Of the expression in this print we cannot speak more highly than it deserves. Every character is marked with its proper and discriminative stamp. It has been said by a very judicious critic,[75] from whom it is not easy to differ without being wrong, that the hero of this history, in the first plate of the series, is unmeaning; and in the second, ungraceful. The fact is admitted; but, for so delineating him, the author is entitled to our praise rather than our censure. Rakewell's whole conduct proves he was a fool, and at that time he had not learned how to perform an artificial character; he therefore looks as he is, unmeaning and uninformed. But in the second plate he is ungraceful--granted. The ill-educated son of so avaricious a father could not have been introduced into very good company; and though, by the different teachers who surround him, it evidently appears that he wishes to assume the character of a gentleman, his internal feelings tell him he has not attained it. Under that consciousness, he is properly and naturally represented as ungraceful and embarrassed in his new situation. The light, it must be acknowledged, is very ill distributed, and the figures most inartificially grouped. To infer from hence, with Mr. Gilpin, that the artist was at a loss how to group them, is not quite fair: his others compositions prove that he was not ignorant of the art, but in many of them he has been inattentive to it. In this he may have introduced in his print figures which were not inserted in the sketch, merely because they were appropriate to his story. The expression of the actors in his drama was always his leading object; composition he considered as secondary, and was little solicitous about their situation on the stage. PLATE III. "O vanity of youthful blood, So by misuse to poison good! Woman, framed for social love, Fairest gift of powers above, Source of every household blessing; All charms in innocence possessing: But, turn'd to vice, all plagues above; Foe to thy being, foe to love! Guest divine, to outward viewing; Ablest minister of ruin! And thou, no less of gift divine, Sweet poison of misused wine! With freedom led to every part, And secret chamber of the heart, Dost thou thy friendly host betray, And show thy riotous gang the way To enter in, with covert treason, O'erthrow the drowsy guard of reason, To ransack the abandoned place, And revel there with wild excess?" [Illustration: THE RAKE'S PROGRESS, PLATE III.]