Pickwickian Manners and Customs Part 2

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 recollected, describes it as a case of the man "as killed hisself on principle."

"He used to go away to a coffee-house after 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 coachman'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.

'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 s.h.i.+llin' '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 s.h.i.+llin'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.

"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 n.o.body!"

Thus d.i.c.kens 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 b.u.t.tered m.u.f.fins, but durst not eat them because they disagreed with his stomach, resolved to shoot himself, and then eat three b.u.t.tered m.u.f.fins 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 m.u.f.fins. 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. m.u.f.fins therefore being laid at one angle of the table and pistols at the other, with rigid equity the 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 m.u.f.finless 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 pa.s.sing 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 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 encouraged 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 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 a.s.sumed 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 pa.s.s very fairly as an amiable outburst of the redoubtable Doctor's.

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

Pickwick, we are told, was excited and indignant. "He beckoned to Mr.

Weller and said in a stern voice: Take the skates off." "No, but I 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 a.s.sisted 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." 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 expostulations, 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 pa.s.sage 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 . . . "The magnificence of the Navy the s.h.i.+p building and all its circ.u.mstances 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 therefore 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 the old town, not having a drop themselves, Johnson affecting to entertain the pa.s.sions of the place, was violent in opposition; and half laughing at himself for his pretended zeal, and where he had no concern, exclaimed: "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 fortunately 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 Slumkey?"

whispered Mr. Tupman. "I don't know," said Mr. Pickwick, in the same tone. "Hus.h.!.+ 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. Snodgra.s.s. "Shout with the largest," replied Mr. Pickwick.

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 accommodating 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 st.u.r.dy 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 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 Blas_ 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.

{Map of the Pickwick Tours: p70.jpg}

So real is our Pickwickian Odyssey that it can be followed in all its stages as in a diary. To put it all in "s.h.i.+p 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 accessible, to visit old-fas.h.i.+oned, out of the way towns, and look out for fun, acquaintances and characters, they might have a good deal of the amus.e.m.e.nt and adventure that the Pickwickians 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 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 boyhood. During the old days when his father was at Chatham he had seen all the Rochester incidents, sat by the old Castle and Bridge, noted with admiring awe the dockyard people, the b.a.l.l.s 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 and its odd incidents and characters he had learned and studied during his brief apprentices.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+fted 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, particularly 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 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 b.u.t.t end of it." He could be as amiable and tender-hearted as "old Sam" himself. Listening 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 b.u.t.toned 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 d.a.m.ned 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 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 b.u.mpus. 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. 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 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 sc.r.a.ps 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 31st of March, 1836, will be published, to be continued Monthly, price One s.h.i.+lling, the First Number of

THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK CLUB; containing a faithful record of the PERAMBULATIONS, PERILS, TRAVELS, ADVENTURES, AND SPORTING TRANSACTIONS OF THE CORRESPONDING MEMBERS.

EDITED BY "BOZ."

And each Monthly Part embellished with four ill.u.s.trations by Seymour.

"The Pickwick Club, so renowned in the annals of Huggin Lane, and so closely entwined with the thousand interesting a.s.sociations 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 Middles.e.x, a part of Surrey, a portion of Ess.e.x, 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 fearlessly crossed the turbid Medway.

High-roads and by-roads, towns and villages, public conveyances and their pa.s.sengers, 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.