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 furnishing 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.
Loscombe, 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, assemblies, 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. Fashion
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
fashion, been abandoned, and suffered, for a time at least, to go to
neglect and be somewhat overgrown with moss and foliage, it would pass
for some grand Roman ruin. There is a solemn, greyish gloom about it;
the grass in the enclosure is rank, long, and very green. Pulteney
Street, too: what a state and nobility there is about it! So wide and so
spacious; 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 noble 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 fashion, 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 passengers 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 _platitude_. 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 fashioned into a shop.
II.--The Pump Room and Assembly Rooms
No group of architectural objects is more effective or touches one more
nearly than the buildings gathered about the Baths. There is something
quaint and old-fashioned in the arrangement, and I am never tired of
coming back to the pretty, open colonnade, the faded yet dignified Pump-
room, with the ambitious hotel and the solemn Abbey rising solemnly
behind. Then there is the delightful Promenade opposite, under the
arcades--a genuine bit of old fashion--under whose shadow the capricious
Fanny Burney had often strolled. Everything about this latter
conglomeration--the shape of the ground, the knowledge that the
marvellous Roman baths are below, and even the older portion of the
municipal buildings whose elegant decorations, sculptured garlands, &c.,
bespeak the influence of the graceful Adam, whose pupil or imitator Mr.
Baldwin may have been.
Boz's description of the tarnished Pump-room answers to what is seen now,
save as to the tone of the decorations. I say "Boz's," for Pickwick, it
should be recollected, was not actually acknowledged by the author, under
his proper name. It was thought that the well-known and popular "Boz" of
the "Sketches" would attract far more than the obscure C. Dickens. Now
Boz and the Sketches have receded and are little thought of. Boz and
Pickwick go far better together than do Pickwick and Dickens. There is
an old-fashioned solemnity over this Pump-room which speaks of the old
classical taste over a hundred years ago. How quaint and suitable the
inscription, "[Greek text]," in faded gilt characters. Within it is one
stately chamber, not altered a bit since the day, sixty-three years ago,
that Boz strolled in and wrote this inscription: As I sat with a friend
beside me in the newly finished concert-room, which is in _happy_
keeping, I called up the old genial Pickwick promenading about under the
direction of Bantam, M.C., and the genial tone of the old gaiety and good
spirits.
The "Tompion Clock," which is carefully noted by Boz, seems to have been
always regarded as a sort of monument. It is like an overgrown eight-day
clock, without any adornment and plain to a degree--no doubt relying upon
its Tompion works. It is in exactly the same place as it was over sixty
years ago, and goes with the old regularity. Nay, for that matter, it
stands where it did a hundred years ago--in the old recess by Nash's
statue and inscription, and was no doubt ordered at the opening of the
rooms. In an old account of Bath, at the opening of the century,
attention is called to the Tompion clock with a sort of pride. The steep
and shadowy Gay Street, which leads up to the inviting Crescent and the
more sombre Queen's Square, affects one curiously. Then we come to the
old Assembly Rooms close by the Circus, between Alfred Street and Bennell
Street--a stately, dignified pile--in the good old classical style of
Bath. One looks on it with a mysterious reverence: it seems charged with
all sorts of memories of old, bygone state. For here all the rank and
fashion of Bath used to make its way of Assembly nights. Many years ago,
there was here given a morning concert to which I found my way, mainly
for the purpose of calling up ghostly memories of the Thrales, and Doctor
Johnson, and Miss Burney, and, above all, of Mr. Pickwick. Though the
music was the immortal "Passion" of Bach, my eyes were travelling all the
while from one piece of faded _rococo_ work and decoration. Boz never
fails to secure the _tone_ of any strange place he is describing. We
all, for instance, have that pleased, elated feeling on the first morning
after our arrival over night at a new place--the general brightness,
surprise, and air of novelty. We are willing to be pleased with
everything, and pass from object to object with enjoyment. Now all this
is difficult to seize or to describe. Boz does not do the latter, but he
conveys it perfectly. We see the new arrivals seated at breakfast, and
the entrance of the Dowlers with the M.C., and the party setting off to
see the "Lions," the securing tickets for the Assembly, the writing down
their names in "the book," Sam sent specially up to Queen's Square, and
so on. All which is very exhilarating, and reveals one's own feeling on
such an occasion. The "Pump-room books" are formally mentioned in the
regulations. We can see the interior of the Assembly Rooms in Phiz's
plate, with its huge and elaborately framed oval mirrors and
chandeliers--the dancing-room set round with raised benches. After the
pattern of Ridotto rooms abroad, there were the card-rooms and tea-rooms,
where Mr. Pickwick played whist with Miss Bolo. We note the sort of Adam
or Chippendale chair on which the whist Dowager is sitting with her back
to us.
