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Presented  to  the 
LIBRARY  of  the 

UNIVERSITY  OF  TORONTO 

h 

William  L.  Shelden 


PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS 

AND    CUSTOMS. 


TO 

AUGUSTINE   BIRRELL,    M.P. 


Frontispiece 


PICKWICKIAN 
MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS, 


BY 


PERCY    FITZGERALD, 


DA 


TP   MAY  0  1  $90 


THE 

ROXBURGHE    PRESS, 

LIMITED, 
FIFTEEN,  VICTORIA  STREET, 

WESTMINSTER. 


Other  Works  by  the  same  Author  : — 

The  Book  of  Wit. 
The  History  of  Pickwick. 

Bozland. 

Recreations   of  a   Literary   Man. 
Memoirs   of  an   Author. 


CONTENTS. 

Page. 

Pickwickian  Manners  and  Customs  7 

"  Monumental  Pickwick "-                         -  36 

"Boz"  and  "Bozzy"        -  52 

Pickwickian  Originals  70 

Concerning  the  Plates  and  Extra   Plates 

and  "States"  of  Pickwick       -            -  91 


PICKWICKIAN    MANNERS    AND 
CUSTOMS. 

No  English  book  has  so  materially  in- 
creased the  general  gaiety  of  the  country, 
or  inspired  the  feeling  of  comedy  to  such  a 
degree  as,  "  The  Pickwick  Club."  It  is  now 
some  " sixty  years  since"  this  book  was 
published,  and  it  is  still  heartily  appreciated. 
What  English  novel  or  story  is  there  which 
is  made  the  subject  of  notes  and  com- 
mentaries on  the  most  elaborate  scale; 
whose  very  misprints  and  inconsistencies 
are  counted  up  ;  whose  earliest  "  states  of 
the  plates "  are  sought  out  and  esteemed 
precious  ?  "  Pickwick,"  wonderful  to  say, 
is  the  only  story  that  has  produced  a  literature 
of  its  own — quite  a  little  library — and  has 
kept  artists,  topographers,  antiquaries,  and 
collectors  all  busily  at  work. 

There  seems  to  be  some  mystery,  almost 


8    PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS. 

miracle,  here.  A  young  fellow  of  four-and- 
twenty  throws  off,  or  rather  "  rattles  off,"  in 
the  exuberance  of  his  spirits,  a  never-flagging 
series  of  incidents  and  characters.  The 
story  is  read,  devoured,  absorbed,  all  over  the 
world,  and  now,  sixty  years  after  its  appear- 
ance, new  and  yet  newer  editions  are  being 
issued.  All  the  places  alluded  to  and  described 
in  the  book  have  in  their  turn  been  lifted 
into  fame,  and  there  are  constantly  appear- 
ing in  magazines  illustrated  articles  on 
"Rochester  and  Dickens,"  "  Dickens  Land," 
"  Dickens'  London,"  and  the  rest.  Wonder- 
ful !  People,  indeed,  seem  never  to  tire  of 
the  subject — the  same  topics  are  taken  up 
over  and  over  again.  The  secret  seems  to  be 
that  the  book  was  a  living  thing,  and  still 
lives.  It  is,  moreover,  perhaps  the  best, 
most  accurate  picture  of  character  and 
manners  that  are  quite  gone  by  :  in  it  the 
meaning  and  significance  of  old  buildings, 
old  inns,  old  churches,  and  old  towns  are 
reached,  and  interpreted  in  most  interesting 


PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS.       9 

fashion;  the  humour,  bubbling  over,  and 
never  forced,  and  always  fresh,  is  sustained 
through  some  six  hundred  closely-printed 
pages ;  all  which,  in  itself,  is  a  marvel  and 
unapproached.  It  is  easy,  however,  to  talk 
of  the  boisterousness,  the  "caricature,"  the 
unlicensed  recklessness  of  the  book,  the  lack 
of  restraint,  the  defiance  of  the  probabilities. 
It  is  popular  and  acceptable  all  the  same. 
But  there  is  one  test  which  incontestably 
proves  its  merit,  and  supplies  its  title,  to  be 
considered  all  but  "  monumental."  This  is 
its  prodigious  fertility  and  suggestiveness. 

At  this  moment  a  review  is  being  made  of 
the  long  Victorian  Age,  and  people  are 
reckoning  up  the  wonderful  changes  in  life 
and  manners  that  have  taken  place  within 
the  past  sixty  years.  These  have  been  so 
imperceptibly  made  that  they  are  likely  to 
escape  our  ken,  and  the  eye  chiefly  settles  on 
some  few  of  the  more  striking  and  monu- 
mental kind,  such  as  the  introduction  of 
railways,  of  ocean  steamships,  electricity, 


IO    PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS. 

and  the  like.  But  no  standard  of 
comparison  could  be  more  useful  or  more 
compendious  than  the  immortal  chronicle  of 
PICKWICK,  in  which  the  old  life,  not  forgotten 
by  some  of  us,  is  summarised  with  the  com- 
pleteness of  a  history.  The  reign  of 
Pickwick,  like  that  of  the  sovereign,  began 
some  sixty  years  ago.  Let  us  recall  some  of 
these  changes. 

To  begin  :  We  have  now  no  arrest  for 
debt,  with  the  attendant  sponging-houses, 
Cursitor  Street,  sheriffs'  officers,  and 
bailiffs;  and  no  great  Fleet  Prison,  Marshal- 
sea,  or  King's  Bench  for  imprisoning  debtors. 
There  are  no  polling  days  and  hustings,  with 
riotous  proceedings,  or  "  hocussing "  of 
voters ;  and  no  bribery  on  a  splendid  scale. 

Drinking  and  drunkenness  in  society  have 
quite  gone  out  of  fashion.  Gentlemen  at  a 
country  house  rarely  or  never  come  up  from 
dinner,  or  return  from  a  cricket  match,  in  an 
almost  "beastly  "  state  of  intoxication;  and 
"cold  punch"  is  not  very  constantly  drunk 


PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS.     II 

through  the  day.  There  are  no  elopements 
now  in  chaises  and  four,  like  Miss  Wardle's, 
with  headlong  pursuit  in  other  chaises  and 
four;  nor  are  special  licenses  issued  at  a 
moment's  notice  to  help  clandestine 
marriages.  There  is  now  no  frequenting  of 
taverns  and  "  free  and  easies  "  by  gentlemen, 
at  the  "Magpie  and  Stump"  and  such 
places,  nor  do  persons  of  means  take  up  their 
residence  at  houses  like  the  "  George  and 
Vulture"  in  the  City.  No  galleried  inns 
(though  one  still  lingers  on  in  Holborn),  are 
there,  at  which  travellers  put  up :  there  were 
then  nearly  a  dozen,  in  the  Borough  and  else- 
where. There  are  no  coaches  on  the  great 
roads,  no  guards  and  bulky  drivers ;  no  gigs 
with  hoods,  called  "cabs,"  with  the  driver's 
seat  next  his  fare;  no  "hackney  coaches," 
no  "  Hampstead  stages,"  no  "Stanhopes" 
or  "guillotined  cabriolets" — whatever  they 
were — or  "mail-carts,"  the  "pwettiest  thing" 
driven  by  gentlemen.  And  there  are  no 
"  sedan  chairs  "  to  take  Mrs.  Dowler  home. 


12    PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS. 

There  are  no  "poke"  or  "coal-scuttle" 
bonnets,  such  as  the  Miss  Wardles  wore; 
no  knee-breeches  and  gaiters ;  no  "  tights," 
with  silk  stockings  and  pumps  for  evening 
wear ;  no  big  low-crowned  hats,  no  striped 
vests  for  valets,  and,  above  all,  no  gorgeous 
"uniforms,"  light  blue,  crimson,  and  gold, 
or  "orange  plush,"  such  as  were  worn  by  the 
Bath  gentlemen's  gentlemen.  "Thunder 
and  lightning"  shirt  buttons,  "mosaic 
studs  " — whatever  they  were — are  things  of 
the  past.  They  are  all  gone.  Gone  too  is 
"  half-price  "  at  the  theatres.  At  Bath,  the 
"  White  Hart "  has  disappeared  with  its 
waiters  dressed  so  peculiarly — "like  West- 
minster boys."  We  have  no  Serjeants  now 
like  Buzfuz  or  Snubbin :  their  Inn  is 
abolished,  and  so  are  all  the  smaller  Inns — 
Clement's  or  Clifford's — where  the  queer 
client  lived.  Neither  are  valentines  in  high 
fashion.  Chatham  Dockyard,  with  its 
hierarchy,  "  the  Clubbers,"  and  the  rest,  has 
been  closed.  No  one  now  gives  dfy'efads,  not 


PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS.     13 

dejeuners;  or  "  public  breakfasts,"  such  as  the 
authoress  of  the  "  Expiring  Frog "  gave. 
The  "  delegates  "  have  been  suppressed,  and 
Doctors'  Commons  itself  is  levelled  to  the 
ground.  The  "  Fox  under  the  Hill"  has 
given  place  to  a  great  hotel.  The  old 
familiar  "White  Horse  Cellars"  has  been 
rebuilt,  made  into  shops  and  a  restaurant. 
There  are  no  "  street  keepers  "  now,  but  the 
London  Police.  The  Eatanswill  Gazette  and 
its  scurrilities  are  not  tolerated.  Special 
constables  are  rarely  heard  of,  and  appear 
only  to  be  laughed  at :  their  staves,  tipped 
with  a  brass  crown,  are  sold  as  curios. 
Turnpikes,  which  are  found  largely  in 
"  Pickwick,"  have  been  suppressed.  The 
abuses  of  protracted  litigation  in  Chancery 
and  other  Courts  have  been  reformed.  No 
papers  are  "  filed  at  the  Temple  " — whatever 
that  meant.  The  Pound,  as  an  incident  of 
village  correction  has,  all  but  a  few, 
disappeared. 

Then   for  the  professional  classes,  which 


14    PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS. 

are  described  in  the  chronicle  with  such 
graphic  power  and  vivacity.  As  at  this 
time  "Boz"  drew  the  essential  elements  of 
character  instead  of  the  more  superficial 
ones — his  later  practice — there  is  not  much 
change  to  be  noted.  We  have  the  medical 
life  exhibited  by  Bob  Sawyer  and  his  friends; 
the  legal  world  in  Court  and  chambers — 
judges,  counsel,  and  solicitors — are  all  much 
as  they  are  now.  Sir  Frank  Lockwood  has 
found  this  subject  large  enough  for  treatment 
in  his  little  volume,  "The Law  and  Lawyers 
of  Pickwick."  It  may  be  thought  that  no 
judge  of  the  pattern  of  Stareleigh  could  be 
found  now,  but  we  could  name  recent  per- 
formances in  which  incidents  such  as,  "  Is 
your  name  Nathaniel  Daniel  or  Daniel 
Nathaniel  ?  "  have  been  repeated.  Neither 
has  the  blustering  of  Buzfuz  or  his  sophistical 
plaintiveness  wholly  gone  by.  The  "  cloth  " 
was  represented  by  the  powerful  but  revolt- 
ing sketch  of  Stiggins,  which,  it  is  .strange, 
was  not  resented  by  the  Dissenters  of  the 


PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS.     1 5 

day,  and  also  by  a  more  worthy  specimen  in 
the  person  of  the  clergyman  at  Dingley  Dell. 
There  are  the  mail-coach  drivers,  with  the 
"  ostlers,  boots,  countrymen,  gamekeepers, 
peasants,  and  others,"  as  they  have  it  in  the 
play-bills.  Truly  admirable,  and  excelling 
the  rest,  are  "  Boz's  "  sketches — actually 
"living  pictures" — of  the  fashionable  foot- 
men at  Bath,  beside  which  the  strokes  in 
that  diverting  piece  "  High  Life  below 
Stairs"  seem  almost  flat.  The  simperings  of 
these  gentry,  their  airs  and  conceit,  we  may 
be  sure,  obtain  now.  Once  coming  out  of  a 
Theatre,  at  some  fashionable  performance, 
through  a  long  lane  of  tall  menials,  one 
fussy  aristocrat  pushed  one  of  them  out  of 
his  way.  The  menial  contemptuously 
pushed  him  back.  The  other  in  a  rage  said, 
"  How  dare  you?  Don't  you  know,  I'm  the 

Earl  of "       "Well,"    said    the    other 

coldly,  "  If  you  be  a  Hearl,  can't  you  be'ave 
assich?" 

After  the  wedding  at  Manor  Farm  we  find 


l6    PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS. 

that  bride  and  bridegroom  did  not  set  off  from 
the  house  on  a  wedding  tour,  but  remained 
for  the  night.  This  seemed  to  be  the 
custom.  Kissing,  too,  on  the  Pickwickian 
principles,  would  not  now,  to  such  an  extent, 
be  tolerated.  There  is  an  enormous  amount 
in  the  story.  The  amorous  Tupman  had 
scarcely  entered  the  hall  of  a  strange  house 
when  he  began  osculatory  attempts  on  the 
lips  of  one  of  the  maids;  and  when  Mr. 
Pickwick  and  his  friends  called  on  Mr. 
Winkle,  sen.,  at  Birmingham,  Bob  Sawyer 
made  similar  playful  efforts — being  called  an 
"  odous  creetur  "  by  the  lady.  In  fact,  the 
custom  seemed  to  be  to  kiss  when  and 
wherever  you  could  conveniently.  Getting 
drunk  after  any  drinking,  and  at  any  time  of 
the  day,  seemed  to  be  common  enough. 
There  was  a  vast  amount  of  open  fields, 
&c.,  about  London  which  engendered  the 
"  Cockney  sportsman."  He  disappeared  as 
the  fields  were  built  over.  We  have  no 


PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS.     17 

longer  the  peculiar  "stand-up"  collars,  or 
"  gills,"  and  check  neck-cloths. 

But  Mr.  Bantam's  costume  at  the  Bath 
Assembly,  shows  the  most  startling  change. 
Where  is  now  the  "gold  eye  glass?" — we 
know  that  eye  glass,  which  was  of  a  solid 
sort,  not  fixed  on  the  nose,  but  held  to  the 
eye — a  "  quizzing  glass,"  and  folding  up  on  a 
hinge — "a  broad  black  ribbon"  too;  the 
"gold  snuffbox;"  gold  rings  "innumerable" 
on  the  fingers,  and  "a  diamond  pin  "  on  his 
"  shirt  frill,"  a  "  curb  chain  "  with  large  gold 
seals  hanging  from  his  waistcoat — (a  "curb 
chain"  proper  was  then  a  little  thin  chain 
finely  wrought,  of  very  close  links.)  Then 
there  was  the  "  pliant  ebony  cane,  with  a 
heavy  gold  top."  Ebony,  however,  is  not 
pliant,  but  the  reverse — black  was  the  word 
intended.  Then  those  "smalls"  and  stock- 
ings to  match.  Mr.  Pickwick,  a  privileged 
man,  appeared  on  this  occasion,  indeed 
always,  in  his  favourite  white  breeches  and 
gaiters,  In  fact,  on  no  occasion  save  one, 


l8    PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS. 

when  he  wore  a  great-coat,  does  he  appear 
without  them.  Bantam's  snuff  was  "  Prince's 
mixture,"  so  named  after  the  Regent,  and  his 
scent  "\Bouquet  du  Roi"  "Prince's  mixture" 
is  still  made,  but  "Bouquet  du  Roi"  is 
supplanted. 

Perker's  dress  is  also  that  of  the  stage 
attorney,  as  we  have  him  now,  and  recognize 
him.  He  would  not  be  the  attorney  without 
that  dress.  He  was  "all  in  black,  with 
boots  as  shiny  as  his  eyes,  a  low  white  neck- 
cloth, and  a  clean  shirt  with  a  frill  to  it." 
This,  of  course,  meant  that  he  put  on  one 
every  day,  and  is  yet  a  slight  point  of 
contact  with  Johnson,  who  described  some- 
one as  being  only  able  to  go  out  "on  clean 
shirt  days ;"  a  gold  watch  and  seals  depended 
from  his  Fob.  "  Depended"  is  a  curious  use 
of  the  word,  and  quite  gone  out. 

Another  startling  change  is  in  the  matter 
of  duels.  The  duels  in  Pickwick  come  about 
quite  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  as  a  common 
social  incident.  In  the  "forties"!  recall  a 


PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS.     IQ 

military  uncle  of  my  own — a  gentleman,  like 
uncle  Toby — handing  his  card  to  some  one 
in  a  billiard  room,  with  a  view  to  "a 
meeting."  Dickens'  friend  Forster  was  at  one 
time  "going  out"  with  another  gentleman. 
Mr.  Lang  thinks  that  duelling  was  prohibited 
about  1844,  and  "Courts  of  Honour" 
substituted.  But  the  real  cause  was  the 
duel  between  Colonel  Fawcett  and  Lieut. 
Munro,  brothers-in-law,  when  the  former 
was  killed.  This,  and  some  other  tragedies 
of  the  kind,  shocked  the  public.  The 
"Courts  of  Honour,"  of  course,  only  affected 
military  men. 

Mr.  Pickwick,  himself,  had  nearly  "  gone 
out"  on  two  or  three  occasions,  once  with  Mr. 
Slammer,  once  with  Mr.  Magnus ;  while  his 
scuffle  with  Tupman  would  surely  have  led 
to  one.  Winkle,  presumed  to  be  a  coward, 
had  no  less  than  three  "affairs"  on 
his  hands :  one  with  Slammer,  one  with 
Dowler,  and  one  with  Bob  Sawyer.  At  Bob 
Sawyer's  Party,  the  two  medical  students, 

B 


20    PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS. 

tendered  their  cards.  For  so  amiable  a  man, 
Mr.  Pickwick  had  some  extraordinary  fail- 
ings. He  seems  to  have  had  no  restraint 
where  drink  was  in  the  case,  and  was 
hopelessly  drunk  about  six  times — on  three 
occasions,  at  least,  he  was  preparing  to 
assault  violently.  He  once  hurled  an  ink- 
stand';  he  once  struck  a  person ;  once 
challenged  his  friend  to  "come  on."  Yet 
the  capital  comedy  spirit  of  the  author 
carries  us  over  these  blemishes. 

When  Sam  was  relating  to  his  master  the 
story  of  the  sausage  maker's  disappearance, 
Mr.  Pickwick,  horrified,  asked  had  he  been 
"Burked  ?  "  There  Boz  might  have  repeated 
his  apologetic  footnote,  on  Jingle's  share  in 
the  Revolution  of  1830.  "  A  remarkable 
instance  of  his  force  of  prophetic  imagination, 
etc."  For  the  sausage  story  was  related  in 
the  year  of  grace  1827,  and  Burke  was 
executed  in  1829,  some  two  years  later. 

Mr.  Lang  has  suggested  that  the  bodies 
Mr.  Sawyer  and  his  friend  subscribed  for, 


PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS.     21 

were  "  snatched,"  but  he  forgets  that  this 
traffic  was  a  secret  one,  and  the  bodies  were 
brought  to  the  private  residence  of  the  physi- 
cians, the  only  safe  way  ( Vide  the  memoirs  of 
Sir  A.  Cooper).  At  a  great  public  Hospital 
the  practice  would  be  impossible. 

"  Hot  elder  wine,  well  qualified  with  brandy 
and  spice,"  is  a  drink  that  would  not  now  be 
accepted  with  enthusiasm  at  the  humblest 
wedding,  even  in  the  rural  districts  :  we  are 
assured  that  sound  "  was  the  sleep  and 
pleasant  were  the  dreams  that  followed." 
Which  is  not  so  certain.  The  cake  was  cut 
and  "passed  through  the  ring,"  also  an 
exploded  custom,  whatever  its  meaning  was. 
In  what  novel  nowadays  would  there  be  an 
allusion  to  "Warren's  blacking,"  or  to 
"  Rowland's  oil,"  which  was,  of  course, 
their  famous  "  Macassar."  These  articles,  how- 
ever, may  still  be  procured,  and  to  that  oil  we 
owe  the  familiar  interposing  towel  or  piec&of 
embroidery  the  "  antimacassar,"  devised  to 
protect  the  sofa  or  easy  chair  from  the 


22    PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS. 

unguent  of  the  hair.  "  Moral  pocket  handker- 
chiefs," for  teaching  religion  to  natives  of  the 
West  Indies,  combining  amusement  with 
instruction,  "blending  select  tales  with  wood- 
cuts," are  no  longer  used. 

