xxvi.
verse 26.

The idle apprentice, as appears by this print, is advancing with rapid
strides towards his fate. We are to suppose him returned from sea after
a long voyage; and to have met with such correction abroad for his
obstinacy, during his absence from England, that though it was found
insufficient to alter his disposition, yet it determined him to pursue
some other way of life; and what he entered on is here but too evident
(from the pistols by the bed-side, and the trinkets his companion is
examining, in order to strip him of) to be that of the highway. He is
represented in a garret, with a common prostitute, the partaker of his
infamy, awaking, after a night spent in robbery and plunder, from one of
those broken slumbers which are ever the consequences of a life of
dishonesty and debauchery. Though the designs of Providence are visible
in every thing, yet they are never more conspicuous than in this,--that
whatever these unhappy wretches possess by wicked and illegal means,
they seldom comfortably enjoy. In this scene we have one of the finest
pictures imaginable of the horrors of a guilty conscience. Though the
door is fastened in the strongest manner with a lock and two bolts, and
with the addition of some planks from the flooring, so as to make his
retreat as secure as possible; though he has attempted to drive away
thought by the powerful effects of spirituous liquors, plain from the
glass and bottle upon the floor, still he is not able to brave out his
guilt, or steel his breast against reflection. Behold him roused by the
accidental circumstance of a cat's coming down the chimney, and the
falling of a few bricks, which he believes to be the noise of his
pursuers! Observe his starting up in bed, and all the tortures of his
mind imprinted in his face! He first stiffens into stone, then all his
nerves and muscles relax, a cold sweat seizes him, his hair stands on
end, his teeth chatter, and dismay and horror stalk before his eyes. How
different is the countenance of his wretched bed-fellow! in whom
unconcern and indifference to every thing but the plunder are plainly
apparent. She is looking at an ear-ring, which, with two watches, an
etwee, and a couple of rings, are spread upon the bed, as part of last
night's plunder. The phials on the mantel-piece show that sickness and
disease are ever attendant on prostitution; and the beggarly appearance
of the room, its wretched furniture, the hole by way of