John Trusler

THE LAUGHING AUDIENCE.

 
"Let him laugh now, who never laugh'd before;
And he who always laugh'd, laugh now the more."

"From the first print that Hogarth engraved, to the last that he published, I do not think," says Mr. Ireland, "there is one, in which character is more displayed than in this very spirited little etching. It is much superior to the more delicate engravings from his designs by other artists, and I prefer it to those that were still higher finished by his own burin.

THE ENRAGED MUSICIAN.

 
"With thundering noise the azure vault they tear,
And rend, with savage roar, the echoing air:
The sounds terrific he with horror hears;
His fiddle throws aside,—and stops his ears."

PLATE V.THE IDLE 'PRENTICE TURNED AWAY AND SENT TO SEA.

 

"A foolish son is the heaviness of his mother." Proverbs, chap. x. verse 1.

GATE OF CALAIS. O, THE ROAST BEEF OF OLD ENGLAND!

 
"'Twas at the gate of Calais, Hogarth tells,
Where sad despair and famine always dwells;
A meagre Frenchman, Madame Grandsire's cook,
As home he steer'd, his carcase that way took,
Bending beneath the weight of famed sirloin,
On whom he often wish'd in vain to dine;
Good Father Dominick by chance came by,

MASQUERADES AND OPERAS.BURLINGTON GATE.

 

This print appeared in 1723. Of the three small figures in the centre the middle one is Lord Burlington, a man of considerable taste in painting and architecture, but who ranked Mr. Kent, an indifferent artist, above his merit. On one side of the peer is Mr. Campbell, the architect; on the other, his lordship's postilion. On a show-cloth in this plate is also supposed to be the portrait of king George II.

PLATE VI.THE INDUSTRIOUS 'PRENTICE OUT OF HIS TIME, AND MARRIED TO HIS MASTER'S DAUGHTER.

 

"The virtuous woman is a crown to her husband." Proverbs, chap. xiii. verse 4.

The Works of William Hogarth

 

by John Trusler

THE POLITICIAN.

 
"A politician should (as I have read)
Be furnish'd in the first place with a head."

MORNING.

 
Keen blows the blast, and eager is the air;
With flakes of feather'd snow the ground is spread;
To step, with mincing pace, to early prayer,
Our clay-cold vestal leaves her downy bed.
And here the reeling sons of riot see,
After a night of senseless revelry.
Poor, trembling, old, her suit the beggar plies;

PLATE VII.THE IDLE 'PRENTICE RETURNED FROM SEA, AND IN A GARRET WITH A COMMON PROSTITUTE.

 

"The sound of a shaken leaf shall chase him." Leviticus, chap. xxvi. verse 26.

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