Part 7 (1/2)

THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS

PLATE V

With keen reroans, and unavailing tears, This child of ns her breath, And sinks, despondent, in the arms of death

Released from Bridewell,see this victih, 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 respectivepoisoned her The ner, at that time in considerable practice

These disputes, it has been affirular physicians, and a patient has been so unpolite as to die before they could determine on the naree, But how unanimous about the fee!”

While the , and assist her dying mistress, the nurse plunders her trunk of the few poor re a scanty re 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 na as a kind of _memento mori_ to the next inhabitant On the floor lies a paper inscribed ”anodyne necklace,” at that tiainst 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 ad in bad English; the harsh, vulgar screa 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 preht 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, that A DEVIATION FROM VIRTUE IS A DEPARTURE FROM HAPPINESS

The ehtless 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 forht is judiciously distributed, and each accohly appropriate

[Illustration: THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS

PLATE 5

EXPIRES WHILE THE DOCTORS ARE DISPUTING]

THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS

PLATE VI

”No friend's corac'd thyeyes were clos'd; By harlots' hands thy decent lirave 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 Tristrains the life of his hero before he is born; the picturesque biographer of Mary Hackabout has found an opportunity to convey admonition, and enforce histhose 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 syrave; that those who loved the, should attend their last sad obsequies; and a sacred character read over theion 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 seeed in the double trade of seduction and thievery; a second is conte at the corpse, displays somethe melancholy scene before her: but if any other part of the coree affected, it is aliquor 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 ust 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 custoraved, but are now generally disused, except in sos of roseiven to each of the reat an indecoruht probably originate at a tiue depopulated the ion It ed that there are also in this print soave the artist an opportunity of displaying his humour, are violations of propriety and custo habited as chief s 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 sahts attend The wretch who, living, sav'd a candle's end”