"N. B. It is the uppermost house in the court, and coaches and chairs may come up to the door."
Again in The London Daily Post, Oct. 21, 1741, Mrs. Careless advertises The Beggar's Opera, at the theatre in James-Street, Haymarket, for her benefit, Oct. 27. At the bottom of the advertisement she says, "Mrs. Careless takes this benefit because she finds a small pressing occasion for one: and as she has the happiness of knowing she has a great many friends, hopes not to find an instance to the contrary by their being absent the above-mentioned evening; and as it would be entirely inconvenient, and consequently disagreeable, if they should, she ventures to believe they won't fail to let her have the honour of their company." In the bill of the day she says—"N. B. Mrs. Careless hopes her friends will favour her according to their promise, to relieve her from terrible fits of the vapours proceeding from bad dreams, though the comfort is they generally go by the contraries.
"Tickets to be had at Mrs. Careless's Coffee-house, the Playhouse-Passage, Bridges-Street."
Would the public, at this period of refinement, have patiently endured the familiar address of such a shameless, superannuated, advertising strumpet?
The reader will perhaps smile, when, after so much grave ratiocination, and this long deduction of particulars, he is informed that the letters are not E. C. but F. C. the initials of Fanny Cock, daughter to the celebrated auctioneer of that name, with whom our artist had had some casual disagreement.
The following, somewhat different, explanation has also been communicated to me by Charles Rogers, esq. who says it came from Sullivan, one of Hogarth's engravers: "The nobleman threatens to cane a quack-doctor for having given pills which proved ineffectual in curing a girl he had debauched; and brings with him a woman, from whom he alledges he caught the infection; at which she, in a rage, is preparing to stab him with her clasp knife. This wretch is one of the lowest class, as is manifest by the letters of her name marked with gunpowder on her breast. She, however, is brought to the French barber-surgeon for his examination and inspection, and for which purpose he is wiping his spectacles with his coarse muckender."
The explanation given by Rouquet, however, ought not to be suppressed, as in all probability he received it from Hogarth. "Il falloit indiquer la mauvaise conduite du héros de la piece. L'auteur pour cet effet l'introduit dans l'appartement d'un empirique, où il ne peut guères se trouver qu'en consequence de ses débauches; il fait en même tems rencontrer chez cet empirique une de ces femmes qui perdues depuis long-tems, font enfin leur métier de la perte des autres. Il suppose un démêlé entre cette femme et son héros, dont le sujet paroît être la mauvaise santé d'un petite fille, du commerce de laquelle il ne s'est pas bien trouvé. La petite fille au reste fait ici contraste par son âge, sa timidité, sa douceur, avec le caractère de l'autre femme, qui paroît un composé de rage, de fureur, et de tous les crimes qui accompagnent d'ordinaire les dernières débauches chez celles de son sexe.
"L'empirique et son appartement sont des objets entièrement épisodiques. Quoique jadis barbier,[A] il est aujourdhui, si l'on en juge par l'etalage, non seulment chirurgien, mais naturaliste, chimiste, mechanicien, medecin, apoticaire; et vous remarquerez qu'il est François pour comble de ridicule. L'auteur pour achever de le caracteriser suivant son idée, lui fait inventer des machines extrèmement composées pour les opérations les plus simples, comme celles de remettre un membre disloqué, ou de déboucher une bouteille.
"Je ne deciderai pas si l'auteur est aussi heureux dans le choix des objets de sa satire, quand il les prend parmi nous, que lorsqu'il les choisit parmi ceux de sa nation; mais il me semble qu'il doit mieux connoître ceux-ci; et je crois que cette planche vous en paroîtra un exemple bien marqué. Il tourne ici en ridicule ce que nous avons de moins mauvais; que deviendroit le reste s'il étoit vrai qu'il nous connût assez pour nous depeindre?"
[A] This circumstance seems to be implied by the broken comb, the pewter bason, and the horn so placed as to resemble a barber's pole, all which are exhibited either above, or within the glass case, in which the skeleton appears whispering a man who had been exsiccated by some mode of embalming at present unknown. About the time of the publication of this set of prints, a number of bodies thus preserved were discovered in a vault in Whitechapel church.—Our Quack is likewise a virtuoso. An ancient spur, a high-crowned hat, old shoes, &c. together with a model of the gallows, are among his rarities.—On his table is a skull, rendered carious by the disease he is professing to cure.—These two last objects are monitory as well as characteristic.