Part 6 (2/2)
We here see this child of nificent apart in the purlieus of Drury-lane; she is at breakfast, and every object exhibits marks of the ed for a tin pot, and her highly decorated toilet gives place to an old leaf table, streith the relics of the last night's revel, and ornalass Around the rooin 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 inti-box of James Dalton, a notorious street-robber, as afterwards executed In her hand she displays a watch, which ht's gallant By the nostrums which ornament the broken e 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 orna up Isaac, and a portrait of the Virgin Mary; Dr Sacheverell and Macheath the highwayman, are co the two ladies under a canopy, formed by the unnailed valance of the bed, and characteristically crowned by the wig-box of a highway of Corsica, was so reduced as to lodge in a garret in Dean-street, Soho, a nuentlemen made a collection for his relief The chairman of their co day, at twelve o'clock, two of the society would wait upon his ive his attic apartment an appearance of royalty, the poor monarch placed an ar hiht serve as the representation of a throne When his two visitors entered the rooht have the honour of--kissing it!
Athe room, with his attendant constables, coislators wisely suppose, that being confined to the i 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 In _a View of the Town in 1735_, by T Gilbert, fellow of Peterhouse, Cah laws severe to punish crimes were made, What honest es will exclaim, As harlots tremble at a Gonson's name”
Pope has noticed hiant Latin ode Thus, between the poets and the painter, the na justice, is transmitted to posterity He died on the 9th of January, 1765
[Illustration: THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS
PLATE 3
APPREHENDED BY A MAGISTRATE]
THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS
PLATE IV
With pallid cheek and haggard eye, And loud lah, 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 fereatly aggravated We now see her suffering the chastisement due to her follies; reduced to the wretched alternative of beating hee 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, seeaudy 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 ill 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 ht 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 cri a pocket The torn card aed the dice-box for theup as a coirls 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 wo the penalty of those frailties, which are iling upon the wall, with a pipe in his mouth, is intended as a caricatured portrait of Sir John Gonson, and probably the production of soistrate 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 coh properly subordinate, are sufficiently marked; the lassitude of the principal character, well contrasted by the austerity of the rigid overseer There is a fine cliaudy heroine of our drama, to her maid, and fro 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 Septereat 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 of _habeas corpus_, and was carried before the right honourable the Lord Chief Justice Rayed; but her coht fit to reain to her forown very richly laced with silver”
[Illustration: THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS
PLATE 4
SCENE IN BRIDEWELL]