Considering that the rules of dress were so strict, pumps and silk
stockings being of necessity, we may wonder how it was that the President
of the Pickwick Club was admitted in his morning dress, his kerseymere
tights, white waistcoat, and black gaiters. It is clear that he never
changed his dress for evening parties, save on one occasion. Mr.
Pickwick's costume was certainly in defiance of all rules and
regulations. It is _laid_ in the regulations of Mr. Tyson, M.C., who
directed that "no gentleman in boots or half-boots be admitted into the
rooms on ball nights or card nights." Half-boots might certainly cover
Mr. Pickwick's gaiters. So accurate is the picture that speculation
arises whether Phiz went specially to Bath to make his sketches; for he
has caught in the most perfect way the whole _tone_ of a Bath Assembly,
and he could not have obtained this from descriptions by others. So,
too, with this picture of the Circus in Mr. Winkle's _escapade_. It will
be remembered that Boz was rather particular about this picture, and
suggested some minute alterations. Bantam, the M.C., or "the Grand
Master" as Boz oddly calls him, was drawn from life from an eccentric
functionary named Jervoise. I have never been quite able to understand
his odd hypothesis about Mr. Pickwick being "the gentleman who had the
waters bottled and sent to Clapham." But how characteristic the dialogue
on the occasion! It will be seen that this M.C. cannot credit the notion
of anyone of such importance as Mr. Pickwick "never having been in _Ba-
ath_." His ludicrous and absurd, "Not bad--not bad! Good--good. He,
he, re-markable!" showed how it struck him. A man of such a position,
too; it was incredible. With a delightful sense of this theory, he
began: "It is long--_very long_, Mr. Pickwick, _since you drank the
waters_--it appears an age." Mr. Pickwick protested that it was
certainly long since he had drunk the waters, and his proof was that he
had never been in Bath in his life. After a moment's reflection the M.C.
saw the solution. "Oh, I see; yes, yes; good, good; better and better.
You are the gentleman residing on Clapham Green who lost the use of your
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 bed-room in
town, where he bathed, sneezed, and same day recovered." This amusing
concatenation is, besides, an admirable and very minute stroke of
character, and the frivolous M.C. is brought before us perfectly. While
a capital touch is that when he saw young Mr. Mutanhead approaching.
"Hush! draw a little nearer, Mr. Pickwick. You see that splendidly
dressed young man coming this way--the richest young man in Bath!"
"You don't say so," said Mr. Pickwick.
"_Yes_, _you'll hear his voice in a moment_, _Mr. Pickwick_. _He'll
speak to me_." _Particular_ awe and reverence could not be better
expressed.
It is curious how accurate the young fellow was in all his details. He
describes the ball as beginning at "precisely twenty minutes before eight
o'clock;" and according to the old rules it had to begin as soon after
seven as possible. "Stay in the tea room and take your sixpennorths."
Mr. Dowler's advice was after a regulation "that everyone admitted to the
tea-rooms on dress nights shall pay _6d._ for tea." The M.C.'s visit to
Mr. Pickwick was a real carrying out of the spirit of the regulations, in
which it was requested that "all strangers will give the M.C. an
opportunity of being introduced to them before they themselves are
entitled to that attention and respect."
Nothing is more gratifying to the genuine Pickwickians than to find how
all these old memories of the book are fondly cherished in the good city.
