. Two porringers and a
spoon, placed on the bottom of an inverted basket, intimate that the
woman seated near them, is a vender of rice-milk, which was at that time
brought into the market every morning.

A fatigued porter leans on a rail; and a blind beggar is going towards
the church: but whether he will become one of the congregation, or take
his stand at the door, in the hope that religion may have warmed the
hearts of its votaries to "Pity the sorrows of a poor blind man," is
uncertain.

Snow on the ground, and icicles hanging from the penthouse, exhibit a
very chilling prospect; but, to dissipate the cold, there is happily a
shop where spirituous liquors are sold _pro bono publico_, at a very
little distance. A large pewter measure is placed upon a post before the
door, and three of a smaller size hang over the window of the house.

The character of the principal figure is admirably delineated. She is
marked with that prim and awkward formality which generally accompanies
her order, and is an exact type of a hard winter; for every part of her
dress, except the flying lappets and apron, ruffled by the wind, is as
rigidly precise as if it were frozen. It has been said that this
incomparable figure was designed as the representative of either a
particular friend, or a relation. Individual satire may be very
gratifying to the public, but is frequently fatal to the satirist.
Churchill, by the lines,

----------------Fam'd Vine-street,
Where Heaven, the kindest wish of man to grant,
Gave me an old house, and an older aunt,

lost a considerable legacy; and it is related that Hogarth, by the
introduction of this withered votary of Diana into this print, induced
her to alter a will which had been made considerably in his favour: she
was at first well enough satisfied with her resemblance, but some
designing people taught her to be angry.

Extreme cold is very well expressed in the slip-shod footboy, and the
girl who is warming her hands. The group of which she is a part, is well
formed, but not sufficiently balanced on the opposite side.

The church dial, a few minutes before seven; marks of little shoes and
pattens in the snow, and various productions of the season in the
market, are an additional proof of that minute accuracy with which this
artist inspected and represented objects, which painters in general have
neglected.

Govent Garden is the scene, but in the print every building is reversed.
T