Going out one Sunday with some companions to Highgate, they went into an inn, where they had not been long, before a quarrel arose between some persons in the same room. One of the disputants struck the other on the head with a quart pot, which cut him badly, and the blood ran down his face freely. This, with the contortions of his countenance, afforded a striking object to Hogarth, who drew out his pencil and sketched the scene. It will be sufficient for the present purpose to note the part which drink plays in his _Marriage à la Mode_, the _Rake’s Progress_, and in two miscellaneous Plates. In the first mentioned, Counsellor Silvertongue begins his vile work of ensnaring the Viscountess by offering her a glass of light wine at an interval between the dances. Plate ii. represents the Viscount returning home the day after the entertainment. His appearance denotes that he has been involved in some drunken fray. Plate vi. depicts ‘sin when it is finished,’ the suicide of the beguiled Viscountess by means of laudanum. Plate iii. of the _Rake’s Progress_ illustrates the ‘orgie at the Rose Tavern.’ Young Rakewell is lavishly expending his money in plying with drink the caressing courtesans. He himself becomes intoxicated, and is of course robbed of his watch and jewellery; one of the wretched women, in a fit of rage, sets fire to a map of the world, swearing that she will burn the entire globe and herself with it. The reflections of the morrow can be easily imagined. In _Gin Lane_, the artist portrays a loathsome neighbourhood, the presiding genius of which is _gin_. To procure it no means are left untried. Every article of domestic comfort, even to the meanest shred of raiment, is carried to the pawnbroker for the wherewithal to purchase gin. The influence of this fire-water is everywhere apparent; in the ruined dwellings, in the sickly looks, in the emaciated frames, trembling limbs, carious teeth, livid lips, and sunken eyes. The very children in that region are habituated from the cradle to love gin. The one house that thrives is that of the pawnbroker. The details are agonising! a child ravenous, gnawing a bare bone, which a dog, equally the victim of famine, is snatching from him. A woman is seen pouring a dram down the throat of an infant. In a ruined house, the corpse of a hanging suicide is displayed. A drunken object is drawn, in female shape, whose legs have broken out in horrible ulcers, and who is taking snuff, regardless of her child slipping from her arms into the low area of the gin vault. Gin too has killed the female whom we see two men placing in a shell by order of the beadle, while the orphan child is being conveyed to the Union. Well did the Reverend James Townley underwrite:-- Gin, cursed fiend! with fury fraught, Makes human race a prey; It enters by a deadly draught And steals our life away.