End, Premonition of the
Hogarth's painting symbolizes the final end of all things and human life.
"My next undertaking," said Hogarth to a company of friends around his table, "shall be the 'End of all Things.'"—"If that is the case," replied one of his friends, "your business will be finished; for there will be an end to the painter."—"There will be so," answered Hogarth, sighing heavily; "and therefore the sooner my work is done the better." He began the next day, and by grouping every thing which denotes the end of all things,—a broken bottle; an old broom worn to the stump; the butt-end of an old firelock; a cracked bell; a bow unstrung; a crown tumbling in pieces; towers in ruins; the sign-post of a tavern called the "World's End," tumbling; the moon in her wane; the map of the globe burning; a gibbet falling, the body gone, and chains which held it falling down; Phebus and his horse dead in the clouds; a vessel wrecked; Time, with his hour-glass and scythe broken, a tobacco-pipe in his mouth, the last whiff of smoke going out; a play-book open, with Ezeunt omnes stamped in the corner; an empty purse; and a statute of bankruptcy taken out against Nature. "So far so good," cried Hogarth: "nothing remains but this," taking his pencil in a sort of prophetic fury, and dashing off the similitude of a painter's palette broken. "Finis!" exclaimed Hogarth, "the deed is done, all is over." He never again took the palette in hand; and he died in about a year after he had finished this extraordinary tail-piece.