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John's Arrival
John Leech; engraver E. Dalziel
1845
Wood engraving
12.4 cm high x 7 cm wide (4 ¾ by 2 ¾ inches), vignetted
Three-quarter-page illustration with integrated text for Dickens's The Cricket on the Hearth, "Chirp the First," 17.
Passage enclosed: ". . . bringing himself to sudden stops; now eliciting a shriek from Tilly Slowboy, in the low nursing-chair near the fire, by the unexpected application of his . . . . [17]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one. ]
When she came back, and sat down in her former seat, the Cricket and the kettle were still keeping it up, with a perfect fury of competition. The kettle's weak side clearly being that he didn't know when he was beat.
There was all the excitement of a race about it. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket a mile ahead. Hum, hum, hum — m — m! Kettle making play in the distance, like a great top. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket round the corner. Hum, hum, hum — m — m! Kettle sticking to him in his own way; no idea of giving in. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket fresher than ever. Hum, hum, hum — m — m! Kettle slow and steady. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket going in to finish him. Hum, hum, hum — m —m! Kettle not to be finished. Until at last they got so jumbled together, in the hurry-skurry, helter-skelter, of the match, that whether the kettle chirped and the Cricket hummed, or the Cricket chirped and the kettle hummed, or they both chirped and both hummed, it would have taken a clearer head than yours or mine to have decided with anything like certainty. But of this there is no doubt: that, the kettle and the Cricket, at one and the same moment, and by some power of amalgamation best known to themselves, sent, each, his fireside song of comfort streaming into a ray of the candle that shone out through the window, and a long way down the lane. And this light, bursting on a certain person who, on the instant, approached towards it through the gloom, expressed the whole thing to him, literally in a twinkling, and cried, "Welcome home, old fellow! Welcome home, my boy!" ["Chirp the First," pp. 9-10]
In this "homey" illustration with its creatures of the imagination vying with realistic details of the humble parlour, Robert L. Patten finds a topical allusion:
So we get steam-kettle and Cricket, industry and domesticity, making harmonious music celebrating conjugal bliss, a baby with baby-minder who is dumbstruck by the difference between her orphan upbringing and the overpowering felicity of the Peerybingle household, and a haymaker atop a Dutch clock scything the wheat that is the first stage in making bread. . . . Dear bread was one of the adverse effects, for laboring folks, of the high tariff on imported corn, that is, grains like wheat, oats, and barley, which was also crucial for making beer, another staple of the British diet. In the 1840s harvests were bad, the cost of food rose, and the working class staged Corn Law demonstrations calling for repeal of the tariffs. The haymaker is, as his association with the clock indicates, engaged in a timely activity, for the right season, promising a fruitful consummation for the table. [Chapter 8, "Chirping," pp. 171-172]
Dickens, Charles. The Cricket on the Hearth. A Fairy Tale of Home. Illustrated by John Leech, Daniel Maclise, Richard Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield, and Edward Landseer. Engraved by George Dalziel, Edward Dalziel, T. Williams, Thompson, Graves, and Swain. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1846 [December 1845].
Patten, Robert L. Chapter 8, "Chirping." Dickens, Death, and Christmas. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023. 169-199. [Review]
Created 12 February 2001
Last modified 28 May 2024