Plate 12. Second state—Coachman's coat darker, and a stripe of lace down the arm obliterated. The mass of figures that surround the coach made much darker. In the original they come too forward, but the characters are now hurt by the intersecting lines.
Of these twelve plates there are tolerably correct copies of the same size.
The following memoranda relative to this series, which I found among Hogarth's papers, seems addressed to some one whom he intended to continue Rouquet's descriptions:—
"The effects of Idleness and Industry, exemplified in the conduct of two fellow-'prentices. These twelve prints were calculated for the instruction of young people; and everything addressed to them is fully described in words as well as figures. Yet to foreigners a translation of the mottoes,[125] the intention of the story, and some little description of each print, may be necessary. To this may be added, a slight account of our customs—as boys being usually bound for seven years, etc.
"Considering the persons they were intended to serve, I have endeavoured to render them intelligible, and cheap as possible.[126] Fine engraving is not necessary for such subjects, if what is infinitely more material, viz. character and expression, is properly preserved. Suppose the whole story were made into a kind of tale, describing in episode the nature of a night-cellar, a marrow-bone concert, a Lord Mayor's show, etc.
"These prints I have found sell much more rapidly at Christmas than at any other season."
3. Jacobus Gibbs Architectus; W. Hogarth, delin.; J. M'Ardell, fecit. Partly mezzotinto, partly graved. No date.
4. Ditto, engraved by Baron.
5. Ditto, by ditto.
6. Another copy, with the addition of "Architectus, A.M. and F.R.S.," was published 1750. Of the last print I have an impression where the background is completed, but nothing more of the head than the bare outline. This is a curiosity somewhat similar to a picture without a horse by Wouvermans.