 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6
1735
12 5/16” X 15 1/8” (H X W)
Etched and Engraved by Hogarth after his painting.
View the full resolution plate here.
In a gambling den, it is revealed that Tom did not learn from his previous near escape. He has wasted his rich widow’s fortune, and his wigless posture foreshadows the madness that will consume him in the final plate.
The room is filled with others in various stages of the same fate. A man obtains a loan from a usurer. Thieves divide their takings. A highwayman looks depressed at his lot in life. Another man pulls his hat over his head as he loses a pile of coins.
Again, fire threatens the scene. While there is not the macrocosmic implication of the whore setting fire to the world that is displayed in plate 3, Tom’s world is still going up in smoke. This time will be his last chance. From here, he quickly spirals into insanity and Bedlam. As Hogarth typically uses dogs as a metaphor for sexuality, the mad dog here hints that Tom’s ultimate downfall will be a sexual one (and indeed he is syphilitic in Bedlam).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6
Shesgreen, Sean. Engravings by Hogarth. (1973)
Drawn into gambling again, one of the most popular and fatal vices of his new social circle, the rake has lost a second fortune. The center of interest in the previous scene, that stately figure is now half mad. His clothes unbuttoned, his wig ripped off, he is alone in the midst of his companions. His fists clenched, teeth gritted and eyes bulging, he seems to curse heaven and fate. A mad dog (with a collar inscribed “Covent Gar[den],” the location of the gambling house) mirrors the rake’s frenzy.
Too absorbed to notice the fire, those in the room (most are gentlemen) exhibit variously the effects of gambling in their conduct. By the fireside, an oblivious highwayman (a mask and gun protrude from his pocket), depressed and preoccupied by his losses, seeks consolation in a large gin. Completely withdrawn, the man behind him bites his nails in torment. To the left, two figures with satisfied countenances share the fruits of their collusion. Only the croupier and another man notice the fire. Behind them three figures are involved in a violent dispute. To his left, a gentleman expresses surprise at the entrance of the watch, who has seen the blaze from outside. Another casual and richly dressed fellow borrows money from a plainly clothed figure (reminiscent of the rake’s father) who sits at a table covered with a rotting cloth and detachedly enters in ledger “Lent to Ld. Cogg 500.”
Above the fireplace hands an advertisement reading “R Justian Card Maker to his Maj . . . Royal Family,” suggesting that even the king and queen indulge in this vicious amusement. Behind the usurer a figure dressed in mourning convulses, perhaps over the loss of a newly acquired legacy (33).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6
Paulson, Ronald. Hogarth’s Graphic Works. (1965)
CAPTION:
Gold, Thou bright Son of Phoebus, Sourse
Of Universal Intercourse;
Of weeping Virtue Sweet Redress,
And blessing Those who live to bless;
Yet oft behold this Sacred Trust
The Fool of Avaritious Lust,
No longer Bond of Humankind,
But Bane of every virtuous Mind.
What Chaos such Misuse attends!
Friendship Stoops to prey on Friends;
Health, that gives Relish to Delight,
Is wasted with ye Wasting Night:
Doubt & Mistrust are thrown on Heaven,
And all its Power to Chance is given.
Sad Purchace, of repentant Tears,
Of needless Quarrels, endless Fears,
Of Hopes of Moments, Pangs of Years!
Sad Purchace, of a tortur'd Mind,
To an imprison'd Body join'd!
The scene is a London gambling house--the dog's collar ("Covent Gar[den]") would imply that it is in Covent Garden. But Hogarth also has in mind the White's of Pl. 4, where a fire took place on May 3, 1733 (Gentleman's Magazine, 3, 1733, 214), which may be related to the thunderbolt in Pl. 4. Most of the gamblers ignore the fire in their obsession. The man holding a money rake and a staff with two candles is the croupier: he is taking notice of the smoke, but the gamblers are not. At left is the money-lender, writing "Lent to Ld Cogg 500[l].” The former, who holds a roll of coins in his left hand, "is said to be Old Manners, (brother to John Duke of Rutland,) to whom the old Duke of Devonshire lost the great estate of Leicester Abbey. Manners was the only person of his time who had amassed a considerable fortune by the profession of gamester" (J. Ireland, I, 52 n., following Biog. Anecd., 1785, p. 218). On the wall above the fireplace is a sign capped with the royal arms: "R Justian Card Maker to his Maj[esty] . . . royal Family."
