Unaccustomed to such joyous company, he appears to have
drank rather more than agrees with him.

The company consists of eleven, and on the chimney-piece, floor, and
table, are three and twenty empty flasks. These, added to a bottle which
the apothecary holds in his hand, prove that this select society have
not lost a moment. The overflowing bowl, full goblets, and charged
glasses, prove that they think, "'Tis too early to part," though the
dial points to four in the morning.

The different degrees of drunkenness are well discriminated, and its
effects admirably described. The poor simpleton, who is weeping out his
woes to honest lawyer Kettleby, it makes mawkish; the beau it makes
sick; and the politician it stupifies. One is excited to roaring, and
another lulled to sleep. It half closes the eyes of justice, renders the
footing of physic unsure, and lays prostrate the glory of his country,
and the pride of war.

[Illustration: A MIDNIGHT MODERN CONVERSATION.]

CONSULTATION OF PHYSICIANS--THE UNDERTAKERS' ARMS.

This plate is designed, with much humour, according to the rules of
heraldry, and is called The Undertakers' Arms, to show us the connexion
between death and the quack doctor, as are also those cross-bones on the
outside of the escutcheon. When an undertaker is in want of business, he
cannot better apply than to some of those gentlemen of the faculty, who
are, for the most part, so charitably disposed, as to supply the
necessities of these sable death-hunters, and keep them from starving in
a healthy time. By the tenour of this piece, Mr. Hogarth would intimate
the general ignorance of such of the medical tribe, and teach us that
they possess little more knowledge than their voluminous wigs and
golden-headed canes. They are represented in deep consultation upon the
contents of an urinal. Our artist's own illustration of this coat of
arms, as he calls it, is as follows: "The company of undertakers
beareth, sable, an urinal, proper between twelve quack heads of the
second, and twelve cane heads, or, consultant. On a chief, _Nebulae_,
ermine, one complete doctor, issuant, checkie, sustaining in his right
hand a baton of the second. On the dexter and sinister sides, two
demi-doctors, issuant of the second, and two cane heads, issuant of the
third; the first having one eye, couchant, towards the dexter side of
the escutcheon; the second faced, per pale, proper, and gules guardant.
With this motto, _Et