Pickwickian Studies Part 2

V.--Ipswich Theatre

Boz, on his travels, with his strong theatrical taste, was sure to have gone to the little theatre in Tacket Street, now a Salvation Army meeting- house. It is the same building, though much altered and pulled about, as that in which David Garrick made his first appearance on the stage, as Mr. Lyddal, about 150 years ago. I have before me now a number of Ipswich play bills, dated in the year 1838, just after the conclusion of "Pickwick," and which, most appropriately, seem to record little but Boz's own work. Pickwick, Oliver, Nickleby, and others, are the Bill of Fare, and it may be conceived that audiences would attend to see their own Great White Horse, and the spinster lady in her curl papers, and Mr.

Nupkins, the Mayor, brought on the boards. These old strips of tissue paper have a strange interest; they reflect the old-fas.h.i.+oned theatre and audiences; and the Pickwickian names of the characters, so close after the original appearance, have a greater reality. Here, for instance, is a programme for Mr. Gill's benefit, on January 19, 1839, when we had "The Pickwickians at half-price." This was "a comic drama, in three acts, exhibiting the life and manners of the present day, ent.i.tled--

"PICKWICK, or the sayings and doings of Sam Weller!"

_Adapted expressly for this Theatre from the celebrated Pickwick Papers_, _by Boz_!

"The present drama of Pickwick has been honoured by crowded houses, and greeted by shouts of laughter and reiterated peals of applause upon every representation, and has been acknowledged by the public Press to be the only successful adaptation.

The ILl.u.s.tRATIONS designed and executed by popular PHIZ-ES.

The new music by Mr. Pindar. The quadrilles under the direction of Mr. Harrison."

All the characters are given.

"Mr. Pickwick," founder of the Club, and travelling the counties of Ess.e.x and Suffolk in pursuit of knowledge.

"Snodgra.s.s," a leetle bit of a poet.

"Winkle," a corresponding member also; and a something of a sportsman.

"Job Trotter," thin plant o' ooman natur; something between a servant and a friend to Jingle; a kind of perambulating hydraulic.

"Joe," a fat boy, addicted to cold pudding and snoring.

"Miss Rachel Wardle," in love with Jingle or anybody else that will have her.

"Emily" was appropriately represented in such a Theatre, by Miss Garrick.

The scenes are laid at first at the Red Lion, Colchester, close by which is Manor Farm, where a ball is given, and, of course, "the Pickwickian Quadrilles!" are danced "as performed at the n.o.bility's b.a.l.l.s." (I have these quadrilles, with Mr. Pickwick, on the t.i.tle.) Then comes the White Hart, and "How they make sausages!" displayed in large type. The scene is then s.h.i.+fted to the Angel, at Bury, and the double-bedded room with its "horrible dilemma," and

"SCENE OF NIGHT CAPS!"

It will be noticed that there is nothing of the Great White Horse in the very town. The reason was that the proprietor was disgusted by the unflattering account given of his Inn and must have objected. It winds up with the Fleet scenes, where Mr. Weller, senr.,

"ARRESTS HIS OWN OFFSPRING."

That this notion of the Great White Horse being sulky and hostile is the true one is patent from another bill, December 10, 1843, some four years later, when the proprietor allowed his Inn to be introduced. The piece was called--

"BOOTS AT THE WHITE HORSE."

"Now acting in London with extraordinary success." This was, of course, our old friend "Boots at the Swan," which Frank Robson, later, made his own. As Boz had nothing to do with it, there could be no objection.

Barnaby Rudge, however, was the piece of resistance. On another occasion, January, 1840, came Mr. J. Russell, with his vocal entertainment, "Russell's Recollections" and "A Portrait from the Pickwick Gallery." "Have you seen him? Alphabetical Distinctions. A sample of MISTER SAM WELLER'S Descriptive Powers."

Some adaptation or other of d.i.c.kens seems to have been always the standing dish. The old Ipswich Theatre is certainly an interesting one, and Garrick and Boz are names to conjure with.

VI.--Who was Pott?

