Pickwickian Manners and Customs Part 3

"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 Transactions 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 Ill.u.s.trative of Every Day Life and Every Day People"--a gentleman whom the publishers consider highly qualified for the task of arranging these important doc.u.ments, and placing them before the public in an attractive form. He is at present deeply immersed in his arduous labours, the first fruits of which will appear on the 31st March.

"Seymour has devoted himself, heart and graver, to the task of ill.u.s.trating 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 doc.u.ments 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 amus.e.m.e.nts with which the public regaled 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 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 faithfully and even brilliantly carried out. But with infinite art Boz emanc.i.p.ated 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.

Pickwick has an Adventure at Vauxhall," "Mr. Pickwick Goes to Margate,"

etc.: we had a narrow escape, it would seem, of this conventional sort of thing, and no doubt it was this the publishers looked for. But "Boz"

a.s.serted 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 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 a.s.sociated 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 disappointed haberdasher," may have followed this business. He is an ill-looking fellow enough, with black, bushy whiskers. The Pickwickians are decidedly the most gentlemanly of the party. But why was it necessary for Mr. Pickwick to stand upon a chair? 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 doc.u.ments at all. He was, however, committed to this t.i.tle by his early announcement, and indeed intended to carry out a device of using Snodgra.s.s's "Note Books," whose duty it was during the course of the adventures to take down diligently all that he observed. But this c.u.mbrous 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 pa.s.sages 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 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, _Un_-Pickwickian 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 "All-Around d.i.c.kens Club." The members seem to be ladies, though there are a number of honorary members of the other s.e.x, which include members 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 t.i.tles, have been read, such as "Bath and its a.s.sociations with Landor," "The City of Bristol with its Literary a.s.sociations," "The Excursion to the Tea Gardens of Hampstead," prefaced by a description of the historic old inn, "Poem by Charles Kent," "d.i.c.kens at Gad's Hill," "A Description of Birmingham, its Inst.i.tutions, and d.i.c.kens' 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 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 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 pounds one day, and 20 pounds 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 d.i.c.kENS."

This must have been written at the conclusion 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.

{Ma.n.u.script of a letter by d.i.c.kens: p88.jpg}

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'

friendship--"I have been so much engaged in the pleasing occupation of moving." He was unable to go to his new friend to dinner 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 d.i.c.kens'--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 sc.r.a.p brought 12 pounds 10s. 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 Ladle brought 69 pounds. Jingle, 30 pounds. Winkle, 23 pounds. Sam, 64 pounds. Old Weller, 51 pounds; and the Fat Boy, 35 pounds 14s., or over 280 pounds 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 d.i.c.kens, the younger, got two, I think; Messrs. Agnew the others.

CONCERNING THE PLATES AND EXTRA PLATES AND "STATES" OF PICKWICK.

It is an interesting question what should be the relation of ill.u.s.tration 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 ill.u.s.trations 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 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 something for the compliment, what a distinct force the great writer attributed to the artist, that he did not consider him an a.s.sistant 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 extraordinary 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 ill.u.s.trations 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 dramatic spirited story also failed, for "Boz" had abandoned the free, almost reckless style of his first tale. There was a living distinctness, 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 ill.u.s.trator, Chodowiecki, who a century ago was in enormous request for the ill.u.s.tration of books of all kinds, and whose groups and figures, drawn with much spirit and roundness, 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 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 personages he was put to ill.u.s.trate--the Smallweeds and the like.

It would be an interesting speculation to consider what would have become of "Pickwick" 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 appreciated 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 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 situations, and be piqued into speculating what could be the ultimate meaning.

At the exhibition "ill.u.s.trating 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 drawings no less than fifty-six in number. There were three by Seymour, two by Ba.s.s and thirty-four by Phiz, all used in the book; while of those unused--probably found unsuitable, there were five by Buss, including a proposed t.i.tle-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 t.i.tle-page. The poor, discarded Buss took a vast deal of pains therefore to accomplish his task. Of Phiz's unused designs there was "Mr. Winkle's first shot"

and two 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 ill.u.s.trators of the chronicle, some on original lines of their own; but these must be on the whole p.r.o.nounced 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 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 recognizable. This is art, and it gave the artist a greater freedom in his treatment. Now when an ill.u.s.trator 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 carefully brought out, with the result that they seem almost strange to us. Nor do they express the characters. There _is_ an expression, but it seems not the one to which we are accustomed. 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 unctuousness even. Now this somewhat philosophical a.n.a.lysis points to a principle in art ill.u.s.tration which accounts in a great measure for the unsatisfactory results where it is attempted to ill.u.s.trate 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 presentments of Shakespeare's heroines no one has ever seen any that satisfied or that even corresponded. 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: for the figures and faces appeared over and over and yet over again.

The most diverting, however, of all these imitators and extra-ill.u.s.trators is a.s.suredly the artist of the German edition. The series is admirably drawn, every figure well finished, but figures, faces, and scenes are unrecognizable. 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 incidents 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.

Notwithstanding 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.

The original ill.u.s.trations 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 productions, 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 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 subst.i.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 may be considered "proofs before letters"--the descriptive t.i.tles being only found in the later editions.

1. "The Frontispiece." (We shall call the second state _b_, 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 _a_, a side face in _b_. The face at the apex of the picture has a mouth closed in _b_, 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 t.i.tle-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_.

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 d.i.c.kens' more serious work. The chief differences are in the face of the man at his bedside and the candle.