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 "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 accessible, 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 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 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 and its odd
incidents and characters he had learned and studied during his brief
apprenticeship 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, 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 butt 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 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 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. 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
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 31st 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,
ADVENTURES, AND SPORTING TRANSACTIONS
OF THE CORRESPONDING MEMBERS.