be not quite pleasing, the figures are so well
grouped, and with so much ease and variety, that you cannot take
offence.

"The expression, in almost every figure, is admirable; and the whole
is a strong representation of the human mind in a storm. Three
stages of that species of madness which attends gaming, are here
described. On the first shock, all is inward dismay. The ruined
gamester is represented leaning against a wall, with his arms
across, lost in an agony of horror. Perhaps never passion was
described with so much force. In a short time this horrible gloom
bursts into a storm of fury: he tears in pieces what comes next him;
and, kneeling down, invokes curses upon himself. He next attacks
others; every one in his turn whom he imagines to have been
instrumental in his ruin.--The eager joy of the winning gamesters,
the attention of the usurer, the vehemence of the watchman, and the
profound reverie of the highwayman, are all admirably marked. There
is great coolness, too, expressed in the little we see of the fat
gentleman at the end of the table."

[Illustration: THE RAKE'S PROGRESS.

PLATE 6.

GAMING HOUSE SCENE.]

PLATE VII.

PRISON SCENE.

"Happy the man whose constant thought,
(Though in the school of hardship taught,)
Can send remembrance back to fetch
Treasures from life's earliest stretch;
Who, self-approving, can review
Scenes of past virtues, which shine through
The gloom of age, and cast a ray
To gild the evening of his day!
Not so the guilty wretch confined:
No pleasures meet his conscious mind;
No blessings brought from early youth,
But broken faith, and wrested truth;
Talents idle and unused,
And every trust of Heaven abused.
In seas of sad reflection lost,
From horrors still to horrors toss'd,
_Reason_ the vessel leaves to steer,
And gives the helm to mad _Despair_."

By a very natural transition Mr. Hogarth has passed his hero from a
gaming house into a prison--the inevitable consequence of extravagance.
He is here represented in a most distressing situation, without a coat
to his back, without money, without a friend to help him. Beggared by a
course of ill-luck, the common attendant on the gamester, having first
made away with every valuable he was master of, and having now no other
resource left to retrieve his wretched circumstan