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Boxer
L. Rossi after Charles Green
1912
Lithograph
3.5 cm high x 2.5 cm wide, vignetted
Tailpiece for "Chirp the First" in Dickens's The Cricket on the Hearth, The Pears' Centenary Edition, III, 51.
[Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Old Carriers too, appeared, with blind old Boxers lying at their feet; and newer carts with younger drivers ('Peerybingle Brothers' on the tilt); and sick old Carriers, tended by the gentlest hands; and graves of dead and gone old Carriers, green in the churchyard. And as the Cricket showed him all these things — he saw them plainly, though his eyes were fixed upon the fire — the Carrier’s heart grew light and happy, and he thanked his Household Gods with all his might, and cared no more for Gruff and Tackleton than you do. ["Chirp the First," 50-1]
The illustration relates to an apparent reference to a future generation of Boxers who will accompany the vans of the Peerybingle Brothers, successors to John Peerybingle, Carrier. As John puffs on his pipe while sitting in his accustomed place at the hearth, he sees possible successors, presumably generations of Dots, and Johns, and Tillys. Or, rather, the fairy-cricket shows John these future scenes, which include a facsimile of the family dog, who in no way resembles Edwin Landseer's version of Boxer in the 1845 edition (see below).
The dog makes an admirable tailpiece, since dogs are renowned for their loyalty to a master, and Dickens concludes the initial "Chirp" with a strong suggestion that he is Dot's former love and that his return may jeopardize the Peerybingle's marriage: "Married! and not to me!" (51) is what Dickens leads his readers to believe that the Stranger remarked sotto voce just prior her her fainting in Mrs. Peerybingle Receives a Shock (45).
Although the Rossi’s benign image of the family dog rather than Landseer’s fierce one concludes the story's first movement, Rossi may be using the tailpiece to anticipate a more detailed description of the dog in "Chirp the Second":
Then, Boxer gave occasion to more good-natured recognitions of, and by, the Carrier, than half-a-dozen Christians could have done! Everybody knew him, all along the road — especially the fowls and pigs, who when they saw him approaching, with his body all on one side, and his ears pricked up inquisitively, and that knob of a tail making the most of itself in the air, immediately withdrew into remote back settlements, without waiting for the honour of a nearer acquaintance. He had business everywhere; going down all the turnings, looking into all the wells, bolting in and out of all the cottages, dashing into the midst of all the Dame-Schools, fluttering all the pigeons, magnifying the tails of all the cats, and trotting into the public-houses like a regular customer. Wherever he went, somebody or other might have been heard to cry, "Halloa! Here's Boxer!" and out came that somebody forthwith, accompanied by at least two or three other somebodies, to give John Peerybingle and his pretty wife, Good Day. ["Chirp the Second," 72]
Landseer's fierce mastiff in Boxer.
Each contains about thirty illustrations from original drawings by Charles Green, R. I. — Clement Shorter [1912]
Dickens, Charles. The Cricket on the Hearth. A Fairy Tale of Home. Illustrated by John Leech, Daniel Maclise, Richard Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield, and Edwin Landseer. Engraved by George Dalziel, Edward Dalziel, T. Williams, J. Thompson, R. Graves, and Joseph Swain. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1846 [December 1845].
_____. The Cricket on the Hearth. Illustrated by L. Rossi. London: A & F Pears, 1912.
Created 17 April 2001
Last modified 23 May 2020