All the Pickwickian localities are identified, and the inhabitants are
eager in every way to maintain that Mr. Pickwick belongs to them, and had
been with them. We should have had his room in the White Hart pointed
out, and "slept in" by Americans and others, had it still been left to
stand. Not long since, the writer went down to the good old city for the
pleasant duty of "preaching Pickwick," as he had done in a good many
places. There is an antique building or temple not far from where an old
society of the place--the Bath Literary and Scientific Institute--holds
its meetings, and here, to a crowded gathering under the presidency of
Mr. Austen King, the subject was gone into. It was delightful for the
Pickwickian stranger to meet so appreciative a response, and many curious
details were mentioned. At the close--such is the force of the
delusion--we were all discussing Mr. Pickwick and his movements here and
there, with the same _conviction_ as we would have had in the case of
Miss Burney, or Mrs. Thrale or Dr. Johnson. The whole atmosphere was
congenial, and there was an old-world, old-fashioned air over the rooms.
It was delightful to be talking of Mr. Pickwick's Bath adventures in
Bath.
Nor was there anything unreasonably fantastical in making such
speculations all but realities. Bantam lived, as we know, in St. James's
Square--that very effective enclosure, with its solemn house and rich
deep greenery, that recall our own Fitzroy. No. 14 was his house, and
this, it was ascertained, was the actual residence of the living M.C. How
bold, therefore, of Boz to send up Sam to the very Square! Everyone,
too, knew Mrs. Craddock's house in the Circus--at least it was one of
two. It was No. 15 or 16, because at the time there were only a couple
in the middle which were let in lodgings, the rest being private houses.
This was fairly reasonable. But how accurate was Boz! No doubt he had
some friends who were quartered in lodgings there.
I scarcely hoped to find the scene of the footmen's "swarry" tracked out,
but so it was. On leaving Queen Square in company with Mr. Smauker to
repair to the scene of the festivity, Sam and his friend set off walking
"towards High Street," then "turned down a bye-street," and would "soon
be there." This bye-street was one turning out of Queen Square at the
corner next Bantam's house; and a few doors down we find a rather shabby-
looking "public" with a swinging sign, on which is inscribed "The
Beaufort Arms"--a two-storied, three-windowed house. This, in the book,
is called a "greengrocer's shop," and is firmly believed to be the scene
of "the Swarry" on the substantial ground that the Bath footmen used to
assemble here regularly as at their club. The change from a public to a
greengrocer's scarcely affects the point. The uniforms of these
gentlemen's gentlemen were really splendid, as we learn from the
text--rich plushes, velvets, gold lace, canes, &c. There is no
exaggeration in this, for natives of Bath have assured me they can recall
similar displays at the fashionable church--of Sundays--when these noble
creatures, arrayed gorgeously as "generals," were ranged in lines outside
"waiting their missuses," _pace_ Mr. John Smauker. At the greengrocer's,
where the Bath footmen had their "swarry," the favourite drink was "cold
srub and water," or "gin and water sweet;" also "S'rub punch," a West
Indian, drink, has now altogether disappeared. It sounds strange to
learn that a fashionable footman should consult "a copper timepiece which
dwelt at the bottom of a deep watch-pocket, and was raised to the surface
by means of a black string with a copper key." A _copper_ watch seems
extraordinary, though we have now those of gun metal.
The Royal Crescent, with its fine air and fine view, always strikes one
with admiration as a unique and original monument: the size and
proportions are so truly grand. The whole scene of Mr. Winkle's escapade
here is extraordinarily vivid, and so protracted, while Mrs. Dowler was
waiting in her sedan for the door to be opened, that it has the effect of
imprinting the very air, look, and tone of the Royal Cresent on us. We
seem to be waiting with her and the chair-man. It seems the most
_natural_ thing in the world. The houses correspond almost exactly with
Phiz's drawing.
Pickwick, it has been often pointed out, is full of amusing "oversights,"
which are pardonable enough, and almost add to the "fun" of the piece. At
the opening, Mr. Pickwick is described as carrying his portmanteau--in
the picture it is a carpet-bag. The story opens in 1827, but at once Mr.
