Pickwickian Studies Part 8

II.--Thackeray

In Thackeray's "Newcomes," the writer had some reminiscences of a place like Eatanswill, for we are told of the rival newspapers, "The Newcome Independent" and "The Newcome Sentinel," the former being edited by one Potts. These journals a.s.sailed each other like their brethren in "Pickwick." "Is there any man in Newcome except, perhaps, our _twaddling old contemporary_, _the Sentinel_," &c. Doyle's picture of the election is surely a reminiscence of Phiz's. There is the same fight between the bandsmen--the drum which someone is kicking a hole in, the bra.s.s instrument used, placards, flags, and general _melee_.

Doyle could sketch Forster admirably. Witness the drawing of the travelling party in a carriage, given by Mr. Kitton in his wonderful collection, "d.i.c.kens, by pen and pencil," where he has caught Forster's "magisterial" air to the life. The picture, "F. B.," Fred Bayham in the story, is certainly the figure of Forster (vol. ii., pp. 55 and 116.) F.

B. is shown both as a critic and pressman, though he has nothing of J.

F.'s domineering ways. Again, the waiter, speaking of Lord Highgate, said he was a _most harbitrary gent_. This refers to the memorable story of Forster being summoned by the cabman who said he did so because "he were such a harbitrary cove." The truth was, Forster knew the distance to a yard, and would tender the cabman his exact fare and no more. Once, dining with Forster at a hotel in the country where he had rooms, we lit our cigars after dinner, on which the waiter remonstrated, saying it was not allowed. Then I knew the meaning of a "Harbitrary Cove." How the irate Forster blew him up, roared at him, and drove him out, terrified!

It was, indeed, Dowler threatening the coach proprietor.

Thackeray would of course have known the story; he meant a sort of veiled allusion which had or had not a reference. We have the key to this sort of thing in the strange, uncomplimentary reference to Catherine Hayes, the murderess, but which was at once applied to an interesting and celebrated Irish singer of the same name. The author must have antic.i.p.ated this, and, perhaps, chuckled over the public ignorance, but the allusion was far-fetched. In the same fas.h.i.+on a dramatist once chose to dub one of his characters by my own rather unusual name, on which he protested that he never dreamt of it, that others bore it; still he, however, was obliged to remove it.

Again, on p. 55 we have this pa.s.sage: "I was thirsty, having walked from "Jack Straw's Castle," at Hampstead, where poor Kiteley and I had been taking a chop." This was written in 1855, only a few years after Forster's admirable performance of Kiteley with the other amateurs in "Every man in his humour." "Jack Straw's Castle," too, was a regular haunt of Forster and d.i.c.kens. It is as certain as anything can be that this allusion was not an accidental one.

III.--Tupman

Tupman's relations to Mr. Pickwick were somewhat peculiar; he was elderly--about Mr. Pickwick's age--whereas Winkle and Snodgra.s.s were young fellows under Mr. Pickwick's guardians.h.i.+p. Over them he could exercise despotic authority; which he did, and secured obedience. It was difficult to do this in the case of his contemporary, Tupman, who naturally resented being "sat upon." In the incident of the _Fete_ at Mrs. Leo Hunter's, and the Brigand's dress--"the two-inch tail," Mr.

Pickwick was rather insulting and injudicious, gibing at and ridiculing his friend on the exhibition of his corpulence, so that Tupman, stung to fury, was about to a.s.sault him. Mr. Pickwick had to apologise, but it is clear the insult rankled; and it would appear that Tupman was never afterwards much in the confidence of his leader, and, for that matter, in the confidence of his author. Boz, either consciously or unconsciously, felt this. Tupman, too, never seems to have got over the figure he "cut"

in the spinster aunt business, and the loss of general respect.

Still he submitted to be taken about under Mr. Pickwick's patronage, but soon the mutual irritation broke out. The occasion was the latter's putting on speckled stockings for the dance at Manor Farm. "_You_ in silk stockings," exclaimed Tupman, jocosely; a most natural, harmless remark, considering that Mr. Pickwick invariably wore his gaiters at evening parties. But the remark was hotly resented, and challenged. "You see nothing extraordinary in the stockings _as_ stockings, I trust, sir?"

