from whence the maiden is plunging; his dart is affectedly put aside,
and he is pretending to wipe away a sentimental tear.
Plate 2. _Champagne, Sherry, and Water-Gruel._
Have patience, Death, nor be so cruel
To spoil the sick man's water-gruel.
The verses intended to illustrate this picture of Death's visitations
contain an argument between three friends on the best means of
regulating their lives; the artist has worked out this theory in his
plate. One member of the party assembled, a stout florid old gentleman,
declares his golden rule in life has been to please himself, so he
and his daughter are illustrating his text by drinking full bumpers
of champagne; beside him, sipping his thimblefuls of sherry, is
another theorist, who has passed his days in moderate indulgences.
In an invalid chair beside the fire sits their host, a vaporous
hypochondriac, who has passed his existence in humouring imaginary
ills on a diet of sago and doctor's stuff. His nurse is preparing a
saucepan of gruel, which the _Mortis Imago_, as his convivial friend
has christened him, is preferring to more exhilarating beverages.
Death has stepped in and settled the question as to which of these old
schoolfellows shall last the longest; he has placed his bony hand on
the shoulder of the great patron of doctors, and before departing with
his 'meagre meal' he is giving the friends, who are allowed to survive
for the time being, this piece of gratuitous advice if they would put
off his visits as long as possible:--
Extremes endeavour to forego,
Nor feed too high, nor feed too low.
Plate 3. _The Nursery._
Death rocks the cradle: life is o'er:
The infant sleeps, to wake no more.
This picture may be designated a warning to fashionable mothers. A
fine infant has been 'put out to nurse;' it is evident that the child
would have been better at home. The 'foster mother' is a coarse sloven,
and has neglected her charge for her self-indulgence. The natural
parent, a handsome young woman, dressed in the height of the mode, and
accompanied by friends of quality, has yielded to a sudden impulse to
pay a visit to her offspring. The door of the cottage is opened, and
this is what meets the horrified eyes of the party. The nurse sunk in
a drunken sleep, her head on a cushion, another cushion at her feet, a
flagon of spirits at her elbow and a glass in her hand, and a starved
cat on her chair; the infant's food upset on the floor, the apartment
neglected, a clothes-line and damp linen stretched over the infant's
head, and Death sitting by, grotesquely rocking the cradle, and singing
his mortal lullaby.
No shrieks, no cries will now its slumbers break,
The infant sleeps,--ah, never to awake!
Plate 4. _The Astronomer._
Why, I was looking at the Bear:
But what strange planet see I there!
The astronomer, who from his surroundings would also seem a student
of miscellaneous sciences, is seated in his observatory, deep in the
contemplation of the planets. Grim Death has called to summon the
'learned Senex' hence, and he is playing his victim a final prank.
One evening, as he view'd the sky
Through his best tube with curious eye,
And 'mid the azure wilds of air
Pursu'd the progress of a star,
A figure seem'd to intervene,
Which in the sky he ne'er had seen,
But thought it some new planet given,
To dignify his views of heaven.
'Oh, this will be a precious boon!
Herschel's volcanoes in the Moon
Are nought to this,' old Senex said;
'My fortune is for ever made.'
'It is, indeed,' a voice replied:
The old man heard it, terrified;
And as Fear threw him to the ground,
Through the long tube Death gave the wound.
Plate 5. _The Father of the Family._
The doctors say that you're my booty;
Come, sir, for I must do my duty.
Death, in this picture, has rather a hard tussle for it. His friends,
the learned physicians, who are pocketing their fees, and turning their
backs on their late patient, are hurrying away. Death, with a great
show of force, has seized his victim, still in the pride of manhood,
by the dressing-gown, and is seeking to drag him from the frantic
embraces of those to whom his life is dear. The father and mother are
remonstrating with this merciless abductor; the blooming wife and
infants of the unfortunate are cast down in despair; his sisters have
seized him boldly round the waist, and, one behind the other, are
making a sturdy stand against the fatal messenger; the servants and all
the inmates of the noble mansion have rushed out, and are endeavouring
by their entreaties, or by a show of resistance, to stay the steps of
the tyrant.
Plate 6. _The Fall of Four-in-Hand._
Death can contrive to strike his blows
By overturns and overthrows.
Death has come again, in his irresistible shape, and he has found the
occasion ready to his hand. A dashing charioteer, a man of wealth and
fashion, with a gaily attired female by his side, is tearing along,
eager
to leave behind
The common coursers of the wind,
In more than phaetonic state,
For every horse had won a plate.