Old  Temple  Bar  has  long  since  dis- 
appeared, so  has  the  Holborn  Valley.  The 
Fleet  was  pulled  down  about  ten  years  after 
Pickwick,  but  imprisonment  for  debt  con- 
tinued until  1860  or  so.  Indeed  Mr.  Lang 
seems  to  think  it  still  goes  on,  for  he  says  it 
is  now  "  disguised  as  imprisonment  for 
contempt  of  Court."  This  is  a  mistake. 
In  the  County  Courts  when  small  debts 
under  £3  los.  are  sued  for,  the  judge  will 
order  a  small  weekly  sum  to  be  paid  in 
discharge ;  in  case  of  failure  to  pay,  he  will 
punish  the  disobedience  by  duress  not 
exceeding  fifteen  days — a  wholly  different 
thing  from  imprisonment  for  debt. 

vWhere  now  are  the  Pewter  Pots,  and  the 
pot  boy  with  his  strap  of  " pewters?" — we 
would  have  to  search  for  them  now.  Long 


PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS.     23 

cut  glasses  have  taken  their  place.  Where, 
too,  is  the  invariable  Porter,  drunk  almost 
exclusively  in  Pickwick  ?  Bass  had  not 
then  made  its  great  name.  There  is  no 
mention  of  Billiard  tables,  but  much  about 
Skittles  and  Bagatelle,  which  were  the 
pastimes  at  Taverns. 

Then  the  Warming  Pan !  Who  now  "  does 
trouble  himself  about  the  Warming  Pan  ?  " — 
which  is  yet  "a  harmless  necessary  and  I 
will  add  a  comforting  article  of  domestic 
furniture."  Observe  necessary,  as  though 
every  family  had  it  as  an  article  of  their 
"domestic  furniture."  It  is  odd  to  think  of 
Mary  going  round  all  the  beds  in  the 
house,  and  deftly  introducing  this  "  article  " 
between  the  sheets.  Or  was  it  only  for  the  old 
people :  or  in  chilly  weather  merely  ?  On 
these  points  we  must  be  unsatisfied.  The 
practice,  however,  points  to  a  certain 
effeminacy — the  average  person  of  our  day 
would  not  care  to  have  his  bed  so  treated — 
with  invalids  the  "  Hot  Water  Bottle"  has 


24    PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS. 

"  usurped  its  place."  We  find  this  super- 
annuated instrument  in  the  "antique" 
dealers'  shops,  at  a  good  figure — a  quaint 
old  world  thing,  of  a  sort  of  old-fashioned  cut 
and  pattern.  There  only  do  people  appear 
to  trouble  themselves  about  it. 

"  Chops  and  tomato  sauce."  This  too  is 
superannuated  also.  A  more  correct  taste 
is  now  chops  au  naturel,  and  relying  on  their 
own  natural  juices ;  but  we  have  cutlets, 
with  tomatos. 

Again,  are  little  boys  no  longer  clad  in  "  a 
tight  suit  of  corduroy,  spangled  with  brass 
buttons  of  very  considerable  size :  "  indeed 
corduroy  is  seldom  seen  save  on  the  figures 
of  some  chic  ladies.  And  how  fortunate  to 
live  in  days  when  a  smart  valet  could  be 
secured  for  twelve  pounds  a  year,  and 
two  suits  ;*  and  not  less. 

Surprising  too  was  the  valet's  accustomed 
dress.  "A  grey  coat,  a  black  hat,  with  a 

*  As  I  write  it  is  mentioned  in  some  "society  case"  that 
the    valet    received  £63  a  year,  and   305.  a  month  "beer 


PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS.    25 

cockade  on  it,  a  pink  striped  waistcoat, 
light  breeches  and  gaiters."  What  too  were 
"bright  basket  buttons"  on  a  brown  coat? 
Fancy  Balls  too,  like  Mrs.  Leo  Hunter's, 
were  given  in  the  daytime,  and  caused  no 
astonishment.  Nor  have  we  lodging-houses 
with  beds  on  the  "  twopenny  rope  "  principle. 
There  are  no  "dry  arches "  of  Waterloo 
Bridge :  though  here  I  suspect  Boz  was 
confounding  them  with  those  of  the  Adelphi. 

Gone  too  are  the  simple  games  of  child- 
hood. Marbles  for  instance.  We  recall 
Serjeant  Buzfuz's  pathetic  allusion  to  little 
Bardell's  "Alley  Tors  and  Commoneys; 
the  long  familiar  cry  of  '  knuckle  down '  is 
neglected."  Who  sees  a  boy  playing  marbles 
now  in  the  street  or  elsewhere  ?  Mr.  Lang 
in  his  edition  gives  us  no  lore  about  this 
point.  "Alley  Tors"  was  short  for 
"  Alabaster,"  the  material  of  which  the  best 
marbles  were  made. 

" Tor "  however,  is  usually  spelt  "Taw." 
"Commoneys"  were  the  inferior  or 


26  PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS. 

commoner  kind.  "  Knuckle  down,"  accord- 
ing to  our  recollections,  was  the  laying  the 
knuckle  on  the  ground  for  a  shot.  "  Odd 
and  even"  was  also  spoken  of  by  the  Serjeant. 
Another  game  alluded  to,  is  mysteriously 
called  "  Tip-cheese  "—of  which  the  latest 
editor  speculates  "probably  Tip-cat  was 
meant :  the  game  at  which  Bunyan  was 
distinguishing  himself  when  he  had  a  call." 
The  "cat"  was  a  plain  piece  of  wood, 
sharpened  at  both  ends.  I  suppose  made 
to  jump,  like  a  cat.  But  unde  "cheese," 
unless  it  was  a  piece  of  rind  that  was 
struck. 

"Flying  the  garter"  is  another  of  the 
Pickwickian  boy  games.  Talking  with  a 
very  old  gentleman,  lately,  I  thought  of 
asking  him  concerning  "  Flying  the  garter  : " 
he  at  once  enlightened  me.  It  was  a  familiar 
thing  he  remembered  well  "  when  a  boy." 
It  was  a  sort  of  "  Leap  Frog,"  exercise — 
only  with  a  greater  and  longer  spring :  he 


PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS.  2/ 

spoke  also  of  a  shuffle  of  the  feet  during  the 
process. 

And  again.  There  is  a  piquant  quaint- 
ness  in  the  upside-down  turning  of  every 
thing  in  this  wonderful  Book.  Such  as 
Perker's  eyes,  which  are  described  as  playing 
with  his  "  inquisitive  nose  "  a  "  perpetual 
game  of" — what,  think  you?  Bo-Peep  ? 
not  at  all :  but  "  peep-bo."  How  odd  and 
unaccountable !  We  all  knew  the  little 
"Bo-peep,"  and  her  sheep — but  "peep-bo" 
is  quite  a  reversal. 

Gas  was  introduced  into  London  about  the 
year  1812  and  was  thought  a  prodigiously 
"brilliant  illuminant."  But  in  the  Pick- 
wickian days  it  was  still  in  a  crude  state — 
and  we  can  see  in  the  first  print — that  of  the 
club  room — only  two  attenuated  jets  over  the 
table.  In  many  of  the  prints  we  find  the  dip 
or  mould  candle,  which  was  used  to  light 
Sam  as  he  sat  in  the  coffee  room  of  the  Blue 
Boar.  Mr.  Nupkins'  kitchen  was  not  lit  by 
gas. 


28  PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS. 

As  to  this  matter  of  light — it  all  depends 
on  habit  and  accommodating.  When  a  boy 
I  have  listened  to  "  Ivanhoe  "  read  out — 
O  enchantment !  by  the  light  of  two  "mould" 
candles — the  regular  thing — which  required 
"  snuffing  "  about  every  ten  minutes,  and 
snuffing  required  dexterity.  The  snuffers — 
laid  on  a  long  tray — were  of  ponderous 
construction ;  it  was  generally  some  one's 
regular  duty  to  snuff — how  odd  seems  this 
now !  The  "  plaited  wicks  "  which  came 
later  were  thought  a  triumph,  and  the 
snuifers  disappeared.  They  also  are  to  be 
seen  in  the  Curio  Shops. 

How  curious,  too,  the  encroachment  of  a 
too  practical  age  on  the  old  romance.  "  Faint- 
ing "  was  the  regular  thing  in  the  Pick- 
wickian days,  in  any  agitation ;  "  burnt 
feathers  "  and  the  "  sal  volatile  "  being  the 
remedy.  The  beautiful,  tender  and  engaging 
creatures  we  see  in  the  annuals,  all  fainted 
regularly — and  knew  how  to  faint — were 
perhaps  taught  it.  Thus  when  Mr.  Pickwick 


PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS.     2Q 

was  assumed  to  have  "  proposed "  to  his 
landlady,  she  in  business-like  fashion 
actually  "  fainted  ;  "  now-a-days  "  fainting  " 
has  gone  out  as  much  as  duelling. 

In  the  travellers'  rooms  at  Hotels — in  the 
"  commercial  "  room — we  do  not  see  people 
smoking  "  large  Dutch  pipes " — nor  is 
"  brandy  and  water  "  the  only  drink  of  the 
smoking  room.  Mr.  Pickwick  and  his 
friends  were  always  "  breaking  the  waxen 
seals"  of  their  letters — while  Sam,  and 
people  of  his  degree,  used  the  wafer.  (What 
by  the  way  was  the  "  fat  little  boy  " — in  the 
seal  of  Mr.  Winkle's  penitential  letter  to 
his  sire  ?  Possibly  a  cupid.)  Snuff  taking 
was  then  common  enough  in  the  case  of 
professional  people  like  Perker. 

At  this  moment  there  is  to  be  seen  in  the 
corner  of  many  an  antique  Hall — Sedan  chair 
laid  up  in  ordinary — of  black  leather, 
bound  with  brass-nails.  We  can  well  recall 
in  our  boyish  days,  mamma  in  full  dress  and 
her  hair  in  "  bands,"  going  out  to  dine  in  her 


30    PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS. 

chair.  On  arriving  at  the  house  the  chair  was 
taken  up  the  steps  and  carried  bodily  into 
the  Hall — the  chair  men  drew  out  their  poles, 
lifted  the  head,  opened  the  door  and  the 
dame  stepped  out.  The  operation  was  not 
without  its  state. 

Gone  too  are  the  "  carpet  bags  "  which 
Mr.  Pickwick  carried  and  also  Mr.  Slurk — 
(why  he  brought  it  with  him  into  the  kitchen 
is  not  very  clear).* 

Skates  were  then  spelt  "  Skaits."  The 
"  Heavy  smack,"  transported  luggage — 
to  the  Provinces  by  river  or  canal.  The 
"  Twopenny  Postman  "  is  often  alluded  to. 
"  Campstools,"  carried  about  for  use,  excited 
no  astonishment.  Gentlemen  don't  go  to 
Reviews  now,  as  Mr.  Wardle  did,  arrayed 
in  "  a  blue  coat  and  bright  buttons,  corduroy 
(Boz  also  spells  it  corderoy]  breeches  and  top 
boots,"  nor  ladies  "  in  scarfs  and  feathers." 
It  is  curious,  by  the  way,  that  Wardle  talks 

*  Not  long  since,  we  noticed  the  general  merriment  at  the 
Victoria  Station  on  the  apparition  of  one  of  these  curios 
carried  by  a  rural  looking  man. 


PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS.    3! 

something  after  the  fashionable  manner  of 
our  day,  dropping  his  g's — as  who  should 
say  "  huntin',"  or  "  rippin'  " — "  I  spent  some 
evnins"  he  says  "at  your  club."  "My  gals," 
he  says  also.  "Capons"  are  not  much  eaten 
now.  "Drinking  wine"  or  " having  a  glass 
of  wine"  has  gone  out,  and  with  it  Mr. 
Tupman's  gallant  manner  of  challenge  to  a 
fair  one,  i.e.  "  touching  the  enchanting 
Rachel's  wrist  with  one  hand  and  gently 
elevating  his  bottle  with  the  other."  "  Pope 
Joan"  is  little  played  now,  if  at  all;  "Fish" 
too ;  how  rarely  one  sees  those  mother-of- 
pearl  fish  !  The  "  Cloth  is  not  drawn;'  and 
the  table  exposed  to  view,  to  be  covered  with 
dessert,  bottles,  glasses,  etc.  The  shining 
mahogany  was  always  a  brave  show,  and 
we  fear  this  comes  of  using  cheap  made  up 
tables  of  common  wood.  Still  we  wot  of 
some  homes,  old  houses  in  the  country,  where 
the  practice  is  kept  up.  It  is  evident  that 
Mr.  Wardle's  dinner  was  at  about  3  or  4 
o'clock,  for  none  was  offered  to  the  party 


32     PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS. 

that  arrived  about  6.  This  we  may  presume 
was  the  mode  in  old  fashioned  country 
houses.  Supper  came  at  eleven. 

A  chaise  and  four  could  go  at  the  pace 
of  fifteen  miles  an  hour. 

A  "  1000  horse-power  "  was  Jingle's  idea 
of  extravagant  speed  by  steam  agency.  Now 
we  have  got  to  4,  5,  and  10  thousand  horse- 
power. Gentlemen's  "  frills  "  in  the  daytime 
are  never  seen  now.  Foot  gear  took  the 
shape  of  "Hessians'"  "halves,"  "painted 
tops,"  "  Wellington's"  or  "Bluchers."  There 
are  many  other  trifles  which  will  evi- 
dence these  changes.  We  are  told  of 
the  "  common  eighteen-penny  French  skull 
cap."  Note  common — it  is  exhibited  on  Mr. 
Smangle's  head — a  rather  smartish  thing 
with  a  tassel.  Night  caps,  too,  they  are  surely 
gone  by  now :  though  a  few  old  people  may 
wear  them,  but  then  boys  and  young  men  all 
did.  It  also  had  a  tassel.  There  is  the  "  Frog 
Hornpipe,"  whatever  dance  that  was :  the 
"pousette;"  while  "cold  srub,"  which 


PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS.    33 

is  riot  in  much  vogue  now,  was  the  drink  of 
the  Bath  Footmen.  "  Botany  Bay  ease,  and 
New  South  Wales  gentility,"  refer  to  the  old 
convict  days.  This  indeed  is  the  most 
startling  transformation  of  all.  For  instead 
of  Botany  Bay,  and  its  miserable  associa- 
tions, we  have  the  grand  flourishing 
Australia,  with  its  noble  cities,  Parliaments 
and  the  rest.  Gone  out  too,  we  suppose, 
the  "Oxford -mixture  trousers;"  "Oxford 
grey"  it  was  then  called. 

Then  for  Sam's  "  Profeel  machine."  Mr. 
Andrew  Lang  in  his  notes  wonders  what 
this  "Profeel  machine"  was,  and  fancies 
it  was  the  silhouette  process.  This 
had  nothing  to  do  with  the  "  Profeel 
machine " — which  is  described  in  "  Little 
Pedlington,"  a  delightful  specimen  of 
Pickwickian  humour,  and  which  ought  to  be 
better  known  than  it  is.  "There  now," 
said  Daubson,  the  painter  of  "  the  all  but 
breathing  Grenadier,"  (alas !  rejected  by  the 
Academy).  "Then  get  up  and  sit  down,  if 


34    PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS. 

you  please,  mister."  "  He  pointed  to  a  narrow 
high-backed  chair,  placed  on  a  platform ; 
by  the  side  of  the  chair  was  a  machine  of 
curious  construction,  from  which  protruded 
a  long  wire.  *  Heady  stiddy,  mister.'  He 
then  slowly  drew  the  wire  over  my  head  and 
down  my  nose  and  chin."  Such  was  the 
"  Profeel  machine." 

There  are  many  antiquated  allusions  in 
Pickwick — which  have  often  exercised  the 
ingenuity  of  the  curious.  Sam's  "  Fanteegs," 
has  been  given  up  in  despair — as  though 
there  were  no  solution — yet,  Professor  Skeat, 
an  eminent  authority,  has  long  since 
furnished  it.* 

"Through  the  button  hole  " — a  slang  term 
for  the  mouth,  has  been  well  "  threshed  out " 
— as  it  is  called.  Of  "My  Prooshian  Blue,"  as 
his  son  affectedly  styled  his  parent,  Mr. 
Lang  correctly  suggests  the  solution,  that  the 
term  came  of  George  IV's  intention  of  chang- 
*  Vide  "  History  of  Piokwick," 


PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS.     35 

ing  the  uniform  of  the  Army  to  Blue.     But 
this  has  been  said  before. 

Boz  in  his  Pickwickian  names  was  fond 
of  disguising  their  sense  to  the  eye,  though 
not  to  the  ear.  Thus  Lady  Snuphanuph, 
looks  a  grotesque,  but  somewhat  plausible 
name — snuff-enough — a  further  indication 
of  the  manners  and  customs.  So  with 
Lord  Mutanhed,  i.e  "  Muttonhead."  Mallard, 
Serjeant  Snubbin's  Clerk,  I  have  suspected, 
may  have  been  some  Mr.  Duck — whom 
"  Boz"  had  known — in  that  line. 


"A   MONUMENTAL    PICKWICK." 

The  fruitfulness  of  Pickwick,  and  amazing 
prolificness,  that  is  one  of  its  marvels.  It  is 
regularly  "worked  on,"  like  Dante  or 
Shakespeare.  The  Pickwickian  Library  is 
really  a  wonder.  It  is  intelligible  how  a 
work  like  Boswell's  "Johnson,"  full  of 
allusions  and  names  of  persons  who  have 
lived,  spoken,  and  written,  should  give  rise 
to  explanation  and  commentaries ;  but  a  work 
of  mere  imagination,  it  would  be  thought, 
could  not  furnish  such  openings.  As  we 
have  just  seen,  Pickwick  and  the  other 
characters  are  so  real,  so  artfully  blended 
with  existing  usages,  manners,  and  localities, 
as  to  become  actual  living  things. 

Mere  panegyric  of  one's  favourite  is  idle.  So 
I  lately  took  a  really  effective  way  of  proving 
the  surprising  fertility  of  the  work  and  of  its 
power  of  engendering  speculation  and  illustra- 


A  MONUMENTAL  PICKWICK.  3? 

tion.  I  set  about  collecting  all  that  has  been 
done,  written,  and  drawn  on  the  subject  dur- 
ing these  sixty  years  past,  together  with  all 
those  lighter  manifestations  of  popularity 
which  surely  indicate  "the  form  and 
pressure  "  of  its  influence.  The  result  is  now 
before  me,  and  all  but  fills  a  small  room. 
When  set  in  proper  order  and  bound,  it  will 
fill  over  thirty  great  quartos — "  huge  armfuls  " 
as  Elia  has  it.  In  short,  it  is  a  "Monumental 
Pickwick." 

The  basis  of  The  Text  is  of  course,  the 
original  edition  of  1836.  There  are  specimens 
of  the  titles  and  a  few  pages  of  every  known 
edition ;  the  first  cheap  or  popular  one ;  the 
"Library"  edition;  the  "  Charles  Dickens  " 
ditto  ;  the  Edition  de  Luxe ;  the  "  Victoria" : 
"Jubilee,"  edited  by  C.  Dickens  the  younger; 
editions  at  a  shilling  and  at  sixpence ;  the 
edition  sold  for  one  penny ;  the  new  "  Gads- 
hill,"  edited  by  Andrew  Lang ;  with  the 
"  Roxburghe,"  edited  by  F.  Kitton,  presently 
to  be  published.  The  Foreign  Editions  in 


38  A  MONUMENTAL  PICKWICK. 

English-,  four  American  editions,  two  of 
Philadelphia,  and  two  of  New  York;  the 
Tauchnitz  (German)  and  Baudry  (French) ; 
the  curious  Calcutta  edition ;  with  one  of  the 
most  interesting  editions,  viz.,  the  one  pub- 
lished at  Launceston  in  Van  Diemen's  Land 
in  the  year  1839,  that  is  before  the  name  of  the 
Colony  was  changed.  The  publisher  speaks 
feelingly  of  the  enormous  difficulties  he  had  to 
encounter,  and  he  boasts,  with  a  certain  pride, 
that  it  is  "  the  largest  publication  that  has 
issued  from  either  the  New  South  Wales  or 
the  Tasmanian  Press."  Not  only  this,  but  the 
whole  of  the  work,  printing,  engraving,  and 
binding,  was  executed  in  the  Colony.  He 
had  to  be  content  with  lithography  for  the 
plates,  and  indeed,  could  only  manage  a 
selection  of  twenty  of  the  best.  He  says, 
too,  that  even  in  England,  lithography  is 
found  a  process  of  considerable  difficulty. 
They  are  executed  in  a  very  rough  and 
imperfect  way,  and  not  very  faithfully  by  an 
artist  who  signs  himself  "Tiz."  The  poor, 


A    MONUMENTAL  PICKWICK.  39 

but  spirited  publisher  adds  that  the  expense 
has  been  enormous — "  greater  than  was 
originally  contemplated,"  but  he  comforts 
himself  with  the  compliment  that  "  if  any 
publication  would  repay  the  cost  of  its 
production,  it  would  be  the  far-famed 
Pickwick  Papers."  On  the  whole,  it  is  a 
very  interesting  edition  to  have,  and  I  have 
never  seen  a  copy  save  the  one  I  possess. 
I  have  also  an  American  edition,  printed  in 
Philadelphia,  which  has  a  great  interest.  It 
was  bought  there  by  Mrs.  Charles  Dickens, 
and  presented  by  her  to  her  faithful  maid, 
Anne.  I  possess  also  a  copy  of  the  Christ- 
mas Carol  given  by  his  son,  the  author,  to 
his  father  John.  Few  recall  that  "  Boz " 
wrote  a  sequel  to  his  Pickwick — a  rather 
dismal  failure — quite  devoid  of  humour.  He 
revived  Sam  and  old  Weller,  and  Mr.  Pick- 
wick, but  they  are  unrecognizable  figures. 
He  judiciously  suppressed  this  attempt,  after 
making  it  a  sort  of  introduction  to  Hum- 
phrey's Clock.  Of  course,  we  have  it  here. 