There have been abundant speculations as to the originals of the Pickwickian characters--some Utopian enough, but I do not think that any have been offered in the case of Mr. Pott, the redoubtable editor of the _Eatanswill Gazette_. I am inclined to believe that the notorious and brilliant Dr. Maginn was intended. He and Pott were both distinguished for their "slogging" or bludgeoning articles, and both were High Tories, or "Blue," as Mr. Pott had it. But what is most significant is that in the very year Pickwick was coming out, to wit, 1836, Maginn had attracted general attention and reprobation by the scandal of his duel with Grantley Berkely, arising out of a most scurrilous review of the latter's novel. To this meeting he had been brought with some difficulty--just as Pott--the "Pot-valiant," declined to "serve him so," _i.e._, Slurk; being restrained by the laws of his country. He was an a.s.sistant editor to the "Standard," and had furnished scurrilites to the "John Bull." He had about this time also obtained an influence over the interesting "L. E.

L.," whom John Forster, it is known, was "courting," and by some rumours and machinations succeeded in breaking off the business. Now Forster and Boz, at the time, were bosom friends--Forster could be unsparing enough where he was injured: and how natural that his new friend should share his enmities. Boz was always glad to gibbet a notorious public abuse, and here was an opportunity. Maginn's friend, Kenealey, wrote to an American, who was about to edit Maginn's writings, "You have a glorious opportunity, where you have no fear of libel before your eyes. _Maginn's best things can never be published till his victims have pa.s.sed from the scene_." How significant is this! Then Pott's "combining his information," his "cramming" critic, his using the lore of the Encyclopedia Britannica for his articles suggest Maginn's cla.s.sical lucubrations. A well-known eminent _Litterateur_, to whom I suggested this view, objected that Pott is not shown to be such a blackguard as Maginn, and that Maginn was not such an a.s.s as Pott. But Boz generalised his borrowed originals. Skimpole was taken from Leigh Hunt, yet was represented as a sort of scoundrel; and Boz confessed that he only adapted his lighter manner and airy characteristics.

In these latter days, people have been somewhat astonished by the strange "freak" of our leading journal in so persistently offering and pressing on the public their venture of a new edition of the Encyclopedia. Every ingenious variation of bold advertis.e.m.e.nt is used to tempt the purchaser--a sovereign down and time for the rest; actual pictures of the whole series of volumes; impa.s.sioned arguments, pleadings, and an appeal to take it at the most wonderfully low price. Then we have desirable information, dealing with topics of varied kind, and a.s.surances that material would here be found for dealing conveniently with every known subject. Still, what a surprise that use was not made of "the immortal Pickwick" in whose pages these peculiar advantages were more successfully and permanently set forth and ill.u.s.trated by one most telling example furnished by no other than Mr. Pott himself, the redoubtable editor of the _Eatanswill Gazette_. To him and to no other is due the credit of being the first to show practically _how to use_ the Encyclopedia. He has furnished a _principle_ which is worth all the lengthy exhortations of the _Times_ itself.

Pott seems to have kept the work in his office, and to have used it for his articles in a highly ingenious fas.h.i.+on. For three months had he been supplying a series of papers, which he a.s.sures us "appeared at intervals," and which excited "such general--I may say, such universal attention and admiration." A fine tribute surely to the Encyclopedia.

For recollect Pott's was a newspaper. The _Times_ folk say nothing of this important view. Poor, simple Mr. Pickwick had not seen the articles because he was busy travelling about and had no time for reading.

(Probably Pott would have put him on the "free list" of his paper, but for the awkward Winkle flirtation which broke up the intimacy). Nay, he might have had "the revolving book case," which would handily contain _all_ the volumes.

And what were these articles? "They appeared in the form of a _copious_"--mark the word!--"review of a work on Chinese Metaphysics." It had need to be copious therefor, for it is a very large subject. Mr.

Pickwick himself must have been very familiar with the Encyclopedia, for he at once objected that he was not aware that so abstruse a topic was dealt with in its pages. He had perhaps consulted the book, say, at Garraway's Coffee House, for, alas! the good man was not able to have a library of his own, living, as he did, in lodgings or at the "George and Vulture." Mr. Pott, however, who also knew the work well, had then to confess that there was no such subject treated separately in it. But the articles were from the pen of his critic (not from his own), "who _crammed_ for it, to use a technical but expressive term; he read up for the subject, at my desire, in the Encyclopedia."