But on arriving at a low bridge, which spans a torrent, the blood
horses become unmanageable; the driver sighs for a 'tight postilion,'
and behold on the 'leader' is seated one who will spur the whole team
to destruction; the horses are sent over the narrow bridge, the tall
curricle is capsized, and eternity is instantly opened to the careless
pleasure-seekers.
Plate 7. _Gaffer Goodman._
Another whiff, and all is o'er,
And Gaffer Goodman is no more.
Gaffer Goodman is a selfish sybarite, who has secured a charming
rustic maiden for his wife, as being a proceeding more economical than
engaging a nurse. The gaffer, whose existence is centred on creature
comforts, is seated in his huge easy-chair, under a row of goodly
hams, a provision for the future, before his Brobdingnagian fireplace,
with a cosy nightcap, dressing-gown, and slippers for ease, meditating
over the good things preparing for dinner, his beer jug ready to hand
and warming, sunk in the tranquil enjoyment of his pipe. Another
smoker has, unperceived by the gaffer, planted himself by his side,
burlesquing his enjoyment, and timing his whiffs to the final puff.
The neat and pretty wife, sacrificed to the selfishness of the old
yeoman, is cheerfully spinning her flax at the open window, leaning
through which the artist has introduced a well-favoured youth, her late
sweetheart, discarded by necessity, but soon to be consoled, as the
lady is assuring the lad of her heart.
'When I declare that I'll be true
To Gaffer Goodman, and to you:
And when he does his breath resign,
Be wise--and Strephon, I'll be thine.'
'Then take her, Strephon,' Death replied,
Who smoking sat by Goodman's side:
'Her husband's gone, as you may see,
For his last pipe he smok'd with me.'
Plate 8. _The Urchin Robbers._
O the unconscionable brute!
To murder for a little fruit!
The plate represents a pretty, trimly kept garden, belonging to a
mansion of some pretensions. A group of young marauders have been
stripping the orchard. They are suddenly scared by the apparition
of the gardener, whose person is disclosed over a bush beside his
greenhouses, where, gun in hand, he has been lying in ambush, to teach
his troublesome tormentors a lesson. Some of the marauders have gained
the wall, and are dragging up their comrades. Others are following,
loaded with well-filled bags of plunder; a bigger lad is seized in the
rear by the gardener's dog. The man has no deadly intentions, he merely
wishes to frighten the urchins as a warning; but the grim figure is
lurking undiscovered by his side; the musket is discharged, and to the
affright of the custodian of the fruit, a youth falls lifeless to the
ground. 'Twas not his aim which had wrought this mischief; the whole
affair was pre-arranged by his unperceived companion, with the most
plausible motives, as Death himself confesses.
I drove the boy to scale the wall,
I made th' affrighted robber fall,
I plac'd beneath the pointed stone
That he had crack'd his skull upon.
I've been his best and guardian friend,
And sav'd him from a felon's end:
Scourging and lectures had been vain!
The rascal was a rogue in grain,
And, had I lengthen'd out his date,
The gallows would have been his fate.
You living people oft mistake me,
I'm not so cruel as you make me.
Plate 9. _Death turned Pilot._
The fatal pilot grasps the helm,
And steers the crew to Pluto's realm.
The sea is in a tempest, and the wrecks of two good ships are battling
with the foaming waters. A number of unfortunate creatures are
endeavouring to escape in a longboat, pulled by the rowers with the
vigour of despair; but the struggle for life is cut short; grim Death
has taken his place in the stern, he is exultingly flourishing Time's
hourglass before the horrified survivors, and wilfully steering the
bark to destruction; the head of the boat is dipping beneath the waves,
and a watery grave completes Death's handiwork.
Plate 10. _The Winding-up of the Clock._
No one but me shall set my clock:
He set it, and behold the shock.
The picture represents a general scene of downfall. A stout clergyman
has obstinately insisted on his right to attend to his own timepiece
over the chimney-glass. His fat body has lost its balance, the steps
are overturned, the breakfast table and its equipage are brought to
ruin; the shock, aided by the sly hand of Death in ambush, has upset
his portly wife in her arm-chair, and a general destruction is hinted
of persons and property alike.
Plate 11. _The Family of Children._
'Twere well to spare me two or three
Out of your num'rous family.