4O  A  MONUMENTAL  PICKWICK. 

Translations-.  Of  these  there  are  some 
twenty  in  all,  but  I  have  only  the  French, 
German,  Russian,  Dutch,  Norwegian, 
Swedish,  Hungarian. 

Then  come  Selections :  "  Readings  "  from 
"  Pickwick  " ;  "  Dialogues  "  from  ditto ; 
"  Weilerisms,"  by  Charles  Kent  and  Mr. 
Rideal. 

Dramatic  Versions:  "The  Pickwickians," 
11  Perambulations,"  "  Sam  Weller,"  etc.  The 
"  Pickwick  "  opera,  by  Burnand  ;  "  The 
Trial  in  'Pickwick'";  "Bardellz>.  Pick- 
wick." There  are  "  Play  Bills  "—various. 
Connected  with  this  department  is  the 
literature  of  the  "  Readings"  —  "  Charles 
Dickens  as  a  Reader,"  by  Kent,  and  "  Pen 
Photographs,"  by  Kate  Field.  Also  Dolby's 
account  of  the  Reading  Tours,  and  the  little 
prepared  versions  for  sale  in  the  rooms  in 
green  covers;  also  bills,  tickets,  and  pro- 
grammes galore. 

In  Music  we  have  "The  Ivy  Green"  and 
"  A  Christmas  Carol." 


A  MONUMENTAL  PICKWICK.  41 

Imitations :  "  Pickwick  Abroad,"  by  G. 
W.  Reynolds;  "Pickwick  in  America,' 
the  "Penny  Pickwick,"  the  "  Queerfish 
Chronicles,"  the  "  Cadger  Club,"  and  many 
more. 

In  the  way  of  Commentaries :  The  "  History 
of  Pickwick,"  "  Origin  of  Sam  Weller"  :  Sir 
F.  Lockwood's  "The  Law  and  Lawyers  of 
Pickwick";  Kent's  "  Humour  and  Pathos  of 
Charles  Dickens";  accounts  from  Forster's 
"Life"  and  from  the  "Letters,"  "  Con- 
troversy with  Seymour"  (Mrs.  Seymour's  rare 
pamphlet  is  not  procurable),  "  Dickensiana," 
by  F.  Kitton  ;"  Bibliographies  "  by  Herne 
Shepherd,  Cook  and  also  by  Kitton. 

Criticisms :  The  Quarterly  Review,  the 
Westminster  Review,  Fraser^s  Magazine, 
Taine's  estimate,  "  L'inimitable  Boz "  by 
Comte  de  Heussey,  with  many  more. 

Topographical-.  Hughes'  "Tramp  in 
Dickens-Land,"  "  In  Kent  with  Charles 
Dickens,"  by  Frost;  "  Bozland,"  by  Percy 
Fitzgerald  ;  "  The  Childhood  and  Youth  of 


42  A  MONUMENTAL   PICKWICK. 

C.  Dickens,"  by  Langton ;  "  Dickens's 
London,"  by  Allbutt ;  "  About  England  with 
Dickens,"  by  Rimmer;  Papers  in  American 
and  English  Magazines ;  "  A  Pickwickian 
Pilgrimage,"  by  Hassard  ;  "  Old  Rochester," 
and  others. 

Commentaries  on  the  Illustrations-.  Here 
is  a  regular  department — Account  of  "  Phiz," 
by  Kitton ;  "  Life  of  Hablot  K.  Browne," 
by  Croal  Thomson;  "Life  of  G.  Cruik- 
shank,"  Mr.  Dexter's  book,  and  another  by 
Charles  P.  Johnson. 

Next  we  refer  to  the  Illustrations  them- 
selves :  The  plates  to  the  original  edition  are 
by  Seymour  (7),  Buss  (2),  Phiz-Seymour 
(7),  and  by  "Phiz"  (35).  Variations, 
by  "  Phiz  " ;  variations,  coloured  by  Pail- 
thorpe ;  facsimiles  of  original  drawings — 
altogether  about  200.  There  are  Extra  Plates 
by  Heath,  Sir  John  Gilbert,  Onwhyn  ("  Sam 
Weller"),  Sibson,  Alfred  Crowquill,  Antony 
(American),  Onwhyn  (Posthumous)  and 
Frost,  Frederick  Barnard  (to  popular 


A    MONUMENTAL  PICKWICK.  43 

edition) ;  also  some  folio  plates;  C.  J.  Leslie 
(a  frontispiece).  "Phiz"  published  later  a 
series  of  six,  and  also  a  large  number  of 
coarse  wood-cuts  to  illustrate  a  cheap  edition. 

There  are  also  a  series  of  clever  extra 
illustrations  by  Pailthorpe  and  others, 
coloured  by  the  same.  We  have  seen  F. 
Barnard's  illustrations  coloured  by  Pail- 
thorpe. There  are  here  also  the  original 
plates  re-drawn  in  Calcutta.  They  were 
also  reproduced  in  Philadelphia,  with 
additional  ones  by  Nast.  Others  were  issued 
in  Sydney.  There  are  a  number  of  German 
woodcut  illustrations  to  illustrate  the 
German  translations;  some  rude  woodcuts 
to  illustrate  Dicks'  edition :  ditto  to  Penny 
edition.  There  is  also  a  set  of  portraits  from 
"  Pickwick "  in  Bell's  Life,  probably  by 
Kenny  Meadows;  and  coloured  figures  by 
"  Kyd." 

There  are  many  pictures  in  colours — 
Pickwick,  Weller,  &c. — to  illustrate  Christ- 
mas calendars,  chiefly  "  made  in  Germany." 


44  A   MONUMENTAL    PICKWICK. 

The  most  curious  tribute  is  the  issue  by  the 
Phonographic  Society  of  "  Pickwick "  in 
shorthand;  and,  finally,  "Pickwick"  in  raised 
characters  on  the  Braille  system  for  the 
blind. 

This  odd  publication  of  "  Pickwick  "  for  the 
Blind  came  about  in  a  quaint  way  enough. 
As  we  know,  the  author  issued  at  his  own 
expense  one  of  his  works  in  raised  characters, 
as  a  present  to  these  afflicted  persons.  A  rich 
old  gentleman  had  noticed  a  blind  beggar 
seated  with  the  Bible  open  on  his  knees, 
droning  out  the  passages  in  the  usual  fashion. 
Some  of  the  impostor  sort  learn  the  lines  by 
heart  and  "make  believe"  to  read,  as  they 
pass  their  fingers  over  the  characters.  The 
rich  old  gentleman's  blind  reader  read  in  the 
genuine  way,  and  got  through  about  fifty 
chapters  a  day.  No  one,  however,  is  much 
improved  by  the  lecture.  They  merely  wonder 
at  the  phenomenon  and  go  their  way.  The 
rich  old  gentleman  presently  spoke  to  the 
blind  reader :  "  Why  don't  you  read  *  Pick- 


A   MONUMENTAL   PICKWICK.  45 

wick '  or  some  other  book  that  the  public  will 
listen  to  ?  "  "  Sir,"  he  replied — he  must  have 
been  of  the  stock  of  Silas  Wegg — "give  me 
*  Pickwick '  in  raised  characters  and  I  will 
read  it." 

The  rich  old  gentleman  went  his  way  and 
inquired  at  the  proper  places,  but  the  work 
was  not  known.  He  gave  an  order  for  a 
hundred  copies  of  "Pickwick"  in  "Wait's 
Improved  Braille  Type,"  and  in  about  six 
months  it  was  delivered  to  him — not  the  whole 
work,  but  a  selection  of  the  more  effective 
episodes.  The  blind  reader  was  pleased ; 
the  old  gentleman  insisted  on  a  private 
rehearsal ;  select  passages  were  chosen  which 
were  calculated  to  take  about  twenty  minutes 
each.  When  he  arrived  on  the  morning  fixed 
for  the  first  attempt,  he  found  his  friend  at 
his  post  with  quite  a  crowd  gathered  round 
him,  in  convulsions  of  laughter.  The  "  poor 
blind  "  was  reading,  or  feeling  out,  old  Mr. 
Weller's  ejectment  of  the  red-nosed  man. 
The  hat  was  overflowing  with  coppers  and 


46  A  MONUMENTAL  PICKWICK. 

even  silver.  So  things  went  on  prospering 
for  a  while.  " Pickwick"  was  a  magnificent 
success,  and  the  blind  man  was  never  with- 
out a  crowd  round  him  of  some  fifteen  to 
fifty  persons.  But  the  other  blind  readers 
found  the  demand  for  the  sacred  text  vanish- 
ing ;  and  people  would  unfeelingly  interrupt 
them  to  inquire  the  way  to  the  "  Pickwick 
man."  Eventually  the  police  began  to 
interfere,  and  required  him  to  "move  on;" 
"he  was  obstructing  the  pavement" — not, 
perhaps,  he,  but  "  Pickwick."  He  did  move 
on  to  Hyde  Park,  but  there  were  others  there, 
performers  young  and  up-to-date,  and  with 
full  use  of  their  eyes,  who  did  the  same  thing 
with  action  and  elocution.  So  he  fairly  gave 
the  thing  up,  and  returned  to  his  Scriptures. 
This  tale  would  have  amused  "  Boz  "  himself. 
Of  a  more  miscellaneous  kind  are 
"The  Pickwick  Songster,"  "Sam  Weller's 
Almanac,"  "Sam  Weller's  Song  Book," 
"  The  Pickwick  Pen,"  "  Oh,  what  a  boon  and 
a  blessing  to  men,"  etc., — to  say  nothing  of 


A   MONUMENTAL    PICKWICK.  4? 

innumerable  careless  sheets,  and  trifles  of  all 
kinds  and  of  every  degree.  Then  we  have 
adapted  advertisements.  The  Proprietors 
of  Beecham's  Pills  use  the  scene  of  Mr. 
Pickwick's  discovery  of  the  Bill  Stumps  in- 
scription. Some  carpet  cleaners  have  Sam 
and  the  pretty  housemaid  folding  the  carpet. 
Lastly  comes  the  author,  "  Boz  "  himself,  with 
letters,  portraits,  pictures  of  his  homes,  etc., 
all  more  or  less  connected  with  the  period 
when  he  was  writing  this  book,  a  facsimile  of 
his  receipt  for  copy  money,  a  copy  of  his 
agreement  with  Chapman  and  Hall,  and 
many  more  items. 

I  have  often  wondered  how  it  was  that 
"  the  inimitable  Boz,"  took  so  little  interest 
in  his  great  Book.  It  always  seemed  to  me 

NOTE. — We  have  even  in  London  the  regular  Pickwickian 
publisher,  whose  work  is  stimulated  by  a  generous  ardour  and 
prepared  knowledge  of  "States,"  Curios  of  all  kinds 
associated  with  Boz  in  general,  and  Pickwick  in  particular. 
Among  these  is  Mr.  Spencer,  of  High  Holborn — "who  will 
get  you  up  a  Pickwick"  with  all  the  advertisements,  wrappers, 
etc.,  within  a  reasonable  period — and  who  will  point  out  to  you 
some  mysterious  error  in  the  paging,  which  has  escaped 
previous  commentators.  There  is  also  Mr.  Robson,  of 
Coventr  Street,  and  Mr.  Harvey,  of  St.  James'  Street 


48  A  MONUMENTAL   PICKWICK. 

that  he  did  not  care  for  praise  of  it,  or  wish 
much  that  it  should  be  alluded  to.  But  he  at 
once  became  interested,  when  you  spoke 
of  some  of  his  artful  plots,  in  Bleak 
House,  or  Little  Dorrit— then  his  eye  kindled. 
He  may  have  fancied,  as  his  friend  Forster 
also  did,  that  Pickwick  was  a  rather  jejune 
juvenile  thing,  inartistically  planned,  and 
thrown  off,  or  rather  rattled  off.  His 
penchant,  as  was  the  case  with  Liston  and 
some  of  the  low  comedians,  was  for  harrow- 
ing tragedy  and  pathos. 

Once  when  driving  with  him  on  a  jaunting 
car  in  Dublin,  he  asked  me,  did  I  know  so- 
and-so,  and  I  answered  promptly  in  Mr. 
Winkle's  words,  "  I  don't  know  him,  but 
I  have  seen  him."  This  apropos  made  him 
laugh  heartily.  I  am  now  inclined  to  think 
that  the  real  explanation  of  his  distaste  was, 
that  the  Book  was  associated  with  one  of  the 
most  painful  and  distracting  episodes  of  his 
life,  which  affected  him  so  acutely,  that  he 
actually  flung  aside  his  work  in  the  full 


A  MONUMENTAL  PICKWICK.  49 

tumult  of  success,  and  left  the  eager 
public  without  its  regular  monthly  number. 
"  I  have  been  so  unnerved  "  he  writes,  in  an 
unpublished  letter  to  Harrison  Ainsworth, 
"and  hurt  by  the  loss  of  the  dear  girl  whom  I 
loved,  after  my  wife,  more  dearly  and  fervently 
than  anyone  on  earth,  that  I  have  been  com- 
pelled for  once  to  give  up  all  idea  of  my 
monthly  work,  and  to  try  a  fortnight's  rest 
and  quiet." 

In  this  long  book,  there  are  found  allusions 
to  only  two  or  three  other  works.  What 
these  are  might  form  one  of  the  questions 
"set"  at  the  next  Pickwick  examination. 
Fielding  is  quoted  once.  In  the  dedica- 
tion allusion  is  made  to  Talfourd's  three 
speeches  in  Parliament,  on  the  copyright 
question ;  these  were  published  in  a  little 
volume,  and  make,  fairly  enough,  one 
of  the  illustrative  documents  of  "  Pickwick." 
In  the  first  number  of  the  first  edition  there 
is  an  odd  note,  rather  out  of  place,  but  it  was 
withdrawn  later— meant  to  ridicule  Mr. 


50  A  MONUMENTAL  PICKWICK. 

Jingle's  story  of  "  Ponto's "  sagacity ;  it 
states  that  in  Mr.  Jesse's  gleanings,  there  are 
more  amazing  stories  than  this. 

Mr.  Jesse  was  a  sort  of  personage  living  at 
Richmond  —  where  I  well  remember  him, 
when  I  was  there  as  a  boy.  "  Jesse's  glean- 
ings" was  then  a  well-known  and  popular 
book  ;  and  his  stones  of  dogs  are  certainly 
extraordinary  enough  to  have  invoked  Boz's 
ridicule.  We  are  told  of  the  French  poodle, 
who  after  rolling  himself  in  the  mud  of  the 
Seine,  would  rub  himself  against  any  well- 
polished  boots  that  he  noticed,  and  would 
thus  bring  custom  to  his  master,  who 
was  a  shoe  black  on  the  Pont  Neuf. 
He  was  taken  to  London  by  an  English 
purchaser,  but  in  a  few  days  disappeared,  and 
was  discovered  pursuing  his  old  trade  on  the 
Bridge.  Other  dogs,  we  were  told,  after  being 
transported  long  distances,  would  invariably 
find  their  way  back.  These  prodigies,  how- 
ever, do  not  appear  so  wonderful  now,  after 
the  strange  things  about  dogs  and  cats  that 


A  MONUMENTAL  PICKWICK.  51 

have  been  retailed  in  a  well-known  "  weekly." 
A  third  allusion  is  to  Sterne's  Maria  of 
Moulines,  made,  of  all  people  in  the  world,  by 
Sam  Weller 


"BOZ'    AND    "BOZZY." 

It  may  seem  somewhat  far-fetched  to  put 
"  Pickwick  "  beside  Boswell's  also  immortal 
work,  but  I  think  really  the  comparison  is 
not  a  fanciful  one.  No  one  enjoyed  the  book 
so  much  as  "Boz."  He  knew  it  thoroughly. 
Indeed,  it  is  fitting  that  "Boz"  should  relish 
"  Bozzy;"  for  "  Bozzy  "  would  certainly  have 
relished  "Boz"  and  have  "attended  him 
with  respectful  attention."  It  has  not  been 
yet  shown  how  much  there  is  in  common 
between  the  two  great  books,  and,  indeed, 
between  them  and  a  third,  greater  than 
either,  the  immortal  "  Don  Quixote."  All 
three  are  "  travelling  stories."  Sterne  also 
was  partial  to  a  travelling  story.  Lately, 
when  a  guest  at  the  "Johnson  Club,"  I 
ventured  to  expound  minutely,  and  at  length, 
this  curious  similarity  between  Boswell  and 
Dickens.  Dickens'  appreciation  of  "Bozzy" 


BOZ   AND   BOZZY.  53 

is  proved  by  his  admirable  parody  which  is 
found  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Wilkie  Collins, 
and  which  is  superior  to  anything  of  the 
sort — to  Chalmers',  Waloot's,  or  any  that 
have  been  attempted  : — 

"  Sir,"  as  Dr.  Johnson  would  have  said,  "  if 
it  be  not  irrational  in  a  man  to  count  his 
feathered  bipeds  before  they  are  hatched,  we 
will  conjointly  astonish  them  next  year."  BoswelL 
"Sir,  I  hardly  understand  you."  Johnson.  "You 
never  understood  anything."  Boswell  (in  a 
sprightly  manner).  "  Perhaps,  sir,  I  am  all  the 
better  for  it."  Johnson.  "  I  do  not  know  but 
that  you  are.  There  is  Lord  Carlisle  (smiling)— 
he  never  understands  anything,  and  yet  the  dog 
is  well  enough.  Then,  sir,  there  is  Forster — 
he  understands  many  things,  and  yet  the  fellow 
is  fretful.  Again,  sir,  there  is  Dickens,  with  a 
facile  way  with  him— like  Davy,  sir,  like  Davy- 
yet  I  am  told  that  the  man  is  lying  at  a  hedge 
alehouse  by  the  seashore  in  Kent  as  long  as  they 
will  trust  him."  Boswell.  "  But  there  are  no 
hedges  by  the  sea  in  Kent,  sir."  Johnson.  "And 
why  not,  sir?  "  Boswell  (at  a  loss).  "I  don't 


54  BOZ  AND   BOZZY. 

know,   sir,  unless "     Johnson  (thundering). 

"  Let  us  have  no  unlesses,  sir.  If  your  father 
had  never  said  unless  he  would  never  have 
begotten  you,  sir."  Boswell  (yielding).  "  Sir, 
that  is  very  true." 

To  begin,  the  Christian  names  of  the  two 
great  men  were  the  same.  Sam  Johnson 
and  Samuel  Pickwick.  Johnson  had  a 
relation  called  Nathaniel,  and  Pickwick  had 
a  "follower"  also  Nathaniel.  Both  the 
great  men  founded  Clubs :  Johnson's  was  in 
Essex  Street,  Strand,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
Literary  or  Johnson  Club ;  the  other  in 
Huggin  Lane.  Johnson  had  his  Goldsmith, 
Reynolds,  Boswell,  Burke,  and  the  rest,  as  his 
members  and  "  followers :"  Mr.  Pickwick  had 
his  Tupman,  Snodgrass,  Winkle,  and  others. 
These  were  the  "travelling  members,"  just  as 
Dr.  Johnson  and  Boswell  were  the  travel- 
ling members  of  their  Club.  Boswell  was 
the  notetaker,  so  was  Snodgrass.  When  we 
see  the  pair  staying  at  the  Three  Crowns  at 
Lichfield — calling  on  friends — waited  on  by 


BOZ  AND   BOZZY.  55 

the  manager  of  the  local  Theatre,  etc.,  we  are 
forcibly  reminded  of  the  visits  to  Rochester 
and  Ipswich. 

Boswell  one  night  dropped  into  a  tavern 
in  Butcher  Row,  and  saw  his  great  friend  in 
a  warm  discussion  with  a  strange  Irishman, 
who  was  very  short  with  him,  and  the  sketch 
recalls  very  forcibly  Mr.  Pickwick  at  the 
Magpie  and  Stump,  where  old  Jack  Bamber 
told  him  that  he  knew  nothing  about  the 
mysteries  of  the  old  haunted  chambers  in 
Clifford's  Inn  and  such  places.  The  Turk's 
Head,  the  Crown  and  Anchor,  the  Cheshire 
Cheese,  The  Mitre,  may  be  set  beside  the 
Magpie  and  Stump,  the  George  and  Vulture, 
and  White  Horse  Cellars. 

