Had her father been versed in even the first rudiments of physiognomy, he would have prevented her engaging with one of so decided an aspect; for this also is the portrait of a woman infamous in her day:[47] but he, good, easy man, unsuspicious as Fielding's Parson Adams, is wholly engrossed in the contemplation of a superscription to a letter addressed to the bishop of the diocese. So important an object prevents his attending to his daughter, or regarding the devastation occasioned by his gaunt and hungry Rozinante having snatched at the straw that packs up some earthenware, and produced "The wreck of flower-pots, and the crash of pans!" From the inn she is taken to the house of the procuress, divested of her home-spun garb, dressed in the gayest style of the day, and the tender native hue of her complexion encrusted with paint and disguised by patches. She is then introduced to Colonel Chartres, and by artful flattery and liberal promises becomes intoxicated with the dreams of imaginary greatness. A short time convinces her of how light a breath these promises were composed. Deserted by her keeper, and terrified by threats of an immediate arrest for the pompous paraphernalia of prostitution, after being a short time protected by one of the tribe of Levi, she is reduced to the hard necessity of wandering the streets for that precarious subsistence which flows from the drunken rake or profligate debauchee. Here her situation is truly pitiable! Chilled by nipping frost and midnight dew, the repentant tear trickling on her heaving bosom, she endeavours to drown reflection in draughts of destructive poison. This, added to the contagious company of women of her own description, vitiates her mind, eradicates the native seeds of virtue, destroys that elegant and fascinating simplicity which gives additional charms to beauty, and leaves in its place art, affectation, and impudence. Neither the painter of a sublime picture nor the writer of an heroic poem should introduce any trivial circumstances that are likely to draw the attention from the principal figures. Such compositions should form one great whole: minute detail will inevitably weaken their effect. But in little stories which record the domestic incidents of familiar life, these accessory accompaniments, though trifling in themselves, acquire a consequence from their situation; they add to the interest, and realize the scene. In this, as in almost all that were delineated by Mr. Hogarth, we see a close regard paid to things as they then were; by which means his prints become a sort of historical record of the manners of the age.