In this plate we are introduced to a scene of extensive domestic
felicity; at a breakfast-table is seated the father of a numerous
family, surrounded by fourteen pledges of conjugal affection; another
child is in a nurse's arms, and in the apartment beyond may be
perceived the worthy and prolific partner of his joys, who has lately
presented her husband with their sixteenth infant. Death proposes
to take one or two of these children under his charge, but the good
father will not hear of it. 'Well then, let it be the infant,'
proposes the greedy fiend. 'No, 'twould break the mother's heart!'
'Whom shall I strike then?' Death demands. The benevolent parent can
only suggest 'the nurse.'
Plate 12. _Death's Door._
In this world all our comfort's o'er,
So let us find it at Death's door.
Death's bony person is half thrust through his portals--which lead to
the grave--as he has been disturbed by a boisterous summons thundered
at his gate. He seems quite shocked at the importunities of a crowd of
unfortunates who are clamorous in their demands for instant admittance
to the unknown realms. Madmen, the extremely aged, the gouty, the
bereaved, those afflicted with poverty, disease, scolding wives,
the hungering, cripples, forsaken ones, and a multitude of various
sufferers to whom the buffets of life have proved insupportable, are
supplicating refuge from an unkindly world.
Plate 13. _The Fire._
Let him go on with all his rigs;
We're safe; he'll only burn the pigs.
Death in this plate is represented as a reckless incendiary; he is
flourishing a brace of flaming torches, and is bent on doing all
the mischief within his power. A farmhouse is the object of his
destructiveness; the cattle are escaping, and the family, disturbed
from their slumbers by fire, are huddled together with such articles
as could be secured in a hurried flight when their own lives were
endangered. The unfortunate pigs may count on being roasted, as nothing
can save the farm from the flames.
Plate 14. _The Miser's End._
Old dad at length is grown so kind,
He dies, and leaves his wealth behind.
The miser is laid out prone, half-starved, his stiffening hands are
still grasping bonds, notes, and a bag of money; his body is propped up
by a 'book of interest,' and he has died, without the ease of a bed, on
a mattress placed on the floor of his strong room. His iron boxes and
money chests are opened by Death, who is leading the miser's delighted
heirs into the treasure-chamber, where the bags of wealth, heaps of
coin, and files of securities have banished all remembrance of the
miserable corpse, lately the self-denying hoarder of these superfluous
riches.
Plate 15. _Gretna Green._
Love, spread your wings, I'll not outstrip 'em,
Though Death's behind, he will not clip 'em.
A coach-and-four, driven by two postilions, is speeding off to
Scotland; it contains a fair ward, and a captain, her abductor. This
hopeful pair are eloping to Gretna Green; the ward is escaping from the
house of her old guardian, who had a desire to marry her himself for
her wealth; the baffled and avaricious tyrant is riding his hardest to
overtake the fugitives, who are threatening him with pistols held out
of either window. Death, mounted on a skeleton steed, is riding step
for step with the pursuer, whose horse will presently stumble, the
chase will be over, and the greedy guardian's schemes will be abruptly
brought to an end.
Plate 16. _The Waltz._
By Gar, that horrid, strange buffoon
Cannot keep time to any tune.
A French dancing-master, while playing on the fiddle, is exercising
a pretty and graceful maiden in the dance; the professor is out of
temper with the fair pupil's partner, although the lady seems absorbed
in the excitement of the motion. 'Tis Death waltzing his delicate
victim--entranced and unsuspicious--into a consumption, which will end
in the churchyard.
Plate 17. _Maternal Tenderness._
Thus it appears a pond of water
May prove an instrument of slaughter.
The picture in this instance represents a lake situated in a noble
park. Two youths have been tempted to bathe; one is lifted out of the
water apparently lifeless. His mother, who has been alarmed by the
intelligence of her son's danger, has just arrived, at the instant that
the seemingly dead body is borne to the bank. The sudden shock has
proved too much for nature to withstand. The tender parent falls back
overpowered and unconscious, and Death, with an air of solicitude, is
ready there to catch her falling form in his bony support, since she
has become his charge.
Plate 18. _The Kitchen._
Thou slave to ev'ry gorging glutton,
I'll spit thee like a leg of mutton.
While dinner is just prepared for my lord's table the stout _chef_ and
his attendant myrmidons are thrown into disorder by the appearance of
an unwelcome intruder. Dishes are dropped, everything is forgotten but
personal security. The fat first male cook is the object of Death's
attack, and the grim skeleton, armed with a long roasting spit, is
trampling over the fallen person of a frightened kitchen-maid, and is
proceeding to impale the great _chef_, who is the only person present
that is making a stand against the assassin.