Jingle begins to talk of being present at the late Revolution of 1830.
The "George and Vulture" is placed in two different streets. Old Weller
is called Samuel. During the scene at the Royal Crescent we are told
that Mrs. Craddock threw up the drawing-room window "just as Mr. Winkle
was rushing into the chair." She ran and called Mr. Dowler, who rushed
in just as Mr. Pickwick threw up the other window, "when the first object
that met the gaze of both was Mr. Winkle bolting into the sedan chair"
into which he had bolted a minute before. The late Charles Dickens the
younger, in the notes to his father's writings, affects to have
discovered an oversight in the account of the scene in the Circus. It is
described how he "took to his heels and tore _round_ the Crescent, hotly
pursued by Dowler and the coachman. He kept ahead; the door was open as
he came _round_ the second time, &c." Now, objects the son, the Cresent
is only a half circle; there is no going round it, you must turn back
when you come to the end. Boz must have been thinking of the Circus.
Hardly--for he knew both well--and Circus and Crescent are things not to
be confused. The phrase was a little loose, but, as the Circus was
curved "round," is not inappropriate, and he meant that Winkle turned
when he got to the end, and ran back.
It must have been an awkward thing for Winkle to present himself once
more at Mrs. Craddock's in the Crescent. How was the incident to be
explained save either at his own expense or at that of Mr. Dowler? If
Dowler were supposed to have gone in pursuit of him, then Mr. Winkle must
have fled, and if he were supposed to have gone to seek a friend, then
Dowler was rather compromised. No doubt both gentlemen agreed to support
the one story that they had gone away for mutual satisfaction, and had
made it up.
Then, we are told, if it were theatre night perhaps the visitors met at
the theatre. Did Mr. Pickwick ever go? This is an open question. Is
the chronicler here a little obscure, as he is speaking of "the
gentlemen" _en bloc_? Perhaps he did, perhaps he did'nt, as Boz might
say. On his visit to Rochester, it does not appear that he went to see
his "picked-up" friend, Jingle, perform. The Bath Theatre is in the Saw
Close, next door to Beau Nash's picturesque old house. The old grey
front, with its blackened mouldings and sunk windows, is still there; but
a deep vestibule, or entrance, with offices has been built out in front,
which, as it were, thrusts the old wall back--an uncongenial mixture.
Within, the house has been reconstructed, as it is called, so that Mr.
Palmer or Dimond, or any of the old Bath lights, to say nothing of Mr.
and Mrs. Siddons, would not recognise it. Attending it one night, I
could not but recall the old Bath stories, when this modest little house
supplied the London houses regularly with the best talent, and "From the
Theatre Royal, Bath," was an inducement set forth on the bill.
III.--Boz and Bath
After his brilliant, genial view of the old watering-place, it is a
surprise to find Boz speaking of it with a certain acerbity and even
disgust. Over thirty years later, in 1869, he was there, and wrote to
Forster: "The place looks to me like a cemetery which the dead have
succeeded in rising and taking. Having built streets of their old
gravestones, they wander about scantly, trying to look alive--a dead
failure." And yet, what ghostly recollections must have come back on him
as he walked those streets, or as he passed by into Walcot, the Saracen's
Head, where he had put up in those old days, full of brightness, ardour,
and enthusiasm; but not yet the famous Boz! Bath folk set down this
jaundiced view of their town to a sort of pique at the comparative
failure of the Guild dramatic performance at the Old Assembly Rooms,
where, owing to the faulty arrangement of the stage, hardly a word could
be heard, to the dissatisfaction of the audience. The stage, it seems,
was put too far behind the proscenium, "owing to the headstrong
perversity of Dickens, who never forgave the Bath people." Charles
Knight, it was said, remonstrated, but in vain. Boz, however, was not a
man to indulge in such feelings. In "Bleak House" he calls it "dreary."
There had been, however, a previous visit to Bath, in company with
Maclise and Forster, to see Landor, who was then living at No. 35 St.
