DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61480#0025
THE RAKE'S PROGRESS.
17
PLATE IV.
ARRESTED FOR DEBT.
" 0, vanity of youthful blood,
So by misuse to poison good!
Reason awakes, and views unbarr'd
The sacred gates he wish'd to guard;
Approaching, see the harpy Law,
And Poverty, with icy paw,
Ready to seize the poor remains
That vice has left of all his gains.
Cold penitence, lame after-thought,
With fear, despair, and horror fraught,
Call back his guilty pleasures dead,
Whom he hath wrong'd, and whom betray'd."
The career of dissipation is here stopped. Dressed in the first style of the ton,
and getting out of a sedan-chair, with the hope of shining in the circle, and perhaps
forwarding a former application for a place or a pension, he is arrested! To intimate
that being plundered is the certain consequence of such an event, and to shew how
closely one misfortune treads upon the heels of another, a boy is at the same moment
stealing his cane.
The unfortunate girl whom he basely deserted, is now a milliner, and naturally
enough attends in the crowd, to mark the fashions of the day. Seeing his distress,
with all the eager tenderness of unabated love, she flies to his relief. Possessed of a
small sum of money, the hard earnings of unremitted industry, she generously offers
her purse for the liberation of her worthless favourite. This releases the captive
beau, and displays a strong instance of female affection ; which, being once planted in
the bosom, is rarely eradicated by the coldest neglect, or harshest cruelty.
The high-born, haughty Welshman, with an enormous leek, and a countenance
keen and lofty as his native mountains, establishes the chronology, and fixes the day to
be the first of March ; which being sacred to the titular saint of Wales, was observed
at court.
Mr. Nichols remarks of this plate:—“ In the early impressions, a shoe-black steals the Rake's cane.
In the modern ones, a large group of sweeps, and black-shoe boys, are introduced gambling on the
pavement; near them a stone inscribed Black's, a contrast to White's gaming-house, against which
a flash of lightning is pointed. The curtain in the window of the sedan-chair is thrown back.
This plate is likewise found in an intermediate state ; the sky being made unnaturally obscure, with an
attempt to introduce a shower of rain, and lightning very aukwardly represented. It is supposed to
be a first proof after the insertion of the group of blackguard gamesters; the window of the chair
being only marked for an alteration that was afterwards made in it. Hogarth appears to have so far
5
17
PLATE IV.
ARRESTED FOR DEBT.
" 0, vanity of youthful blood,
So by misuse to poison good!
Reason awakes, and views unbarr'd
The sacred gates he wish'd to guard;
Approaching, see the harpy Law,
And Poverty, with icy paw,
Ready to seize the poor remains
That vice has left of all his gains.
Cold penitence, lame after-thought,
With fear, despair, and horror fraught,
Call back his guilty pleasures dead,
Whom he hath wrong'd, and whom betray'd."
The career of dissipation is here stopped. Dressed in the first style of the ton,
and getting out of a sedan-chair, with the hope of shining in the circle, and perhaps
forwarding a former application for a place or a pension, he is arrested! To intimate
that being plundered is the certain consequence of such an event, and to shew how
closely one misfortune treads upon the heels of another, a boy is at the same moment
stealing his cane.
The unfortunate girl whom he basely deserted, is now a milliner, and naturally
enough attends in the crowd, to mark the fashions of the day. Seeing his distress,
with all the eager tenderness of unabated love, she flies to his relief. Possessed of a
small sum of money, the hard earnings of unremitted industry, she generously offers
her purse for the liberation of her worthless favourite. This releases the captive
beau, and displays a strong instance of female affection ; which, being once planted in
the bosom, is rarely eradicated by the coldest neglect, or harshest cruelty.
The high-born, haughty Welshman, with an enormous leek, and a countenance
keen and lofty as his native mountains, establishes the chronology, and fixes the day to
be the first of March ; which being sacred to the titular saint of Wales, was observed
at court.
Mr. Nichols remarks of this plate:—“ In the early impressions, a shoe-black steals the Rake's cane.
In the modern ones, a large group of sweeps, and black-shoe boys, are introduced gambling on the
pavement; near them a stone inscribed Black's, a contrast to White's gaming-house, against which
a flash of lightning is pointed. The curtain in the window of the sedan-chair is thrown back.
This plate is likewise found in an intermediate state ; the sky being made unnaturally obscure, with an
attempt to introduce a shower of rain, and lightning very aukwardly represented. It is supposed to
be a first proof after the insertion of the group of blackguard gamesters; the window of the chair
being only marked for an alteration that was afterwards made in it. Hogarth appears to have so far
5