Plate 19. _The Gig._
Away they go, in chaise and one,
Or to undo or be undone.
A sporting tradesman, driving a highly spirited horse, is taking
his lady out for exercise on an excursion. Frightened by a dog, the
mettlesome horse is dashing away distracted; another object, the figure
of Death seated on a milestone, has completed the scare; the steed is
tearing wildly towards the margin of a cliff which overhangs the sea;
the driver is trying to pull up, the reins snap, and he is dashed out
on his head, while his companion leaps off, to fall a corpse at the
feet of the grim figure perched on the milestone.
Plate 20. _The Mausoleum._
Your crabbed dad is just gone home:
And now we look for joys to come.
The heroine of this adventure is an heiress who is loved by a certain
lord, but in spite of the daughter's inclinations and the quality of
the suitor, the crabbed father will neither part with his child nor his
wealth while he retains his place in life. This impediment is removed
in the picture. While the unreasonable parent is hobbling on his
crutches into the entrance of a mausoleum, the door of which Death is
assiduous to open for the reception of his expected visitor, the happy
couple, overjoyed, are walking, locked in a tender embrace, to his
lordship's equipage, at the door of which two footmen are standing in
readiness, while the coachman is waiting to drive the delighted pair to
be married.
Plate 21. _The Courtship._
It is in vain that you decide:
Death claims you as his destin'd bride.
Another fair heiress forms the subject of this fresh whim of Death's
fancy. The lady is what the author terms a 'philosopher in love,' and
she cannot decide to quit her state of independence. A conclave of
her suitors are assembled to argue the marriage question, and, by the
maiden's wish, to allow her a chance of judging by comparison. The
array of aspirants is comprehensive; there is a colonel, a lawyer, a
parson, a doctor, a quaker, and a baronet. Each pretender to her hand
and fortune in turn argues the inducements he has to plead; this done,
it rests with the lady to reply to the respective arguments and examine
their motives. While logically disposing of all their fine persuasions,
the intractable fair is claimed by a suitor who will take no denial.
The reasoning of the arch-enemy is unanswerable:--
She is not fit, strange maid, to wed
With living wight, but with the dead:
I therefore seize her as my bride.
Belinda trembled, gasp'd, and died.
Plate 22. _The Toastmaster._
'The end of life,' the chairman cries;
'Tis drank--and many a toper dies.
A scene of gross intoxication is proceeding. A convivial company is
assembled; the effort of every individual's ambition is apparently the
downfall of his neighbour by successive toasts; bowl succeeds bowl, and
half the assembly are _hors de combat_. A new chairman has, uninvited,
installed himself at the head of the table, and he is making the liquor
circulate with such hearty goodwill that the topers have received him,
in spite of his repellant exterior, as one of themselves. Death has
ordered in fresh supplies of steaming punch, which he is ladling out
to the fascinated tipplers; it is the final toast, and no one dares
refuse to pledge it. 'One bumper more,' and the jovial meeting will be
dissolved for ever.
Plate 23. _The Careless and the Careful._
The careful and the careless led
To join the living and the dead.
The picture introduces us to the gate of Vauxhall Gardens; the
light-hearted visitors are quitting the entertainment. The wise virgins
are carefully wrapped up with cloaks, hoods, scarves, and muffs, and
duly lighted home by cautious guardians carrying lanterns. In the
foreground the foolish revellers are portrayed. They have left the
heated dancing room in their light attire; a couple of giddy maidens,
who are too careless to wait for their coach, are skipping off into
the damp and chilling atmosphere without a wrapper, their thin
dresses blowing in the wind, and running home under the escort of a
gallant major. Death, with a jaunty cap on his head, and muffled in
a cloak which disguises his ghostly frame, is dancing before, a very
'will-o'-the-wisp,' dangling about a flickering lantern, a dangerous
guide whom they fail to recognise.
'Twas Death, alas, who lit them home,
And the fools' frolic seal'd their doom.
Plate 24. _The Law Overthrown._
The serjeant's tongue will cease to brawl
In every court of yonder Hall.
