evils, but an evil to which every deep gamestress was
inevitably exposed.'

Hogarth strikingly illustrated this phase of womanhood in
England, in his small picture painted for the Earl of Charlemont,
and entitled `_Picquet, or Virtue in Danger_.' It shows a young
lady, who, during a _tete-a-tete_, had just lost all her
money to a handsome officer of her own age. He is represented in
the act of returning her a handful of bank-bills, with the hope
of exchanging them for another acquisition and more delicate
plunder. On the chimney-piece are a watch-case and a figure of
Time, over it this motto--_Nunc_, `Now!' Hogarth has caught his
heroine during this moment of hesitation--this struggle with
herself--and has expressed her feelings with uncommon success.

But, indeed, the thing was perfectly understood. In the
_Guardian_ (No. 120) we read:--`All play-debts must be paid in
specie or by equivalent. The "man" that plays beyond his
income pawns his estate; the "woman" must find out something
else to mortgage when her pin-money is gone. The husband has his
lands to dispose of; the wife her person. Now when the female
body is once dipped, if the creditor be very importunate, I
leave my reader to consider the consequences.' . . . .

A lady was married when very young to a noble lord, the honour
and ornament of his country, who hoped to preserve her from the
contagion of the times by his own example, and, to say the truth,
she had every good quality that could recommend her to the bosom
of a man of discernment and worth. But, alas! how frail and
short are the joys of mortals! One unfortunate hour ruined his