At the center is the Rake, who, having lost all his wife's fortune, has knocked over his chair and fallen to his knees, wigless and frantic, with the dog barking at him. The man to his left, sitting by the fire grate in horseman's boots and spurs and a long riding coat, with a horse pistol and black mask protruding from his coat-pocket, is a highwayman. His melancholy at having gambled away his loot (he is so preoccupied that he ignores the boy who has brought him a drink) offers a parallel to the Rake, a more respectable robber, who has also lost his ill-gotten gains. Or he eavesdrops so he can later rob the winners.
The scuffling group at the rear may suggest that the man on the left is accusing the cringing man on the right of cheating, with a third drunkenly interposing. The stages of the gambling madness can be traced across the print, from eagerness to passion to despair to apathy, as the stages of drunkenness were traced in A Midnight Modern Conversation with its similar composition (167-168).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6
Ireland, John and John Nichols. Hogarth’s Works. (1883)
Though now, from the infatuated folly of his antiquated wide, in possession of a fortune, he is still the slave of that baneful vice which, while it enslaves the mind, poisons the enjoyments, and sweeps away the possessions of its deluded votaries. Destructive as the earthquake which convulses nature, it overwhelms the pride of the forest, and engulfs the labors of the architect.
Newmarket and the cock-pit were the scenes of his early amusement; to crown the whole, he is now exhibited at a gaming-table, where all is lost! His countenance distorted with agony, and his soul agitated almost to madness, he imprecates vengeance upon his own head.
In heartfelt bitter aguish he appears,
And from the bloodshot ball gush purpled tears!
He beats his brow, with rage and horror fraught;
His brow half bursts with agony of thought.
That he should be deprived of all he possessed in such a society as surround him, is not to be wondered at. One of the most conspicuous characters appears, by the pistols in his pocket, to be a highwayman: from the profound stupor of his countenance, we are certain he is also a losing gamester; and so absorbed in reflection, that neither the boy who brings him a glass of water, not the watchman’s cry of Fire! can arouse him from his reverie. Another of the party is marked for one of those well-dressed Continental adventurers, who, being unable to live in their own country, annually pour into this, and with no other requisites than a quick eye, and adroit hand, and an undaunted forehead, are admitted into what is absurdly enough called good company.
At the table a person in mourning grasps his hat, and hides his face in agony of repentance (The thought is taken from a similar character to be found among the figures of the principal personages in the court of Louis XIV., folio. This work has no engraver’s name, but was probably published about the year 1700.), not having, as we infer from his weepers, received that legacy of which he is now plundered more than a little month. On the opposite side is another on whom fortune has severely frowned, biting his nails in the anguish of his soul. The fifth completes the climax; he is frantic, and with a drawn sword endeavors to destroy a pauvre miserable whom he supposes to have cheated him, but is prevented by the interposition of one of those staggering votaries of Bacchus who are to be found in every company where there is good wine; and gaming, like the rod of Moses, so far swallows up every other passion, that the actors, engrossed by greater objects, willingly leave their wine to the audience.
In the background are two collusive associates eagerly dividing the profits of the evening.
A nobleman in the corner is giving his note to an usurer (This is said to be old Manners—brother to John Duke of Rutland—to whom the old Duke of Devonshire lost the great estate of Leicester Abbey. Manners was the only person of his time who has amassed a considerable fortune by the profession of gamester.). The lean and hungry appearance of this cent. per cent. worshipper of the golden calf is well contrasted by the sleek contented vacancy of so well-employed a legislator of this great empire. Seated at the table, a portly gentleman (It has been thought intended for a portrait of William Duke of Cumberland; but this cannot be, for the Duke was not more than fifteen years of age when these prints were published), of whom we see very little, is coolly sweeping off his winnings.
So engrossed is every one present by his own situation, that the flames which surround them are disregarded (Such an accident as is here represented really happened at White’s Chocolate House, St. James’s Street, on the 3d of May 1773), and the vehement cries of a watchman entering the room are necessary to rouse their attention to what is generally deemed the first law of nature, self-preservation.
