Note 72 — HOGARTH ILLUSTRATED.
Reading edition
A bravo is more properly an Italian than an English character; but even in England, the aid of an assassin may be useful, when a man dare not resent an affront in propria persona.
This gunpowder hero being introduced, and evidently waiting for orders, seems covertly to intimate that Thomas Rakewell, Esq., in addition to his other excellent qualities, is a coward.