Of course his friend said "No, certainly not," which was the truth, but Mr. Pickwick put aside the obvious meaning. Mr. Tupman "walked away,"

wis.h.i.+ng to avoid another altercation, afraid to trust himself; and Mr.

Pickwick, proud of having once more "put him down," a.s.sumed his "customary benign expression." This did not promise well.

In all the Manor Farm jollity, we hear little or nothing of Tupman, who seems to have been thought a cypher. No doubt he felt that the girls could never look at him without a smile--thinking of the spinster aunt.

In the picture of the scene, we find this "old Buck" in the foreground, on one knee, trying to pickup a pocket handkerchief and holding a young lady by the hand. Snodgra.s.s and his lady are behind; Winkle and his Arabella on the other side; Trundle and his lady at the fire. Then who was Tupman's young woman? She is not mentioned in the text, yet is evidently a prominent personage--one of the family. At Ipswich, he was crammed into the sedan chair with his leader--two very stout gentlemen--which could not have increased their good humour, though Tupman a.s.sisted him from within to stand up and address the mob. We are told that "all Mr. Tupman's entreaties to have the lid of the vehicle closed" were unattended to. He felt the ridicule of his position--a sedan chair carried along, and a stout man speaking. This must have produced friction. Then there was the sense of injustice in being charged with aiding and abetting his leader, which Mr. Pickwick did not attempt to clear him from. When Mr. Pickwick fell through the ice, Tupman, instead of rendering help, ran off to Manor Farm with the news of the accident.

Then the whole party went down to Bath and, during their stay there, we have not a word of Tupman. He came to see his friend in the Fleet--with the others of course. But now for the remarkable thing. On Mr.

Pickwick's happy release and when every one was rejoining, Wardle invited the whole party to a family dinner at the Osborne. There were Snodgra.s.s, Winkle, Perker even, but no Tupman! Winkle and his wife were at the "George and Vulture." Why not send to Tupman as well. No one perhaps thought of him--he had taken no interest in the late exciting adventures, had not been of the least help to anybody--a selfish old bachelor. When Mr. Pickwick had absented himself looking for his Dulwich house, it is pointed out with marked emphasis that certain folk--"among whom was Mr.

Tupman"--maliciously suggested that he was busy looking for a wife!

Neither Winkle nor Snodgra.s.s started this hypothesis, but Tupman. He, however, was at Dulwich for Winkle's marriage, and had a seat on the Pickwick coach. In later days, we learn that the Snodgra.s.ses settled themselves at Dingley Dell so as to be near the family--the Winkles, at Dulwich, to be near Mr. Pickwick, both showing natural affection. The selfish Tupman, thinking of n.o.body but himself, settled at Richmond where he showed himself on the Terrace with a youthful and jaunty air, "trying to attract the elderly single ladies of condition." All the others kept in contact with their chief, asking him to be G.o.dfather, &c. But we have not a word of Tupman. It is likely, with natures such as his, that he never forgot the insulting remark about his corpulence. That is the way with such vain creatures.

Boz, I believe, had none of these speculations positively before him, but he was led by the logic of his story. He had to follow his characters and their development; they did not follow him.

IV.--Grummer

This well drawn sketch of an ignorant, self-sufficient constable is admirable. I have little doubt that one of the incidents in which he figures was suggested to _Boz_ by a little adventure of Grimaldi's which he found in the ma.s.s of papers submitted to him, and which he worked up effectively. A stupid and malicious old constable, known as "Old Lucas,"

went to arrest the clown on an imaginary charge, as he was among his friends at the theatre. As in the case of Grummer, the friends, like Winkle and Snodgra.s.s, threatened the constable. The magistrate heard the case, sentenced Grimaldi to pay 5s. fine. Old Lucas, in his disappointment, arrested him again. Being attacked by Grimaldi, as Grummer was by Sam, he drew his staff and behaved outrageously. The magistrate then, like Nupkins, had him placed in the dock, and sentenced.