The grouping of the figures in this print is masterly; but the light, being reflected from various sources, overbalances the shadow, and fatigues the eye. The perspective, though formal, is natural (144-147).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6
Quennell, Peter. Hogarth’s Progress. (1955)
Tom, having replenished his fortune, becomes a gambler on a grand-scale. Since the end of the previous century, the English passion for gambling had grown more and more extravagant. Harley, we learn, during the age of Anne, never passed White’s “without bestowing a curse upon that famous academy, as the bane of half the English nobility”; and, although it is doubtful whether White’s [Chocolate House] itself is portrayed in the fifth episode of the Rake’s Progress—the room seems too sordid and bare, and a professional highwayman, with his pistol protruding from his pocket is among the personages represented—the plate includes a reference to the disastrous conflagration that had gutted out the building two years earlier. For fire has broken out in a corner of the apartment; but few of the gamblers assembled have yet observed the spreading flames. Each of them has his eyes turned inward—the Rake cursing his luck in a transport of fury; an unfortunate parson who, using both hands, wrenches his hat down over his face as if to exclude the intolerable future: a plump androgynous young beau negotiating a financial arrangement with his private Shylock: the highwayman who sits by the hearth so deep in his melancholy cogitations that the little boy who has brought him a glass must shout at him and tug at his sleeve to call him back to real life (132-133).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6
Uglow, Jenny. Hogarth: A Life and a World. (1997)
His second fortune vanishes as fast as the first and we next see him in a gambling den where smoke billows through the wainscoting, an emblematic hint of the flames to come (and a realistic reminder of the fire at White’s in 1733). Wigless and grimacing, Tom shakes his fist at heaven. Beside him sits a disconsolate highwayman, brooding on his losses while a little pot-boy tugs his sleeve (254-255).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6
Dobson, Austin. William Hogarth. (1907).
Henceforth Thomas Rakewell “progresses” at a headlong rate. Plate VI. Shows him in a Covent Garden gaming-house. He has lost all his recently acquired wealth; and flings himself upon the ground in a paroxysm of fury and execration. In allusion to the burning of White’s in April 1733, flames are bursting from the wainscot; but the preoccupied gamblers take no heed (43).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6
Paulson, Ronald. Popular and Polite Art in the Age of Hogarth. (1979)
The only indication of providence in “modern moral subjects” is the lightning bolt aimed at White’s Gambling House in Rake, plate 4 (which is shown burning in pl.6), and this is an addition which is precisely balanced by a group of dice-playing boys and their game of chance. The parallelism is between White’s and Black’s gambling establishments, of course, but as an addition the lightning bolt becomes a second kind of chance, parallel with the boy’s game (263-264).
In plate 4, when consequences begin to descend, we read, “Approaching the poor Remains/ That Vice hath left of all his Gains.” No mention is made in plate 6, where there is a possibly providential figure, and the verses to plate 8 end admonishing the poor Rake to “cure they self, & curse they Gold” (264).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6
Lichtenberg, G. Ch. Lichtenberg’s Commentaries on Hogarth’s Engravings. (1784-1796). Translated from the German by Innes and Gustav Herdan (1966)
Here is White's Coffee House from within. A fire broke out in this house on May 3, 1733, and Hogarth makes use of this event to identify the place for the London public of his time. Why, indeed, did he not use lightning? The company, as we shall see, would have deserved it.
Rakewell has not had much success with his fighting cocks and race-horses, or else his winnings from them, together with his other means, have all gone to feed the gaily-coloured poultry in Pontac's menagerie. By the barter in Mary-le-Bone Church he raked in a fair amount at least of what he lacked, but of course not nearly enough. Caetera desunt, he thought and, in order to be consistent, availed himself of the means of earning a living which accorded best with his capacities and his philosophy, that is, games of chance. How one world has arisen, other worlds can arise, and thus through mere chance a structure of fortune arises for our hero which cannot compare more fittingly with anything than with the wardrobe of the Knight of the Star sur le pavé.
The expressions in the faces and figures of that company are beyond everything, so varied are they, ranging over almost the whole scale of human emotions. Indolent vacuity on the lowest step, a proper moral nihilism; wary, constitutional gravity, and gravity of a callous sort through acquired insensitivity; ill-humour deeply and quietly introspective, and ill-humour with expressions of incipient despair; gnashing, raging despair as it raves against itself and fate, or armed with a murderous weapon turns suspiciously on others; cool-bloodedness if fortune smiles and comfortable joy while it lasts amid a roaring tumult of malediction from the luckless ones upon whose ruin it has been built; fear, terror in all its forms, everything in a degree which renders a man insensible to anything but what is here at stake; all this is to be observed here in motley mixture. It is terrible! If now in addition we could listen, even for a moment, in front of the door there to the crashing of chairs, the chinking of guineas paid up one by one, and the heavy rustling of money dragged across the table in masses; curses and oaths ejaculated with all the power of language and of the human voice; the barking of dogs joining in, and all that amid shouts of murder and fire! What should we suppose it was? A gambling party? Surely, if it were not for the chinking of money, we would take it rather to be a worldly dispute about human rights? Or a spiritual one about precedence for eternal bliss? Or, to hazard the mildest guess, a lively discussion in the realm of the civic dead—the lunatic asylum? But it is really so—they are gambling. From that box on the table they await the verdict of chance on the possession of their fortunes, and Rakewell has lost everything! His treasures are gone and nothing is left to him but—his little treasure! He throws himself upon his knees, he grinds his teeth, and with epileptic, staring eye and threatening fist calls upon Heaven that is guilt- less of all this. His right foot rises tremblingly upon the toes, his right arm rises too, and so does the left opposite it, like outspread wings. It is too late! Were they the wings of Aurora, punishment would still hover over him. What sort of angels' voices can they be to which he listens, or is it the jangling of prison keys or the rattling chains of Bedlam which he hears?—There lies the torn out hair, the empty wig beside the empty purse, and between the two the poor pigtail, the handle by which it was flung down; a pitiful exclamation mark and at the same time a sign of the cross. Miserable wretch! If only thy Captain were here. 'His sword may serve thee.' His chair collapses with him, and behind it a dog from Covent Garden expresses his sympathy with so profound a fall. A change of fortune must be very great before poodles observe it.
