A WOMAN SWEARING HER CHILD TO A GRAVE CITIZEN.
"Here Justice triumphs in his elbow chair,
And makes his market of the trading fair;
His office shelves with parish laws are grac'd,
But spelling-books and guides between 'em plac'd.[97]
Here pregnant madam screens the real sire,
And falsely swears her bastard child for hire
Upon a rich old leecher, who denies
The fact, and vows the naughty hussif lies.
His wife enrag'd, exclaims against her spouse,
And swears she'll be reveng'd upon his brows;
The jade, the justice, and churchward'ns agree,
And force him to provide security."
WOMAN SWEARING A CHILD.
These curious rhymes, engraven under the original print, in a degree describe the plot of the play, and the characters of the performers in this religious ceremony; for as such does Picart class a copy which he has introduced in the fourth volume of his work,[98] accompanied with the following explanation:—
"Many other customs might find a place here, and delight the readers by their comical singularity, but we dare not crowd in too great a number of those trifles, as not being properly religious ceremonies; which therefore, till approved of by the church, or by the governor of it, prescribed by ecclesiastical laws or formularies, we shall omit, except two or three of the most remarkable. The first is what the description here annexed calls the breeding woman's oath,—a custom not to be met with in other countries,—which is so fantastical, or rather unjust, that it would be a prejudice to the laws of England if we were to judge of their equity by that practice. Suppose any of these girls, which may be called amphibious (being neither wives nor virgins), is found to be with child. She does not, or will not, pretend to know the father of this child. In order to free herself from the trouble of maintaining it when born, she looks out for some rich man, upon whom she intends to father it. Generally they say she pitches upon some good citizen, though she does not know him, or maybe has never seen him. Then she goes before a Justice of the Peace, summons the pretended father to appear before him, and in his presence swears upon the Bible, which the clerk holds to her, that she owns and declares that such a one whom she has summoned to appear is the father of the child. How far the equivocal expressions and restrictions of that oath may excuse her from perjury, let a good casuist be the judge. However, the man thus named and sworn to by this formality of law is obliged to pay an arbitrary fine, and to agree upon a sum of money for the maintenance of the child."—Picart's Religious Ceremonies, p. 83.
The original picture from which this print was engraven was one of Hogarth's early productions, and is in the possession of the Rev. Mr. Whalley, at Ecton, Northamptonshire. In the disposition of the figures, etc., it has a more than accidental resemblance to a picture by Heemskirk, which was in the possession of Mr. Watson, surgeon, Rathbone Place, where all the male figures are monkeys; all the females, cats; and which in the year 1772 was engraved in mezzotinto by Dickinson, and entitled "The Village Magistrate."
A small copy from Hogarth's print is introduced as the headpiece to a tale printed in Banks' Works, vol. i. p. 248, entitled "The Substitute Father."