It has also been stated that Grummer was drawn from Towshend--the celebrated Bow Street Runner again introduced in "Oliver Twist." Towshend was a privileged person, like Grummer, and gave his advice familiarly to the magistrates.

CHAPTER XIV. CHARACTERISTICS

I.--The Wardle Family

Here is a very pleasing and natural group of persons, in whom it is impossible not to take a deep interest. They are like some amiable family that we have known. Old Wardle, as he is called, though he was under fifty, was a widower, and had remained so, quite content with his daughters' attachment. He had his worthy old mother to live with him, to whom he was most dutiful, tolerant, and affectionate. These two points recommend him. There was no better son than Boz himself, so he could appreciate these things. The sketch is interesting as a picture of the patriarchal system that obtained in the country districts, all the family forming one household, as in France. For here we have Wardle, his mother, and his sister, together with his two pleasing daughters, while, later on, his sons-in-law established themselves close by. The "poor relations" seem to have been always there. It is astonis.h.i.+ng how Boz, in his short career, could have observed and noticed these things. Wardle's fondness for his daughters is really charming, and displayed without affectation. He connected them with the image of his lost wife. There is no more natural, truly affecting pa.s.sage than his display of fretfulness when he got some inkling that his second daughter was about to make a rather improvident marriage with young Snodgra.s.s. The first had followed her inclinations in wedding Trundle--a not very good match--but he did not lose her as the pair lived beside him. He thought Emily, however, a pretty girl who ought to do better, and he had his eye on "a young gentleman in the neighbourhood"--and for some four or five months past he had been pressing her to receive his addresses favourably.

This was clearly a good match. Not that he would unduly press her, but "if she _could_, for I would never force a young girl's inclinations." He never thought, he says, that the Snodgra.s.s business was serious. But, how natural that, when Arabella, their friend, had become a regular heroine and had gone off with her Winkle, that this should fill Emily's head with similar thoughts, and set the pair on thinking that they were persecuted, &c. What a natural scene is this between father and daughter.

"My daughter Bella, Emily having gone to bed with a headache after she had read Arabella's letter to me, sat herself down by my side the other evening, and began to talk over this marriage affair. "Well, pa," she says; "what do you think of it?" "Why, my dear," I said; "I suppose it's all very well; I hope it's for the best." I answered in this way because I was sitting before the fire at the time, drinking my grog rather thoughtfully, and I knew my throwing in an undecided word now and then would induce her to continue talking. Both my girls are pictures of their dear mother, and as I grow old I like to sit with only them by me; for their voices and looks carry me back to the happiest period of my life, and make me, for the moment, as young as I used to be then, though not quite so light-hearted. "It's quite a marriage of affection, pa," said Bella, after a short silence. "Yes, my dear," said I; "but such marriages do not always turn out the happiest." "I am sorry to hear you express your opinion against marriages of affection, pa," said Bella, colouring a little. "I was wrong; I ought not to have said so, my dear, either," said I patting her cheek as kindly as a rough old fellow like me could do it, "for your mother's was one and so was yours." "It's not that, I meant, pa," said Bella. "The fact is, pa, I wanted to speak to you about Emily." The long and the short of it is, then, that Bella at last mustered up courage to tell me that Emily was unhappy; that she and your young friend Snodgra.s.s had been in constant correspondence and communication ever since last Christmas; that she had very dutifully made up her mind to run away with him, in laudable imitation of her old friend and schoolfellow.

