of Mary Hackabout has found an opportunity to convey admonition, and enforce his moral, after her death. A wish usually prevails, even among those who are most humbled by their own indiscretion, that some respect should be paid to their remains; that their eyes should be closed by the tender hand of a surviving friend, and the tear of sympathy and regret shed upon the sod which covers their grave; that those who loved them living, should attend their last sad obsequies; and a sacred character read over them the awful service which our religion ordains, with the solemnity it demands. The memory of this votary of prostitution meets with no such marks of social attention, or pious respect. The preparations for her funeral are as licentious as the progress of her life, and the contagion of her example seems to reach all who surround her coffin. One of them is engaged in the double trade of seduction and thievery; a second is contemplating her own face in a mirror. The female who is gazing at the corpse, displays some marks of concern, and feels a momentary compunction at viewing the melancholy scene before her: but if any other part of the company are in a degree affected, it is a mere maudlin sorrow, kept up by glasses of strong liquor. The depraved priest does not seem likely to feel for the dead that hope expressed in our liturgy. The appearance and employment of almost every one present at this mockery of woe, is such as must raise disgust in the breast of any female who has the least tincture of delicacy, and excite a wish that such an exhibition may not be displayed at her own funeral.

In this plate there are some local customs which mark the manners of the times when it was engraved, but are now generally disused, except in some of the provinces very distant from the capital; sprigs of rosemary were then given to each of the mourners: to appear at a funeral without one, was as great an indecorum as to be without a whitehandkerchief. This custom might probably originate at a time when the plague depopulated the metropolis, and rosemary was deemed an antidote against contagion. It must be acknowledged that there are also in this print some things which, though they gave the artist an opportunity of displaying his humour, are violations of propriety and customs: such is her child, but a few removes from infancy, being habited as chief mourner, to attend his parent to the grave; rings presented, and an escutcheon hung up, in a garret, at the funeral of a needy prostitute. The whole may be intended as a burlesque upon ostentatious and expensive funerals, which were then more customary than they are now. Mr. Pope has well ridiculed the same folly;

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