Now, as the subject was _not_ treated in the work, how could this "cramming" help him? Here comes in the system, so unaccountably overlooked by the _Times_, _i.e._, the Combination Method. "He read, sir," rejoined Pott, laying his hand on Mr. Pickwick's knee and looking round with a smile of intellectual superiority, "he read for metaphysics under the letter _M_, and for China under the letter _C_, and _combined his information_, _sir_." There we have it! We find separate articles _De omni scribili_, and many topics unavoidably pa.s.sed over; but we see how this can be cured by the ingenious Pott system. Combine your information! There you are! Here for instance--under "Metaphysics" we do find something about' Confucius and the other Pundits; we then turn to China and get local colour, Chinese writers. &c., and then proceed "to combine our information." And so with hundreds of other instances and other topics. Pott, therefore, has been overlooked by the managers of the _Times_, but it is not yet too late for them to call attention to his system. It is of interest to all at Eatanswill.

Pott was in advance of his time. His paper was not wholly the sort of scurrilous organ it has been shown to be. To weight its columns with "Chinese Metaphysics," was a bold, reforming step--then the going on for three months, _i.e._, _twelve_ articles--and all read with avidity. And what are we to think of the Eatanswill readers--surely in advance, too.

And here we have him, nearly seventy years ago, giving a well-deserved puff to the Encyclopedia, which is really worth the innumerable columns the leading journal has devoted to the book. Its last effort was to show an ingenious connection between the British a.s.sociation and the Encyclopedia, on the ground of its various Presidents. "It stimulates, in fact creates, the necessity for a good working Library of Science. It is here that the Encyclopedia comes in as of especial service."

CHAPTER II. BATH

I.--The Old City

Bath, which already owed so much to famous writers, was destined to owe even more to Boz, the genial author of "Pickwick"--a book which has so much increased the gaiety of the nation. The scenes at the old city are more minute and vivid than any yet offered. But, if it owe much to Boz, it repaid him by furnis.h.i.+ng him with a name for his book which has gone over the world. Everything about this name will be interesting; and it is not generally known when and how Boz obtained it.

There is a small hamlet some few miles from Bath and 97 from London--which is 106 miles away from Bath--bearing the name of "Pickwick." The Bath coach, by the way, started from the White Horse Cellars, Piccadilly, at half-past seven in the morning, and took just twelve hours for the journey. Now it is made by the Great Western in two! Here, many years ago, at the time of the story, was "Pickwick House, the seat of C. N.

Los...o...b.., Esq.," and also "Pickwick Lodge," where dwelt Captain Fenton.

Boz had never seen or heard of such places, but all the same they indirectly furnished him with the name. A mail-coach guard found an infant on the road in this place, and gave it the name of "Pickwick." The word "Pickwick" contains the common terminal "wick," as in "Warwick," and which means a village or hamlet of some kind. Pickwick, however, has long since disappeared from the face of the map. Probably, after the year 1837, folk did not relish dating their letters from a spot of such humorous memories.

This Moses Pickwick was taken into the service of the coaching hotel, the White Hart, gradually devoted himself to the horse and coaching business, and, at the time of Boz's or Mr. Pickwick's visit, was the actual proprietor of the coaches on the road. "The name," said Sam, "is not only down on the vay-bill, sir, but they've painted vun on 'em on the door of the coach." As Sam spoke he pointed to that part of the door on which the proprietor's name usually appears, and there, sure enough, in gilt letters of a goodly size, was the magic name of PICKWICK. "Dear me," said Mr. Pickwick, quite staggered by the coincidence, "what a very extraordinary thing!" "Yes; but that ain't all," said Sam, again directing his master's attention to the coach-door. "Not content with writin' up 'Pickwick,' they put 'Moses' afore it, which I calls adding insult to injury." "It's odd enough, certainly," said Mr. Pickwick. When he was casting about for a good name for his venture, it recurred to him as having a quaint oddity and uncanniness. And thus it is that we owe to Bath, and to Bath only, this celebrated name. It is said that he rushed into the publisher's office, exultingly proclaiming his selection.

