""A brave evening, mother! If we had chinking in our pockets but a few specks of that gold which is piled up yonder in the sky, we should be rich for life."" — Fred Barnard's twenty-fifth illustration for Dickens's "Barnaby Rudge" (1874)

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"A brave evening, mother! If we had chinking in our pockets but a few specks of that gold which is piled up yonder in the sky, we should be rich for life."

Fred Barnard

1874

5 ⅜ x 4 ⅛ inches (13.8 cm by 10.6 cm), framed

Dickens's Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty, Vol. VII of the Household Edition, Chapter XLV, 173.

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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Context of the Illustration: The Rudges in Seclusion

Their hut — for it was little more — stood on the outskirts of the town, at a short distance from the highroad, but in a secluded place, where few chance passengers strayed at any season of the year. It had a plot of garden-ground attached, which Barnaby, in fits and starts of working, trimmed, and kept in order. Within doors and without, his mother laboured for their common good; and hail, rain, snow, or sunshine, found no difference in her.

Though so far removed from the scenes of her past life, and with so little thought or hope of ever visiting them again, she seemed to have a strange desire to know what happened in the busy world. Any old newspaper, or scrap of intelligence from London, she caught at with avidity. . . . .

Time had glided on in this way, and nothing had happened to disturb or change their mode of life, when, one summer’s night in June, they were in their little garden, resting from the labours of the day. The widow’s work was yet upon her knee, and strewn upon the ground about her; and Barnaby stood leaning on his spade, gazing at the brightness in the west, and singing softly to himself.

"A brave evening, mother! If we had, chinking in our pockets, but a few specks of that gold which is piled up yonder in the sky, we should be rich for life."

"We are better as we are," returned the widow with a quiet smile. "Let us be contented, and we do not want and need not care to have it, though it lay shining at our feet." [Chapter the Forty-fifth, 194-95]

Relevant Illustration from the 1841 First Edition

Above: Phiz's atmospheric description of the Rudges' secluded cottage: The Rudges' Peaceful Home, 24 July 1841 (Part 24).

Related Material including Other Illustrated Editions of Barnaby Rudge

Dickens's Barnaby Rudge (homepage)
Cattermole and Phiz: The First illustrators: A Team Effort by "The Clock Works" (1841)
Phiz's Original Serial Illustrations (13 Feb.-27 Nov. 1841)
Cattermole's Seventeen Illustrations (13 Feb.- 27 Nov. 1841)
Felix Octavius Carr Darley's Six Illustrations (1865 and 1888)
Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s ten Diamond Edition Illustrations (1867)
A. H. Buckland's six illustrations for the Collins' Clear-type Pocket Edition (1900)
Harry Furniss's 28 illustrations for The Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910)

Bibliography

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 18 December 2020