A busy lawyer, hastening away from Westminster Hall, where he has
been exercising his lungs, has jumped into a chariot without noticing
the driver on the box-seat. In this case Death is officiating as
charioteer; he is whipping his horses with a vengeance. The serjeant's
coach is endangering the life of a brother counsel, a dog is running
between the frightened barrister's legs, and his end seems imminent.
Death has chosen to wreck the carriage over a pile of stones and a
heavily-loaded wheelbarrow which the paviours have left in the course
of road-mending. The serjeant, brief in hand, is thrusting his angry
face through the front of the capsizing vehicle, vehemently threatening
penalties and vowing to bring an action against his coachman.
Fate to the stones his head applies;
The action's brought--the serjeant dies.
Plate 25. _The Fortune-teller._
All fates he vow'd to him were known,
And yet he could not tell his own.
In this instance we are introduced to the 'chamber of mystery' of
a pretended fortune-teller. The empiric seer is surrounded by the
paraphernalia of his profession; a crocodile is suspended to the
ceiling, above a mystic string of orbs, and the globes have an uncanny
black cat perched thereon, a witch at the least. Two credulous ladies
of fashion have called to consult the pretentious impostor, who
rejoices in the fur cap, flowing robes, long beard, and divining rod of
a magician; a book of nativities is open before him:--'To me all fates,
all fortunes known;' to which Death retorts, in hollow voice: 'Vain
boaster, tell your own.' A greater conjuror is present concealed behind
Merlin's seat; a jerk, and the wizard is no longer above deception; he
is overturned, his neck is broken amidst the wreck of his mummeries
scattered around.
Plate 26. _The Lottery Office._
To trust to fortune's smiles alone,
Is the high road to be undone.
The evil of permitting lotteries, which were still in existence and
flourishing at the time this plate was projected, is set forth in
a graphic design. A crowd of needy adventurers have hurried to the
lottery office, eager to know if fortune has assigned them lucky
numbers. Jews, misers, and all sorts of gamblers, including a mob of
hardy rogues who have purloined their employers' property to tempt the
smiles of the fickle goddess, are darting from the office in dismay.
An unlucky female, who has ventured her all, and even risked the means
and belongings of others on the chance of winning a prize, has come to
inquire her fate. The grim foe has exultingly taken his place among the
clerks; he is holding out two blanks with an air of fiendish malice,
and the shock is proving a deathblow to the unfortunate fair gambler,
she is expiring in the office.
Plate 27. _The Prisoner Discharged._
Death, without either bribe or fee,
Can set the hopeless pris'ner free.
Death in this case is still shown interfering with the course of
others' business. The picture represents a debtors' prison; a wife and
two daughters have come to visit an unhappy captive, the head of the
family, who is detained by a relentless creditor. They just arrive in
time to see their relative released beyond the resistance of mortal
detainers. The deadly foe has called at the gate, the prisoner is
summoned forth, warders and turnkeys dare not refuse to let him free
in such company. A mortified Shylock and his disappointed lawyer are
furiously pointing to their bonds, and dancing with rage to find their
ends defeated by the grim joker, who is grinning at their manifest
discomfiture.
Plate 28. _The Gallants Downfall._
Th' assailant does not feel a wound,
But yet he dies--for he is drown'd.
A military Don Juan is the unfortunate hero of this adventure. He loves
the beauteous daughter of a fire-eating superannuated colonel, Full of
romantic gallantry, he has planted a ladder at his mistress's window,
and is mounting nimbly where Cupid invites him, without observing the
grim figure which has hold of his scaling-ladder. The sturdy colonel,
awakened by the unaccustomed and suspicious sounds in his grounds, has
fired his evening gun into the darkness, at most expecting to startle
the cats. Death capsizes the ladder, the youthful lieutenant loses his
balance and falls headlong into a pond on the lawn, whence his body is
fished out in the morning, to the surprise of the household.
Plate 29. _The Churchyard Debate._
'Tis strange, but true, in this world's strife,
That Death affords the means of life.
The picture in this instance gives a philosophic view of the end of
man, and represents a snug assembly of the fortunate individuals who
prosper professionally by the influence of the grim foe's assistance.
Seated convivially on tomb-slabs, awaiting the arrival of a hearse and
mourning _cortége_, is the author of the mischief hobnobbing with his
friends and allies. Death and the doctor are blowing a cloud together
in cheerful company, for the parson, the lawyer, and the sexton are
pleased with his society. The undertaker is no less grateful to his
useful patron, and even the distant bell-ringer acknowledges the value
of his acquaintanceship.