Few cities have had their society and manners sketched by such eminent pens as Bath--Smollett, Miss Burney, Miss Austen, and Boz. The old walls and houses are thus made to live. Boz has given one of the most vivid and vivacious pictures of its expiring glories in the thirties, when there were still "M.C.s," routs, a.s.semblies, and sedans. His own connection with the place is a personal, and a very interesting one. He was there in 1835 on election business hurrying after Lord John Russell, all over the country, to report his speeches--a young fellow of three and twenty, full of "dash," "go," and readiness of resource, of immense energy and carelessness of fatigue, ready to go anywhere and do anything.

While thus engaged on serious business, he kept his eyes wide open, took in all the humours of Bath, and noted them in his memory, though he made no use of this till more than two years later, when he was well on into "Pickwick."

The entering an old city by night always leaves a curious romantic impression, and few old cities gain so much as Bath by this mode of approach. The shadowy houses have a monumental air; the fine streets which we mostly ascend show a mystery, especially as we flit by the open square, under the great, black Abbey, which seems a beetling rock. This old Bath mysteriousness seems haunted by the ghosts of Burney, Johnson, Goldsmith, Wilkes, Quin, Thrale, Mr. Pickwick, and dozens more. Fas.h.i.+on and gentilily hover round its stately homes. Nothing rouses such ideas of state and dignity as the Palladian Circus. There is a tone of mournful grandeur about it--something forlorn. Had it, in some freak of fas.h.i.+on, been abandoned, and suffered, for a time at least, to go to neglect and be somewhat overgrown with moss and foliage, it would pa.s.s for some grand Roman ruin. There is a solemn, greyish gloom about it; the gra.s.s in the enclosure is rank, long, and very green. Pulteney Street, too: what a state and n.o.bility there is about it! So wide and so s.p.a.cious; the houses with an air of grand solidity, with no carvings or frittering work, but relying on their fine lines and proportion. To lodge there is an education, and the impression remains with one as of a sense of personal dignity from dwelling in such large and lofty chambers, grandly laid out with n.o.ble stairs and the like. The builders in this fine city would seem to have been born architects; nearly all the houses have claims to distinction: each an expression and feeling of its own.

The fine blackened or browned tint adds to the effect. The mouldings are full of reserve and chastened, suited exactly to the material. There is something, too, very stately about the octagon Laura Place, which opens on to Pulteney Street.

In this point of view Bath is a more interesting city than Edinburgh. Mr.

Peach has written two most interesting little quartos on the "Historic Houses of Bath;" and Mr. T. Sturge Cotterell has prepared a singularly interesting map of Bath, in which all the spots honoured by the residence of famous visitors are marked down. It is very extraordinary the number and distinction of these personages.

I don't know anything more strange and agreeable than the feeling of promenading the Parades, North and South--a feeling compounded of awe, reverence, and exciting interest. The tranquil repose and dignity of these low, solid houses, the broad flagged Promenade, the unmistakable air of old fas.h.i.+on, the sort of reality and self-persuasion that they might in a moment be re-peopled with all these eminent persons--much as Boz called up the ghosts of the old mail-coach pa.s.sengers in his telling ghost story--the sombre grey of the walls, the brightness of the windows: these elements join to leave an extraordinary impression. The houses on these Parades are charming from their solid proportions, adapted, as it were, to the breadth of the Parade. Execrable, by the way, are the modern attempts seen side by side; feeble and incapable, not attempting any expression at all. There is a row of meagre tenements beside the Abbey--attempts at pinnacled gables--which it is a sorrowful thing to look on, so cheap and starved is it. Even the newer shops, in places like Milsom Street, with nothing to do but to copy what is before them, show the same _plat.i.tude_. Here and there you are constantly coming upon one of these beautifully designed old mansions piteously disguised, cut up in two or three it may be, or the lower portion fas.h.i.+oned into a shop.