More  curious  still  in  Boswell's  life,  there  is 
mentioned  a  friend  of  Johnson's  who  is 
actually  named — Weller !  I  leave  it  as  a 
pleasant  crux  for  the  ingenious  Pickwickian 
to  find  out  where. 

Johnson  had  his  faithful  servant,  Frank : 
Mr.  Pickwick  his  Sam.  The  two  sages 


56  BOZ  AND    BOZZY. 

equally  revelled  in  travelling  in  post-chaises 
and  staying  at  inns ;  both  made  friends  with 
people  in  the  coaches  and  commercial  rooms. 
There  are  also  some  odd  accidental  coinci- 
dences which  help  in  the  likeness.  Johnson 
was  constantly  in  the  Borough,  and  we  have 
a  good  scene  with  Mr.  Pickwick  at  the  White 
Hart  in  the  same  place.  Mr.  Pickwick  had 
his  widow,  Mrs.  Bardell;  and  Johnson  his  in 
the  person  of  the  fair  Thrale.  Johnson  had  his 
friend  Taylor  at  Ashbourne,  to  whom  he 
often  went  on  visits,  always  going  down  by 
coach  ;  while  Mr.  Pickwick  had  his  friend 
Wardle,  with  whom  he  stayed  at  Manor 
Farm,  in  Kent.  We  know  of  the  review  at 
Rochester  which  Mr.  Pickwick  and  friends 
attended,  and  how  they  were  charged  by 
the  soldiery.  Oddly  enough  Dr.  Johnson 
attended  a  review  also  at  Rochester,  when 
he  was  on  a  visit  to  his  friend  Captain 
Langton.  Johnson,  again,  found  his  way  to 
Bath,  went  to  the  Assembly  Rooms,  etc. ; 
and  our  friend  Mr.  Pickwick,  we  need  not  say, 


BOZ  AND   BOZZY.  57 

also  enjoyed  himself  there.  In  Boswell's 
record  we  have  a  character  called  Mudge,  an 
"  out  of  the  way  "  name ;  and  in  Pickwick 
we  find  a  Mudge.  George  Steevens,  who 
figures  so  much  in  Boswell's  work,  was  the 
author  of  an  antiquarian  hoax  played  off  on 
a  learned  brother,  of  the  same  class  as  "  Bill 
Stumps,  his  mark."  He  had  an  old  inscription 
engraved  on  an  unused  bit  of  pewter — it  was 
well  begrimed  and  well  battered,  then 
exposed  for  sale  in  a  broker's  shop,  where  it 
was  greedily  purchased  by  the  credulous 
virtuoso.  The  notion,  by  the  way,  of  the 
Club  button  was  taken  from  the  Prince 
Regent,  who  had  his  Club  and  uniform, 
which  he  allowed  favourites  to  wear. 

There  is  a  story  in  Boswell's  Biography 
which  is  transferred  to  "  Pickwick,"  that 
of  the  unlucky  gentleman  who  died  from  a 
surfeit  of  crumpets ;  Sam,  it  will  be  re- 
collected, describes  it  as  a  case  of  the  man 
"  as  killed  hisself  on  principle." 

"  He  used  to  go  away  to  a  coffee-house  after 


58  BOZ  AND    BOZZY. 

his  dinner  and  have  a  small  pot  o'  coffee  and  four 
crumpets.  He  fell  ill  and  sent  for  the  doctor. 
Doctor  comes  in  a  green  fly  vith  a  kind  o' 
Robinson  Crusoe  set  o'  steps  as  he  could  let 
down  ven  he  got  out,  and  pull  up  arter  him  ven 
he  got  in,  to  perwent  the  necessity  o'  the  coach- 
man's gettin'  down,  and  thereby  undeceivin'  the 
public  by  lettin'  'em  see  that  it  wos  only  a  livery 
coat  he'd  got  on,  and  not  the  trousers  to  match. 
c  How  many  crumpets  at  a  sittin*  do  you  think 
'ud  kill  me  off  at  once  ?  '  said  the  patient.  *  I 
don't  know,'  says  the  doctor.  *  Do  you  think 
half  a  crown's  vurth  'ud  do  it  ? '  says  the  patient. 
'  I  think  it  might,'  says  the  doctor.  *  Three 
shillin'  's  vurth  'ud  be  sure  to  do  it,  I  s'pose  ? ' 
says  the  patient.  *  Certainly,'  says  the  doctor. 
'Wery  good,'  says  the  patient;  'good-night.' 
Next  mornin'  he  gets  up,  has  a  fire  lit,  orders  in 
three  shillin's'  vurth  o'  crumpets,  toasts  'em  all, 
eat  'em  all,  and  blows  his  brains  out." 

"  What  did  he  do  that  for  ?  "  inquired  Mr. 
Pickwick  abruptly ;  for  he  was  considerably 
startled  by  this  tragical  termination  of  the 
narrative. 


BOZ   AND    BOZZY.  59 

"  Wot  did  he  do  it  for,  sir  ?  "  reiterated  Sam. 
"  Wy,  in  support  of  his  great  principle  that 
crumpets  was  wholesome,  and  to  show  that  he 
vouldn't  be  put  out  of  his  vay  for  nobody  !  " 

Thus  Dickens  marvellously  enriched  this 
quaint  story.  It  may  be  found  amusing  to 
trace  the  genesis  of  the  tale.  In  Boswell  it 
runs :  "  Mr.  Fitzherbert,  who  loved  buttered 
muffins,  but  durst  not  eat  them  because  they 
disagreed  with  his  stomach,  resolved  to 
shoot  himself,  and  then  eat  three  buttered 
muffins  for  breakfast,  knowing  that  he  should 
not  be  troubled  with  indigestion."  We  find 
that  De  Quincey,  in  one  of  his  essays,  reports 
the  case  of  an  officer  holding  the  rank  of 
lieutenant-colonel  who  could  not  tolerate  a 
breakfast  without  muffins.  But  he  suffered 
agonies  of  indigestion.  "  He  would  stand 
the  nuisance  no  longer,  but  yet,  being  a  just 
man,  he  would  give  Nature  one  final  chance 
of  reforming  her  dyspeptic  atrocities.  Muffins 
therefore  being  laid  at  one  angle  of  the  table 
and  pistols  at  the  other,  with  rigid  equity  the 


60  BOZ  AND   BOZZY. 

Colonel  awaited  the  result.  This  was 
naturally  pretty  much  as  usual ;  and  then 
the  poor  man,  incapable  of  retreating  from 
his  word  of  honour,  committed  suicide, 
having  left  a  line  for  posterity  to  the  effect, 
"  that  a  muffinless  world  was  no  world  for 
him." 

It  will  be  recollected  that,  during  the 
Christmas  festivities  at  Manor  Farm,  after  a 
certain  amount  of  kissing  had  taken  place 
under  the  mistletoe,  Mr.  Pickwick  was 
"  standing  under  the  mistletoe,  looking  with 
a  very  pleased  countenance  on  all  that  was 
passing  round  him,  when  the  young  lady 
with  the  black  eyes,  after  a  little  whispering 
with  the  other  young  ladies,  made  a 
sudden  dart  forward,  and  putting  her  arm 
round  Mr.  Pickwick's  neck,  saluted  him 
affectionately  on  the  left  cheek,  and  before  he 
distinctly  knew  what  was  the  matter  he  was 
surrounded  by  the  whole  bevy,  and  kissed  by 
every  one  of  them."  Compare  with  this 


EOZ  AND   BOZZY.  6l 

what    happened    to    Dr.    Johnson    in    the 
Hebrides : 

"This  evening  one  of  our  married  ladies,  a 
lively,  pretty  little  woman,  good-humouredly  sat 
down  upon  Dr.  Johnson's  knee,  and  being  en- 
couraged by  some  of  the  company,  put  her 
hands  round  his  neck  and  kissed  him.  "  Do  it 
again,"  said  he,  "and  let  us  see  who  will  tire 
first."  He  kept  her  on  his  knee  some  time  while 
he  and  she  drank  tea.  He  was  now  like  a  buck 
indeed.  All  the  company  were  much  entertained 
to  find  him  so  easy  and  pleasant.  To  me  it  was 
highly  comic  to  see  the  grave  philosopher — the 
Rambler — toying  with  a  Highland  beauty ! 
But  what  could  he  do?  He  must  have  been 
surly,  and  weak  too,  had  he  not  behaved  as  he 
did.  He  would  have  been  laughed  at,  and  not 
more  respected,  though  less  loved." 

Was  not  this  Mr.  Pickwick  exactly  ? 

Or,  we  might  fancy  this  little  scene  taking 
place  at  Dunvegan  Castle,  on  the  night  of 
the  dance,  when  Johnson  was  in  such  high 
good-humour.  His  faithful  henchman  might 


62  BOZ  AND   BOZZY. 

have  come  up  to  him  and  have  said  jocosely, 
"  You,  sir,  in  silk  stockings  ? " 

"  And  why  not,  sir_why  not  ?  "  said  the 
Doctor  warmly.  "  Oh,  of  course,"  I  answered, 
"there  is  no  reason  why  you  should  not  wear 
them."  "  I  imagine  not,  sir— I  imagine  not," 
said  the  Doctor  in  a  very  peremptory  tone.  I 
had  contemplated  a  laugh,  but  found  it  was  a 
serious  matter.  I  looked  grave,  and  said  they 
were  a  pretty  pattern.  "  I  hope  they  are,"  said 
Dr.  Johnson,  fixing  his  eyes  upon  me.  "  You 
see  nothing  extraordinary  in  these  stockings  as 
stockings,  I  trust,  sir  ?  "  "  Certainly  not ;  oh, 
certainly  not,"  I  replied,  and  my  revered  friend's 
countenance  assumed  its  customary  benign 
expression. 

Now,  is  not  this  Pickwickian  all  over? 
Yet  it  is  the  exact  record  of  what  occurred  at 
Manor  Farm,  in  "  Pickwick,"  with  a  change 
only  in  the  names,  and  would  pass  very 
fairly  as  an  amiable  outburst  of  the  redoubt- 
able Doctor's. 

Or,  again,  let  us  put  a  bit  of  "  Boz  "  into 


BOZ  AND   BOZZY.  63 

"Bozzy's"  work.  The  amiable  "Goldy"  was 
partial  to  extravagant  dress,  and  to  showing 
himself  off. 

When  a  masquerade  at  Ranelagh  was  talked 
of,  he  said  to  Doctor  Johnson,  "  I  shall  go  as  a 
Corsican."  "  What !  "  said  the  Doctor,  with  a 
sudden  start.  "As  a  Corsican,"  Dr.  Goldsmith 
repeated  mildly.  "You  don't  mean  to  say,"  said 
the  Doctor  to  him,  gazing  at  him  with  solemn 
sternness,  "that  it  is  your  intention  to  put  your- 
self into  a  green  velvet  jacket  with  a  two-inch 
tail  ?  "  "  Such  is  my  intention,  sir,"  replied 
Goldsmith  warmly;  "and  why  not,  sir?" 
"  Because,  sir,"  said  the  Doctor,  considerably 
excited,  "you  are  too  old."  "Too  old!" 
exclaimed  Goldsmith.  "And  if  any  further 
ground  of  objection  be  wanting,"  said  Dr. 
Johnson,  "You  are  too  fat,  sir."  "Sir,"  said 
Dr.  Goldsmith,  his  face  suffused  with  a  crimson 
glow,  "  this  is  an  insult."  "Sir,"  said  the  sage 
in  the  same  tone,  "it  is  not  half  the  insult  to 
you,  that  your  appearance  in  my  presence  in  a 
green  velvet  jacket  with  two-inch  tail  would  be 
to  me."  "Sir,"  said  Dr.  Goldsmith,  "you're 


64  BOZ  AND   BOZZY. 

a  fellow."       Sir,"   said   Dr.  Johnson,   "you're 
another!" 

Winkle  in  a  very  amusing  way  often 
suggests  Boswell;  and  Mr.  Pickwick  treats 
him  with  as  great  rudeness  as  did  Johnson  his 
Winkle.  When  that  unhappy  gentleman,  or 
follower  exhibited  himself  on  the  ice,  Mr.  Pick- 
wick, we  are  told,  was  excited  and  indignant. 
"He  beckoned  to  Mr.  Weller  and  said  in  a 
stern  voice:  Take  the  skates  off."  "No,  but! 
had  scarcely  began,"  remonstrated  Mr. 
Winkle.  "Take  his  skates  off,"  repeated  Mr. 
Pickwick,  firmly.  The  command  was  not  to 
be  resisted.  "  Lift  him  up,"  said  Mr. 
Pickwick — Sam  assisted  him  to  rise.  Mr, 
Pickwick  retired  a  few  paces  apart  from  the 
by-standers  and  beckoning  his  friend  to 
approach,  fixed  a  searching  look  on  him  and 
uttered  in  a  low,  but  distinct  and  emphatic 
tone,  these  remarkable  words  :  "You're  a 
humbug,  sir."  "A  what?"  said  Mr.  Winkle, 
starting.  "  A  humbug,  sir,  I  will  speak 
plainer  if  you  wish  it — an  impostor,  sir." 


BOZ  AND    BOZZY.  65 

With  these  words  Mr.  Pickwick  turned 
slowly  on  his  heel  and  rejoined  his  friends. 
Was  not!  this  exactly  the  Sage's  treatment  of 
his  "  Bozzy  "  on  many  occasions  ? 

There  is  yet  another  odd  coincidence. 
Everyone  knows  how  Bob  Sawyer's  party  was 
disturbed  by  Mrs.  Raddle's  angry  expostu- 
lations, and  the  guests  had  to  disperse.  Well, 
Mr.  Boswell,  who  had  much  of  the  Sawyer 
tone — gave  a  party  at  his  rooms  in 
Downing  Street,  and  his  landlord  behaved 
so  outrageously,  that  he  gave  him  notice, 
and  the  next  day  quitted  his  rooms.  "  I 
feel  I  shall  have  to  give  my  landlady  notice," 
said  Mr.  Sawyer  with  a  ghastly  smile.  Mr. 
Boswell  had  actually  to  take  some  of  the 
invited  guests  to  the  Mitre  and  entertain 
them  there. 

There  is  a  pleasant  passage  connected  with 
Dr.  Johnson's  visit  to  Plymouth,  with  his  old 
friend  Sir  Joshua.  He  was  much  pleased 
with  this  jaunt  and  declared  he  had  derived 
from  it  a  great  accession  of  new  ideas,  , 


66  BOZ  AND   BOZZY. 

"  The  magnificence  of  the  Navy  the  ship 
building  and  all  its  circumstances  afforded 
him  a  grand  subject  of  contemplation."  He 
contemplated  it  in  fact,  as  Mr.  Pickwick 
contemplated  Chatham  and  the  Medway. 
The  commissioner  of  the  dockyard  paid  him 
the  compliment,  etc.  The  characteristic 
part,  however,  was  that  the  Doctor  entered 
enthusiastically  into  the  local  politics.  "There 
was  a  new  town  rising  up  round  the  dockyard, 
as  a  rival  to  the  old  one,  and  knowing  from 
the  sagacity  and  just  observation  of  human 
nature,  that  it  is  certain  if  a  man  hates  at  all, 
he  will  hate  his  next  neighbour,  he  concluded 
that  this  new  and  rising  town  could  but  excite 
the  envy  and  jealousy  of  the  old.  He  there- 
fore set  himself  resolutely  on  the  side  of  the 
old  town,  the  established  town  in  which  he 
was.  Considering  it  a  kind  of  duty  to  stand  by 
it.  He  accordingly  entered  warmly  into  its 
interests,  and  upon  every  occasion  talked  of 
the  Dockers  as  "upstarts  and  aliens."  As 
they  wanted  to  be  supplied  with  water  from 


BOZ  AND    BOZZY.  67 

the  old  town,  not  having  a  drop  themselves, 
Johnson  affecting  to  entertain  the  passions 
of  the  place,  was  violent  in  opposition ;  and 
half  laughing  at  himself  for  his  pretended 
zeal,  and  where  he  had  no  concern,  ex- 
claimed :  "  No  !  I  am  against  the  Dockers ;  I 
am  a  Plymouth  man.  Rogues  !  let  them  die 
of  thirst;  they  shall  not  have  a  drop.  I 
hate  a  Docker !  " 

Now  all  this  is  very  like  what  the  amiable 
Pickwick  would  have  done;  in  fact  like 
something  he  did  do  and  felt,  when  he 
repaired  to  Eatanswill  for  the  election.  On 
entering  the  town  he  at  once  chose  his 
party,  and  took  it  up  enthusiastically. 
"  With  his  usual  foresight  and  sagacity," 
like  Dr.  Johnson,  he  had  chosen  a  fortu- 
nately desirable  moment  for  his  visit. 
"  Slumkey  for  ever,"  roared  the  honest  and 
independent.  "  Slumkey  for  ever !  "  echoed 
Mr.  Pickwick,  taking  off  his  hat.  "  No 
Fizkin,"  roared  the  crowd.  "  Certainly 
not,"  shouted  Mr.  Pickwick.  "Who  is 


68  BOZ  AND    BOZZY. 

Slumkey  ?  "  whispered  Mr.  Tupman.  "  I 
don't  know,"  said  Mr.  Pickwick,  in  the  same 
tone.  "  Hush !  don't  ask  any  questions. 
It's  always  best  on  these  occasions  to  do 
what  the  mob  do."  "  But  suppose  there  are 
two  mobs,"  suggested  Mr.  Snodgrass. 
"  Shout  with  the  largest,"  replied  Mr.  Pick- 
wick. Volumes  could  not  have  said  more. 
On  asking  for  rooms  at  the  Town  Arms, 
which  was  the  Great  White  Horse,  Mr. 
Pickwick  was  asked  "was  he  Blue."  Mr. 
Pickwick  in  reply,  asked  for  Perker.  "He  is 
blue  I  think."  "  O  yes,  sir."  "  Then  we  are 
blue,"  said  Mr.  Pickwick,  but  observing  the 
man  looked  rather  doubtful  at  this  accommo- 
dating account  he  gave  him  his  card.  Perker 
arranged  everything.  "  Spirited  contest, 
my  dear  sir,"  he  said,  "  I  am  delighted  to 
hear  it,"  said  Mr.  Pickwick.  "  I  like  to  see 
sturdy  patriotism,  on  whatever  side  it  is 
called  forth."  Later,  we  are  told,  Mr. 
Pickwick  entered  heart  and  soul  into  the 
business,  and,  like  the  sage,  caught  the 


BOZ   AND    BOZZY.  69 

prevailing  excitement.  "  Although  no  great 
partisan  of  either  side,  Mr.  Pickwick  was 
sufficiently  fired  by  Mr.  Pott's  enthusiasm  to 
apply  his  whole  time  and  attention  to  the 
proceedings,  etc."  All  this,  of  course,  does 
not  correspond  exactly,  but  the  spirit  of  the 
selections  are  the  same. 

The  Doctor  it  is  known,  would  go  out  at 
midnight  with  his  friends  Beauclerk  and 
Layton  to  have  what  he  called  "a  rouze," 
and  Garrick  was  humorously  apprehensive 
that  he  would  have  to  bail  out  his  old  friend 
from  the  watchhouse.  Mr.  Pickwick  had 
many  a  "  rouze  "  with  his  followers.  And 
Johnson  himself,  in  the  matter  of  drink,  was 
at  one  time  as  bad  as  Mr.  Pickwick,  only  he 
had  a  better  head,  and  could  "carry  his  liquor 
discreetly,"  like  the  Baron  of  Bradwardine. 
He  had  actually  to  give  up  drink  on  account 
of  this  tendency  to  excess. 


PICKWICKIAN    ORIGINALS. 

There  is  a  shrewd  remark  of  the  late  Bishop 
Norwich,  Dean  Stanley's  father,  that  to  catch 
and  describe  the  tone  and  feeling  of  a  place 
gives  a  better  idea  of  it  than  any  minute  or 
accurate  description.  "  Some  books,"  he  says, 
"give  one  ideas  of  places  without  descriptions ; 
there  is  something  which  suggests  more  vivid 
and  agreeable  images  than  distinct  words. 
Would  Gil  Bias  for  instance  ?  It  opens  with  a 
scene  of  history,  chivalry,  Spain,  orange  trees, 
fountains,  guitars,  muleteers ;  there  is  the 
picturesque  and  the  sense  of  the  picturesque,  as 
distinct  as  the  actual  object."  Now  this  exactly 
applies  to  "  Pickwick,"  which  brings  up  before 
us  Rochester,  Ipswich,  Muggleton,  Birmingham, 
and  a  dozen  other  places  to  the  tourist.  The 
night  of  the  arrival  at  Birmingham  for 
instance,  and  the  going  out  after  dinner  to 
call  on  Mr.  Winkle,  sen,,  is  strangely  vivid. 


