'The end of life,' the chairman cries;
'Tis drank—and many a toper dies.
A scene of gross intoxication is proceeding. A convivial company is assembled; the effort of every individual's ambition is apparently the downfall of his neighbour by successive toasts; bowl succeeds bowl, and half the assembly are hors de combat. A new chairman has, uninvited, installed himself at the head of the table, and he is making the liquor circulate with such hearty goodwill that the topers have received him, in spite of his repellant exterior, as one of themselves. Death has ordered in fresh supplies of steaming punch, which he is ladling out to the fascinated tipplers; it is the final toast, and no one dares refuse to pledge it. 'One bumper more,' and the jovial meeting will be dissolved for ever.
Plate 23. The Careless and the Careful.
The careful and the careless led
To join the living and the dead.
The picture introduces us to the gate of Vauxhall Gardens; the light-hearted visitors are quitting the entertainment. The wise virgins are carefully wrapped up with cloaks, hoods, scarves, and muffs, and duly lighted home by cautious guardians carrying lanterns. In the foreground the foolish revellers are portrayed. They have left the heated dancing room in their light attire; a couple of giddy maidens, who are too careless to wait for their coach, are skipping off into the damp and chilling atmosphere without a wrapper, their thin dresses blowing in the wind, and running home under the escort of a gallant major. Death, with a jaunty cap on his head, and muffled in a cloak which disguises his ghostly frame, is dancing before, a very 'will-o'-the-wisp,' dangling about a flickering lantern, a dangerous guide whom they fail to recognise.
'Twas Death, alas, who lit them home,
And the fools' frolic seal'd their doom.
Plate 24. The Law Overthrown.
The serjeant's tongue will cease to brawl
In every court of yonder Hall.
A busy lawyer, hastening away from Westminster Hall, where he has been exercising his lungs, has jumped into a chariot without noticing the driver on the box-seat. In this case Death is officiating as charioteer; he is whipping his horses with a vengeance. The serjeant's coach is endangering the life of a brother counsel, a dog is running between the frightened barrister's legs, and his end seems imminent. Death has chosen to wreck the carriage over a pile of stones and a heavily-loaded wheelbarrow which the paviours have left in the course of road-mending. The serjeant, brief in hand, is thrusting his angry face through the front of the capsizing vehicle, vehemently threatening penalties and vowing to bring an action against his coachman.
Fate to the stones his head applies;
The action's brought—the serjeant dies.