ce. This print is rather crowded,--the subject demanded it should be
so; some of the figures, thrown into shade, might have helped the
general effect, but would have injured the characteristic expression."

[Illustration: THE RAKE'S PROGRESS.

PLATE 3.

TAVERN SCENE.]

PLATE IV.

ARRESTED FOR DEBT.

"O, vanity of youthful blood,
So by misuse to poison good!
Reason awakes, and views unbarr'd
The sacred gates he wish'd to guard;
Approaching, see the harpy _Law_,
And _Poverty_, with icy paw,
Ready to seize the poor remains
That vice has left of all his gains.
Cold _penitence_, lame _after-thought_,
With fear, despair, and horror fraught,
Call back his guilty pleasures dead,
Whom he hath wrong'd, and whom betray'd."

The career of dissipation is here stopped. Dressed in the first style of
the ton, and getting out of a sedan-chair, with the hope of shining in
the circle, and perhaps forwarding a former application for a place or a
pension, he is arrested! To intimate that being plundered is the certain
consequence of such an event, and to shew how closely one misfortune
treads upon the heels of another, a boy is at the same moment stealing
his cane.

The unfortunate girl whom he basely deserted, is now a milliner, and
naturally enough attends in the crowd, to mark the fashions of the day.
Seeing his distress, with all the eager tenderness of unabated love, she
flies to his relief. Possessed of a small sum of money, the hard
earnings of unremitted industry, she generously offers her purse for the
liberation of her worthless favourite. This releases the captive beau,
and displays a strong instance of female affection; which, being once
planted in the bosom, is rarely eradicated by the coldest neglect, or
harshest cruelty.

The high-born, haughty Welshman, with an enormous leek, and a
countenance keen and lofty as his native mountains, establishes the
chronology, and fixes the day to be the first of March; which being
sacred to the titular saint of Wales, was observed at court.

Mr. Nichols remarks of this plate:--"In the early impressions, a
shoe-black steals the Rake's cane. In the modern ones, a large group
of sweeps, and black-shoe boys, are introduced gambling on the
pavement; near them a stone inscribed _Black's_, a contrast to
_White's_ gaming-house, against which a flash of lightning is
pointed. The curtain in the window of