James's Square--a house become memorable because it was there that the
image of his "Little Nell" first suggested itself. The enthusiastic
Landor used, in his "tumultuous" fashion, to proclaim that he would set
fire to the house and burn it to the ground to prevent its being profaned
by less sacred associations. He had done things even more extravagant
than this, and would take boisterous roars of laughter as his odd
compliment was discussed.
The minuteness of his record of the gaieties shows how amused and
interested Boz was in all that he saw. Nothing escaped him of the
routine, day, hour, and place; all is given, even the different rooms at
the Assembly House. "In the ball-room, the long card-room, the octagon
card-room, the staircases, the passages, the hum of many voices and the
sound of many feet were perfectly bewildering; dresses rustled, feathers
waved, lights shone, and jewels sparkled. There was the music, not of
the quadrille band, for it had not yet commenced," &c. Here Bantam,
M.C., arrived at precisely twenty minutes before eight, "to receive the
company." And such company! "Brilliant eyes, lighted up with
pleasurable expectation, gleamed from every side, and, look where you
would, some exquisite form glided gracefully through the throng, and was
no sooner lost than it was replaced by another as dainty and bewitching";
the warmth of which description showing how delighted was the young man
with all he saw. But how did he secure admission? For it was a highly
fashionable company; there were vouchers and tickets to be secured. But
these were slight difficulties for our brilliant "pushful" young man. He
could make his way, and his mission found him interest. He certainly saw
as much of Bath as anyone could in the time. Yet, gay and sprightly as
was his account of Bath, there may have been a reason why Boz may have
not recalled the place with pleasurable feelings. It will be recollected
that, after giving a few lines to the account of Mr. Pickwick and friends
being set down at the White Hart, he carries them off at once to lodgings
in the Crescent. That first-class hotel was, alas! not open to the poor,
over-worked reporter; and he could tell of nothing that went on within
its portals. Hotel life on a handsome scale was not for _him_, and he
was obliged to put up at far humbler quarters, a sort of common inn.
There is nothing more quaint or interesting than this genuine antique--the
Saracen's Head in Walcot. It may pair off with the old White Horse in
Canongate, where "Great Sam" put up for a night. It is surely the most
effective of all the old inns one could see. It has two faces, and looks
into two different streets, with its double gables, and date (1713)
inscribed on a tablet outside. It is a yellow, well-worn little
building. And you enter through darkened tunnels, as it were, cut
through the house, coming into a strange yard of evident antiquity, with
a steep, ladder-like flight of stone steps that leads up to a window much
like the old Canongate houses. Here, then, it was that Boz put up, and
here are preserved traditions and relics of his stay. One of the tales
is that, after some exuberant night _in the election time_, he would get
his candle and, having to cross the court, would have it blown out half a
dozen times, when he would go back patiently to relight it. They show
his chair, and a jug out of which he drank, but one has not much faith in
these chairs and jugs; they always seem to be supplied to demand, and
must be found to gratify the pilgrims.
One of the examination queries which might have found a place in Mr.
Calverley's paper of questions is this: "When did Mr. Pickwick sit down
_to make entries in his journal_, and spend half an hour in so doing?" At
Bath on the night of Mr. Winkle's race round the Crescent. What was this
journal? Or why did he keep it? Or why are so few allusions made to it?
Mr. Snodgrass was the appointed historiographer of the party, and his
"notes" are often spoken of and appealed to as the basis of the
chronicle. But half an hour, as I say, was the time the great man seems
to have allotted to his posting up the day's register: "Mr. Pickwick shut
up the book, wiped his pen _on the bottom of the inside of his
coat-tail_, and opened the drawer of the inkstand to put it carefully
away." How particular--how real all this is! This it is that gives the
_living_ force to the book, and a persuasion--irresistible almost--that
it is all about _some living person_. I have often wondered how it is
that this book of Boz's has such an astounding power of development, such
a fertility in engendering other books, and what is the secret of it.