On the right the man whom the dog has not yet noticed turns his back on fortune because he finds it unbearable to look on fortune's backside any longer. He came here in deep mourning, even with weepers, and probably with a legacy in his pocket, over which now the toad-like shape of a strange hand squats upon the table. Before, he was mourning the loss of a relative, and now, much more deeply, the loss of his legacy. There is a curious contrast in the convulsive expression of despair at the sudden loss of money acquired by our hero through marriage, and by his neighbour through inheritance. The former, as if filled with explosive air and set on fire, bursts through excess of tension; the latter like a pricked bubble collapses. There is really in the attitude of each something that reminds one of a wedding and a funeral. The one has at least the explosive force of the man in jubilo, and the other the shrivelled attitude of the mourner, reminiscent of sackcloth and ashes. Perhaps in the painting Rakewell’s garment even has the wedding-like white and silver. The contrast between these two gamblers has been intentionally exaggerated by our artist. For Rakewell's scheming head even the wig is too tight; everything makes for expansion. With his neighbour everything shrinks within, and in addition he even presses hat and wig inwards with both hands; and while the former raises his right arm with great force, it seems almost as if the latter had used the little raising power which was left to him for raising his left leg.
On both sides of that group are two other more peaceful, or at least quieter, ones.
Just in front of the mourner sits an old usurer who out of goodwill is just lending £600 (probably half capital and half interest) to a Lord Cogg (thus not incog.) whose sleeve, ornamented with gold and silver, shares the light in front of it. Behind our newlywed, a highwayman twiddles his thumbs in deep thought. He intends neither to borrow nor lend here, but he carries in his pocket the tools for a compulsory loan on the highway—a pistol and a mask. Quite excellent is the head of the old man who, in the midst of fire and bloodshed and the bellow of despair which makes even the dog chime in, sits quietly by his little candle and with careful quill notes down and rounds off every little item. But of course it is easy to win something off such a frog-physiognomy as my Lord Cogg's. There is really something intolerable in the labial and brachial system of my lord, whose lips stretch in equal width like a jet around his mouth, and whose arms are bent like a pair of swimming legs. However, both sides are content, and what more does one want? They are happy.
The pleasure, sure, must be as great
Of being cheated as to cheat. (Butler)
The highwayman has apparently lost here through dice everything which he had acquired that evening on the highway with his pistol, and now his conscience also calls him to account, and the balance is rather terrifying for him. His meditation here is really an execution by conscience; very understandable. From the gallows side the outlook is always the same; the crime has been committed, it can never be undone; from now on he is for the gallows as soon as he is discovered, and even his own horse may betray him. From the other side the outlook is no better. What he had hoped to acquire by crime, and had in fact acquired, is lost, gone for ever; he is again as poor and destitute as he was a few hours ago, and then he was perhaps still innocent; now the gallows will be ever before him, ready to receive him; the hateful Greek letter Π will from now on form the frame to every plan of the intellect and every picture of the imagination. With such a Calculus and a prospect like this it is small wonder if a complete physical paralysis sets in. He no longer sees or hears or feels. The boy standing in front of him, calling him loudly and even shaking him, simply does not exist for him. With smell and taste it is probably no better, for even the refreshing draught he ordered gets no attention. He has even forgotten to hide the pistol and the mask. Luckily for him, the boy, the only reasonable being in the whole company who is still capable of observation, is not standing on that side, otherwise the above-drawn frame around the vision in that hero's imagination might quickly become the frame around the hero himself. I do not quite understand the meaning of the white stroke between the pistol and the floor: is it a lace from his garment, or is he perhaps even a tailor? He sits in front of the hearth which is protected by a wire netting. This is not a garde-feu but a garde-fou. It is to prevent the clever people here from throwing dice-box, cards, hats, precious purses (when they are empty of course) and wigs, together with their exclamation mark, into the fire. Fortune's priests are said to be rather inclined to offer their goddesses such additional sacrifices of the negative kind, and she again is said to be just as ready, with as gracious a face as she can muster, to accept such sacrifices. Not far from the fire- place is a niche with a similar fencing around it. What could that be? Perhaps a table stands there with glasses or refreshments which should not be exposed to collisions with wigs. If every keyhole, as they say, represents a lampoon upon the nobility of human nature, what about such wire netting? We can see we are here in the ante-room of a madhouse.
