"The wearied rustic now the flail suspends, And the drum's thunder all the region rends; Where erst the reapers sung their Harvest Home, The martial trumpet echoes through the dome; Remov'd, the chaff-dispersing, winnowing fly, Lo! the Norwegian banners flout the sky:[145] Where perch'd the moping owl, we now behold The Roman eagle wave his wings in gold; And where the circling bat each night was seen, Medea's dragons draw their barbarous queen: On that oak floor, once pil'd with sheaves of corn, See Juliet's bier in sad procession borne; Where the sleek rat was wont to pilfer grain, The fiery Tibbald falls, and Hamlet's slain! And where each night the cunning weazel crept, Richard has roar'd, and Desdemona wept."--E. [Illustration: STROLLING ACTRESSES DRESSING IN A BARN.] Mr. Horace Walpole thinks that this print, for wit and imagination, without any other end, ought to be ranked as the first of Hogarth's works; and Rouquet, in the only mention he makes of it, says: "Les comédiens de campagne sont représentés dans une grange, au milieu d'un mélange ridicule de misere et de pompe théatrale, se préparant à jouer une tragédie." The scene is laid in a barn,[146] and intended to represent the state dressing-room of a strolling company. Here at one hour the gallant Hotspur laces on his leathern armour, and at another the lively Beatrice laces on her stays. The time is evening, and the actors from the London theatres are preparing to perform a farce, which, by the play-bill, is declared to be _The Devil to pay in Heaven_. The _dramatis personæ_ are principally deities, and deities of the first order. On the bill are the names of Jupiter, Juno, Diana, Flora, Night, Siren, Aurora, Eagle, Cupid, two devils, a ghost, and attendants. To this divine catalogue is added rope-dancing, tumbling, etc. The inferior performers are: two musical kittens, a pair of fiery dragons, one Roman eagle, and though last mentioned, not least in consequence, a venerable monkey. Seated upon an inverted wheel-barrow, which may occasionally serve for a triumphal car, a lady, who by her haughty demeanour and imperial crown we know to be the ox-eyed Juno, is majestically stretching out her leg, and pathetically rehearsing her part. Descended from her ebon car, with a sooty face, and star-bespangled robe sweeping the ground, the sable goddess Night is mending her majesty's stocking. The Star of Evening, which sheds its sober light above her head, is apparently formed of a brass instrument used in making pastry. A venerable female, with one eye, who by the dagger in her mantle we conjecture to be the Tragic Muse,[147] is cutting off a cat's tail, in order to extract a sanguine stream for some murderous representation, or that "The mailed Mars may on his altar sit Up to the ears in blood."