Scott's astonishing Waverley series, Thackeray's "Vanity Fair," Boz's own
"Nicholas Nickleby," "Oliver Twist," in fact, not one of the whole series
save "the immortal 'Pickwick'" has produced anything in the way of books
or commentaries. I believe it is really owing to this. Boz was a great
admirer of Boswell's equally immortal book. I have heard him speak of
it. He attempted parodies of it even. He knew all the turns, the
Johnsonian twists, "Why, sirs," &c., and used them in his letters. He
was permeated with the Johnsonian ether; that detail, that description of
trifling things which was in Boswell, attracted him, and he felt it; and
the fact remains that Pickwick is written on _the principles_--no copy--of
the great biography, and that Boz applied to a mere fictional story what
was related in the account of a living man. And it is really curious
that Boswell's "Life of Johnson" should be the only other book that
tempts people to the same rage for commentary, illustrations, and
speculations. These are of exactly the same character in both books.
The MS. that Mr. Pickwick so oddly found in the drawer of his inkstand at
Mrs. Craddock's, Royal Crescent, Bath, offered another instance of Boz's
ingenious methods of introducing episodical tales into his narrative. He
was often hard put to it to find an occasion: they were highly useful to
fill a space when he was pressed for matter. He had the strongest
_penchant_ for this sort of thing, and it clung to him through his life.
Those in "Pickwick" are exceedingly good, full of spirit and "go," save
one, the "Martha Lobbs" story, which is a poorish thing. So good are the
others, they have been taken out and published separately. They were no
doubt written for magazines, and were lying by him, but his Bath
story--"The True Legend of Prince Bladud"--was written specially. It is
quite in the vein of Elia's Roast Pig story, and very gaily told. He had
probably been reading some local guide-book, with the mythical account of
Prince Bladud, and this suggested to him his own humorous version. At
the close, he sets Mr. Pickwick a-yawning several times, who, when he had
arrived at the end of this little manuscript--which certainly could not
have been compressed into "a couple of sheets of writing-paper," but
would have covered at least ten pages--replaced it in the drawer, and
"then, with a _countenance of the utmost weariness_, lighted his chamber
candle and went upstairs to bed." And here, by the way, is one of the
amusing oversights which give such a piquancy to "Pickwick." Before he
began to read his paper, we are carefully told that Mr. Pickwick
"unfolded it, lighted his bedroom candle that it might burn up to the
time he had finished." It was Mr. C. Kent who pointed this out to him,
when Boz seized the volume and humorously made as though he would hurl it
at his friend.
Anyone interested in Bath must of necessity be interested in Bristol, to
which, as all know, Mr. Winkle fled after the unhappy business in the
Circus. He found a coach at the Royal Hotel--which no longer exists--a
vehicle which, we are told, went the whole distance "twice a day and
more" with a single pair of horses. There he put up at the Bush, where
Mr. Pickwick was to follow him presently. The Bush--a genuine Pickwick
inn--where Mr. Pickwick first heard the news of the action that was to be
brought against him, stood in Corn Street, near to the Guildhall, the
most busy street in Bristol; but it was taken down in 1864, and the
present Wiltshire Bank erected on the site. Mr. Pickwick broke off his
stay at Bath somewhat too abruptly; he left it and all its festivities on
this sudden chase after Winkle. But he may have had a reason. Nothing
is more wonderful than Boz's propriety in dealing with his incidents, a
propriety that is really instinctive. Everything falls out in the
correct, natural way. For instance, Mr. Pickwick having received such a
shock at the Bush--the announcement of the Bardell action--was scarcely
in heart to resume his jollity and gaieties at Bath. We might naturally
expect a resumption of the frolics there. He accordingly returned there;
but we are told curtly, "The remainder of the period which Mr. Pickwick
had assigned as the duration of his stay at Bath passed over without an
occurrence of anything material. Trinity term commenced on the
expiration of the first week. Mr. Pickwick and his friends returned to
London; and the former gentleman, attended of course by Sam, straightway
repaired to his old quarters at the George and Vulture."
And now in these simple sentences have we not the secret of the great
attraction of the book? Who would not suppose that this was a passage
from a biography of some one that had lived? How carefully _minute_ and
yet how naturally the time is accounted for--"passed over without the
occurrence of anything material." It is impossible to resist this air of
_vraisemblance_.