duction of some would-be artist, whom the magistrate had
committed to Bridewell, as a proper academy for the pursuit of his
studies. The inscription upon the pillory, "Better to work than stand
thus;" and that on the whipping-post near the laced gambler, "The reward
of idleness," are judiciously introduced.

In this print the composition is good: the figures in the back-ground,
though properly subordinate, are sufficiently marked; the lassitude of
the principal character, well contrasted by the austerity of the rigid
overseer. There is a fine climax of female debasement, from the gaudy
heroine of our drama, to her maid, and from thence to the still object,
who is represented as destroying one of the plagues of Egypt.

Such well dressed females, as our heroine, are rarely met with in our
present houses of correction; but her splendid appearance is
sufficiently warranted by the following paragraph in the Grub-street
Journal of September 14th, 1730.

"One Mary Moffat, a woman of great note in the hundreds of Drury, who,
about a fortnight ago, was committed to hard labour in Tothill-fields
Bridewell, by nine justices, brought his majesty's writ of _habeas
corpus_, and was carried before the right honourable the Lord Chief
Justice Raymond, expecting to have been either bailed or discharged; but
her commitment appearing to be legal, his lordship thought fit to remand
her back again to her former place of confinement, where she is now
beating hemp in a gown very richly laced with silver."

[Illustration: THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS.

PLATE 4.

SCENE IN BRIDEWELL.]

THE HARLOT'S PROGRESS.

PLATE V.

With keen remorse, deep sighs, and trembling fears
Repentant groans, and unavailing tears,
This child of misery resigns her breath,
And sinks, despondent, in the arms of death.

Released from Bridewell, we now see this victim to her own indiscretion
breathe her last sad sigh, and expire in all the extremity of penury and
wretchedness. The two quacks, whose injudicious treatment, has probably
accelerated her death, are vociferously supporting the infallibility of
their respective medicines, and each charging the other with having
poisoned her. The meagre figure is a portrait of Dr. Misaubin, a
foreigner, at that time in considerable practice.

These disputes, it has been affirmed, sometimes happen at a consultation
of regular physicians, and a patient has been so unpolite as to die
before they could d