"The prints of Marriage à la Mode, being the latest production of that celebrated Artist who had before obliged the town with several entertaining pieces, have, ever since their publication, been very justly admired; the particular vein of humour, that runs through the whole of his works, is more especially preserved in this. "If the Comic Poet who draws the characters of the age he lives in, by keeping strictly up to their manners in their speeches and expressions; if satirizing vice and encouraging virtue in dialogue, to render it familiar, is always reckoned amongst the liberal arts; and the authors, when dead, dignified with busts and monuments sacred to their memory; sure the master of the pencil, whose traits carry, not only a lively image of the persons and manners, but whose happy genius has found the secret of so disposing the several parts, as to convey a pleasing and instructive moral through the history he represents, may claim a rank in the foremost class, and acquire, if the term is allowable, the appellation of the Dramatic Painter. "The Modish Husband, incapable of relishing the pleasures of true happiness, is here depicted in his full swing of vice, 'till his mistaken conduct drives his wife to be false to his bed, and brings him to a wretched end; killed in revenging the loss of that virtue which he would never cherish. The Lady is equally represented as a true copy of all the fine ladies of the age, who, by indulging their passions, run into all those extravagances, that at last occasion a shameful exit. If the gentlemen of the long robe, who ought to know the consequences, are guilty of committing such a breach of hospitality as is here described, they are properly reprimanded: the penurious Alderman, and the profligate old Nobleman, are a fine contrast; the Quack Doctor, the _Italian_ Singer, &c. are proofs of the Inventor's judgement and distinction, both in high and low life. "Though these images are pleasing to the eye, yet many have complained that they wanted a proper explanation, which we hope will plead an excuse for publication of the following Canto's, as the desire to render these pieces more extensive may atone for the many faults contained in this poem, for which the _Hudibrastic_ style was thought most proper." THE ARGUMENTS. CANTO I. "The joys and plagues that wedlock brings, The Limner paints, the Poet sings; How the old dads weigh either scale, And set their children up to sale; How, void of thought, the Viscount weds The nymph, who such a marriage dreads; And, whilst himself the Fop admires, _M----y_ with love her soul inspires."