Behind the little boy, leaning against the wall, stands a seriously wounded victim. He has surely been hit in a tender place. What he holds here so pointedly in front of his mouth does not seem to be the part of his person on which he really gnaws; he is taking a bigger bite inwardly. Are his eyes perhaps directed upon the heavy, double-backed gentleman at the table who is raking in the money, and does perhaps envy mingle with incipient despair? In that event he deserves double compassion. To be obliged to look on in cold blood while our lost money is being raked in is in itself hard enough, but to see it gathered up by the warm, puffy, broad hand of a well-fed, carefree fellow like that, slowly, and with quiet secret satisfaction, is unendurable. Although it is difficult to explain, there is really something extremely mortifying when in a game the lean, or even the moderately plump, lose to the corpulent. Whether those think themselves cleverer because they are more agile, or whether? on a completely opposite principle, they reckon the temporal fact of corpulence as a temporal good in itself and mere superfluity, or whether they believe that he is more deserving of money who earns it with a sanguine impetuosity, than he who sets it before himself phlegmatically like a roasted goose, I do not know. But the fact is undeniable.
Behind the mourner sits a creature of whom one cannot exactly say what is the matter, but one almost feels like mourning for him. A perfect vacuum; mere space for a human head. 'As if painted,' one might say, if one wished to praise that figure. God save all human beings from looking like that wax-work! How did this dandy come to be here with his gaze into the blue, and his sheep's eyes at the air? He is certainly the most despicable object in the whole company, and Hogarth probably only brought him here to serve as a foil to the others. He seems to be one of the cowards who without sufficient energy for active debauchery still think it necessary to give themselves the air of it occasionally: 'We were at White's yesterday; played for damned high stakes!' The little gaping mouth is longing to boast of it, and is perhaps at it already.
The division of booty behind the highwayman is excellently done. Around the lips of the blissful, hatless creature there hovers an almost infectious satisfaction. All the same, that happy soul should take good care; the man in the hat divides somewhat summarily, and almost intentionally with more jingle than weight. In the familiarity of his manner there is something very rhetorical as well, apparently to give the jingling coins still more sound, and thereby to give that roundness to the figure which it lacked in reality. To judge from the apparel of the two partners they are not of equal rank, and in such a case the humbler half readily takes a word, administered at the right moment, for cash down, especially when such jingling is going on in front of him, and gracious pats are gently administered behind.
Opposite that sober little group, nearer the door, a wig is missing, and doubtlessly much which had been in the head underneath. The creature has a close resemblance to Rakewell. All is lost. Only unlike Rakewell, he does not search for it above the clouds:
quodpetis, hic est:
Est Ulubris.
(at White's), so he thinks, and makes a terrific thrust at a poor devil, possibly quite innocent, whom he takes for a cheat. Even that means looking much too far. Luckily he wields his sword just as clumsily as the dice, otherwise the game could have cost him very dear. And then a good- hearted mediator lends him some of his own reason—one might almost say, of his own wig. The latter is quite a natural consequence of the former. For since in difficult cases like this it would be impossible for heads to understand each other indirectly through words, the best they can do is to talk and at the same time let their arguments, together with the skulls under which they lie, run tilt against one another. The method is excellent and we have reason to believe that many controversies in this world, especially the learned ones, would not have gone so far if one had tried to settle them by this method. For in the first place, all verbal quarrels would, eo ipso, be cut short at one blow, and consequently nine- tenths of all the quarrels, and secondly, the appearance of exerting gentle pressure with the head rather than administering a rap has something rather pleasant about it, something resembling the brotherly kiss to which it would surely soon lead.
