Few things have been more interesting to the Pickwickian, or have done
more to elevate Pickwickian study, than this celebrated _jeu d'esprit_.
Calverley, or Blayds--his original name--was a brilliant creature, well
known for his scholarship, verses, and sayings. He early obtained a
fellowship at Cambridge, and was one of the youngest "Dons." Like Dr.
Thomson, the celebrated Master, he is felt to be a characteristic and a
real personage, even by those little familiar with his work or writings.
He was, moreover, an ardent Pickwickian and thoroughly saturated with the
spirit of the immortal book, to appreciate which a first-rate memory,
which he possessed, is essential; for the details, allusions, names,
suggestions, are so immense that they require to be present together in
the mind, and jostle each other out of recollection. In the 'fifties,
there were at Cambridge a number of persons interested in the Book, who
were fond of quoting it and detecting oddities. It was in the year 1858
or 1859--for, curious to say, the year cannot be fixed--that Calverley
conceived the _bizarre_ idea of offering a premium for the best answers
to a series of searching examination questions, drawn from this classic.
It was held at his own rooms at 7 o'clock in the evening, as Sir Walter
Besant, one of the candidates, recalls it. There were about a dozen
entered, the most formidable of whom were Skeat, the present professor of
Anglo-Saxon, a well-known Chaucerian scholar, and Sir Walter Besant
aforesaid. The latter describes the scene in very dramatic fashion--the
Examiner, in his gown, cap, and hood, gravely walking up and down during
the two hours the examination lasted, going through the ceremonial with
all the regular solemnity of the Senate House. The candidates, we are
told, expected a sort of jocose business, and were little prepared for
the "stiffness" of the questions which were of the deep and searching
kind they were accustomed to in the case of a Greek Play or a Latin Epic.
Almost at once, three-fourths showed by their helpless bewilderment that
the thing was beyond them; and the struggle lay between the two
well-versed Pickwickians--Besant and Skeat. The latter was known to have
his "Pickwick" at his fingers' ends, and Besant confessed that he had but
small hopes of success. Both plodded steadily through the long list of
questions. It should be said that the competition was open only to
members of Christ Church College, which thus excluded the greatest
reputed Pickwickian of them all, John Lempriere Hammond--the name, by the
way, of the "creator" of Sam Weller on the stage. Besant went steadily
through his list of questions to the end, revised his answers, and got
his paper ready for delivery, but Skeat worked on to the very last
moment. An evening or two later, as they were going into Hall, Calverley
pinned up his report on the board at the door just like one of the usual
University reports, and there was read the result:--
Besant . . . 1st Prize
Skeat . . . 2nd Prize
The authorities were not a little shocked at a liberty which assumed the
aspect of a burlesque of their own proceedings, and Calverley was spoken
to gently by a Don of the older school. The paper of questions certainly
shows what ability may be brought to bear on so trifling a matter; for
there is really a power of analysis and a grasp of "inner meaning" that
is most remarkable. Sir Walter has very acutely commented on this little
"exercise," and has shown that it reached much higher than a mere jest.
It brought out the extraordinary capacities of the book which have
exercised so many minds. For "The Pickwick Examination," he says, "was
not altogether a burlesque of a college examination; it was a very real
and searching examination in a book which, brimful as it is of merriment,
mirth, and wit, is just as intensely human as a book can be. The
characters are not puppets in a farce, stuck up only to be knocked down:
they are men and women. Page after page, they show their true characters
and reveal themselves; they are consistent; even when they are most
absurd they are most real; we learn to love them. It is a really serious
test paper; no one could answer any of it who had not read and re-read
the Pickwick Papers, and acquired, so to speak, a mastery of the subject.
No one could do well in the examination who had not gone much further
than this and got to know the book almost by heart. It was a most
wonderful burlesque of the ordinary College and Senate House examination,
considering the subject from every possible point of view. Especially is
it rich in the department then dear to Cambridge: the explanation of
words, phrases, and idioms."
Some of these cruxes, Sir Walter tells us, could not be solved by the
examiner, and were laid before Boz himself, with a copy of the questions.
Needless to say, Boz was infinitely amused, but, to the general
disappointment, could or would give no information. The answer of
Browning on a similar appeal is well known--he referred his questioners
to the Browning Society, as knowing as much as he did on the point. There
is no doubt that this is the true philosophy of the thing: that, once his
ideas are in print, the author has no more to do with them or their
meaning than anyone else has. The passages must speak for themselves;
they are children sent into the world--helpless infants like those
Pickwickian "expletives, let loose upon society." Among these
unexplained things were "my Prooshan Blue" and "Old Nobs." Sir Walter,
with real Pickwickian sagacity, points to a true explanation which may be
applied in other cases. "Probably it was a phrase _which he had heard in
a crowd_, and had never asked himself what it meant," _i.e._, it seemed
appropriate, and what a person in such a case would use. This is in fact
part of that "hallucination" of which G. H. Lewes spoke; the scene came
so completely before Boz that the words and phrases suggested themselves
to him and could not be denied, and he did not ask them to give any
account. This principle, however, does not hinder an amusing display of
speculation. Mr. Andrew Lang's explanation of "My Prooshan Blue" is
certainly far fetched. He thinks it refers to a dreamy notion of George
IV., who, at one moment, thought of changing the British uniform to the
Prussian Blue. Now, this was not known at the time, and came out years
later. It had certainly not reached persons of the Weller class. The
truth is that most of Sam's grotesque epithets, _e.g._, "young Brokiley
sprout," were the arbitrary coinage of a fantastic mind. This, too, as
Sir Walter said, "he may have heard in a crowd," or in the mazes of his
own brain. "Old Nobs" is just as reasonable as Hamlet's "Old Truepenny."
"Are you there, Old Truepenny," might have been said by Sam to his
father, as Hamlet addressed it to _his_.