Plate 10. The Winding-up of the Clock.
No one but me shall set my clock:
He set it, and behold the shock.
The picture represents a general scene of downfall. A stout clergyman has obstinately insisted on his right to attend to his own timepiece over the chimney-glass. His fat body has lost its balance, the steps are overturned, the breakfast table and its equipage are brought to ruin; the shock, aided by the sly hand of Death in ambush, has upset his portly wife in her arm-chair, and a general destruction is hinted of persons and property alike.
Plate 11. The Family of Children.
'Twere well to spare me two or three
Out of your num'rous family.
In this plate we are introduced to a scene of extensive domestic felicity; at a breakfast-table is seated the father of a numerous family, surrounded by fourteen pledges of conjugal affection; another child is in a nurse's arms, and in the apartment beyond may be perceived the worthy and prolific partner of his joys, who has lately presented her husband with their sixteenth infant. Death proposes to take one or two of these children under his charge, but the good father will not hear of it. 'Well then, let it be the infant,' proposes the greedy fiend. 'No, 'twould break the mother's heart!' 'Whom shall I strike then?' Death demands. The benevolent parent can only suggest 'the nurse.'
Plate 12. Death's Door.
In this world all our comfort's o'er,
So let us find it at Death's door.
Death's bony person is half thrust through his portals—which lead to the grave—as he has been disturbed by a boisterous summons thundered at his gate. He seems quite shocked at the importunities of a crowd of unfortunates who are clamorous in their demands for instant admittance to the unknown realms. Madmen, the extremely aged, the gouty, the bereaved, those afflicted with poverty, disease, scolding wives, the hungering, cripples, forsaken ones, and a multitude of various sufferers to whom the buffets of life have proved insupportable, are supplicating refuge from an unkindly world.
Plate 13. The Fire.