"Judgments are prepared for scorners, and stripes for the back of
fools."--PROVERBS XIX. 29.
[Illustration: INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS, PLATE III.]
While the industrious and sedate apprentice is engaged in such
exercises as mend the heart and improve the understanding; while
properly devoting the seventh day to the praise of his Creator, he
attends divine service, returns thanks for the blessings he enjoys,
and prays for their continuance, an inmate of the same house, about
the same age, and of the same rank in society, who might have
participated in all his advantages, is stretched upon a grave-stone
in the churchyard, and gambling with a group of mendicants. Their
amusement seems to be the favourite old English game of hustle-cap,
and our idle and unprincipled youth is endeavouring to cheat, by
concealing some of the halfpence under the broad brim of his hat.
This is perceived by the shoeblack, and warmly resented by the
fellow with the black patch over his eye, who loudly insists on the
hats being fairly removed. The eager anxiety which marks these mean
gamblers is equal to that of two peers playing for an estate. The
latter could not have more solicitude for the turn of a die which
was to determine who was the proprietor of ten thousand acres, than
is displayed in the countenance of Mr. Thomas Idle. Their debate
has been loud, and their attention is so much engrossed, that they
have not heard the cautious steps of a beadle, who seems likely
to terminate the dispute by a smart stroke from his rattan, which
is aimed with apparent goodwill at the back of our disciple of
indolence. His three associates are of the lowest order; among them
is a half-naked shoeblack. Like his companion, with one hand lifted
up to his head, he is disturbing part of that clan who have been
always distinguished for their tenacious adherence to the slothful.
The tombstone--inscribed, "Here lies the body of"--applies very
well to the young gentleman who, in an attitude highly expressive
of idleness, is recumbent upon it. Even the skulls, on the ground
near the new-opened grave, have character. These, with the other
mementos of mortality, are indiscriminately scattered on the earth,
and trampled upon by the most contemptible survivors. "How rich, how
honoured once, avails them not."
The figures in this print are well grouped, and the countenances of
the gamblers and beadle admirably marked.