PLATE 4

The husband's philandering has impaired his health and in company with
a little wench, he seeks out a quack doctor. The doctor's pills have proved no
remedy and neither the Viscount's light-hearted complaints or the wench's
some-what hypocritical tears, seem to impress the quack or his virago as-
sistant.

It was the custom of the time for such an office to be fitted out as a kind
of "museum." We see a "unicorn" (a narwal horn, employed in powdered
form against certain ailments but here mounted like a barber's pole), giant's
bones, mummies, skulls, a stuffed alligator, and pseudo-scientific machines of
various kinds.

PLATE 5

This elegant scene is one of the most spectacular of the series. Here we see
Counselor Silvertongue making an appointment with the Countess for a mas-
querade ball. At the same time an Italian singer renders an aria to the com-
pany sipping chocolate and is greeted with varying degrees of attention. Only
the little colored page senses the plot. He grins as he points out the antlers on
a figure of Acteon which the Countess has just bought at auction.

PLATE 6

This canvas presents the climax of the drama. The hero, having learned that
his wife and the Counselor would retire to the Turk's Head after the ball, has
challenged the adulterer on the spot, but in turn is fatally stabbed by his rival
while his wife implores forgiveness.

PLATE 7

In misery and disgrace the Countess has returned to her father's home. Here
she commits suicide with laudanum, procured with the help of a half-witted
valet. While an elderly nurse holds up a ricketty daughter for the mother's
last kiss, the old Alderman callously draws a ring from his daughter's finger.
As if to let in some fresh air, a window is opened, permitting a view of old
London Bridge and the Thames. Here life goes on unmoved by the sordid
drama on which the curtain is about to close.

Intended as a moral piece to entertain or to instruct Hogarth's contem-
poraries, Marriage à la Mode has become an epic in which manners,
customs, and style of the age are depicted with the fidelity of a chronicler and
the power of a master.

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