falling back--one starts with horror
at the sudden seizure--a stupid, drunken indifference marks the
others--they had been waiting for a feast, which one is bringing in, who
stands just above the falling figure, who will never partake of it.
Quite in the background, and behind a low wall, are conveyers of the
dead, carrying along a body. This describes the left of the picture. To
the right, and near the middle, is a dying boy, leaning upon a man, who
is suddenly roused, and rising to hear the denunciations of Solomon
Eagle. At his back are two lovely female figures, sisters we should
suppose, the younger one dying, supported by the sister's knee, who sits
with crossed hands, as if in almost hopeless prayer. Beyond is a
wretched man, with his head resting upon his hand, in a fixed state of
stupid indifference; above whom are several figures, mostly of the lower
grade, in the various stages of infection or recovery. They are sitting
before the window of a house, through the panes of which we see
indistinctly one raving, while from the same house a dead body is being
let down from above, and in the background are the dead-cart and the
carriers. At the feet of the figures by the house lie others, in all the
langour of disease and feverish watchfulness. Among these persons are
various shades of character, apparently all from nature, each one,
artistically speaking, representing a class, and yet with such a stamp
of individual nature, that we are satisfied they must have been taken
from life. In this respect they resemble Raffaelle's beggars at the
"Beautiful Gate," in their admirable generality an individuality. Two
are very striking--an odd, stiff-looking old man, with a beard, whose
marked profile is of the old cheat; he is observing the escape of the
man on the opposite side of the picture, and the woman at his side,
whose face is turned upwards, one-half an idiot, and all-wicked. We
cannot help thinking that we have seen these two characters. It is,
perhaps, the skill of the painter that has so represented the class that
we have the conviction of the individuals. So far the scene is prepared
for the principal _dramatis personae_; and so far we have only the
calamity of the Plague, not in its scenes of turbulence, but kept down
under an awful and quiet expectation of doom; so that, were the two
principal figures obliterated, we should say the scene is yet but a
preparation, awaiting the master figures to mark its true impre