Face  p.  71 


PICKWICKIAN   ORIGINALS.  71 

So  real  is  our  Pickwickian  Odyssey  that  it 
can  be  followed  in  all  its  stages  as  in  a  diary. 
To  put  it  all  in  "  ship  shape  "  as  it  were  and 
enhance  this  practical  feeling  I  have  drawn 
out  the  route  in  a  little  map.  It  is  wonderful 
how  much  the  party  saw  and  how  much 
ground  they  covered,  and  it  is  not  a  far- 
fetched idea  that  were  a  similar  party  in  our 
day,  good  humoured,  venturesome  and  ac- 
cessible, to  visit  old-fashioned,  out  of  the  way 
towns,  and  look  out  for  fun,  acquaintances  and 
characters,  they  might  have  a  good  deal  of 
the  amusement  and  adventure  that  the  Pick- 
wickians  enjoyed. 

The  Pickwickians  first  went  to  Rochester, 
Chatham,  Dingley  Dell,  and  perhaps  to 
Gravesend.  Mr.  Pickwick  with  Wardle  then 
pursued  Jingle  to  town,  returning  thence  to 
the  Dell,  which  he  at  once  left  for  Cobham, 
where  he  found  his  friend  Tupman.  The 
party  then  returned  to  town.  Next  we  have 
the  first  visit  to  Ipswich — called  Eatanswill 
—from  which  town  Mr.  Pickwick  and  Sam 


72  PICKWICKIAN  ORIGINALS. 

posted  to  Bury  St.  Edmunds ;  thence  to 
London.  Next  came  their  third  expedition 
to  Dingley  Dell  for  the  Christmas  festivities. 
Then  the  second  visit  to  Ipswich.  Then 
the  journey  to  Bath,  and  that  from  Bath 
to  Bristol.  Later  a  second  journey  to  Bristol 
— another  from  Bristol  to  Birmingham,  and 
from  Birmingham  to  London,  Mr.  Pickwick's 
final  junketing  before  retiring  to  Dulwich. 

Yet  another  interesting  side  of  the  Pickwick 
story  is  its  almost  biographical  character.  Boz 
seems  to  take  us  with  him  from  his  very  boy- 
hood. During  the  old  days  when  his  father  was 
at  Chatham  he  had  seen  all  the  Rochester  inci- 
dents, sat  by  the  old  Castle  and  Bridge,  noted 
with  admiring  awe  the  dockyard  people, 
the  Balls  at  "The  Bull,"  the  Reviews  on  the 
Lines.  The  officers — like  Dr.  Slammer,  all  the 
figures — fat  boy  included — were  drawn  from 
this  stage  of  his  life.  The  Golden  Cross, 
which  figures  also  in  Copperfield,  he  had 
constantly  stopped  at.  He  knew,  too,  the 
inns  in  the  Boro'.  The  large  legal  element 


PICKWICKIAN   ORIGINALS.  73 

and  its  odd  incidents  and  characters  he  had 
learned  and  studied  during  his  brief  appren- 
ticeship to  the  Law.  The  interior  economy 
of  the  Fleet  Prison  he  had  learned  from  his 
family's  disastrous  experiences  ;  the  turnkeys, 
and  blighted  inhabitants  he  had  certainly 
taken  from  life.  But  he  shifted  the  scene  from 
the  Marshalsea  to  the  King's  Bench  Prison — 
the  former  place  would  have  been  too  painful 
a  reminiscence  for  his  father.  To  his  reporting 
expeditions  we  owe  the  Election  scenes  at 
Ipswich,  and  to  another  visit  for  the  same 
object,  his  Bath  experiences.  Much  of  the 
vividness  and  reality  of  his  touchings,  particu- 
larly in  the  case  of  Rochester  and  its  doings, 
is  the  magnifying,  searching  power  resulting 
from  a  life  of  sorrow  in  childhood,  family 
troubles  working  on  a  keen,  sensitive  nature ; 
these  made  him  appreciate  and  meditate  on 
all  that  was  going  on  about  him,  as  a  sort  of 
relief  and  relaxation.  All  the  London  scenes 
— the  meetings  at  taverns — were  personal 
experiences.  Among  his  friends  were  medical 


74  PICKWICKIAN  ORIGINALS. 

students  and  many  odd  beings.  We  can  trace 
his  extraordinary  appreciation  of  Christmas 
— and  its  genial,  softening  festivities — which 
clung  to  him  till  it  altogether  faded  out,  to 
the  same  sense  of  relief;  it  furnished  an 
opportunity  of  forgetting  for  a  time  (at  least), 
the  dismal,  gloomy  home. 

Boz,  if  he  drew  his  characters  from 
life,  did  not  draw  wholesale;  he  would  take 
only  a  portion  of  a  character  that  pleased  him 
and  work  it  up  in  combination  with  another 
distinct  character.  It  was  thus  he  dealt  with 
Leigh  Hunt,  borrowing  his  amusing,  airy 
frivolity,  and  combining  it  with  the  meanness 
and  heartlessness  of  Skimpole.  I  have  always 
fancied  that  Dowler  in  "  Pickwick "  was 
founded — after  this  composite  principle — on 
his  true-hearted  but  imperious  friend, 
Forster.  Forster  was  indeed  also  a  perfect 
reproduction  of  Dr.  Johnson  and  had  the 
despotic  intolerance — in  conversation  certainly 
— of  that  great  man.  Like  him  "  if  his  pistol 
missed  fire,  he  knocked  you  down  with  the 


PICKWICKIAN   ORIGINALS.  75 

butt  end  of  it"  He  could  be  as  amiable  and 
tender-hearted  as  "old  Sam"  himself.  Listen- 
ing to  Dowler  at  the  coach  office  in  Piccadilly 
we — who  knew  Forster  well — seemed  to  hear 
his  very  voice.  "It  was  a  stern -eyed  man  of 
about  five-and-forty,  who  had  large  black 
whiskers.  He  was  buttoned  up  to  the  chin 
in  a  brown  coat  and  had  a  large  seal-skin  cap 
and  a  cloak  beside  him.  He  looked  up 
from  his  breakfast  as  Mr.  Pickwick  entered 
with  a  fierce  and  peremptory  air,  which  was 
very  dignified,  and  which  seemed  to  say  that 
he  rather  expected  somebody  wanted  to  take 
advantage  of  him,  but  it  wouldn't  do"  .  . 
"  Are  you  going  to  Bath  ?  "  said  the  strange 
man.  "  I  am,  sir,"  replied  Mr.  Pickwick. 
"  And  these  other  gentleman  ?  "  "  They  are 
going  also,"  said  Mr.  Pickwick.  "  Not  inside 
— I'll  be  damned  if  you're  going  inside,"  said 
the  strange  man.  "  Not  all  of  us,"  said  Mr. 
Pickwick.  "  No — not  all  of  you,"  said  the 
strange  man,  emphatically.  "We  take  two 
places.  If  they  try  and  squeeze  six  people 


76  PICKWICKIAN   ORIGINALS. 

into  an  infernal  box  that  only  holds  four,  I'll 
take  a  post-chaise  and  bring  an  action.  It 
won't  do,"  etc.  This  recalls  the  pleasant 
story  about  Forster  and  the  cabman  who 
summoned  him.  The  latter  was  adjudged  to  be 
in  the  wrong  and  said  he  knew  it,  but  "  that 
he  was  determined  to  show  him  up,  he  were 
such  a  harbitrary  cove."  None  enjoyed  this 
story  more  than  Forster  himself,  and  I  have 
heard  him  say  to  a  lady  humorously,  "  Now 
you  must.  You  know  I  am  '  such  a  harbitrary 
cove.' "  Dear  good  old  Forster ! 

I  must  confess  all  Pickwickians  would  like  to 
know  biographical  details,  as  one  might  call 
them,  about  the  personages  engaged  in  the 
trial.  I  need  not  repeat  that  Judge  Stareleigh 
was  drawn  from  Mr.  Justice  Gazalee,  or  that 
Buzfuz  was  founded  on  Mr.  Serjeant  Bompas, 
or  Bumpus.  Charles  Carpenter  Bompas  was 
his  full  designation.  He  was  made  a 
Serjeant  in  1827,  the  very  year  of  the 
memorable  trial.  He  obtained  a  Patent  of 
Precedence  in  1834.  "  Buzfuz's  son  " — Mr. 


PICKWICKIAN   ORIGINALS.  77 

W.  Bompas,  Q.C.,  who  will  pardon  the 
freedom  of  the  designation — was  born  in  the 
year  of  the  celebrated  trial.  He  was  the 
youngest  son  and  had  a  very  distinguished 
career  both  at  College  and  at  the  Bar,  being 
a  "  leader  "  on  his  circuit,  revising  barrister, 
bencher,  recorder,  and  was  last  year  appointed 
a  County  Court  judge. 

Who  were  Serjeant  Snubbin,  Skimpin,  and 
Phunkey  ?  No  traditions  have  come  to  us 
as  to  these  gentlemen.  Skimpin  may  have 
been  Wilkins,  and  Snubbin  a  Serjeant 
Arabin,  a  contemporary  of  Buzfuz.  But  we 
are  altogether  in  the  dark. 

We  should  have  liked  also  to  have  some 
"  prehistoric  peeps  "  at  the  previous  biography 
of  Mr.  Pickwick  before  the  story  began.  We 
have  but  a  couple  of  indications  of  his  calling: 
the  allusion  by  Perker  at  the  close  of  the 
story — "  The  agent  at  Liverpool  said  he  had 
been  obliged  to  you  many  times  when  you 
were  in  business."  He  was  therefore  a 
merchant  or  in  trade.  Snubbin  at  the  trial 


78  PICKWICKIAN   ORIGINALS. 

stated  that  "  Mr.  Pickwick  had  retired  from 
business  and  was  a  gentleman  of  considerable 
independent  property." 

In  the  original  announcement  of  the 
"  Pickwick  Papers  "  there  are  some  scraps  of 
information  about  Mr.  Pickwick  and  the  Club 
itself.  This  curious  little  screed  shows  that 
the  programme  was  much  larger  than  the  one 
carried  out : — 

"On  the  3 1st  of  March,  1836,  will  be  published, 

to  be  continued  Monthly,  price  One 

Shilling,  the  First   Number  of 

THE    POSTHUMOUS    PAPERS 

OF 

THE  PICKWICK  CLUB  ; 

containing  a  faithful  record  of  the 
PERAMBULATIONS,    PERILS,     TRAVELS,     AD- 
VENTURE'S, AND  SPORTING  TRANSACTIONS 
OF  THE  COBRESPONDING  MEMBERS. 

EDITED  BY  "BOZ." 

And    each    Monthly  Part  embellished    with 

four  illustrations  by  Seymour. 


PICKWICKIAN   ORIGINALS.  7Q 

"  The  Pickwick  Club,  so  renowned  in  the  annals 
of  Huggin  Lane,  and  so  closely  entwined  with 
the  thousand  interesting  associations  connected 
with  Lothbury  and  Cateaton  Street^  was  founded 
in  the  year  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and 
twenty-two,  by  Samuel  Pickwick — the  great 
traveller— whose  fondness  for  the  useful  arts 
prompted  his  celebrated  journey  to  Birmingham 
in  the  depth  of  winter ;  and  whose  taste  for  the 
beauties  of  nature  even  led  him  to  penetrate  to 
the  very  borders  of  Wales  in  the  height  of 
summer. 

"  This  remarkable  man  would  appear  to  have 
infused  a  considerable  portion  of  his  restless  and 
inquiring  spirit  into  the  breasts  of  other  members 
of  the  Club,  and  to  have  awakened  in  their  minds 
the  same  insatiable  thirst  for  travel  which  so 
eminently  characterized  his  own.  The  whole 
surface  of  Middlesex,  a  part  of  Surrey,  a  portion 
of  Essex,  and  several  square  miles  of  Kent  were 
in  their  turns  examined  and  reported  on.  In  a 
rapid  steamer  they  smoothly  navigated  the 
placid  Thames  ;  and  in  an  open  boat  they  fear- 
lessly crossed  the  turbid  Medway.  High-roads 


80  PICKWICKIAN   ORIGINALS. 

and  by-roads,  towns  and  villages,  public  con- 
veyances and  their  passengers,  first-rate  inns 
and  road-side  public  houses,  races,  fairs,  regattas, 
elections,  meetings,  market  days — all  the  scenes 
that  can  possibly  occur  to  enliven  a  country 
place,  and  at  which  different  traits  of  character 
may  be  observed  and  recognized,  were  alike 
visited  and  beheld  by  the  ardent  Pickwick  and 
his  enthusiastic  followers. 

"The  Pickwick  Travels,  the  Pickwick  Diary, 
the  Pickwick  Correspondence—in  short,  the 
whole  of  the  Pickwick  Papers — were  carefully 
preserved,  and  duly  registered  by  the  secretary, 
from  time  to  time,  in  the  voluminous  Transac- 
tions of  the  Pickwick  Club.  These  Transactions 
have  been  purchased  from  the  patriotic  secretary, 
at  an  immense  expense,  and  placed  in  the  hands 
of  *  Boz,'  the  author  of  "  Sketches  Illustrative 
of  Every  Day  Life  and  Every  Day  People  " — a 
gentleman  whom  the  publishers  consider  highly 
qualified  for  the  task  of  arranging  these  important 
documents,  and  placing  them  before  the  public 
in  an  attractive  form.  He  is  at  present  deeply 


PICKWICKIAN   ORIGINALS  8l 

immersed  in  his  arduous  labours,  the  first  fruits 
of  which  will  appear  on  the  3ist  March. 

"  Seymour  has  devoted  himself,  heart  and 
graver,  to  the  task  of  illustrating  the  beauties  of 
Pickwick.  It  was  reserved  to  Gibbon  to  paint, 
in  colours  that  will  never  fade,  the  Decline  and 
Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire — to  Hume  to  chronicle 
the  strife  and  turmoil  of  the  two  proud  houses 
that  divided  England  against  herself — to  Napier 
to  pen,  in  burning  words,  the  History  of  the 
War  in  the  Peninsula — the  deeds  and  actions  of 
the  gifted  Pickwick  yet  remain  for  *  Boz '  and 
Seymour  to  hand  down  to  posterity. 

"  From  the  present  appearance  of  these 
important  documents  and  the  probable  extent  of 
the  selections  from  them,  it  is  presumed  that  the 
series  will  be  completed  in  about  twenty  numbers." 
From  this  it  will  be  seen  that  it  was 
intended  to  exhibit  all  the  humours  of  the 
social  amusements  with  which  the  public  re- 
galed itself.  Mr.  Pickwick  and  friends  were 
to  be  shown  on  board  a  steamer ;  at  races, 
fairs,  regattas,  market  days,  meetings — "  at  all 
the  scenes  that  can  possibly  occur  to  enliven  a 


82  PICKWICKIAN   ORIGINALS. 

country  place,  and  at  which  different  traits  of 
character  may  be  observed  and  recognized." 
This  was  a  very  scientific  and  well  drawn 
scheme  ;  and  it  was,  on  the  whole,  most  faith- 
fully and  even  brilliantly  carried  out.  But 
with  infinite  art  Boz  emancipated  himself  from 
the  formal  hide-bound  trammels  of  Syntax 
tours  and  the  like,  when  it  was  reckoned  that 
the  hero  and  his  friends  would  be  exhibited 
like  "  Bob  Logic  "  and  "  Tom  and  Jerry  "  in  a 
regular  series  of  public  places.  "  Mr.  Pick- 
wick has  an  Adventure  at  Vauxhall,"  "Mr. 
Pickwick  Goes  to  Margate,"  etc. :  we  had  a 
narrow  escape,  it  would  seem,  of  this  con- 
ventional sort  of  thing,  and  no  doubt  it  was 
this  the  publishers  looked  for.  But  "Boz" 
asserted  his  supremacy,  and  made  the 
narrative  the  chief  element. 

It  was  interesting  thus  to  know  that  Mr. 
Pickwick  had  visited  the  borders  of  Wales — 
I  suppose,  Chester — but  what  was  his 
celebrated  journey  to  Birmingham,  prompted 
by  his  "  fondness  for  the  useful  arts  "  ?  This 


PICKWICKIAN   ORIGINALS.  83 

could  hardly  refer  to  his  visit  to  Mr.  Winkle, 
sen.  The  Club,  it  will  be  seen,  was  founded 
in  1822,  and  its  place  of  meeting  would  appear 
to  have  been  this  Huggin  Lane,  City,  "  so 
intimately  associated  with  Lothbury  and 
Cateaton  Street."  The  picture  of  the  meeting 
of  the  Club  shows  us  that  it  consisted  of  the 
ominous  number  of  thirteen.  There  is  not 
room  for  more.  They  seem  like  a  set  of  well- 
to-do  retired  tradesmen  ;  the  faces  are  such 
as  we  should  see  on  the  stage  in  a  piece  of 
low  comedy  :  for  the  one  on  the  left  Mr.  Edward 
Terry  might  have  sat.  The  secretary  sits  at 
the  bottom  of  the  table,  with  his  back  to  us, 
and  the  chairman,  with  capacious  stomach,  at 
the  top.  Blotton,  whom  Mr.  Pickwick  rather 
unhandsomely  described  as  a  "  vain  and  dis- 
appointed haberdasher,"  may  have  followed 
this  business.  He  is  an  ill- looking  fellow 
enough,  with  black,  bushy  whiskers.  The 
Pickwickians  are  decidedly  the  most  gentle- 
manly of  the  party.  But  why  was  it  necessary 
for  Mr.  Pickwick  to  stand  upon  a  chair  ? 
F 


84  PICKWICKIAN  ORIGINALS. 

This,  however,  may  have  been  a  custom  of  the 
day  at  free  and  easy  meetings. 

"  Posthumous  papers" — moreover,  did  not 
correctly  describe  the  character  of  the 
Book,  for  the  narrative  did  not  profess  to 
be  founded  on  documents  at  all.  He  was, 
however,  committed  to  this  title  by  his 
early  announcement,  and  indeed  intended 
to  carry  out  a  device  of  using  Snod- 
grass's "  Note  Books,"  whose  duty  it  was 
during  the  course  of  the  adventures  to  take 
down  diligently  all  that  he  observed.  But 
this  cumbrous  fiction  was  discarded  after  a 
couple  of  numbers.  "  Posthumous  papers " 
had  been  used  some  ten  years  before,  in 
another  work. 

Almost  every  page — save  perhaps  a  dismal 
story  or  two — in  the  609  pages  of  Pickwick  is 
good  ;  but  there  are  two  or  three  passages 
which  are  obscure,  if  not  forced  in  humour. 
Witness  Mr  Bantam's  recognition  of  Mr. 
Pickwick,  as  the  gentleman  residing  on 
Clapham  Green — not  yet  Common — "who 


PICKWICKIAN  ORIGINALS.  85 

lost  the  use  of  his  limbs  from  imprudently 
taking  cold  after  port  wine,  who  could  not  be 
moved  in  consequence  of  acute  suffering,  and 
who  had  the  water  from  the  King's  Bath 
bottled  at  103  degrees,  and  sent  by  waggon 
to  his  bedroom  in  Town  ;  when  he  bathed, 
sneezed,  and  same  day  recovered."  This  is 
grotesque  enough  and  farcical,  but  without 
much  meaning.  On  another  occasion  we  are 
told  that  Tupman  was  casting  certain  "  Anti- 
Pickwickian  glances"  at  the  servant  maids, 
which  is  unmeaning.  No  doubt,  £/#-Pick- 
wickian  was  intended. 

Why  is  there  no  "  Pickwick  Club "  in 
London  ?  It  might  be  worth  trying,  and 
would  be  more  successful  than  even  the 
Johnson  Club.  There  is  surely  genuine 
"  stuff"  to  work  on.  Our  friends  in  America, 
who  are  Pickwickian  quand  meme>  have 
established  the  "Ail-Around  Dickens  Club." 
The  members  seem  to  be  ladies,  though 
there  are  a  number  of  honorary  members 
of  the  other  sex,  which  include  members 


86  PICKWICKIAN   ORIGINALS. 

of  "  Boz's  "  own  family,  with  Mr.  Kitton,  Mr. 
W.  Hughes,  Mr.  Charles  Kent,  myself,  and 
some  more.  The  device  of  the  club  is  "  Boz's  " 
own  book-plate,  and  the  "  flower  "  of  the '  club 
is  his  favourite  geranium.  The  President  is 
Mrs:  Adelaide  Garland ;  and  some  very 
interesting  papers,  to  judge  from  their  titles, 
have  been  read,  such  as  "  Bath  and  its  Associa- 
tions with  Landor,"  "  The  City  of  Bristol  with 
its  Literary  Associations,"  "  The  Excursion  to 
the  Tea  Gardens  of  Hampstead,"  prefaced  by 
a  description  of  the  historic  old  inn,  "  Poem 
by  Charles  Kent,"  "  Dickens  at  Gad's  Hill," 
"A  Description  of  Birmingham,  its  Institu- 
tions, and  Dickens'  Interest  therein  "  ;  with  a 
"Reading  of  Mr.  Pickwick's  Mission  to 
Birmingham,  Coventry  and  the  adjacent 
Warwickshire  Country,"  etc.  There  is  also  a 
very  clever  series  of  examination  questions  by 
the  President  in  imitation  of  Calverley's. 

