Living, with thee would live, and dying, die!”
Hogarth’s Gin Lane was advertised in 1751, with a note that, as its subject was calculated to reform some reigning vices peculiar to the lower class of people, in hopes to render them of more extensive use, the author had published them in the cheapest manner possible. “The cheapest manner possible” was one shilling which in those days was a fairly good price for a print. The following lame and defamatory verse was composed for the occasion by the Rev. James Townley:—
“Gin Lane.
Gin, cursed fiend, with fury fraught,
Makes human race a prey;
It enters by a deadly draught,
And steals our life away.
Virtue and Truth, driven to despair,
Its rage compels to fly;
But cherishes, with hellish care,