The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings | Page 5

ourselves in that gulf of woe,
where perishes at once, health, wealth and virtue, and whose dreadful
labyrinths admit of no return.
Struck with the foresight of that misery, attendant on a life of
debauchery, which is, in fact, the offspring of prodigality, our author
has, in the scenes before us, attempted the reformation of the worldling,
by stopping him as it were in his career, and opening to his view the
many sad calamities awaiting the prosecution of his proposed scheme
of life; he has, in hopes of reforming the prodigal, and at the same time
deterring the rising generation, whom Providence may have blessed
with earthly wealth, from entering into so iniquitous a course, exhibited
the life of a young man, hurried on through a succession of profligate
pursuits, for the few years Nature was able to support itself; and this
from the instant he might be said to enter into the world, till the time of
his leaving it. But, as the vice of avarice is equal to that of prodigality,
and the ruin of children is often owing to the indiscretion of their
parents, he has opened the piece with a scene, which, at the same time
that it exposes the folly of the youth, shews us the imprudence of the
father, who is supposed to have hurt the principles of his son, in
depriving him of the necessary use of some portion of that gold, he had
with penurious covetousness been hoarding up, for the sole purpose of
lodging in his coffers.

PLATE I.
THE YOUNG HEIR TAKING POSSESSION.
Oh, vanity of age untoward! Ever spleeny, ever froward! Why these
bolts and massy chains, Squint suspicions, jealous pains? Why, thy
toilsome journey o'er, Lay'st thou up an useless store? Hope, along with
Time is flown; Nor canst thou reap the field thou'st sown. Hast thou a
son? In time be wise; He views thy toil with other eyes. Needs must thy
kind paternal care, Lock'd in thy chests, be buried there? Whence, then,
shall flow that friendly ease, That social converse, heartfelt peace,
Familiar duty without dread, Instruction from example bred, Which
youthful minds with freedom mend, And with the father mix the friend?
Uncircumscribed by prudent rules, Or precepts of expensive schools;
Abused at home, abroad despised, Unbred, unletter'd, unadvised; The
headstrong course of life begun, What comfort from thy darling son?
HOADLEY.
The history opens, representing a scene crowded with all the
monuments of avarice, and laying before us a most beautiful contrast,
such as is too general in the world, to pass unobserved; nothing being
more common than for a son to prodigally squander away that
substance his father had, with anxious solicitude, his whole life been
amassing.--Here, we see the young heir, at the age of nineteen or
twenty, raw from the University, just arrived at home, upon the death
of his father. Eager to know the possessions he is master of, the old
wardrobes, where things have been rotting time out of mind, are
instantly wrenched open; the strong chests are unlocked; the
parchments, those securities of treble interest, on which this avaricious
monster lent his money, tumbled out; and the bags of gold, which had
long been hoarded, with griping care, now exposed to the pilfering
hands of those about him. To explain every little mark of usury and
covetousness, such as the mortgages, bonds, indentures, &c. the piece
of candle stuck on a save-all, on the mantle-piece; the rotten furniture
of the room, and the miserable contents of the dusty wardrobe, would

be unnecessary: we shall only notice the more striking articles. From
the vast quantity of papers, falls an old written journal, where, among
other memorandums, we find the following, viz. "May the 5th, 1721.
Put off my bad shilling." Hence, we learn, the store this penurious
miser set on this trifle: that so penurious is the disposition of the miser,
that notwithstanding he may be possessed of many large bags of gold,
the fear of losing a single shilling is a continual trouble to him. In one
part of the room, a man is hanging it with black cloth, on which are
placed escutcheons, by way of dreary ornament; these escutcheons
contain the arms of the covetous, viz. three vices, hard screwed, with
the motto, "BEWARE!" On the floor, lie a pair of old shoes, which this
sordid wretch is supposed to have long preserved for the weight of iron
in the nails, and has been soling with leather cut from the covers of an
old Family Bible; an excellent piece of satire, intimating, that such men
would sacrifice even their God to the lust of money. From these and
some other objects too striking to pass unnoticed, such as the gold
falling from the breaking cornice; the