Tail Piece, or The Bathos

In the center of his print, a winged figure representing "Time" smokes a broken pipe, the smoke labeled “FINIS,” and holding a broken scythe. Ten days before the publication of this print, there was a total eclipse of the sun. This piece was considered particularly bleak because it depicted the apocalypse without an afterlife. This was Hogarth’s final engraving and a farewell that tied all of his works together. Hogarth, a celebrated engraver and painter, died six months after the print’s publication.

Throughout this detailed print, Hogarth references many of his past works. Hogarth's "Time" first made an appearance in Hogarth's works in his ca. 1761 engraving "Time Smoking a Picture." This print references “The Times, Plate I” (see 1959-435), a print Hogarth engraved about two years earlier. By Time’s feet, “The Times, Plate I” is being consumed by candle fire, and a crooked signpost has a flaming globe, like the globe in the center of “The Times, Plate I.”
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