Another member of this pleasant household was "The Fat Boy." There is nothing humorous or farcical in the mere physical exhibition of a fat person, _qua_ his fat. It was, indeed, the fas.h.i.+on of the day--and on the stage particularly--to a.s.sume that fatness was a.s.sociated with something comic. There are a number of stout persons in Pickwick--the hero himself, Tupman, old Weller, and all the coachmen, the turnkeys, Slammer, Wardle, Fat Boy, Nupkin's cook, Grummer, Buzfuz, Mrs. Weller, Mr. Bagman's uncle, and others. Thackeray attempted to work with this element in the case of Jos Sedley, and his fatness had a very close connection with his character. But, in the case of Boz, his aim was much more intellectual and, as it were, refined. For his object was to show what was a fat person's view of this world, as seen through the medium of Fat. The Fat Boy is not a selfish, sensual being by nature--he is really helpless, and the creature of necessity who is forced by his bulk to take a certain _fat_ view of everything round him." If we reflect on it we shall see how clearly this is carried out. It is curious that, in the instance of the Fat Boy, Boz should have repeated or duplicated a situation, and yet contrived to impart such varied treatment, but I suspect no one has ever noticed the point. Joe, it will be remembered, witnessed the proceedings in the arbour, when Mr. Tupman declared his pa.s.sion for the spinster aunt, and the subsequent embracing--to the great embarra.s.sment of the pair. At the close of the story he also intruded on another happy pair--Mr. Snodgra.s.s and his _inamorata_--at a similar delicate moment. Yet in the treatment, how different--"_I wants to make yer flesh creep_!"--his taking the old lady into confidence; and then he was p.r.o.nounced by his master, Wardle, to be under some delusion--"let me at him"--&c., so his story and report led him into a sc.r.a.pe. When he intruded on the pair at Osborne's Hotel, and Snodgra.s.s was, later, shut up there, again he was made the scapegoat, and Wardle insisted that he was drunk, &c. So here were the incidents repeating themselves.

II.--Shooting, Riding, Driving, etc.

Boz declared in one of his Prefaces that he was so ignorant of country sports, that he could not attempt to deal with them in a story.

Notwithstanding this protest, he has given us a couple of shooting scenes which show much experience of that form of field sports. There is a tone of sympathy and freshness, a keen enjoyment of going forth in the morning, which proves that he himself had taken part in such things. Rook- shooting was then an enjoyable sport, and Boz was probably thinking of the rooks at Cobham, where he had no doubt hovered round the party when a lad. As we know, Mr. Tupman, who was a mere looker-on, was "peppered" by his friend Winkle, a difficult thing to understand, as Winkle must have been firing high into the trees, and if he hit his friend at all, would have done so with much more severity. The persons who were in serious danger from Mr. Winkle's gun were the boys in the trees, and we may wonder that one, at least, was not shot dead. But the whole is so pleasantly described as to give one a perfect _envie_ to go out and shoot rooks. There are some delightful touches, such as Mr. Pickwick's alarm about the climbing boys, "for he was not quite certain that the distress in the agricultural interest, might not have compelled the small boys attached to the soil to earn a precarious and hazardous existence by making marks of themselves for inexperienced sportsmen." And again, "the boy shouted and shook a branch with a nest on it. _Half-a-dozen young rooks in violent conversation flew out to ask what the matter was_." Does not this bring the whole scene before us.

The other shooting scene is near Bury St. Edmunds--on Sir Geoffrey Manning's grounds--on September 1st, 1830, or 1827, whichever Boz pleases, when "many a young partridge who strutted complacently among the stubble with all his finical c.o.xcombry of youth, and many an older one who watched his levity out of his little, round eye with the contemptuous air of a bird of wisdom and experience, alike unconscious of their approaching doom, basked in the fresh morning air with lively and blithesome feelings, and, a few hours later, were laid low upon the earth." Here we have the beginning of that delightful fas.h.i.+on of d.i.c.kens's, which he later carried to such perfection, of a.s.sociating human feelings and a.s.sociations with the animal creation, and also inanimate objects.

Everything connected with "the shooting" is admirably touched: The old, experienced "shot," Wardle; the keepers and their boys; the dogs; the sham amateurs; the carrying of the guns "reversed arms, like privates at a funeral." Mr. Winkle "flashed and blazed and smoked away without producing any material results; at one time expending his charge in mid- air, and at others sending it skimming along so near the surface of the ground as to place the lives of the two dogs on a rather uncertain and precarious tenure. 'What's the matter with the dogs' legs? How _queer_ they're standing!' whispered Mr. Winkle. 'Hush, can't you! Don't you see they are making a point?' said Wardle. 'Making a point?' said Mr.

