INDUSTRY AND IDLENESS, PLATE VII.
The profligate and degraded apprentice, returned from his voyage, is now exhibited in a garret with a common prostitute. Tired of a seafaring life, where we may naturally suppose he met with punishment adequate to his crimes, he returns to London. By the pistols, watches, etc. which lie upon and near the bed, it seems evident that the source of his present subsistence is from robbery on the highway. Horror and dismay are strongly depicted in his agitated and terrified face.—What a contrast to the serenity displayed in the countenance of his fellow-'prentice! To prevent surprise, the door is locked, double bolted, and barricaded with planks from the floor; notwithstanding these precautions, the noise occasioned by a cat having slipped down a ruinous chimney, throws him into the utmost terror. Not so his depraved companion; solely engrossed by the plunder upon the bed,[160] she looks with delighted eyes at a glittering earring. The broken jug, pipe, knife, plate, dram-bottle, glass, and pistols, are very properly introduced; and the rat, who makes a precipitate retreat, instinctively conscious that its natural enemy is near, renders this filthy and disgusting scene still more nauseous. The lady's hoop is a good specimen of the fashion of that day, when this cumbrous, inconvenient, and ungraceful combination of whales' bones was worn by women of the lowest as well as the highest rank.
PLATE VIII.
THE INDUSTRIOUS 'PRENTICE GROWN RICH, AND SHERIFF OF LONDON.
"With all thy gettings, get understanding. Exalt her; and she shall promote thee; she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her."—Proverbs iv. 7, 8.