"Had  Mr.  Pickwick  loved?"  Mr.  Lang 
asks  ;  "  it  is  natural  to  believe  that  he  had 
never  proposed,  never.  His  heart,  however 


PICKWICKIAN   ORIGINALS.  8? 

bruised,  was  neither  broken  nor  embittered." 
His  temperament  was  certainly  affectionate — 
if  not  absolutely  amatory  :  he  certainly  never 
missed  an  opportunity  where  a  kiss  was 
practicable. 

But  stay  !  has  anyone  noted  that  on  the 
wall  of  his  room  at  Dulwich,  there  hangs  the 
portrait  of  a  lady — just  over  this  might  seem 
to  mean  something.  But  on  looking  close, 
we  see  it  is  the  dear  filial  old  fellow's  mother. 
A  striking  likeness,  and  she  has  spectacles 
like  her  celebrated  son. 

As  all  papers  connected  with  the  Pickwick 
era  are  scarce  and  meagre — for  the  reason 
that  no  one  was  then  thinking  of  "  Boz  "  ;  any 
that  have  come  down  to  us  are  specially 
interesting.  Here  are  a  few  "  pieces,"  which 
will  be  welcomed  by  all  Pickwickians.  The 
first  is  a  letter  of  our  author  to  his  publishers. 

"  Furnival's  Inn, 

"  Friday  Morning. 

"  DEAR  SIR, — I  am  very  glad  to  find  I  shall 
have  the  pleasure  of  celebrating  Mr.  Pickwick's 


88  PICKWICKIAN  ORIGINALS. 

success  with  you  on  Sunday.  When  you  have 
sufficiently  recovered  from  the  fatigues  of 
publication,  will  you  just  let  me  know  from  your 
books  how  we  stand.  Drawing  £10  one  day, 
and  £20  another,  and  so  forth,  I  have  become 
rather  mystified,  and  jumbled  up  our  accounts 
in  my  brain,  in  a  very  incomprehensible  state. 

"  Faithfully  yours, 

"CHARLES  DICKENS." 

This  must  have  been  written  at  the  con- 
clusion of  the  story  in  1837,  and  is  in  a  very 
modest  tone  considering  how  triumphant  had 
been  the  success.  Connected  with  this  is  a 
paper  of  yet  more  interest,  a  receipt  for 
payment  for  one  of  the  early  numbers. 

For  this  Pickwickian  Banquet,  he  had 
reluctantly  to  give  up  one  at  the  home  of  his 
new  friend  Forster.  In  an  unpublished 
letter,  he  writes  to  him  as  "  Dear  Sir  " — the 
beginning  of  a  four-and-thirty  years'  friend- 
ship— "  I  have  been  so  much  engaged  in  the 
pleasing  occupation  of  moving."  He  was 
unable  to  go  to  his  new  friend  to  dinner 


Face  p.  83. 


PICKWICKIAN   ORIGINALS.  89 

because  he  had  been  "  long  engaged  to  the 
Pickwick  publishers  to  a  dinner  in  honour  of 
that  hero,  which  comes  off  to-morrow." 

In  an  interesting  letter  of  Dickens' — 
Pickwickian  ones  are  rare  —  sold  at 
Hodgson's  rooms,  July,  1895,  he  writes : 
"  Mr.  Seymour  shot  himself  before  the 
second  number  of  the  Pickwick  papers,  not 
the  third  as  you  would  have  it,  was  published. 
While  he  lay  dead,  it  was  necessary  the 
search  should  be  made  in  his  working  room 
for  the  plates  to  the  second  number,  the  day 
for  publication  of  which  was  drawing  near. 
The  plates  were  found  unfinished,  with  their 
faces  turned  to  the  wall."  This '  scrap 
brought  £12  los.  Apropos  of  prices,  who 
that  was  present  will  forget  the  scene  at 
Christie's  when  the  six  "  Pickwick  Ladles  " 
were  sold  ?  These  were  quaint  things,  like 
enlarged  Apostle  Spoons,  and  the  figures  well 
modelled.  They  had  been  made  specially, 
and  presented  to  "  Boz  "  on  the  conclusion 
of  his  story,  by  his  publishers.  The  Pickwick 


90  PICKWICKIAN   ORIGINALS. 

Ladle  brought  £69.  Jingle,  £30.  Winkle, 
£23.  Sam,  £64.  Old  Weller,  £51 ;  and  the 
Fat  Boy,  £35  145.,  or  over  £280  in  all.  Nay, 
the  leather  case  was  put  up,  and  brought 
three  guineas.  We  recall  Andrew  Halliday 
displaying  one  to  us,  with  a  sort  of  triumph. 
Charles  Dickens,  the  younger,  got  two,  I 
think ;  Messrs.  Agnew  the  others. 


CONCERNING  THE   PLATES   AND 
SCTRA  PLATES  AND  "STATES,"  OF 
PICKWICK. 

It  is\  an  interesting  question  what  should 
be  the  relation  of  illustration  to  the  story,  and 
of  the  artist  to  the  story-teller  ;  and  what  are 
the  limitations  of  their  respective  provinces. 
Both  should  work  independently  of  each 
other  ;  that  is,  the  artist  should  tell  the  story 
from  his  own  point  of  view — he  is  not 
merely  to  servilely  translate  the  situations 
into  "black  and  white."  He  should  be,  in 
fact,  what  the  actor  is  to  a  drama.  When 
Eugene  Delacroix's  illustrations  to  Goethe's 
"  Faust "  were  shown  to  the  great  author, 
he  expressed  admiration  of  their  truth  and 
spirit ;  and  on  his  secretary  saying  that  they 
would  lead  to  a  better  understanding  of  his 
poem,  said :  "  With  that  we  have  naught  to 
do ;  on  the  contrary,  the  more  complete 
imagination  of  such  an  artist  compels  us  to 


92  PLATES  OF   PICKWICK. 

believe  that  the  situations  as  he  represents 
them  are  preferable  to  them  as  described.  It 
is  therefore  likely  that  the  readers  will  find 
that  he  exerts  a  strong  force  upon  their 
imagination."  This  shows,  allowing  some- 
thing for  the  compliment,  what  a  distinct 
force  the  great  writer  attributed  to  the  artist, 
that  he  did  not  consider  him  an  assistant  or 
merely  subsidiary.  The  actor  becomes,  after 
his  fashion,  a  distinct  creator  and  originator, 
supplying  details,  etc.,  of  his  own,  but  taking 
care  that  these  are  consistent  with  the  text 
and  do  not  contradict  it  in  any  way. 

This  large  treatment  was  exactly  "  Phiz's." 
He  seems  to  "  act "  "  Boz's  "  drama,  yet  he 
did  not  introduce  anything  that  was  not 
warranted  by  the  spirit  of  the  text.  He  found 
himself  present  at  the  scene,  and  felt  how  it 
must  have  occurred.  He  had  a  wonderful 
power  of  selecting  what  was  essential  and 
what  should  be  essential.  Nor  did  he  make 
a  minute  inventory  of  such  details  as  were 
mentioned  in  the  text.  Hence  the  extra- 


PLATES  OF  PICKWICK.  93 

ordinary  vitality  and  spirit  of  his  work. 
There  is  action  in  all,  and  each  picture  tells 
its  own  story.  To  see  the  merit  of  this 
system,  we  have  only  to  contrast  with  it  such 
attempts  as  we  find  in  modern  productions, 
where  the  artist's  method  is  to  present  to  us 
figures  grouped  together,  apparently  talking 
but  not  acting — such  things  as  we  have  week 
by  week  in  Punch.  The  late  Sir  John  Millais 
and  other  artists  of  almost  equal  rank  used  to 
furnish  illustrations  to  serial  stories,  and  all 
their  pictures  were  of  this  kind — two  or 
three  figures — well  drawn,  certainly — one 
standing,  the  others  sitting  down,  it  may  be, 
engaged  in  conversation.  This  brought 
us  "  no  forrarder  "  and  supplied  no  dramatic 
interest. 

It  should  be  said,  however,  that  it  is  only 
to  "  Pickwick  "  that  this  high  praise  can  be 
extended.  With  every  succeeding  story  the 
character  of  the  work  seemed  to  fall  off,  or 
rather  the  methods  of  the  artist  to  change. 
It  may  have  been,  too,  the  inspiration  from  a 


94  PLATES   OF   PICKWICK. 

dramatic  spirited  story  also  failed,  for  "  Boz  " 
had  abandoned  the  free,  almost  reckless  style 
of  his  first  tale.  There  was  a  living  distinct- 
ness, too,  in  the  Pickwickian  coterie^  and  every 
figure,  familiar  and  recognizable,  seemed  to 
have  infinite  possibilities.  The  very  look  of 
them  would  inspire. 

In  this  spirit  of  vitality  and  reality  also, 
"  Phiz  "  rather  suggests  a  famous  foreign  illus- 
trator, Chodowiecki,  who  a  century  ago  was 
in  enormous  request  for  the  illustration  of 
books  of  all  kinds,  and  whose  groups  and 
figures,  drawn  with  much  spirit  and  round- 
ness, arrested  the  eye  at  once  and  told  the 
situation.  Later  "  Phiz  "  fell  off  in  his  work 
and  indeed  adopted  quite  new  and  more 
commercial  methods,  such  as  would  enable 
him  to  get  through  the  vast  amount  of  work 
that  came  to  him.  There  were  no  longer 
these  telling  situations  to  limn  which  spoke 
for  themselves,  and  without  straw,  bricks  are 
not  to  be  made.  In  this  later  manner  we 
seem  to  have  bid  adieu  to  the  inspiration — to 


PLATES   OF   PICKWICK.  95 

the  fine  old  round  style  of  drawing — where 
the  figures  "  stand  out "  completely.  He 
adopted  a  sort  of  sketchy  fashion  ;  his  figures 
became  silhouettes  and  quite  flat.  There  was 
also  a  singular  carelessness  in  finish — a  mere 
outline  served  for  a  face.  The  result  was  a 
monotony  and  similarity  of  treatment,  with  a 
certain  unreality  and  grotesqueness  which  are 
like  nothing  in  life.  In  this,  however,  he  may 
have  been  inspired  by  the  grotesque  person- 
ages he  was  put  to  illustrate — the  Smallweeds 
and  the  like. 

It  would  be  an  interesting  speculation  to 
consider  what  would  have  become  of  "  Pick- 
wick" had  this  artist  not  been  forthcoming. 
Would  we  have  really  known  our  Mr. 
Pickwick  and  his  "  followers  "  as  we  do  now, 
or,  indeed,  would  we  have  so  keenly  appre- 
ciated the  humorous  situations  ?  I  believe 
not.  It  was  the  graven  figures  of  these 
personages,  and  the  brilliant  way  in  which 
the  situations  were  concentrated,  as  it  were, 
into  a  point,  that  produced  such  striking 


96  PLATES   OF   PICKWICK. 

effect:  without  these  adjuncts  the  Head  of 
the  Club  and  his  friends  would  have  been 
more  or  less  abstractions,  very  much  what 
the  characters  in  Theodore  Hook's  "Gilbert 
Gurney"  are.  Take  Mr.  Pickwick.  The 
author  supplied  only  a  few  hints  as  to  his 
personal  appearance — he  was  bald,  mild,  pale, 
wore  spectacles  and  gaiters ;  but  who  would 
have  imagined  him  as  we  have  him  now,  with 
his  high  forehead,  bland  air,  protuberant 
front.  The  same  with  the  others.  Mr. 
Thackeray  tried  in  many  ways  to  give  some 
corporeal  existence  to  his  own  characters  to 
"Becky,"  Pendennis,  and  others;  but  who  sees 
them  as  we  do  Mr.  Pickwick?  So  with  his 
various  "situations" — many  most  dramatic 
and  effective,  but  no  one  would  guess  it  from 
the  etchings.  The  Pickwick  scenes  all  tell 
a  story  of  their  own  ;  and  a  person — say  a 
foreigner — who  had  never  even  heard  of  the 
story  would  certainly  smile  over  the  situa- 
tions, and  be  piqued  into  speculating  what 
could  be  the  ultimate  meaning. 


PLATES   OF   PICKWICK.  Q7 

At  the  exhibition  "illustrating  a  century 
and  a  half  of  English  humorists,"  given  by 
the  Fine  Art  Society — under  the  direction  of 
Mr.  Joseph  Grego — in  October,  1896,  there 
was  a  collection  of  original  Pickwick  draw- 
ings no  less  than  fifty-six  in  number.  There 
were  three  by  Seymour,  two  by  Bass  and 
thirty-four  by  Phiz,  all  used  in  the  book  ; 
while  of  those  unused — probably  found  un- 
suitable, there  were  five  by  Buss,  including  a 
proposed  title-page,  and  two  of  the  Fat  Boy 
"  awake  on  this  occasion  only."  There  were 
also  five  by  Phiz,  which  were  not  engraved, 
and  one  by  Leech.  The  drawing  of  the 
dying  clown,  Seymour  was  engaged  upon  when 
he  committed  suicide.  Of  Buss'  there  were 
two  of  Mr.  Pickwick  at  the  Review,  two  of 
the  cricket  match,  two  of  the  Fat  Boy 
"  awake,"  "  the  influence  of  the  salmon " 
— unused,  "  Mr.  Winkle's  first  shot  " — unused, 
studies  of  character  in  Pickwick,  and  a  study 
for  the  title-page.  The  poor,  discarded  Buss 
took  a  vast  deal  of  pains  therefore  to  accom- 


98  PLATES   OF  PICKWICK. 

plish  his  task.  Of  Phiz's  unused  designs  there 
was  "  Mr.  Winkle's  first  shot "  and  tv/o  for 
the  Gabriel  Grub  story,  also  one  for  "the 
Warden's  room."  Most  interesting  of  all  was 
his  "  original  study "  for  the  figure  of  Mr. 
Pickwick. 

Mr.  Grego,  himself  an  excellent  artist, 
placed  at  the  door  of  the  society  a  very  telling 
figure  of  Mr.  Pickwick  displayed  on  a  poster 
and  effectively  coloured.  It  was  new  to  find 
our  genial  old  friend  smiling  an  invitation  to 
us — in  Bond  Street.  This — which  I  took  for  a 
lithographed  "  poster  " — was  Mr.  Grego's  own 
work,  portrayed  in  water  colours. 

There  have  been  many  would-be  illustrators 
of  the  chronicle,  some  on  original  lines  of 
their  own ;  but  these  must  be  on  the  whole 
pronounced  to  be  failures.  On  looking  at 
them  we  somehow  feel  that  the  figures  and 
situations  are  wholly  strange  to  us  ;  that  we 
don't  know  them  or  recognize  them.  The 
reason  is  possibly  that  the  artists  are  not  in 
perfect  sympathy  or  intelligence  with  the 


PLATES   OF   PICKWICK.  QQ 

story ;  they  do  not  know  every  turning, 
corner  and  cranny  of  it,  as  did  "  Phiz  " — and 
indeed  as  did  everyone  else  living  at  that 
time;  they  were  not  inspired,  above  all,  by  its 
author.  But  there  was  a  more  serious  reason 
still  for  the  failure.  It  will  be  seen  that  in 
Phiz's  wonderful  plates  the  faces  and  figures 
are  more  or  less  generalized.  We  cannot  tell 
exactly,  for  instance,  what  were  Mr.  Winkle's 
or  even  Sam  Weller's  features.  Neither  their 
mouths,  eyes  ,or  noses,  could  be  put  in  distinct 
shape.  We  have  only  the  general  air  and 
tone  and  suggestion — as  of  persons  seen  afar 
off  in  a  crowd.  Yet  they  are  always  recog- 
nizable. This  is  art,  and  it  gave  the  artist 
a  greater  freedom  in  his  treatment.  Now 
when  an  illustrator  like  the  late  Frederick 
Barnard  came,  he  drew  his  Jingle,  his 
Pickwick,  Weller,  and  Winkle,  with  all  their 
features,  in  quite  a  literal  and  particular 
fashion — the  features  were  minutely  and  care- 
fully brought  out,  with  the  result  that  they 
seem  almost  strange  to  us.  Nor  do  they  express 


100  PLATES  OF   PICKWICK. 

the  characters.  There  is  an  expression,  but  it 
seems  not  the  one  to  which  we  are  accus- 
tomed. Mr.  Pickwick  is  generally  shown  as 
a  rather  "cranky"  and  testy  old  gentleman 
in  his  expressions,  whereas  the  note  of  all 
Phiz's"  faces  is  a  good  softness  and  unctuous- 
ness  even.  Now  this  somewhat  philosophical 
analysis  points  to  a  principle  in  art  illustration 
which  accounts  in  a  great  measure  for  the 
unsatisfactory  results  where  it  is  attempted  to 
illustrate  familiar  works — such  as  those  of 
Tennyson,  Shakespeare,  etc.  The  reader  has 
a  fixed  idea  before  him,  which  he  has  formed 
for  himself — an  indistinct,  shapeless  one  it 
might  be,  but  still  of  sufficient  outline  to  be 
disturbed.  Among  the  innumerable  present- 
ments of  Shakespeare's  heroines  no  one  has 
ever  seen  any  that  satisfied  or  that  even  cor- 
responded. They  are  usually  not  generalized 
enough.  Again,  the  readers  of  "Pickwick" 
grew  month  by  month,  or  number  by  number, 
more  and  more  acquainted  with  the  characters : 


PLATES   OF   PICKWICK.  101 

for  the  figures  and  faces  appeared  over  and 
over  and  yet  over  again. 

The  most  diverting,  however,  of  all  these 
imitators  and  extra-illustrators  is  assuredly 
the  artist  of  the  German  edition.  The  series 
is  admirably  drawn,  every  figure  well  finished, 
but  figures,  faces,  and  scenes  are  unrecog- 
nizable. It  is  the  Frenchman's  idea  of 
Hamlet.  Mr.  Pickwick  and  his  friends  are 
stout  Germans,  dressed  in  German  garments, 
sitting  in  German  restaurants  with  long 
tankards  with  lids  before  them.  The  inci- 
dents are  made  as  literal  and  historical  as 
possible.  The  difficulty,  of  course,  was  that 
none  of  their  adventures  could  have  occurred 
in  a  country  like  Germany,  or  if  they  did, 
would  have  become  an  affair  of  police.  No 
German  could  see  humour  in  that.  Notwith- 
standing all  this,  the  true  Pickwickian  will 
welcome  them  as  a  pleasant  contribution  to 
the  Pickwickian  humour,  and  no  one  would 
have  laughed  so  loudly  at  them  as  Boz 
himself. 


102  PLATES   OF   PICKWICK. 

The  original  illustrations  form  a  serious  and 
important  department  of  Pickwickian  lore, 
and  entail  an  almost  scientific  knowledge. 
Little,  indeed,  did  the  young  "  Boz  "  dream, 
when  he  was  settling  with  his  publishers  that 
the  work  was  to  contain  forty- two  plates — an 
immense  number  it  might  seem — that  these 
were  to  fructify  into  such  an  enormous 
progeny.  We,  begin,  of  course,  with  the 
regular  official  plates  that  belong  strictly  to 
the  work.  Here  we  find  three  artists 
at  work  —  each  succeeding  the  other — 
the  unfortunate  Robert  Seymour  coming  first 
with  his  seven  spirited  pictures ;  next  the 
unlucky  Buss,  with  his  two  condemned  pro- 
ductions, later  to  be  dismissed  from  the  book 
altogether  ;  and  finally,  "  Phiz,"  or  Hablot  K. 
Browne,  who  furnished  the  remaining  plates 
to  the  end.  As  is  well  known,  so  great  was 
the  run  upon  the  book  that  the  plates  were 
unequal  to  the  duty,  and  "  Phiz  "  had  to  re- 
engrave  them  several  times — often  duplicates 
on  the  one  plate — naturally  not  copying  them 


PLATES   OF   PICKWICK.  103 

very  closely.  Hence  we  have  the  rather 
interesting  "variations."  He  by-and-bye 
re-engraved  Seymour's  seven,  copying  them 
with  wonderful  exactness,  and  finally  substi- 
tuted two  of  his  own  for  those  of  the 
condemned  Buss.  The  volume,  therefore,  was 
furnished  with  seven  Seymours,  and  their  seven 
replicas,  the  two  Buss's,  their  two  replicas,  and 
the  thirty-three  "  Phiz  "  pictures,  each  with  its 
"  variation." 

