Chapter 10

The idle apprentice, as appears by this print, is advancing with rapid strides towards his fate. We are to suppose him returned from sea after a long voyage; and to have met with such correction abroad for his obstinacy, during his absence from England, that though it was found insufficient to alter his disposition, yet it determined him to pursue some other way of life; and what he entered on is here but too evident (from the pistols by the bed-side, and the trinkets his companion is examining, in order to strip him of) to be that of the highway. He is represented in a garret, with a common prostitute, the partaker of his infamy, awaking, after a night spent in robbery and plunder, from one of those broken slumbers which are ever the consequences of a life of dishonesty and debauchery. Though the designs of Providence are visible in every thing, yet they are never more conspicuous than in this,--that whatever these unhappy wretches possess by wicked and illegal means, they seldom comfortably enjoy. In this scene we have one of the finest pictures imaginable of the horrors of a guilty conscience. Though the door is fastened in the strongest manner with a lock and two bolts, and with the addition of some planks from the flooring, so as to make his retreat as secure as possible; though he has attempted to drive away thought by the powerful effects of spirituous liquors, plain from the glass and bottle upon the floor, still he is not able to brave out his guilt, or steel his breast against reflection. Behold him roused by the accidental circumstance of a cat's coming down the chimney, and the falling of a few bricks, which he believes to be the noise of his pursuers! Observe his starting up in bed, and all the tortures of his mind imprinted in his face! He first stiffens into stone, then all his nerves and muscles relax, a cold sweat seizes him, his hair stands on end, his teeth chatter, and dismay and horror stalk before his eyes. How different is the countenance of his wretched bed-fellow! in whom unconcern and indifference to every thing but the plunder are plainly apparent. She is looking at an ear-ring, which, with two watches, an etwee, and a couple of rings, are spread upon the bed, as part of last night's plunder. The phials on the mantel-piece show that sickness and disease are ever attendant on prostitution; and the beggarly appearance of the room, its wretched furniture, the hole by way of window, (by the light of which she is examining her valuable acquisition, and against which she had hung her old hoop-petticoat in order to keep out the cold,) and the rat's running across the floor, are just and sufficient indications that misery and want are the constant companions of a guilty life.

INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS.

PLATE VIII.

THE INDUSTRIOUS 'PRENTICE GROWN RICH, AND SHERIFF OF LONDON.

'With all thy gettings get understanding. Exalt her and she shall promote thee; she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her.' Proverbs, chap. iv. verse 7, 8.

From industry become opulent, from integrity and punctuality respectable, our young merchant is now sheriff of London, and dining with the different companies in Guildhall. A group on the left side are admirably characteristic; their whole souls seem absorbed in the pleasures of the table. A divine, true to his cloth, swallows his soup with the highest _goût_. Not less gratified is the gentleman palating a glass of wine. The man in a black wig is a positive representative of famine; and the portly and oily citizen, with a napkin tucked in his button-hole, has evidently burnt his mouth by extreme eagerness.

The backs of those in the distance, behung with bags, major perukes, pinners, &c. are most laughably ludicrous. Every person present is so attentive to business, that one may fairly conclude they live to eat, rather than eat to live.

But though this must be admitted to be the case with this party, the following instance of city temperance proves that there are some exceptions. When the Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, Aldermen, Chamberlain, &c. of the city of London were once seated round the table at a public and splendid dinner at Guildhall, Mr. Chamberlain Wilkes lisped out, "Mr. Alderman B----, shall I help you to a plate of turtle, or a slice of the haunch,--I am within reach of both, sir?" "Neither one nor t'other, I thank you, Sir," replied the Alderman, "I think I shall dine on the beans and bacon which are at this end of the table." "Mr. Alderman A----," continued the Chamberlain, "which would you choose, sir?" "Sir, I will not trouble you for either, for I believe I shall follow the example of my brother B----, and dine on beans and bacon," was the reply. On this second refusal the old Chamberlain rose from his seat, and, with every mark of astonishment in his countenance, curled up the corners of his mouth, cast his eyes round the table, and in a voice as loud and articulate as he was able, called "Silence!" which being obtained, he thus addressed the pretorian magistrate, who sat in the Chair: "My Lord Mayor, the wicked have accused us of intemperance, and branded us with the imputation of gluttony; that they may be put to open shame, and their profane tongues be from this day utterly silenced, I humbly move, that your Lordship command the proper officer to record in our annals, that two Aldermen of the city of London prefer beans and bacon to either turtle soup or venison."

