The letter reads:
"dear tommy
my mistress has been the best of women to me, and my conscience flies in my face as often as i think of wronging her, yet i am resolved to venture body & soul to do as you would as you would have me, so don't fail to meet me as you say you would. For i shall bring along with me all the things i can lay my hands on. So no more at present, but i remain yours till death. Ann gill. "
poem below the image:
to lawless love when once betray'd,
soon crime to crime succeeds:
at length beguil'd to theft, the maid
by her beguiler bleeds. Yet learn, seducing man'nor night,
with all its sable cloud,
can screen the guilty deed from sight:
foul murder cries aloud. The gaping wounds, and bloodstain'd steel,
now shock his trembling soul:
but oh! what pangs his breast must feel,
when death his knell shall toll. Object Type: genre subject. Date: 1751. Dimensions: height: 387 mm (15.23 in); width: 324 mm (12.75 in). Medium: line engraving, paper. Collection: Yale Center for British Art. William Hogarth - The Third Stage of Cruelty- Cruelty in Perfection - The Murder - Google Art Project
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