Death in her hand, and frenzy in her eye!
Her eye all red, and sunk! A robe she wore,
With life's calamities embroidered o'er.
From me (she cries), pale wretch, thy comfort claim,
Born of Despair, and Suicide my name."
He attempts to take away that life which is become hateful to him; is prevented, and removed to a cell more dreadful than even a prison:
"Where Misery and Madness hold their court."
But let us for a moment return to the present scene. The wretched, squalid inmate who is assisting the fainting female, bears every mark of being naturalized to the place: out of his pocket hangs a scroll, on which is inscribed, "A scheme to pay the national debt, by J. L., now a prisoner in the Fleet." So attentive was this poor gentleman to the debts of the nation, that he totally forgot his own. The cries of the child, and the good-natured attentions of the two women, heighten the interest, and realize the scene. Over the group are a large pair of wings, with which some emulator of Dedalus intended to escape from his confinement; but finding them inadequate to the execution of his project, has placed them upon the tester of his bed. They would not exalt him to the regions of air, but they o'er-canopy him on earth. A chemist in the background, happy in his views, watching the moment of projection, is not to be disturbed from his dream by anything less than the fall of the roof or the bursting of his retort; and if his dream affords him felicity, why should he be awakened? The bed and gridiron, those poor remnants of our miserable spendthrift's wrecked property, are brought here as necessary in his degraded situation; on one he must try to repose his wearied frame, on the other he is to dress his scanty meal.
The grated gate, secured with tenfold bars of iron, reminds us of Milton's
"Infernal doors, that on their hinges grate