The rest of the Plate hardly calls for explanation. Every reader can hear for himself the cry of Fire! Fire!' The Nightwatchman rushes in from the street. He lets fresh air into the stuffy room through the door, and lets out a cloud of smoke, everything physically correct and to the advantage of the gambling party, and also of the flame on the ceiling. Of the whole company, only two notice it at the time. One exactly in the posture of Hamlet when the ghost appears, had he held his right hand a little lower; this is quite natural. And then the Marqueur with the hammer and the two candles which he could now extinguish, since the sun is rising behind the cornice. The fellow's attitude is good; it is the first moment of discovery and he is still more than half in the service of the gaming-table.
In the place where a mirror should hang above the fireplace, a Mr Justian, manufacturer of playing cards, has hung his address and advertisement, and a light even bums vigil before it. To conclude from the coat-of-arms and the whole tenor of the inscription, the man is card-maker by appointment to His Majesty. Whether that was very profitable in the year 1735, I cannot say. The title still exists, but times have changed (246-252).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Ad
Justian’s sign indicates he is card-maker to the royal family, demonstrating the pervasiveness of the vice among the aristocrats and, even, the royals.
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Ad
Shesgreen
Above the fireplace hands an advertisement reading “R Justian Card Maker to his Maj . . . Royal Family,” suggesting that even the king and queen indulge in this vicious amusement (33).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Ad
Paulson, Hogarth's Graphic Works
On the wall above the fireplace is a sign capped with the royal arms: "R Justian Card Maker to his Maj[esty] . . . royal Family" (168).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Ad
Lichtenberg
In the place where a mirror should hang above the fireplace, a Mr Justian, manufacturer of playing cards, has hung his address and advertisement, and a light even bums vigil before it. To conclude from the coat-of-arms and the whole tenor of the inscription, the man is card-maker by appointment to His Majesty. Whether that was very profitable in the year 1735, I cannot say. The title still exists, but times have changed (252).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Rake
In a gambling den, it is revealed that Tom did not learn from his previous near escape. He has wasted his rich widow’s fortune, and his wigless posture foreshadows the madness that will consume him in the final plate.
His pose is either strangely triumphant or attempts to rebuke the heavens for dealing him his fate.
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Rake
Shesgreen
Drawn into gambling again, one of the most popular and fatal vices of his new social circle, the rake has lost a second fortune. The center of interest in the previous scene, that stately figure is now half mad. His clothes unbuttoned, his wig ripped off, he is alone in the midst of his companions. His fists clenched, teeth gritted and eyes bulging, he seems to curse heaven and fate (33).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Rake
Paulson, Hogarth's Graphic Works
At the center is the Rake, who, having lost all his wife's fortune, has knocked over his chair and fallen to his knees, wigless and frantic, with the dog barking at him (168).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Rake
Ireland
His countenance distorted with agony, and his soul agitated almost to madness, he imprecates vengeance upon his own head.
In heartfelt bitter aguish he appears,
And from the bloodshot ball gush purpled tears!
He beats his brow, with rage and horror fraught;
His brow half bursts with agony of thought. (144-145).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Rake
Dobson
Henceforth Thomas Rakewell “progresses” at a headlong rate. Plate VI. Shows him in a Covent Garden gaming-house. He has lost all his recently acquired wealth; and flings himself upon the ground in a paroxysm of fury and execration (43).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Rake
Lichtenberg
Rakewell has not had much success with his fighting cocks and race-horses, or else his winnings from them, together with his other means, have all gone to feed the gaily-coloured poultry in Pontac's menagerie. By the barter in Mary-le-Bone Church he raked in a fair amount at least of what he lacked, but of course not nearly enough. Caetera desunt, he thought and, in order to be consistent, availed himself of the means of earning a living which accorded best with his capacities and his philosophy, that is, games of chance. How one world has arisen, other worlds can arise, and thus through mere chance a structure of fortune arises for our hero which cannot compare more fittingly with anything than with the wardrobe of the Knight of the Star sur le pavé. (246).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Fire
Again, fire threatens the scene. While there is not the macrocosmic implication of the whore setting fire to the world that is displayed in plate 3, Tom’s world is still going up in smoke. This time will be his last chance. From here, he quickly spirals into insanity and Bedlam.
