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Gabriel Varden
Fred Barnard
1874
5 5⁄16 x 4 ¼ inches (13.8 cm by 10.8 cm), framed
Dickens's Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty, Vol. VII of the Household Edition, Chapter XX, 80.
[Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
From the workshop of the Golden Key, there issued forth a tinkling sound, so merry and good-humoured, that it suggested the idea of some one working blithely, and made quite pleasant music. No man who hammered on at a dull monotonous duty, could have brought such cheerful notes from steel and iron; none but a chirping, healthy, honest-hearted fellow, who made the best of everything, and felt kindly towards everybody, could have done it for an instant. He might have been a coppersmith, and still been musical. If he had sat in a jolting waggon, full of rods of iron, it seemed as if he would have brought some harmony out of it.
Tink, tink, tink — clear as a silver bell, and audible at every pause of the streets’ harsher noises, as though it said, "I don’t care; nothing puts me out; I am resolved to be happy." Women scolded, children squalled, heavy carts went rumbling by, horrible cries proceeded from the lungs of hawkers; still it struck in again, no higher, no lower, no louder, no softer; not thrusting itself on people’s notice a bit the more for having been outdone by louder sounds—tink, tink, tink, tink, tink.
It was a perfect embodiment of the still small voice, free from all cold, hoarseness, huskiness, or unhealthiness of any kind; foot-passengers slackened their pace, and were disposed to linger near it; neighbours who had got up splenetic that morning, felt good-humour stealing on them as they heard it, and by degrees became quite sprightly; mothers danced their babies to its ringing; still the same magical tink, tink, tink, came gaily from the workshop of the Golden Key.
Who but the locksmith could have made such music! A gleam of sun shining through the unsashed window, and chequering the dark workshop with a broad patch of light, fell full upon him, as though attracted by his sunny heart. There he stood working at his anvil, his face all radiant with exercise and gladness, his sleeves turned up, his wig pushed off his shining forehead—the easiest, freest, happiest man in all the world. Beside him sat a sleek cat, purring and winking in the light, and falling every now and then into an idle doze, as from excess of comfort. Toby looked on from a tall bench hard by; one beaming smile, from his broad nut-brown face down to the slack-baked buckles in his shoes. The very locks that hung around had something jovial in their rust, and seemed like gouty gentlemen of hearty natures, disposed to joke on their infirmities. There was nothing surly or severe in the whole scene. It seemed impossible that any one of the innumerable keys could fit a churlish strong-box or a prison-door. Cellars of beer and wine, rooms where there were fires, books, gossip, and cheering laughter — these were their proper sphere of action. Places of distrust and cruelty, and restraint, they would have left quadruple-locked for ever.
Tink, tink, tink. The locksmith paused at last, and wiped his brow. [Chapter XLI, 156-58]
In the original 1841 serial illustrations, Phiz presents the locksmith, Gabriel Varden, as a bourgeois businessman, henpecked husband, and sometimes exasperated master of a truculent apprentice and sour maid. Varden does not appear as a skilled artisan at his forge as he does here in a three-quarter page, full-length portrait. In the equivalent illustration for Chapter 41 in the serial, Phiz shows him as an elegantly attired volunteer soldier in The Locksmith Dressing for Parade being assisted by his daughter who ties his sash as Mrs. Varden looks on and Miggs, the maid, offers him his sword. Instead of dwelling on his domestic circumstances, Barnard shows Varden as a competent iron-worker at his forge and workbench. The illustrator has placed the shop-sign, a gigantic golden key, conspicuously hanging just outside the window, as if to suggest that Varden is not the least bit self-conscious about being seen engaged in his trade by the public hurrying past his shop: he is proud of his status as an artisan and his work as a locksmith. Barnard gives him brawny forearms and a broad forehead to suggest both physical strength and practical intelligence.
Barnard has abandoned his usual practice of providing a sometimes-lengthy caption to show his readers the precise moment that he is attempting to realize. The logical explanation is that, in this instance, he does not have a highly specific passage in mind but that, instead, he intends to illustration to synthesize the entire opening of the chapter.
Above: Phiz's description of the locksmith's preparing to join fellow bourgeois militiamen: The Locksmith Dressing for Parade 10 July 1841 (Part 22).
Dickens, Charles. Barnaby Rudge in Master Humphrey's Clock. Illustrated by Phiz and George Cattermole. 3 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1841.
_______. Barnaby Rudge. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 16 vols. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
________. Barnaby Rudge — A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874. VII.
________. The Dickens Souvenir Book. London: Chapman & Hall, 1912.
Hammerton, J. A. "Ch. XIV. Barnaby Rudge." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition, illustrated by Harry Furniss. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. 213-55.
Created 20 August 2020
Last modified 17 December 2020