These  variations  are  very  interesting,  and 
even  amusing.  On  an  ordinary  careless  glance 
one  would  hardly  detect  much  difference — 
the  artist,  who  seemed  to  wish  to  have  a 
certain  freedom,  made  these  changes  either  to 
amuse  himself  or  as  if  resenting  the  monotony 
of  copying.  In  any  case  they  represent  an 
amount  of  patient  labour  that  is  quite  unique 
in  such  things. 

The  Pickwickian  "  student"  may  be  glad  to 
go  with  us  through  some  of  the  plates  and 
have  an  account  of  these  differences.  We 
must  premise  that  the  first  state  of  the  plates 


IO4  PLATES   OF   PICKWICK. 

may  be  considered  "  proofs  before  letters  " — 
the  descriptive  titles  being  only  found  in  the 
later  editions. 

1.  "  The  Frontispiece."    (We  shall  call  the 
second  state  #,  the  first  a.)    In  a  the  signature 
"  Phiz,"  "  fct."  or  "  fecit "  is  on  the  left,  in  b  it 
is  divided  half  on  each  side.     The  harlequin 
painting  has  a  full  face  in  ay  a  side  face  in  b. 
The  face  at  the   apex  of  the  picture  has  a 
mouth  closed  in  £,  and  open  in  a.     There  are 
variations  in  nearly  all  the  grotesque  faces ; 
and  in  b  the  faces  of  Mr.  Pickwick  and  Sam 
are   fuller   and    more   animated.       In   b   the 
general  treatment  of  the  whole  is  richer. 

2.  "The  Title-page."      In  a  the  sign  has 
Veller,  in  b  Weller.     Old  Weller's  face  in  b  is 
more  resolved  and  animated  ;  in  a  water  is 
flowing  from  the  pail. 

3.  "Mr.  Pickwick  Addressing  the  Club." 
Mr.  Pickwick  in  b  is  more  cantankerous  than 
in   a — all   the    faces   scarcely  correspond    in 
expression,  though  the  outlines  are  the  same. 
The  work,  shading,  etc.,  is  much  bolder  in  b. 


PLATES  OF  PICKWICK.  105 

4.  "  Scene  with  the  Cabman."     Very  little 
difference    between   the   plates,   save  in   the 
spectacles  lying  on  the  ground.     These  are 
trivialities. 

5.  "  The    Sagacious    Dog."      b    is    more 
heavily  shaded,  but  a  is  much  superior  in  the 
dog  and  face  of  the  sportsman.     Trees  in  b 
more  elaborate. 

6.  "  Dr.  Slammer's  Defiance."  The  figures 
on  the  top  of  the  stairs  are  much  darker  and 
bolder  in  b.     Jingle's  and  Tupman's  faces  are 
better  in  b  than   in  a,  and  Jingle's  legs  are 
better  drawn  in  b. 

7.  "  The  Dying  Clown."    A  most  dramatic 
and    tragic    conception,    which    shows    that 
Seymour  would  have  been  invaluable  later  on 
for  Dickens'  more  serious  work.     The  chief 
differences  are  in  the  face  of  the  man  at  his 
bedside  and  the  candle. 

8.  "  Mr.  Pickwick  in  Search  of  his  Hat." 
The  drawing  of  Mr.  Pickwick's  legs  is  rather 
strange.     The  right  leg  could  hardly  be  so 
much  twisted  back  while  Mr.  Pickwick  runs 


106  PLATES   OF   PICKWICK. 

straight  forward  ;  his  left  hand  or  arm  is 
obscure  in  both.  Air  the  faces  differ — the  hat 
in  b  has  much  more  the  look  of  being  blown 
along  than  that  in  a. 

9.  "  Mr.    Winkle    Soothes    a    Refractory 
Steed."     Seymour's  horse   is   infinitely  more 
spirited  and  better  drawn   than   Phiz's.     Its 
struggling  attitude  is  admirable.     Seymour's 
landscape   is   touched   more   delicately;    the 
faces  differ  in  both. 

10.  "The   Cricket    Match."      First    Buss 
plate.     He  introduced  a  farcical  incident  not 
in  the  text — the  ball  knocking  off  the  fielder's 
hat,  who  is  quite  close  to  the  batsman.     A 
very  poor  production.     Observe  the   "ante- 
diluvian"   shape   of   the    bat — no    paddings 
on  the  legs.     The  sketch  is  valuable  as  show- 
ing how  not  to  interpret  Dickens'  humour,  or 
rather  how  to  interpret  it  in  a  strictly  literal 
way — that  is,  without  humour. 

11.  "Tupman   in   the   Arbour."     Second 
Buss     plate — rather     ostentatiously     signed 
"Drawn    and    etched     by     R.     W.    Buss." 


PLATES   OF   PICKWICK.  107 

Tupman  appears  to  be  tumbling  over  Miss 
Wardle. 

12.  The   same   subject    by    "Phiz."      A 
remarkable   contrast  in   treatment ;   there    is 
the  suggestion  of  the   pair   being  surprised. 
We  see  how  the  fat  boy  came  on  them.     The 
old  Manor  Farm  in  the  background,  with  its 
gables,  etc.,  is  a  pleasing  addition,  and  like  all 
"  Phiz's "   landscapes,  delicately   touched   in. 
The  scared  alarm  on  the  two  faces  is  first-rate 
— even  Miss  Wardle's  foot  as  well  as  Tup- 
man's  is  expressive.     There  appears  to  be  no 
"  variation  "  of  this  plate. 

13.  "  The  Influence  of  the  Salmon."     A 
truly  dramatic  group  overflowing  with  humour. 
Note  no  fewer  than  ten  faces  in   the  back- 
ground, servants,  etc.,  all  expressing  interest 
according  to  their  class  and  degree.     The  five 
chief  characters  express  drunkenness  in  five 
different  fashions :    the   hopeless,   combative, 
despairing,  affectionate,  etc.     Wardle's  stolid 
calm  is  good. 

14.  "  The  Breakdown."    This  was  "Phiz's" 


108  PLATES  OF   PICKWICK. 

coup  d'essai  after  he  was  called  in,  and  is  a 
most  spirited  piece.  But  the  variations  make 
the  second  plate  almost  a  new  one.  The 
drawing,  grouping,  etc.,  in  b  are  an  enormous 
improvement,  and  supply  life  and  animation. 
The  three  figures,  Pickwick,  Wardle,  and  the 
postillion,  are  all  altered  for  the  better.  In  b 
Mr.  Pickwick's  nervousness,  as  he  is  extricated 
from  the  chaise,  is  well  shown.  The  postillion 
becomes  a  round  spirited  figure,  instead  of  a 
mere  sketch  ;  Wardle,  as  in  the  text,  instead 
of  stooping  down  and  merely  showing  his 
back,  is  tramping  about  gesticulating.  A 
very  spirited  white  horse  is  introduced  with  a 
postillion  as  spirited  ;  the  single  chaise  in  the 
distance,  the  horses  drawn  back,  and  Jingle 
stretching  out,  is  admirable.  It  is  somehow 
conveyed  in  a  clever  way  in  b  that  Miss 
Wardle  is  peeping  through  the  hind  window 
at  the  scene.  There  is  a  wheel  on  the  ground 
in  b,  and  one  hat ;  in  a  there  are  two  hats — 
Mr.  Pickwick's,  which  is  recognizable,  and 
Wardle's. 


PLATES   OF   PICKWICK.  IOQ 

15.  "  First  Appearance  of  Mr.  S.  Weller." 
In  the  first  issue  a  faint  "  Nemo  "  can  be 
made  out  in  the  corner,  and  it  is  said  the  same 
signature  is  on  the  preceding  plate,  though  I 
have  never  been  able  to  trace  it  clearly.  This 
plate,  as  is  well  known,  represents  the  court  of 
the  Old  White  Hart  Inn  in  the  Borough, 
which  was  pulled  down  some  years  ago.  On 
this  background — the  galleries,  etc.,  being 
picturesquely  indicated — stand  out  brilliantly 
the  four  figures.  The  plate  was  varied  in 
important  ways.  In  the  b  version  some  fine 
effects  of  light  and  shade  are  brought  out  by 
the  aid  of  the  loaded  cart  and  Wardle's  figure. 
Wardle's  hat  is  changed  from  a  common 
round  one  to  a  low  broad-leafed  one,  his  figure 
made  stouter,  and  he  is  clothed  with  dark 
instead  of  white  breeches,  his  face  broadened 
and  made  more  good-humoured.  Sam's  face 
in  b  is  made  much  more  like  the  ideal  Sam  ; 
that  in  a  is  grotesque.  Perker's  face  and 
attitude  are  altered  in  b,  where  he  is  made 
more  interrogative.  Mr.  Pickwick  in  b  is 


110  PLATES  OF   PICKWICK. 

much  more  placid  and  bland  than  in  #,  and  he 
carries  his  hat  more  jauntily.  Top-boots  in  b 
are  introduced  among  those  which  Sam  is 
cleaning.  He,  oddly,  seems  to  be  cleaning  a 
white  boot.  A  capital  dog  in  b  is  sniffing  at 
Mr.  Pickwick's  leg;  in  a  there  is  a  rather 
unmeaning  skulking  animal.  All  the  smaller 
figures  are  altered. 

16.  "Mrs.    Bardell    Faints."     The    first 
plate    is    feeble  and  ill-drawn,  though   Mrs. 
Bardell's  and  Tupman's  faces  are  good,  the 
latter  somewhat  farcical ;  the  boy  "  Tommy  " 
is  decidedly  bad  and  too  small.     Mr.  Pick- 
wick's face  in  a  is  better  than  in  b.     In  the 
second  attempt  all  is  bolder  and  more  spirited. 
The  three  Pickwickians  are  made  to  express 
astonishment,  even  in  their  legs.     There  is  a 
table-desk  in  a,  not  in  b.    A  clock  and  two 
vases  are  introduced,  and  a  picture  over  the 
mirror  representing  a  sleeping  beauty  with  a 
cupid. 

17.  "  The  Election  at  Eatanswill."     The 
first  plate  represents  an  election  riot  in  front 


PLATES    OF   PICKWICK.  Ill 

of  the  hustings,  which  is  wild  and  fairly 
spirited.  But  no  doubt  it  appeared  somewhat 
confused  to  the  artist.  In  his  second  he  made 
it  quite  another  matter.  Over  the  hustings  he 
introduced  a  glimpse  of  the  old  Ipswich  gables. 
He  changed  the  figure  and  dress  of  Fizkin,  the 
rival  candidate.  He  had  Perker  sitting  on  the 
rail,  but  substituted  a  standing-up  figure, 
talking — presumably  Perker,  but  taller  than 
that  gentleman.  In  b,  Mr.  Pickwick's  face 
expresses  astonishment  at  the  disorder ;  in  a 
he  is  mildly  placid.  In  b  the  figure  behind 
Mr.  Pickwick  is  turned  into  Sam  by  placing  a 
cockade  on  his  hat.  Next  to  Fizkin  is  a  new 
portly  figure  introduced.  The  figures  in  the 
crowd  are  changed  in  wholesale  fashion,  and 
yet  the  "  root  idea  "  in  both  is  the  same.  An 
artist,  we  fancy,  would  learn  much  from  these 
contrasts,  seeing  how  strikingly  "  Phiz  "  could 
shift  his  characters.  In  the  first  draft  there 
was  not  sufficient  movement.  To  the  left 
there  was  a  stout  sailor  in  a  striped  jacket  who 
was  thrusting  a  pole  into  the  chest  of  a  thin 


112  PLATES    OF    PICKWICK. 

man  in  check  trousers.  This,  as  drawn, 
seemed  too  tranquil,  and  he  substituted  a 
stouter,  more  jovial  figure  with  gymnastic 
action — the  second  was  made  more  contrasted. 
Next  him  was  a  confused  group — a  man  with 
a  paper  cap,  in  place  of  which  he  supplied  a 
stout  man  on  whom  the  other  was  driven 
back,  and  who  was  being  pushed  from  behind. 
The  animation  of  the  background  is  immensely 
increased  by  hats,  and  arms,  and  sticks  being 
waved.  Everything  is  bolder  and  clearer. 
The  second  trombone  player,  however,  is  not 
so  spirited  as  the  first,  and  the  drum-beater 
becomes  rather  a  "  Punch  and  Judy "  show- 
man. An  artistic  effect  of  light  is  produced 
by  this  drum.  There  are  a  great  many  more 
boards,  too,  introduced  in  b. 

"  Mrs.  Leo  Hunter's  Fancy  dress  Dejeune." 
In  b  the  finish  and  treatment  are  infinitely 
improved.  Mr.  Pickwick's  face  and  figure  is 
more  refined  and  artistic.  The  way  he  holds 
his  hat  in  his  right  hand  and  his  left  also  are 
improved;  both  are  more  extended.  Mr. 


PLATES   OF   PICKWICK.  113 

Snodgrass's  left  leg  is  brought  behind  Mr. 
Pickwick's  in  b.  Water — a  pond  perhaps — is 
in  front.  Tupman's  hat  is  altered  in  by  and 
feathers  added  ;  his  face  is  more  serious  and 
less  grotesque.  Mrs.  Pott  is  more  piquant,  as 
the  author  suggested  to  the  artist.  The  bird- 
cage, instead  of  being  high  in  the  tree,  is 
lowered  and  hangs  from  it.  The  most  curious 
change  is  that  of  Pott,  who  in  a  is  out  of  all 
scale,  seeming  to  be  about  seven  feet 
high.  He  was  lowered  in  b,  and  given  a 
beard  and  a  more  hairy  cap.  It  was  said, 
indeed,  that  the  original  face  was  too  like 
Lord  Brougham's,  but  the  reason  for  the 
change  was  probably  what  I  have  given. 

"The  Young  Ladies'  Seminary."  All 
details  are  changed.  The  rather  "cranky" 
face  of  Mr.  Pickwick,  utterly  unlike  him,  was 
improved  and  restored  to  its  natural  benevo- 
lence ;  more  detail  put  into  the  faces,  notably 
the  cook's.  The  girls  are  made  more  distinct 
and  attractive — the  lady  principal  at  the  back 
made  effective ;  all  the  foliage  treated 


114  PLATES    OF    PICKWICK. 

differently,  a  tree  on  the  left  removed.  In  a 
there  is  a  sort  of  hook  on  the  inside  of  the 
door  to  hold  a  bell,  which  is  absent ;  in  b  it  is 
added.  The  bolts,  etc.,  are  different. 

"Mr.  Pickwick  in  the  Pound."  b  is  more 
brilliant  and  vastly  improved  ;  the  smaller 
donkey  is  removed,  the  three  reduced  to  two ; 
the  sweep's  cap  is  made  white ;  the  faces  are 
altered,  and  made  more  animated.  Mr. 
Pickwick's  figure  in  the  barrow  is  perhaps  not 
improved,  but  his  face  is. 

"Mr.  Pickwick  in  the  Attorney's  Office." 
Sam's  face  in  a  was  quite  unlike,  and  was 
improved  ;  the  position  of  his  legs  altered. 
The  other  points  are  much  the  same. 

"  Last  Visit  of  Heyland  to  the  Old  Man." 
This  is  a  sort  of  anticipation  of  "  Phiz's  "  later 
treatment  of  tragic  subjects,  as  supplied  for 
"  Bleak  House  "  and  such  stories.  Heyling's 
cloak  in  b  is  draped  over  his  left  arm,  the 
boards  of  the  door  are  outlined  differently. 
In  a  the  face  of  the  old  man  a  side  one,  with 
little  expression;  in  b  it  was  made  three- 


PLATES  OF   PICKWICK.  115 

quarters,  and  contorted  with  horror — the 
attitude  powerfully  expressive,  indeed.  The 
figures  of  both  are  worth  comparing. 

"The  Double-bedded  Room."  In  b  the 
lady's  face  is  refined,  and  made  less  of  the 
"  nut-cracker  "  type.  The  comb  is  removed, 
her  feet  are  separated,  and  the  figure  becomes 
not  ungraceful.  A  white  night-gown  in  b  is 
introduced ;  in  a  it  is  her  day-gown,  and 
dark  ;  the  back  of  the  chair  in  b  is  treated 
more  ornamentally  ;  in  a  a  plain  frilled  night- 
cap is  hung  on  the  chair,  changed  in  b  to  a 
more  grotesque  and  "Gamp-like"  headgear. 
Nothing  can  be  better  in  a  than  the  effect  of 
light  from  the  rushlight  on  the  floor.  This  is 
helped  by  the  lady's  figure,  which  is  darkened 
in  a,  and  thrown  out  by  the  white  curtains 
behind.  Mr.  Pickwick's  face  in  a  is  not  good, 
and  much  improved  in  b.  It  will  be  noted 
that  the  artist  often  thus  failed  in  his  hero's 
face — "missing  his  tip,"  as  it  were.  This 
picture  admirably  illustrates  the  artist's  power 
of  legitimately  emphasizing  details — such  as 
H 


Il6  PLATES  OF  PICKWICK. 

the  night-cap — to  add  to  the  comic  situation. 

"  Mr.  Weller  Attacks  the  Executive  of 
Ipswich."  There  is  scarcely  any  alteration 
worth  notice. 

"  Job  Trotter  Encounters  Sam."  The  two 
plates  are  nearly  the  same,  except  that  Mary's 
face  is  made  prettier.  Sam's  is  improved,  and 
Job  Trotter's  figure  and  face  more  marked 
and  spirited. 

"Christmas  Eve  at  Mr.  Wardle's."  The 
changes  here  are  a  cat  and  dog  introduced  in 
the  foreground  in  £,  instead  of  the  dog  which 
in  a  is  between  Mr.  Pickwick  and  the  old 
lady. 

"  Gabriel  Grubb."  A  face  is  introduced 
into  a  branch  or  knot  of  the  tree — an  odd, 
rather  far-fetched  effect.  The  effectively  out- 
lined church  in  the  background  is  St.  Albans 
Abbey. 

"  Mr.  Pickwick  Slides."  In  b  Mr.  Winkle's 
skates  are  introduced.  In  one  version  there 
are  five  stakes  instead  of  four,  and  Miss 


PLATES   OF   PICKWICK.  117 

Allen's  fur  boots  and  feet  are  depicted 
differently  in  each. 

"  Conviviality  at  Bob  Sawyer's."  The  two 
plates  correspond  almost  exactly — save  for  a 
slight  alteration  in  the  arrangement  of  the 
books  in  the  case. 

"Mr.  Pickwick  Sits  for  his  Portrait."  Slight 
alterations  in  the  faces  and  in  the  bird-cage. 
The  arrangement  of  the  panes  in  the  window 
is  also  different.  Mr.  Pickwick's  face  is  made 
more  intelligent.  A  handle  is  supplied  to  a 
pewter  pot  on  the  floor. 

"The  Warden's  Room."  Almost  exactly 
the  same  in  both.  But  why  has  Mr.  Pickwick 
his  spectacles  on  when  just  roused  from  sleep? 
There  is  a  collar  to  the  shirt  hanging  from 
the  cord. 

"The  Meeting  with  Jingle."  Very  slight 
changes  in  the  faces.  The  child's  face  in  b 
is  admirable,  and,  like  one  of  Cruikshank's 
miniatures,  it  conveys  alarm  and  grief.  The 
face  of  the  woman  watering  her  plant  is 
improved.  Note  the  Hogarthian  touch  of  the 


Il8  PLATES  OF  PICKWICK. 

initials  carved  on  the  window,  sufficiently 
distinct  and  yet  not  intrusively  so.  This  is  a 
most  skilfully  grouped  and  dramatic  picture, 
and  properly  conveys  the  author's  idea. 

"  The  Ghostly  Passenger."  This  illustration 
of  what  is  one  of  the  best  tales  of  mystery  is 
equally  picturesque  and  original.  The  five 
figures  in  front  are  truly  remarkable.  The 
elegant  interesting  figure  of  the  woman,  the 
fop  with  his  hat  in  the  air,  the  bully  with  the 
big  sword,  the  man  with  the  blunderbuss,  and 
the  bewildered  rustic,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
muffled  figures  on  the  coach,  make  up  a 
perfect  play.  There  seems  a  flutter  over  all ; 
it  is  like,  as  it  was  intended  to  be,  a  scene  in 
a  dream. 

"  Mr.  Winkle  Returns  under  Extraordinary 
Circumstances."  There  is  little  difference 
between  the  plates,  save  as  to  the  details  of 
the  objects  in  the  cupboard.  In  b  some 
bottles  have  been  introduced  on  the  top  shelf. 
Mrs.  Winkle's  is  a  pleasing,  graceful  figure  in 
both,  and  improved  and  refined  in  b.  More 


PLATES  OF  PICKWICK.  119 

spirit,  too,  is  put  into  Mr.  Pickwick's  figure  as 
he  rises  in  astonishment.  It  may  be  noted 
what  a  graceful  type  of  womanhood  then 
prevailed,  the  face  being  thrown  out  by 
"bands"  of  hair  and  ringlets,  the  large 
spreading  bonnets  and  white  veils.  Mary 
wears  an  enormous  bonnet  or  hat  like  her 
mistress. 

