Miseries of human life designed and etched by T. Rowlandson and published December 14, 1808, by R. Ackermann, Repository of Arts, 101 Strand. [graphic]

"Frontispiece to forty-nine (coloured) plates, see British Museum Satires nos. 10816-63. The title, &c., is engraved on a framed tablet supported on a stone base in front of which are figures. An aged miser, moribund and toothless, seated in an armchair which is also a commode, is violently jolted by Death (left), a skeleton, who seizes the chair and tilts it backwards. The man has swathed gouty legs and holds a crutch; he wears a nightcap and dressing gown. Death has dropped his hour-glass. The old man looks with impotent anger at his young wife and her lover (right) who with defiant exultation pillage his 'Strong Box'. She has taken out money-bags, and holds up to him one inscribed 'Pin Money'; her foot rests on a 'Post Obit'. The young man is behind her, running forward, and holding up a bag of 'Pocket Pieces' whose contents he scatters. Beside him on the ground are a paper: 'Sale of Timber', and a book: 'Turf Callender - Cock Fighting'. Above the tablet are swags of leaves supported by a tragic and a comic mask. From the ends are suspended (left) a tambourine, (right) pan-pipes."--British Museum online catalogue