Notwithstanding all this, there are men, who, looking on the dark side, and perhaps rendered splenetic, and soured by not being invited to these sumptuous entertainments, have affected to fear, that their frequent repetition would have a tendency to produce a famine, or at least to check the increase, if not extirpate the species, of those birds, beasts, and fish, with which the tables of the rich are now so plentifully supplied. But these half reasoners do not take into their calculation the number of gentlemen so laudably associated for encouraging cattle being fed so fat that there is no lean left; or that more ancient association, sanctioned and supported by severe acts of parliament, for the preservation of the game. From the exertions of these and similar societies, we may reasonably hope there is no occasion to dread any such calamity taking place; though the Guildhall tables often groaning under such hecatombs as are recorded in the following account, may make a man of weak nerves and strong digestion, shake his head, and shudder a little. "On the 29th October, 1727, when George II. and Queen Caroline honoured the city with their presence at Guildhall, there were 19 tables, covered with 1075 dishes. The whole expense of this entertainment to the city was 4889_l._ 4_s._"

To return to the print;--a self-sufficient and consequential beadle, reading the direction of a letter to Francis Goodchild, Esq. Sheriff of London, has all the insolence of office. The important and overbearing air of this dignified personage is well contrasted by the humble simplicity of the straight-haired messenger behind the bar. The gallery is well furnished with musicians busily employed in their vocation.

Music hath charms to sooth the savage breast, And therefore proper at a sheriff's feast.

Besides a portrait of William the Third, and a judge, the hall is ornamented with a full length of that illustrious hero Sir William Walworth, in commemoration of whose valour the weapon with which he slew Wat Tyler was introduced into the city arms.

INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS.

PLATE IX.

THE IDLE 'PRENTICE BETRAYED BY A PROSTITUTE, AND TAKEN IN A NIGHT CELLAR WITH HIS ACCOMPLICE.

"The adulteress will hunt for precious life." Proverbs, chap. vi. verse 26.

From the picture of the reward of diligence, we return to take a further view of the progress of sloth and infamy; by following the idle 'prentice a step nearer to the approach of his unhappy end. We see him in the third plate herding with the worst of the human species, the very dregs of the people; one of his companions, at that time, being a one-eyed wretch, who seemed hackneyed in the ways of vice. To break this vile connexion he was sent to sea; but, no sooner did he return, than his wicked disposition took its natural course, and every day he lived served only to habituate him to acts of greater criminality. He presently discovered his old acquaintance, who, no doubt, rejoiced to find him so ripe for mischief: with this worthless, abandoned fellow, he enters into engagements of the worst kind, even those of robbery and murder. Thus blindly will men sometimes run headlong to their own destruction.

About the time when these plates were first published, which was in the year 1747, there was a noted house in Chick Lane, Smithfield, that went by the name of the Blood-Bowl House, so called from the numerous scenes of blood that were almost daily carried on there; it being a receptacle for prostitutes and thieves; where every species of delinquency was practised; and where, indeed, there seldom passed a month without the commission of some act of murder. To this subterraneous abode of iniquity (it being a cellar) was our hero soon introduced; where he is now represented in company with his accomplice, and others of the same stamp, having just committed a most horrid act of barbarity, (that of killing a passer-by, and conveying him into a place under ground, contrived for this purpose,) dividing among them the ill-gotten booty, which consists of two watches, a snuff-box, and some other trinkets. In the midst of this wickedness, he is betrayed by his strumpet (a proof of the treachery of such wretches) into the hands of the high constable and his attendants, who had, with better success than heretofore, traced him to this wretched haunt. The back-ground of this print serves rather as a representation of night-cellars in general, those infamous receptacles for the dissolute and abandoned of both sexes, than a further illustration of our artist's chief design; however, as it was Mr. Hogarth's intention, in the history before us, to encourage virtue and expose vice, by placing the one in an amiable light, and exhibiting the other in its most heightened scenes of wickedness and impiety, in hopes of deterring the half-depraved youth of this metropolis, from even the possibility of the commission of such actions, by frightening them from these abodes of wretchedness; as this was manifestly his intention, it cannot be deemed a deviation from the subject. By the skirmish behind, the woman without a nose, the scattered cards upon the floor, &c. we are shown that drunkenness and riot, disease, prostitution, and ruin are the dreadful attendants of sloth, and the general fore-runners of crimes of the deepest die; and by the halter suspended from the ceiling, over the head of the sleeper, we are to learn two things--the indifference of mankind, even in a state of danger, and the insecurity of guilt in every situation.

INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS.

PLATE X.

THE INDUSTRIOUS 'PRENTICE ALDERMAN OF LONDON; THE IDLE ONE BROUGHT BEFORE HIM, AND IMPEACHED BY HIS ACCOMPLICE.

"Thou shalt do no unrighteousness in judgment." Leviticus, chap. xix. verse 15.

"The wicked is snared in the work of his own hands." Psalms, chap. ix. verse 16.

Imagine now this depraved and atrocious youth hand-cuffed, and dragged from his wicked haunt, through the streets to a place of security, amidst the scorn and contempt of a jeering populace; and thence brought before the sitting magistrate, (who, to heighten the scene and support the contrast, is supposed to be his fellow-'prentice, now chosen an alderman,) in order to be dealt with according to law. See him then at last having run his course of iniquity, fallen into the hands of justice, being betrayed by his accomplice; a further proof of the perfidy of man, when even partners in vice are unfaithful to each other. This is the only print among the set, excepting the first, where the two principal characters are introduced; in which Mr. Hogarth has shown his great abilities, as well in description, as in a particular attention to the uniformity and connexion of the whole. He is now at the bar, with all the marks of guilt imprinted on his face. How, if his fear will permit him to reflect, must he think on the happiness and exaltation of his fellow-'prentice on the one hand, and of his own misery and degradation on the other! at one instant, he condemns the persuasions of his wicked companions; at another, his own idleness and obstinacy: however, deeply smitten with his crime, he sues the magistrate, upon his knees, for mercy, and pleads in his cause the former acquaintance that subsisted between them, when they both dwelt beneath the same roof, and served the same common master: but here was no room for lenity, murder was his crime, and death must be his punishment; the proofs are incontestable, and his mittimus is ordered, which the clerk is drawing out. Let us next turn our thoughts upon the alderman, in whose breast a struggle between mercy and justice is beautifully displayed. Who can behold the magistrate, here, without praising the man? How fine is the painter's thoughts of reclining the head on one hand, while the other is extended to express the pity and shame he feels that human nature should be so depraved! It is not the golden chain or scarlet robe that constitutes the character, but the feelings of the heart. To show us that application for favour, by the ignorant, is often idly made to the servants of justice, who take upon themselves on that account a certain state and consequence, not inferior to magistracy, the mother of our delinquent is represented in the greatest distress, as making interest with the corpulent self-swoln constable, who with an unfeeling concern seems to say, "Make yourself easy, for he must be hanged;" and to convince us that bribery will even find its way into courts of judicature, here is a woman feeing the swearing clerk, who has stuck his pen behind his ear that his hands might be both at liberty; and how much more his attention is engaged to the money he is taking, than to the administration of the oath, may be known from the ignorant, treacherous witness being suffered to lay his left hand upon the book; strongly expressive of the sacrifice, even of sacred things, to the inordinate thirst of gain.

From Newgate (the prison to which he was committed; where, during his continuance he lay chained in a dismal cell, deprived of the cheerfulness of light, fed upon bread and water, and left without a bed to rest on) the prisoner was removed to the bar of judgment, and condemned to die by the laws of his country.

INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS.

PLATE XI.

THE IDLE 'PRENTICE EXECUTED AT TYBURN.

"When fear cometh as desolation, and their destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress cometh upon them, then shall they call upon God, but he will not answer." Proverbs, chapter i. verse 7, 8.

