"When fear cometh as desolation, and their destruction cometh as
a whirlwind: when distress cometh upon them, then they shall call
upon God, but He will not answer."--PROVERBS I. 27, 28.
[Illustration: INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS, PLATE XI.]
After a life of sloth, wretchedness, and vice, the career of our
degraded character terminates at Tyburn. His pale and ghastly look
denotes the remorse and horror of his mind; and it must embitter his
last moments to hear a Grub Street orator proclaim his dying speech.
The ordinary of Newgate leads the procession, but the criminal's
spiritual concerns are left to an enthusiastic follower of John
Wesley, who zealously exhorts him to repentance.[167] On the right
side of the print we see his afflicted mother: her coming to view
this dreadful spectacle does not seem consonant to strict propriety,
but there have been similar examples. In a cart above her is a
curious trio of females; an old beldam, who might have been Sam.
Foote's model for Mother Cole, breathing out a pious ejaculation,
and swallowing a bumper of spirits at the same moment; a young woman
taking a glass from beneath, and a third dissuading a fellow from
ascending the vehicle. While a vendor of gingerbread[168] expatiates
on the excellence of his delicious cakes, a minor pickpocket purloins
his handkerchief. A female grimalkin, enraged at a man oversetting
her orange-barrow, is literally tearing his eyes out. To show the
reverence which an English mob have for anything that bears the
appearance of religion, and the effects which this exhibition has
upon their minds, an inmate of St. Giles' seizes a dog by the tail,
and is on the point of throwing it at the Methodist parson. A female
pugilist, near the centre of the print, is so earnest in punishing
a fellow who has offended her, that she neglects her child, which,
lying on the ground, is probably destined to be crushed to death. A
tall butcher has suspended an old legal periwig on the end of his
cudgel: in this, the artist might intend to display an emblem of
the sanguinary complexion which marks our courts of justice.[169]
The porter, with his pipe; a cripple; the soldier sunk knee-deep
in a bog, and two boys laughing at him, are well imagined. Among
the figures in the background, we must not overlook a gentleman
emphatically called the "Finisher of the law," who sedately smokes
his best Virginia upon the gallows.
A carrier pigeon is despatched at the time the criminal arrives at
Tyburn.[170] Two initials on the coffin, not having been reversed
from the original drawing, are wrong in the print; I. T. instead of
T. I.
In the background we have a view of Highgate and Hampstead hills.
The arch look of a young pickpocket, the savage ferocity of a woman
tearing a fellow's face, and the yell of another crying the dying
speech, are admirably expressed. Many of the smaller figures are full
fraught with character; for the grouping, let us hear Mr. Gilpin,
with whom I entirely agree:--
"We seldom see a crowd more beautifully managed than in this print.
If the sheriff's officers had not been placed in a line, and had been
brought a little lower in the picture, so as to have formed a pyramid
with the cart, the composition had been unexceptionable."--_Gilpin's
Essay._
Two skeletons hanging on the outside of the frame are emblematical;
the body of a murderer being usually consigned to Surgeon's Hall.[171]
The trophies, composed of fetters, whips, and halters, with the
swords, maces, gold chains, etc., with which the framework of the
preceding prints are decorated, must be admitted to be beneath the
dignity of historical painting; but considered as addressed to young
persons, and exhibiting a view of the different consequences of
industry and sloth, are strictly proper.