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PLATE VI.

THE INDUSTRIOUS 'PRENTICE OUT OF HIS TIME, AND
MARRIED TO HIS MASTER'S DAUGHTER.

"The virtuous woman is a crown to her husband." Proverbs, chap. xiii. verse 4.

THE reward of industry is success. Our prudent and attentive youth is now become partner with his master, and married to his daughter. The sign, by which this circumstance is intimated, was at first inscribed GOODCHILD and WEST. Some of Mr. Hogarth's city friends informing him that it was usual for the senior partner's name to precede, it was altered.

To show that plenty reigns in this mansion, a servant distributes the remains of the table to a poor woman, and the bridegroom pays one of the drummers, who, according to ancient custom, attend with their thundering gratulations the day after a wedding. A performer on the bass viol, and a herd of butchers armed with marrow-bones and cleavers, form an English concert. (Madame Pompadour, in her remarks on the English taste for music, says, they are invariably fond of every thing that is full in the mouth.) A cripple with the ballad of Jesse, or the Happy Pair, represents a man known by the name of Philip in the Tub, who had visited Ireland and the United Provinces; and, in the memory of some persons now living, was a general attendant at weddings. From those votaries of Hymen who were honoured with his epithalamiums, he received a small reward. To show that Messrs. West and Goodchild's habitation is near the monument, the base of that stately column appears in the back-ground. The inscription which until lately graced this structure, used to remind every reader of Pope's lines,

Where London's column, pointing to the skies,

Like a tall bully, rears its head, and lies, &c.

The duke of Buckingham's epigram on this magnificent pillar is not so generally known:

Here stand I,

The Lord knows why;

But if I fall

Have at ye all!

A footman and butcher, at the opposite corner, compared with the other figures, are gigantic; they might serve for the Gog and Magog of Guildhall.

It has been said that the thoughts in this print are trite, and the actions mean, which must be in part acknowledged, but they are natural, and appropriate to the rank and situation of the parties, and to the fashions of the time at which it was published.