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Fire
Paulson, Hogarth's Graphic Works
Hogarth also has in mind the White's of Pl. 4, where a fire took place on May 3, 1733 (Gentleman's Magazine, 3, 1733, 214), which may be related to the thunderbolt in Pl. 4. Most of the gamblers ignore the fire in their obsession (168).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Fire
Ireland
So engrossed is every one present by his own situation, that the flames which surround them are disregarded (Such an accident as is here represented really happened at White’s Chocolate House, St. James’s Street, on the 3d of May 1773), and the vehement cries of a watchman entering the room are necessary to rouse their attention to what is generally deemed the first law of nature, self-preservation (147).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Fire
Quennell
the plate includes a reference to the disastrous conflagration that had gutted out the building two years earlier. For fire has broken out in a corner of the apartment; but few of the gamblers assembled have yet observed the spreading flames (133).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Fire
Paulson, Popular and Polite Art
The only indication of providence in “modern moral subjects” is the lightning bolt aimed at White’s Gambling House in Rake, plate 4 (which is shown burning in pl.6) (263).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Fire
Lichtenberg
Here is White's Coffee House from within. A fire broke out in this house on May 3, 1733, and Hogarth makes use of this event to identify the place for the London public of his time (246).
Every reader can hear for himself the cry of Fire! Fire!' The Nightwatchman rushes in from the street. He lets fresh air into the stuffy room through the door, and lets out a cloud of smoke, everything physically correct and to the advantage of the gambling party, and also of the flame on the ceiling. Of the whole company, only two notice it at the time (252).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Hat Man
The room is filled with others in various stages of the same fate. Another man pulls his hat over his head as he loses a pile of coins. Most say he is a man “in mourning,” but Quennell calls him a parson, which makes his addiction ironic.
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Hat Man
Shesgreen
Behind the usurer a figure dressed in mourning convulses, perhaps over the loss of a newly acquired legacy (33).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Hat Man
Ireland
At the table a person in mourning grasps his hat, and hides his face in agony of repentance (The thought is taken from a similar character to be found among the figures of the principal personages in the court of Louis XIV., folio. This work has no engraver’s name, but was probably published about the year 1700.), not having, as we infer from his weepers, received that legacy of which he is now plundered more than a little month (145-146).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Hat Man
Quennell
an unfortunate parson who, using both hands, wrenches his hat down over his face as if to exclude the intolerable future (133).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Hat Man
Lichtenberg
On the right the man whom the dog has not yet noticed turns his back on fortune because he finds it unbearable to look on fortune's backside any longer. He came here in deep mourning, even with weepers, and probably with a legacy in his pocket, over which now the toad-like shape of a strange hand squats upon the table. Before, he was mourning the loss of a relative, and now, much more deeply, the loss of his legacy. There is a curious contrast in the convulsive expression of despair at the sudden loss of money acquired by our hero through marriage, and by his neighbour through inheritance. The former, as if filled with explosive air and set on fire, bursts through excess of tension; the latter like a pricked bubble collapses. There is really in the attitude of each something that reminds one of a wedding and a funeral. The one has at least the explosive force of the man in jubilo, and the other the shrivelled attitude of the mourner, reminiscent of sackcloth and ashes. Perhaps in the painting Rakewell’s garment even has the wedding-like white and silver. The contrast between these two gamblers has been intentionally exaggerated by our artist. For Rakewell's scheming head even the wig is too tight; everything makes for expansion. With his neighbour everything shrinks within, and in addition he even presses hat and wig inwards with both hands; and while the former raises his right arm with great force, it seems almost as if the latter had used the little raising power which was left to him for raising his left leg (247-248).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Highwayman
Paulson, Hogarth's Graphic Works
The man to his left, sitting by the fire grate in horseman's boots and spurs and a long riding coat, with a horse pistol and black mask protruding from his coat-pocket, is a highwayman. His melancholy at having gambled away his loot (he is so preoccupied that he ignores the boy who has brought him a drink) offers a parallel to the Rake, a more respectable robber, who has also lost his ill-gotten gains. Or he eavesdrops so he can later rob the winners (168).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Highwayman
Ireland
One of the most conspicuous characters appears, by the pistols in his pocket, to be a highwayman: from the profound stupor of his countenance, we are certain he is also a losing gamester; and so absorbed in reflection, that neither the boy who brings him a glass of water, not the watchman’s cry of Fire! can arouse him from his reverie (145).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Highwayman
Quennell
a professional highwayman, with his pistol protruding from his pocket is among the personages represented . . . the highwayman who sits by the hearth so deep in his melancholy cogitations that the little boy who has brought him a glass must shout at him and tug at his sleeve to call him back to real life (133).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Highwayman
Lichtenberg
Behind our newlywed, a highwayman twiddles his thumbs in deep thought. He intends neither to borrow nor lend here, but he carries in his pocket the tools for a compulsory loan on the highway—a pistol and a mask (248).
