Hogarth: His Life, Art, and Times

voted to the painting of Moses brought to Pharaoh's Daughter, and at the same
time he must have been mulling over the twelve designs of Industry and Idle-
ness, making the many drawings that have survived for that series, and be-
ginning to etch some of them (pls. 208-19). He was not planning too far ahead:
there was no subscription for this series, and of course, considering the audience
intended, there could not be.
Moses had not brought Hogarth any money, though Lovat's trial had sold
some more of the Lovat prints. Then, on 18 June Henry Pelham suddenly an-
nounced a General Election to be held at the end of the month, and by the
twenty-sixth Hogarth had brought out another shilling etching, The Stage-
Coach, or the Country Inn Yard. It duplicates exactly the style of Industry and
Idleness, almost to the size, and looks to have been originally simply the picture
of an inn yard—the election allusions must have been inserted for their topi-
cality. 7 Industry and Idleness itself was announced on 15-17 October:
This Day is publish'd, Price 12s.
Design'd and engrav'd by Mr. HOGARTH,
TWELVE Prints, call'd INDUSTRY and IDLENESS: Shewing the Ad-
vantages attending the former, and the miserable Effects of the latter, in the
different Fortunes of two APPRENTICES.
To be had at the Golden Head in Leicester-Fields, and at the Print-
Shops. N.B. There are some printed on a better Paper for the Curious, at
14s. each Set. To be had only at the Author's in Leicester-Fields. Where
also may be had all his other Works. 8
The special paper was a concession to his old audience and a way of distinguish-
ing the Golden Head from the other print shops. They were only a shilling a
plate, but there were twelve plates; one wonders how many Londoners could
afford to expend nearly a month's wages on morality. His mass audience was
probably the merchants rather than the apprentices, and may not have differed
too strikingly from that of his earlier prints. In this case, however, an account of
the public's reaction on the first day the prints were published has been pre-
served. The author of The Effects of Industry and Idleness Illustrated, a simple-
minded moral explanation of the prints, begins his preface: 9
Walking some Weeks ago from Temple-Bar to 'Change in a pensive Hu-
mour, I found myself interrupted at every Print-Shop by a Croud of People
of all Ranks gazing at Mr. Hogarth's Prints of Industry and Idleness. Being
thus disturbed in my then Train of Thoughts, my Curiosity was awakened
to mingle with the Croud, to take a View of what they seemed so much to
admire. Mr. Hogarth's Name at bottom was sufficient to fix my Attention
on these celebrated Pieces, where I found an excellent and useful Moral
discovered by the nicest Strokes of Art to the meanest Understanding. After
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