I.--The Bell at Berkeley Heath
In the animated journey, from Bristol to Birmingham, the travellers
stopped at various posting-houses where the mercurial Sawyer would insist
on getting down to lunch, dine, or otherwise refresh--his friends being
always ready to comply after a little decent hesitation. It was thus
that they drew up at The Bell at Berkeley Heath, which our writer
presently sketches. It will be seen there is more of the drink at the
Bell than of the Bell itself. It is, indeed, no more than _coecum
nomen_--much as though we read the name at the end of "Bradshaw"--yet,
somehow, from the life and movement of the journey, it offers a sort of
attraction: it seems familiar, and we have an interest in it. The Bell
now "goes on," as the proprietor tells me. There are travellers who come
there and drink Boz's health in the snug parlour. It is, in fact, a
Pickwickian Inn, and is drawn within the glamour of the legend, and, what
a marvel! the thing is done by the magic of those three or four lines.
"The Bell," says Mrs. Hooper, "lies back on the main road from Bristol to
Gloucester, and is just nineteen miles from Bristol. It is a rambling
old house and a good deal dilapidated, and of good age."
With this meagre record it yet offers such Pickwickian interest that, not
many months ago, a photograph was taken of it which was engraved for the
_Daily Graphic_. There is no Mr. Pickwick's room to be shown, as
undoubtedly there _would_ be had that gentleman only stayed the night
there; but he only lunched and then went forward. There is a mistiness
as to whether the Pickwickians sat in the public coffee-room or had a
private "settin'-room." It was to a certainty the coffee-room, as they
only stayed a short time. So the proprietor, with a safe conscience,
might exhibit "the room where Mr. Pickwick lunched." On the face is
imbedded a tablet bearing the date 1729, and there is an ancient farmer
close by who was born in "The Bell" in the year 1820. If we lend
ourselves properly to the delusion, he might recall Mr. Pickwick's chaise
drawing up full sixty years ago. "Ay, I mind it well. I were joost then
fifteen. A stoutish gent in gaiters--might 'ave been a bishop--and sich
a lively young chap as wos with him, full o' spirits, chucking a' the
gurls under the chins. And their sarvant! O _he_ were one. Sam, he
were caa'd--I moind that--Sam Summut. And they caa'd for the best o'
everythin', and took away wi' them a lot, Madeary, and wot not," and so
on.
II.--The Greyhound, Dulwich
Mr. Pickwick, as we know, at the close of his wanderings retired to this
tranquil and pleasant suburb--then much more retired than it is now. In
accordance with his habit of enshrining his own personal sympathies in
his writing, Boz was, as it were, conveying that it was such a
sequestered spot as he himself would choose under similar conditions.
Last year (1898), the interesting old road-side Inn, The Greyhound, was
levelled--an Inn to which Mr. Pickwick must have found his way in the
dull evening to drink "cold Punch" or preside at the club which he most
certainly--if we know him well--must have founded. A wealthy gentleman
of social tastes, and with a love for tavern life, would have no
difficulty in establishing a new Pickwick Club.
At the Greyhound, nigh a century ago, there was actually a club which
entertained Tom Campbell, Mark Lemon, Byron's tutor, and many more. Boz
himself, we are told, used to find his way there with Theodore Hook,
Moore, and others. Boz, therefore, must have regarded this place with
much favour, owing to his own experiences of it--and to have selected it
for his hero's tranquil old age shows how high a place it had in his
memory. The description is charming and brings this sylvan retreat to
which we have walked many a time perfectly before us.
This taste for surrounding himself with persons of lower degree--such as
were the rank and file--was curiously enough shared by Mr. Pickwick's
predecessor, Dr. Johnson, who, when he found the Literary Club somewhat
too much of a republic, and getting "out of hand," established a social
meeting at the Essex Head Club--in the street of that name, off the
Strand--composed in the main of respectable tradesmen, who would listen
obsequiously. Thus, it may be repeated, does the same sort of character
develop invariably on the same lines, and thus did Mr. Pickwick
unconsciously follow in the footsteps of the "great Lexicographer."
III.--Grimaldi the Younger
As I was the first to point out, the powerful "Stroller's Tale" of which
Boz himself thought so highly, was founded on the career of the
unfortunate son of the great Grimaldi. The story is related by "Dismal
Jemmy," the actor, who, in the tale itself, is called Hutley, and it
corresponds in all its details with Grimaldi's history. He died in
September, 1832, nearly four years before Pickwick was thought of, but
Boz had learned the incident long before the Grimaldi MSS. were given him
to edit, and I am inclined to think he must have learned them from his
friend Harley who was intimate with the Grimaldis. In the memoirs it is
stated that Gledinning, a Printer, was sent by the father to his son's
dying bed, and he was probably the Hutley of the Stroller's Tale, and,
perhaps, the person who brought old Grimaldi the news of his death. We
are told in the "Tale" that he had an engagement "at one of the Theatres
on the Surrey side of the water," and in the memoirs we find that he was
offered "an engagement for the Christmas at the Coburg." There his death
is described:--"He rose in bed, drew up his withered limbs--he was
acting--he was at the Theatre. He then sang some roaring song. The
walls were alive with reptiles, frightful figures flitted to and fro . . .
His eyes shone with a lustre frightful to behold, the lips were
parched and cracked, the dry, hard skin glowed with a burning heat, and
there was an almost unearthly air of wild anxiety in the man's face."
Hutley also describes how he had to hold him down in his bed. Compare
with this the account in the memoirs--"his body was covered with a
fearful inflammation--he died in a state of wild and furious madness,
rising from his bed, dressing himself in stage costume to act snatches of
the parts, and requiring to be held down to die by strong manual force."
This dreadful scene took place at a public house in Pitt Street, out of
Tottenham Court Road.
"The man I speak of," says Boz in the story, "was a low, pantomime actor
and an habitual drunkard. In his better days he had been in the receipt
of a good salary. His besetting sin gained so fast on him that it was
found impossible to employ him in the situations in which he really was
useful." In the "memoirs" this is more than supported: "The man who
might have earned with ease and comfort from six to seven hundred a year,
was reduced to such a dreadful state of destitution and filth . . . In
fact, at one time, it was thought he might have succeeded his father."
It is quite plain, therefore, that Boz was recalling this tragic episode.
Boz remarks that pantomime actors--clowns and others "either die early
or, by unnaturally taxing their bodily energies, lose prematurely their
physical powers." This was what occurred to Grimaldi, the father, whose
curious decay he was to describe later in the memoirs. It may be added
that there is an Alderman Harmer, Hatton Garden, mentioned in the
memoirs, with whom Grimaldi _pere_ had some dealings; and, long after,
this name was introduced by Boz into "Our Mutual Friend."