The highwayman has apparently lost here through dice everything which he had acquired that evening on the highway with his pistol, and now his conscience also calls him to account, and the balance is rather terrifying for him. His meditation here is really an execution by conscience; very understandable. From the gallows side the outlook is always the same; the crime has been committed, it can never be undone; from now on he is for the gallows as soon as he is discovered, and even his own horse may betray him. From the other side the outlook is no better. What he had hoped to acquire by crime, and had in fact acquired, is lost, gone for ever; he is again as poor and destitute as he was a few hours ago, and then he was perhaps still innocent; now the gallows will be ever before him, ready to receive him; the hateful Greek letter Π will from now on form the frame to every plan of the intellect and every picture of the imagination. With such a Calculus and a prospect like this it is small wonder if a complete physical paralysis sets in. He no longer sees or hears or feels. The boy standing in front of him, calling him loudly and even shaking him, simply does not exist for him. With smell and taste it is probably no better, for even the refreshing draught he ordered gets no attention. He has even forgotten to hide the pistol and the mask. Luckily for him, the boy, the only reasonable being in the whole company who is still capable of observation, is not standing on that side, otherwise the above-drawn frame around the vision in that hero's imagination might quickly become the frame around the hero himself (249).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Loan
Shesgreen
Another casual and richly dressed fellow borrows money from a plainly clothed figure (reminiscent of the rake’s father) who sits at a table covered with a rotting cloth and detachedly enters in ledger “Lent to Ld. Cogg 500” (33).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Loan
Ireland
A nobleman in the corner is giving his note to an usurer (This is said to be old Manners—brother to John Duke of Rutland—to whom the old Duke of Devonshire lost the great estate of Leicester Abbey. Manners was the only person of his time who has amassed a considerable fortune by the profession of gamester.). The lean and hungry appearance of this cent. per cent. worshipper of the golden calf is well contrasted by the sleek contented vacancy of so well-employed a legislator of this great empire (146).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Loan
Lichtenberg
Just in front of the mourner sits an old usurer who out of goodwill is just lending £500 (probably half capital and half interest) to a Lord Cogg (thus not incog.) whose sleeve, ornamented with gold and silver, shares the light in front of it (248).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Nail Biter
The room is filled with others in various stages of the same fate. A man bites his nails in worry, presumably over the loss of his money.
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Nail Biter
Shesgreen
Completely withdrawn, the man behind him bites his nails in torment (33).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Nail Biter
Ireland
another on whom fortune has severely frowned, biting his nails in the anguish of his soul (146).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Nail Biter
Lichtenberg
Behind the little boy, leaning against the wall, stands a seriously wounded victim. He has surely been hit in a tender place. What he holds here so pointedly in front of his mouth does not seem to be the part of his person on which he really gnaws; he is taking a bigger bite inwardly. Are his eyes perhaps directed upon the heavy, double-backed gentleman at the table who is raking in the money, and does perhaps envy mingle with incipient despair? In that event he deserves double compassion. To be obliged to look on in cold blood while our lost money is being raked in is in itself hard enough, but to see it gathered up by the warm, puffy, broad hand of a well-fed, carefree fellow like that, slowly, and with quiet secret satisfaction, is unendurable. Although it is difficult to explain, there is really something extremely mortifying when in a game the lean, or even the moderately plump, lose to the corpulent. Whether those think themselves cleverer because they are more agile, or whether? on a completely opposite principle, they reckon the temporal fact of corpulence as a temporal good in itself and mere superfluity, or whether they believe that he is more deserving of money who earns it with a sanguine impetuosity, than he who sets it before himself phlegmatically like a roasted goose, I do not know. But the fact is undeniable. (250)
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Thieving
The room is filled with others in various stages of the same fate. Thieves divide their takings.
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Thieving
Shesgreen
To the left, two figures with satisfied countenances share the fruits of their collusion (33).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Thieving
Ireland
In the background are two collusive associates eagerly dividing the profits of the evening (146).
A Rake's Progress: Plate 6: Thieving
Lichtenberg
The division of booty behind the highwayman is excellently done. Around the lips of the blissful, hatless creature there hovers an almost infectious satisfaction. All the same, that happy soul should take good care; the man in the hat divides somewhat summarily, and almost intentionally with more jingle than weight. In the familiarity of his manner there is something very rhetorical as well, apparently to give the jingling coins still more sound, and thereby to give that roundness to the figure which it lacked in reality. To judge from the apparel of the two partners they are not of equal rank, and in such a case the humbler half readily takes a word, administered at the right moment, for cash down, especially when such jingling is going on in front of him, and gracious pats are gently administered behind (251).