Hogarth's Works, with life and anecdotal descriptions of his pictures. Volume 1 (of 3)Ireland, John
General
Hogarth's Works, with life and anecdotal descriptions of his pictures. Volume 1 (of 3)
Ireland, John
Hogarth, William, 1697-1764
A picture of general, and, at this awful moment, indecent confusion,
is admirably represented. The noise of two enraged quacks disputing
in bad English, the harsh vulgar scream of the maid-servant,
the table falling, and the pot boiling over, must produce a
combination of sounds dreadful and dissonant to the ear. In this
pitiable situation, without a friend to close her dying eyes or
soften her sufferings by a tributary tear,--forlorn, destitute,
and deserted,--the heroine of this eventful history expires; her
premature death brought on by a licentious life, seven years of
which had been devoted to debauchery and dissipation, and attended
by consequent infamy, misery, and disease. The whole story affords
a valuable lesson to the young and inexperienced, and proves this
great, this important truth, that A DEVIATION FROM VIRTUE IS A
DEPARTURE FROM HAPPINESS.
The emaciated appearance of the dying figure, the boy's thoughtless
inattention, and the rapacious, unfeeling eagerness of the old nurse,
are naturally and forcibly delineated.
The figures are well grouped; the curtain gives depth, and forms
a good background to the doctor's head; the light is judiciously
distributed, and each accompaniment highly appropriate.
PLATE VI.
"No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear,
Pleas'd thy pale ghost, or grac'd thy mournful bier:
By harlots' hands thy dying eyes were clos'd;
By harlots' hands thy decent limbs compos'd;
By harlots' hands thy humble grave adorn'd;
By harlots honoured, and by harlots mourn'd."
[Illustration: THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS, PLATE VI.]
The adventures of our heroine are now concluded. She is no longer an
actor in her own tragedy; and there are those who have considered
this print as a farce at the end of it: but surely such was not the
author's intention.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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