"Reproach, scorn, infamy, and hate,
On all thy future steps shall wait;
Thy form be loathed by every eye,
And every foot thy presence fly."
[Illustration: THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS, PLATE III.]
We here see this child of misfortune fallen from her high estate! Her
magnificent apartment is quitted for a dreary lodging in the purlieus
of Drury Lane: she is at breakfast, and every object exhibits marks
of the most wretched penury; her silver tea-kettle is changed for
a tin-pot, and her highly-decorated toilet gives place to an old
leaf-table, strewed with the relics of the last night's revel, and
ornamented with a broken looking-glass. Around the room are scattered
tobacco-pipes, gin measures, and pewter pots,--emblems of the habits
of life into which she is initiated, and the company which she now
keeps: this is further intimated by the wig-box of James Dalton, a
notorious street-robber, who was afterwards executed. In her hand
she displays a watch, which might be either presented to her, or
stolen from her last night's gallant. By the nostrums which ornament
the broken window, we see that poverty is not her only evil. The
dreary and comfortless appearance of every object in this wretched
receptacle, the bit of butter on a piece of paper,[54] the candle
in a bottle, the basin upon a chair, the punch-bowl and comb upon
the table, and the tobacco-pipes, etc. strewed upon the unswept
floor, give an admirable picture of the style in which this pride
of Drury Lane ate her matin meal. The pictures which ornament the
room are, Abraham offering up Isaac, and a portrait of the Virgin
Mary; Dr. Sacheverell[55] and Macheath the highwayman are companion
prints. There is some whimsicality in placing the two ladies under
a canopy,[56] formed by the unnailed valance of the bed, and
characteristically crowned by the wig-box of a highwayman.
A magistrate,[57] cautiously entering the room with his attendant
constables, commits her to an house of correction, where our
legislators wisely suppose, that being confined to the improving
conversation of her associates in vice, must have a powerful tendency
towards the reformation of her manners!