Winkle, glaring about him, as if he expected to discern some particular beauty in the landscape which the sagacious animals were calling special attention to. 'What are they pointing at?' 'Keep your eyes open,' said Wardle, not heeding the question in the excitement of the moment. 'Now then.'" How natural and humorous is all this.

This was partridge shooting, "old style"--delightful and inspiriting, as all have felt who have shared in it. Now we have "drives" on a vast scale; then you would follow the birds from field to field "marking them down." I myself with an urchin, a dog, and a single-barrelled old gun have thus followed a few precious birds from field to field all the day and secured them at the last. That was true enjoyment.

III.--Horses and Driving in "Pickwick."

For one who so modestly disclaimed all knowledge of sporting and country tastes, Boz shows a very familiar acquaintance with horses and their ways. He has introduced a number of these animals whose points are all distinctly emphasized: a number of persons are shown to be interested in horses, who exhibit their knowledge of and sympathise with the animals, a knowledge and sympathy which is but a reflection of his own. The cunning hand that could so discriminate between shades of humorous characters would not be at a loss to a.n.a.lyse traits of equine nature. There is the cab horse, said to be forty years old and kept in the shafts for two or three weeks at a time, which is depicted in Seymour's plate. How excellently drawn are the two Rochester steeds: one "an immense brown horse, displaying great symmetry of bone," which was to be driven by Mr.

Pickwick, and Mr. Winkle's riding animal, another immense horse "apparently a near relative of the animal in the chaise." "He don't shy, does he?" The ostler guaranteed him quiet--"a hinfant in arms might drive him"--"He wouldn't shy if he met a whole waggon-load of monkeys with their tails burnt off." A far more original ill.u.s.tration than anything used by the Wellers, whose special form that was. I pa.s.s over the details of the driving and the riding which show a perfect knowledge of animals, such as "the tall quadruped." Nothing is more droll than the description of the loathing with which the party came to regard the animal they were compelled to lead about all day. Then we have the post horses and all connected with them. There is Tom Smart's "vixenish mare," quite an intelligent character in her way. The account of the coach drive down to Muggleton shows admirable observation of the ways of the drivers.

Ben Allen's aunt had her private fly, painted a sad green colour drawn by a "chubby sort of brown horse." I pa.s.s over the ghostly mailcoach horses that flew through the night in "The Story of the Bagman's Uncle," flowing- maned, black horses. There are many post horses figuring in Mr.

Pickwick's journey from Bristol to Birmingham and thence home; horses in the rain and out of it.

Namby's horse was "a bay, a well-looking animal enough, but with something of a flash and dog-fighting air about him." The horses which took the hackney coach to the Fleet jolted along as hackney coaches usually do. "The horses 'went better,' the driver said, 'when they had anything before them.' They must have gone at a most extraordinary pace when there was nothing." Visiting the Fleet with Mrs. Weller and the deputy Shepherd, Mr. Weller drove up from Dorking with the old piebald in his chaise cart, which, after long delay, was brought out for the return journey. "If he stands at livery much longer he'll stand at nothin' as we go back." There is a capital scene at the opening of Chapter XLVI., when the "cabrioilet" was drawing up at Mrs. Bardell's, and where so much that is dramatic is "got out" of such a simple incident between the contending directions.

IV.--Mr. Pickwick in Silk Stockings.

How well Boz knew how to touch the chords of human character--a power that certainly needs long experience to work--is shown by the scene at Wardle's dance, where Mr. Pickwick is nettled by Tupman's remarking that he was wearing "pumps" for the first time. "_You_ in silk stockings,"

said that gentleman. Mr. Pickwick had just called attention to the change which he considered a sort of public event to be admired by all.