DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61480#0031
THE RAKE's PROGRESS.
23
PLATE VIL
PRISON
SCENE.
" Happy the man whose constant thought,
(Though in the school of hardship taught,)
Can send remembrance back to fetch
Treasures from life's earliest stretch;
Who, self-approving, can review
Scenes of past virtues, which shine through
The gloom of age, and cast a ray
To gild the evening of his day!
Not so the guilty wretch confined:
No pleasures meet his conscious mind;
No blessings brought from early youth.
But broken faith, and wrested truth;
Talents idle and unused,
And every trust of Heaven abused.
In seas of sad reflection lost,
From horrors still to horrors toss'd,
Reason the vessel leaves to steer,
And gives the helm to mad Despair."
By a very natural transition Mr. Hogarth has passed his hero from a gaming
house into a prison—the inevitable consequence of extravagance. He is here repre-
sented in a most distressing situation, without a coat to his back, without money,
without a friend to help him. Beggared by a course of ill-luck, the common attendant
on the gamester, having first made away with every valuable he was master of, and
having now no other resource left to retrieve his wretched circumstances, he at last,
vainly promising himself success, commences author, and attempts, though inadequate to
the task, to write a play, which is lying on the table, just returned with an answer from the
manager of the theatre, to whom he had offered it, that his piece would by no means
do. Struck speechless with this disastrous occurrence, all his hopes vanish, and his most
sanguine expectations are changed into dejection of spirit. To heighten his distress,
he is approached by his wife, and bitterly upbraided for his perfidy in concealing from
her his former connexions (with that unhappy girl who is here present with her child,
the innocent offspring of her amours, fainting at the sight of his misfortunes, being
unable to relieve him farther), and plunging her into those difficulties she never shall be
able to surmount. To add to his misery, we see the under-turnkey pressing him for
his prison fees, or garnish-money, and the boy refusing to leave the beer he ordered,
without being first paid for it. Among those assisting the fainting mother, one of
whom we observe clapping her hand, another applying the drops, is a man crusted
over, as it were, with the rust of a gaol, supposed to have started from his dream, hav-
ing been disturbed by the noise at a time when he was settling some affairs of state ;
to have left his great plan unfinished, and to have hurried to the assistance of distress.
We are told, by the papers falling from his lap, one of which contains a scheme for pay-
ing the national debt, that his confinement is owing to that itch of politics some
persons are troubled with, who will neglect their own affairs, in order to busy them-
23
PLATE VIL
PRISON
SCENE.
" Happy the man whose constant thought,
(Though in the school of hardship taught,)
Can send remembrance back to fetch
Treasures from life's earliest stretch;
Who, self-approving, can review
Scenes of past virtues, which shine through
The gloom of age, and cast a ray
To gild the evening of his day!
Not so the guilty wretch confined:
No pleasures meet his conscious mind;
No blessings brought from early youth.
But broken faith, and wrested truth;
Talents idle and unused,
And every trust of Heaven abused.
In seas of sad reflection lost,
From horrors still to horrors toss'd,
Reason the vessel leaves to steer,
And gives the helm to mad Despair."
By a very natural transition Mr. Hogarth has passed his hero from a gaming
house into a prison—the inevitable consequence of extravagance. He is here repre-
sented in a most distressing situation, without a coat to his back, without money,
without a friend to help him. Beggared by a course of ill-luck, the common attendant
on the gamester, having first made away with every valuable he was master of, and
having now no other resource left to retrieve his wretched circumstances, he at last,
vainly promising himself success, commences author, and attempts, though inadequate to
the task, to write a play, which is lying on the table, just returned with an answer from the
manager of the theatre, to whom he had offered it, that his piece would by no means
do. Struck speechless with this disastrous occurrence, all his hopes vanish, and his most
sanguine expectations are changed into dejection of spirit. To heighten his distress,
he is approached by his wife, and bitterly upbraided for his perfidy in concealing from
her his former connexions (with that unhappy girl who is here present with her child,
the innocent offspring of her amours, fainting at the sight of his misfortunes, being
unable to relieve him farther), and plunging her into those difficulties she never shall be
able to surmount. To add to his misery, we see the under-turnkey pressing him for
his prison fees, or garnish-money, and the boy refusing to leave the beer he ordered,
without being first paid for it. Among those assisting the fainting mother, one of
whom we observe clapping her hand, another applying the drops, is a man crusted
over, as it were, with the rust of a gaol, supposed to have started from his dream, hav-
ing been disturbed by the noise at a time when he was settling some affairs of state ;
to have left his great plan unfinished, and to have hurried to the assistance of distress.
We are told, by the papers falling from his lap, one of which contains a scheme for pay-
ing the national debt, that his confinement is owing to that itch of politics some
persons are troubled with, who will neglect their own affairs, in order to busy them-