"  Mr.  Sawyer's  Mode  of  Travelling."  The 
amazing  spirit  and  movement  of  this  picture 
cannot  be  too  much  praised.  The  chaise 
seems  whirling  along,  so  that  the  coach, 
meeting  it,  seems  embarrassed  and  striving  to 
get  out  of  the  way.  The  Irish  family, 
struggling  to  keep  up  with  the  chaise,  is 
inimitable.  There  are  some  changes  in  b. 
The  man  with  the  stick  behind  has  a  bundle 
or  bag  attached.  The  mother  with  her 
three  children  is  a  delightful  group,  and  much 
improved  in  the  second  plate.  The  child 
holding  up  flowers  is  admirably  drawn.  The 
child  who  has  fallen  is  given  a  different 


I2O  PLATES  OF  PICKWICK. 

attitude  in  b.  The  dog,  too,  is  slightly 
altered. 

"The  Rival  Editors."  There  is  little  change 
made,  save  that  more  plates,  jugs,  etc.,  are 
introduced.  The  "row"  is  shown  with 
extraordinary  spirit.  Note  the  grotesque 
effect  of  Pott's  face,  shown  through  the  cloth 
that  Sam  has  put  over  his  head.  The  onions 
have  got  detached  from  the  hank  hung  to  the 
ceiling,  and  are  tumbling  on  the  combatants, 
and — a  capital  touch  this — the  blackbird, 
whose  cage  has  been  covered  over  to  secure 
its  repose,  is  shown  in  b  dashing  against  the 
bars.  We  might  ask,  however,  what  does  the 
cook  there,  and  why  does  she  "  trouble  herself 
about  the  warming-pan  "  ? 

"Mary  and  the  Fat  Boy."  Both  plates 
nearly  the  same,  the  languishing  face  of  the 
Fat  Boy  admirable.  Mary's  figure,  as  she 
draws  the  chair,  charming,  though  somewhat 
stout  at  the  back.  The  cook  is  present,  and 
a  plate  laid  for  her,  which  is  contrary  to  the 
text. 


PLATES  OF  PICKWICK.  121 

"  Mr.  Weller  and  his  Friends  Drinking  to 
Mr.  Pell."  Plates  almost  the  same,  save  for  a 
slight  alteration  in  the  faces,  and  a  vinegar 
cruet  introduced  next  to  Mr.  Pell's  oysters. 
Admirable  and  most  original  and  distinct  are 
the  figures  of  the  four  coachmen,  even  the  one 
of  whom  we  have  only  a  back  view. 

Perhaps  no  one  of  the  plates  displays 
Phiz's  vivid  power  so  forcibly  as  the  one  of 
the  trial  "  Bardell  v.  Pickwick."  Observe  the 
dramatic  animation,  with  the  difficulty  of 
treating  a  number  of  figures  seated  in  regular 
rows.  The  types  of  the  lawyers  are  truly 
admirable.  In  this  latter  piece  there  are  no 
less  than  thirty-five  faces,  all  characteristic, 
showing  the  peculiar  smug  and  pedantic  cast 
of  the  barristerial  lineaments.  Note  specially 
the  one  at  the  end  of  the  third  bench  who  is 
engrossed  in  his  brief,  the  pair  in  the  centre 
who  are  discussing  something,  the  two  stand- 
ing up.  But  what  is  specially  excellent  is  the 
selection  effaces  for  the  four  counsel  concerned 
in  the  case.  Nothing  could  be  more  appro- 


122  PLATES   OF   PICKWICK. 

priate  or  better  suit  the  author's  description. 
What  could  excel,  or  "  beat "  Buzfuz  with  his 
puffed,  coarse  face  and  hulking  form?  His 
brother  Serjeant  has  the  dried,  "peaked" 
look  of  the  overworked  barrister,  and  though 
he  is  in  his  wig  we  recognize  him  at  once, 
having  seen  him  before  at  his  chambers.  Mr. 
Phunkey,  behind,  is  the  well-meaning  but 
incapable  performer  to  be  exhibited  in  his 
examination  of  Winkle ;  and  Mr.  Skimpin  is 
the  alert,  unscrupulous,  wide-awake  prac- 
titioner who  "  made  such  a  hare "  of  Mr. 
Winkle.  The  composition  of  this  picture  is 
indeed  a  work  of  high  art. 

In  "  Mr.  Pickwick  sliding,"  how  admirably 
caught  is  the  tone  of  a  genial,  frosty  day  at  a 
country-house,  with  the  animation  of  the 
spectators — the  charming  landscape.  In  the 
scene  of  "  Under  the  Mistletoe "  at  Manor 
Farm,  the  Fat  Boy,  by  some  mistake  of 
size,  cannot  be  more  than  five  or  six  years 
old,  and  Tupman  is  shown  on  one  knee 
"  making  up "  to  one  of  the  young  ladies. 


PLATES  OF  PICKWICK.  123 

Beaux  seemed  to  have  been  very  scarce  in 
the  district  where  stout,  elderly  gentlemen 
were  thus  privileged. 

The  curious  thing  is  that  hardly  a  single 
face  of  Mr.  Pickwick's  corresponds  with  its 
fellows,  yet  all  are  sufficiently  like  and  recog- 
nizable. In  the  first  picture  of  the  club  he  is 
a  cantankerous,  sour,  old  fellow,  but  the  artist 
presently  mellowed  him.  The  bald,  benevo- 
lent forehead,  the  portly  little  figure,  the 
gaiters,  eye-glass  and  ribbon  always  put  on 
expressively,  seem  his  likeness.  The  "  Mr. 
Pickwick  sliding"  and  the  "Mr.  Pickwick 
sitting  for  his  portrait  in  the  Fleet  "  have 
different  faces. 

There  has  always  been  a  sort  of  fascination 
in  tracing  out  and  identifying  the  Pickwickian 
localities.  It  is  astonishing  the  number  of 
persons  that  have  been  engrossed  with  this 
pursuit.  Take  Muggleton  for  instance,  which 
seems  to  have  hitherto  defied  all  attempts  at 
discovery.  The  younger  Charles  Dickens 
fancied  that  town,  Mailing,  which  lies  to  the 


124  PLATES   OF   PICKWICK. 

south  of  Rochester.  Mr.  Frost,  Mr.  Hughes, 
and  other  "  explorers  "  all  have  their  favourite 
town.  I,  myself,  had  fixed  on  Maidstone  as 
fulfilling  the  necessary  conditions  of  having  a 
Mayor  and  Corporation ;  as  against  this  choice 
and  that  of  all  the  towns  that  were  south  of 
Rochester  there  was  always  this  fact,  that  Boz 
describes  the  party  going  up  the  street  as 
they  left  Rochester,  a  route  that  led  them 
north-east.  But  the  late  Miss  Dickens— 
"  Mamie  "  as  she  was  affectionately  called — in 
her  pleasing  and  very  natural  little  book, 
"  My  Father  as  I  Recall  Him,"  has  casually 
dropped  a  hint  which  puts  us  on  the  right 
track.  When  driving  with  her  on  the  "  beau- 
tiful back  road  to  Cobham  once,  he  pointed  out 
a  spot.  There  it  was,  he  said,  where  Mr. 
Pickwick  dropped  his  whip."  The  distressed 
travellers  had  to  walk  some  twelve  or  fourteen 
miles  —  about  the  distance  of  Muggleton — 
which  was  important  enough  to  have  a  Mayor 
and  Corporation,  etc.  We  ourselves  have 
walked  this  road,  and  it  led  us  to— Gravesend. 


PLATES  OF   PICKWICK.  125 

Gravesend  we  believe  to  be  Muggleton — 
against  all  competitors.  Further,  when  chas- 
ing Jingle,  Wardle  went  straight  from 
Muggleton  to  town,  as  you  can  do  from 
Gravesend ;  from  which  place  there  is  a  long 
walk  to  Cobham. 

For  abundance  of  editions  the  immortal 
Pickwick  can  hold  its  own  with  any  modern 
of  its  "weight,  age,  and  size."  From  the 
splendid  yet  unwieldy  edition  de  luxe^  all  but 
Bible-like  in  its  proportions,  to  the  one  penny 
edition  sold  on  barrows  in  Cheapside,  every 
form  and  pattern  has  been  supplied. 

The  Gadshill  Edition,  with  Introduction  by 
Andrew  Lang,  has  recently  been  issued  by 
Messrs.  Chapman  and  Hall,  and  is  all  that  can 
be  desired.  Print,  paper,  and  size  are  excellent, 
perfect,  even  captivating.  The  old  illustrations, 
from  the  original  plates,  are  bright  and  clear, 
unworn  and  unclogged  with  ink.  The  editor 
has  been  judiciously  reserved  in  his  intro- 
duction and  annotations.  While  Mr.  Lang's 
lack  of  sympathy  with  Dickens  is  well-known, 


126  PLATES    OF   PICKWICK. 

and,  like  Sam  Weller  after  leaving  the  witness- 
box,  he  has  said  just  as  little  respecting  Mr. 
Pickwick  as  might  be,  "  which  was  precisely 
the  object  he  had  in  view  all  along."  But  it 
almost  seems  as  though  one  required  to  be 
"  brought  up "  in  Pickwick,  so  to  speak, 
thoroughly  to  understand  him.  No  true 
Pickwickian  would  ever  have  called  Tuckle 
the  Bath  Footman,  "  Blazer,"  or  Jingle, 
"Jungle."  It  were  better,  too,  not  to  adopt  a 
carping  tone  in  dealing  with  so  joyous  and 
irresponsible  a  work.  "  Dickens,"  we  are  told, 
"  knew  nothing  of  cricket."  Yet  in  his  prime 
the  present  writer  has  seen  him  "marking" 
all  day  long,  or  acting  as  umpire,  with  extra- 
ordinary knowledge  and  enthusiasm.  In 
Pickwickian  days  the  game  was  not  what  it  is 
now  ;  it  was  always  more  or  less  irregular  and 
disorderly.  As  proof  of  "  Boz's  "  ignorance, 
Mr.  Lang  says  it  is  a  mystery  why  Podder 
"  missed  the  bad  balls,  blocked  the  doubtful 
ones,  took  the  good  ones,  and  sent  them 
flying,  etc."  Surely  nothing  could  be  plainer 


PLATES   OF   PICKWICK.  127 

He  "missed" — that  is,  did  not  strike — the 
balls  of  which  nothing  could  be  made,  blocked 
the  dangerous  ones,  and  hit  the  good  ones  all 
over  the  field.  What  more  or  what  better 
could  Dr.  Grace  do  ? 

The  original  agreement  for  "  Pickwick  "  I 
have  not  seen,  though  it  is  probably  in 
existence,  but  there  is  now  being  shown  at 
the  Earl's  Court  Victorian  Era  Exhibition  a 
very  interesting  Pickwickian  curio.  When 
the  last  number  had  appeared,  a  deed  was 
created  between  the  two  publishers,  Edward 
Chapman  and  William  Hall,  giving  them 
increased  control  over  the  book.  It  is  dated 
November  iSth,  1837,  and  sets  out  that  the 
property  consisted  of  three  shares  held  by  the 
two  publishers  and  author.  It  was  contracted 
that  the  former  should  purchase  for  a  period 
of  five  years  the  author's  third  share.  And  it 
was  further  stipulated  that  at  the  end  of  that 
term,  they,  and  no  one  else,  should  have  the 
benefit  of  any  new  arrangement.  There  was 


128  PLATES  OF  PICKWICK. 

also  an  arrangement  about  purchasing  the 
"stock,"  etc.,  at  the  end  of  the  term.  No 
mention,  however,  is  made  of  the  terms  or 
"  consideration,"  for  which  reference  is  made 
to  another  deed.  The  whole  is  commendably 
short  and  intelligible. 


A  New  Edition 


OF 


Charles  Dickens's  Works 


It  maybe  asserted,  without  fear  of  contradiction,  that  the  writings 
of  the  Author  of  "  Pickwick  "  have  gone  through  a  larger  number  of 
editions  than  those  of  any  other  nineteenth-century  novelist.  Notwith- 
standing this  remarkable  fact,  the  demand  for  Charles  Dickens's 
fascinating  stories  is  still  increasing,  so  it  is  not  surprising  that  many 
well-known  publishing  firms  have  been  induced,  from  time  to  time, 
to  issue  editions  of  the  works  of  England's  favourite  author.  The 
Roxburghe  Press,  Limited,  noted  for  the  dainty  character  of  its 
publications,  desires  to  announce  the  immediate  preparation  of  a 

"Roxburghe"  Edition  of 

Charles  Dickens's  Works, 

which  will  be  offered  at  the  average  price  of  3/6  per  volume.  It 
is  etermined  to  produce  this  edition  in  the  most  tasteful  manner  as 
regards  newly  cast  type,  specially-made  paper,  appropriate  and 
attractive  binding,  etc.,  altogether  in  a  style  never  before  attempted. 
The  "  ROXBURGHE  "  EDITION  will  be  rendered  particularly  noteworthy 
by  means  of  carefully  executed  facsimiles  of  all  the  original 
illustrations. 

This  will  be  the  daintiest  Edition  ever  issued 
from  any  Press, 


The  Original  Illustrations 


By  Cruikshank,  Seymour,  Buss,  "  Phiz,"  Cattermole,  and 
others,  these  being  specially  engraved,  printed  separately 
on  Plate  paper  and  bound  in  with  the  Works. 


The  interest  of  each  volume  will  be  considerably  enhanced  by  a 
chatty  INTRODUCTION  from  the  pen  of  Mr.  F.  G.  KITTON 
(Author  of  " Dickensiana,"  "Charles  Dickens  by  Pen  and  Pencil," 
etc.))  who  will  contribute  to  these  prefatory  chapters  much  that  is 
interesting  concerning  the  history  and  bibliography  of  each  novel, 
while  Dickensian  localities  and  the  prototypes  of  prominent  characters 
in  the  stories  will  be  considered  and  discussed.  The  "ROXBURGHB" 
EDITION  will  also  include 


Portraits  of  Charles  Dickens, 


representing  him  at  various  periods  of  his  career.  In  the  preparation 
of  the  volumes  Mr.  CHARLES  F.  RIDEAL  (Author  of  "  Wellerisms" 
and  "  Charles  Dickens's  Heroines  and  Women  Folk,"  etc.)  is 
privileged  in  securing  the  invaluable  assistance  and  advice  of  Mrs. 
Perugini  (Kate  Dickens),  Mr.  George  Cruikshank,  Junr.,  nephew  of 
the  original  illustrator,  and  Mr.  Gordon  Browne  (son  of  "Phiz"). 
Mr.  Rideal  will  personally  supervise  the  production  of  the  entire 
edition,  which  is  sufficient  guarantee  that  full  justice  will  be  done  to 
the  volumes,  and  that  their  rechercM  character  will  be  maintained. 

The  "ROXBURGHE"  EDITION  will  be  issued  at  monthly  intervals 
continuing  in  the  original  order  of  publication^  as  follows  : 


1  SKETCHES  BY  "BOZ" 

2  THE  PICKWICK  PAPERS 

3  OLIVER  TWIST 

4  NICHOLAS  NICKLEBY 

5  MASTER  HUMPHREY'S  CLOCK.    (2  Volumes) 

Containing  Old  Curiosity  Shop  and  Barnaby  Rudge 

6  AMERICAN  NOTES 

7  MARTIN  CHUZZLEWIT 

8  A  CHRISTMAS  CAROL.      THE  CHIMES.     THE 

CRICKET  ON  THE  HEARTH,     (i  Volume) 

9  PICTURES  FROM  ITALY 

10  THE  BATTLE  OF  LIFE 

11  DOMBEY  AND  SON 

12  THE  HAUNTED  MAN 

13  DAVID  COPPERFIELD 

14  A  CHILD'S  HISTORY  OF  ENGLAND 

15  BLEAK  HOUSE 

16  HARD  TIMES 

It  is  probable  that  the  series  will  include  one  or  more  other  volumes, 
comprising  the  Minor  Writings  of  Charles  Dickens,  such  as : 
"  Sunday  under  Three  Heads,"  "  The  Mudfog  Papers,"  "  Sketches 
of  Young  Gentlemen,"  "  Sketches  of  Young  Couples,"  Literary 
Articles  and  Reviews,  etc.  These  however,  will  be  described  in  a 
separate  circular. 

From  ^8,000  to  ,£10,000,  it  is  anticipated,  will  be  expended  in  the 
production  of  this  Series. 


Important  Notice. 


An  Edition  de  Lu.ve,  on  Demy  8vo  paper,  exquisitely 
bound,  strictly  limited  to  500  copies  of  each  work, 
signed  and  numbered,  will  be  issued  at  half-a-guinea 
per  volume  nett.  Applications  for  this  Edition  should 
be  made  at  once  in  order  to  prevent  disappointment. 


DICKENSIANA. 


THE  LAW  AND  LAWYERS  OP  PICKWICK  (With  an  Original 
Sketch  of  "Mr.  Serjeant  Buzfuz").  By  SIR  FRANK  LOCKWOOD, 
Q.C.,  M.P.  Second  Edition,  slightly  revised.  Manilla,  One  Shilling  ; 
Cloth,  a  veritable  Edition  de  Luxe,  Eighteenpence. 

"  The  lecture  itself  is  full  of  that  genial  humour  characteristic  ot  Mr.  Lockwood, 
who  is  acknowledged  to  be  the  most  jocular  of  Queen's  Counsellors,  and  the  cleverest 
caricaturist  at  the  Bar.  He  has  been  a  devoted  student  of  the  works  of  Charles 
Dickens,  and  has  selected  with  much  discrimination  those  passages  that  most 
strikingly  exhibit  the  novelist's  acquaintance  with  legal  men  and  affairs  fifty  years 
ago." — DUNDEE  ADVKBTISKB. 

"  The  effort  was  well  worthy  of  permanent  inclusion  in  Dickensi.in  lore,  and,  as  it 
is  published  at  the  price  of  one  shilling,  the  little  brochure  is  likely  to  find  an  ex- 
tended field  of  readers.  It  is  prefaced  by  an  original  pen-and-ink  sketch  of  Serjeant 
Buzfuz  by  Mr.  Lockwood,  who  is,  as  is  generally  known,  an  adept  at  characteristic 
portraiture  of  this  kind."— UMPIRE. 

MY  FATHER,  AS  I  RECALL  HIM.  By  MAMIE  DICKENS.      One  of 

the   most   interesting  books  issued.  Containing    Photographs  and 

Information  never  before  published.  Crown  8vo,  Art  Canvas,  Three 
Shillings  and  Sixpence. 

RAMBLES  WITH  DICKENS  AND  THE  SERIAL  GREEN   LEAVES 

of  Charles  Dickens  (With  Copies  of  the  Original  Monthly  Wrappers). 
By  ROBERT  ALLBUT.    Cloth,  Half  a  Crown. 

CHARLES    DICKENS'   HEROINES    AND    WOMEN    FOLK:    Some 
Thoughts  concerning   them.     A  Revised   Lecture.     By  CHARLES  F. 
RIDEAL,    with    drawings   of    "Dot"    and     "Edith    Dombey"     by 
FLORENCE  PASH.     Second  Edition.    Cloth,  Eighteenpence. 
"  A  delightful  little  book."— INSTITUTE. 

PICKWICKIAN  MANNERS  AND  CUSTOMS.  By  PERCY  FITZGERALD. 
Crown  8vo,  Art  Canvas,  Two  Shillings  and  Sixpence. 

THE  DICKENS  ENCYCLOPAEDIA.  A  Dictionary  of  all  the  characters 
to  be  found  in  the  works  of  Charles  Dickens.  By  M.  WOOD.  Crown 
8vo,  Art  Canvas,  Three  Shillings  and  Sixpence. 

"WELLERISMS"  from  "Pickwick"  and  "Master  Humphrey's 
Clock."  Selected  by  CHARLES  F.  RIDEAL,  and  Edited  with  an  In- 
troduction by  CHARLES  KENT,  Author  of  "  The  Humour  and  Pathos 
of  Charles  Dickens."  Third  Edition.  With  a  new  and  original 
drawing  by  GEORGE  CRUIICSHANK,  Junr.,  of  Mr.  Samuel  Weller. 
Cloth,  Half  a  Crown;  Manilla,  Eighteenpence. 

POEMS,  SONGS  AND  OTHER  RHYMES  OF  CHARLES  DICKENS. 

Collated  by   F.   G.   KITTON,   Author    of   "  Dickensiana,"    "Charles 
Dickens  by  Pen  and  Pencil,"  etc.    Cloth,  Two  Shillings  and  Sixpence. 

a?  n  us 

ROXBURGHE  PRESS, 

LIMITED, 

FIFTEEN,    VICTORIA    STREET, 

WESTMINSTER. 


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