Thus, after a life of sloth, wretchedness, and vice, does our delinquent terminate his career. Behold him, on the dreadful morn of execution, drawn in a cart (attended by the sheriff's officers on horseback, with his coffin behind him) through the public streets to Tyburn, there to receive the just reward of his crimes,--a shameful ignominious death. The ghastly appearance of his face, and the horror painted on his countenance, plainly show the dreadful situation of his mind; which we must imagine to be agitated with shame, remorse, confusion, and terror. The careless position of the Ordinary at the coach window is intended to show how inattentive those appointed to that office are of their duty, leaving it to others, which is excellently expressed by the itinerant preacher in the cart, instructing from a book of Wesley's. Mr. Hogarth has in this print, digressing from the history and moral of the piece, taken an opportunity of giving us a humorous representation of an execution, or a Tyburn Fair: such days being made holidays, produce scenes of the greatest riot, disorder, and uproar; being generally attended by hardened wretches, who go there, not so much to reflect upon their own vices, as to commit those crimes which must in time inevitably bring them to the same shameful end. In confirmation of this, see how earnestly one boy watches the motions of the man selling his cakes, while he is picking his pocket; and another waiting to receive the booty! We have here interspersed before us a deal of low humour, but such as is common on occasions like this. In one place we observe an old bawd turning up her eyes and drinking a glass of gin, the very picture of hypocrisy; and a man indecently helping up a girl into the same cart; in another, a soldier sunk up to his knees in a bog, and two boys laughing at him, are well imagined. Here we see one almost squeezed to death among the horses; there, another trampled on by the mob. In one part is a girl tearing the face of a boy for oversetting her barrow; in another, a woman beating a fellow for throwing down her child. Here we see a man flinging a dog among the crowd by the tail; there a woman crying the dying speech of Thomas Idle, printed the day before his execution; and many other things too minute to be pointed out: two, however, we must not omit taking notice of, one of which is the letting off a pigeon, bred at the gaol, fly from the gallery, which hastes directly home; an old custom, to give an early notice to the keeper and others, of the turning off or death of the criminal; and that of the executioner smoking his pipe at the top of the gallows, whose position of indifference betrays an unconcern that nothing can reconcile with the shocking spectacle, but that of use having rendered his wretched office familiar to him; whilst it declares a truth, which every character in this plate seems to confirm, that a sad and distressful object loses its power of affecting by being frequently seen.

INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS.

PLATE XII.

THE INDUSTRIOUS 'PRENTICE LORD MAYOR OF LONDON.

"Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and honour." Proverbs, chap. iii. ver. 16.

Having seen the ignominious end of the idle apprentice, nothing remains but to represent the completion of the other's happiness; who is now exalted to the highest honour, that of Lord Mayor of London; the greatest reward that ancient and noble city can bestow on diligence and integrity. Our artist has here, as in the last plate, given a loose to his humour, in representing more of the low part of the Lord Mayor's show than the magnificent; yet the honour done the city, by the presence of the Prince and Princess of Wales, is not forgotten. The variety of comic characters in this print serves to show what generally passes on such public processions as these, when the people collect to gratify their childish curiosity, and indulge their wanton disposition, or natural love of riot. The front of this plate exhibits the oversetting of a board, on which some girls had stood, and represents them sprawling upon the ground; on the left, at the back of the scaffold, is a fellow saluting a fair nymph, and another enjoying the joke: near him is a blind man straggled in among the crowd, and joining in the general halloo: before him is a militia-man, so completely intoxicated as not to know what he is doing; a figure of infinite humour. Though Mr. Hogarth has here marked out two or three particular things, yet his chief intention was to ridicule the city militia, which was at this period composed of undisciplined men, of all ages, sizes, and height; some fat, some lean, some tall, some short, some crooked, some lame, and in general so unused to muskets, that they knew not how to carry them. One, we observe, is firing his piece and turning his head another way, at whom the man above is laughing, and at which the child is frightened. The boy on the right, crying, "A full and true account of the ghost of Thomas Idle," which is supposed to have appeared to the Mayor, preserves the connexion of the whole work. The most obtrusive figure in his Lordship's coach is Mr. Swordbearer, in a cap like a reversed saucepan, which this great officer wears on these grand occasions. The company of journeymen butchers, with their marrow-bones and cleavers, appear to be the most active, and are by far the most noisy of any who grace this solemnity. Numberless spectators, upon every house and at every window, dart their desiring eyes on the procession; so great indeed was the interest taken by the good citizens of London in these civic processions that, formerly, it was usual in a London lease to insert a clause, giving a right to the landlord and his friends to stand in the balcony, during the time of "the shows or pastimes, upon the day commonly called the Lord Mayor's Day."

Thus have we seen, by a series of events, the prosperity of the one and the downfall of the other; the riches and honour that crown the head of industry, and the ignominy and destruction that await the slothful. After this it would be unnecessary to say which is the most eligible path to tread. Lay the roads but open to the view, and the traveller will take the right of course; give but the boy this history to peruse, and his future welfare is almost certain.

SOUTHWARK FAIR.

The subject of the plate under consideration is that of the Borough Fair; a fair held some time since in the Borough of Southwark, though now suppressed. This fair was attended, generally, by the inhabitants of town and country, and, therefore, was one that afforded great variety; especially as, before its suppression, it was devoted to every thing loose and irregular. A view of the scene, of which the following print is a faithful representation, will affirm this truth.