"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.]
This plate exhibits our licentious prodigal engaged in one of his
midnight festivities: forgetful of the past, and negligent of the
future, he riots in the present. Having poured his libation to
Bacchus, he concludes the evening orgies in a sacrifice at the
Cyprian shrine; and, surrounded by the votaries of Venus, joins in
the unhallowed mysteries of the place. The companions of his revelry
are marked with that easy, unblushing effrontery which belongs to the
servants of all work in the isle of Paphos;--for the maids of honour,
they are not sufficiently elevated.
He may be supposed, in the phrase of the day, to have beat the
rounds, overset a constable, and conquered a watchman, whose staff
and lanthorn he has brought into the room as trophies of his prowess.
In this situation he is robbed of his watch by the girl whose hand
is in his bosom; and, with that adroitness peculiar to an old
practitioner, she conveys her acquisition to an accomplice, who
stands behind the chair.
Two of the ladies are quarrelling; and one of them delicately spouts
wine in the face of her opponent, who is preparing to revenge the
affront with a knife, which, in a posture of threatening defiance,
she grasps in her hand. A third, enraged at being neglected, holds a
lighted candle to a map of the globe, determined to set the world on
fire though she perish in the conflagration! A fourth is undressing.
The fellow bringing in a pewter dish,[76] as part of the apparatus
of this elegant and attic entertainment, a blind harper,[77] a
trumpeter, and a ragged ballad-singer roaring out an obscene song,
completes this motley group.
This design may be a very exact representation of what were then the
nocturnal amusements of a brothel;--so different are the manners of
the year 1805 from those of 1734, that I much question whether a
similar exhibition is now to be seen in any tavern of the metropolis.
That we are less licentious than our predecessors, I dare not affirm;
but we are certainly more delicate in the pursuit of our pleasures.
The room is furnished with a set of Roman emperors,--they are not
placed in their proper order; for in the mad revelry of the evening
this family of frenzy have decollated all of them except Nero; and
his manners had too great a similarity to their own to admit of
his suffering so degrading an insult: their reverence for _virtue_
induced them to spare his head. In the frame of a Cæsar they have
placed the portrait of Pontac, an eminent cook, whose great talents
being turned to heightening sensual rather than mental enjoyments, he
has a much better chance of a votive offering from this company than
would either Vespasian or Trajan.
The shattered mirror, broken wine-glasses, fractured chair and cane;
the mangled fowl, with a fork stuck in its breast, thrown into a
corner, and indeed every accompaniment, shows that this has been a
night of riot without enjoyment, mischief without wit, and waste
without gratification.
With respect to the drawing of the figures in this curious female
coterie, Hogarth evidently intended several of them for beauties; and
of vulgar, uneducated, prostituted beauty, he had a good idea. The
hero of our tale displays all that careless jollity which copious
draughts of maddening wine are calculated to inspire; he laughs the
world away, and bids it pass. The poor dupe without his periwig, in
the background, forms a good contrast of character: he is maudlin
drunk, and sadly sick. To keep up the spirit of unity throughout the
society, and not leave the poor African girl entirely neglected,
she is making signs to her friend the porter, who perceives, and
slightly returns, her love-inspiring glance. This print is rather
crowded,--the subject demanded it should be so; some of the figures
thrown into shade might have helped the general effect, but would
have injured the characteristic expression.