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Watkins Tottle
George Cruikshank
1839
Etching on copper
10 x 8.8 cm, vignetted
Chapter 1 of "A Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle," Chapter 10 in "Tales" by Charles Dickens in Sketches by Boz, originally published in the January 1835 number of The Monthly Magazine; illustration facing p. 326.
[Click on image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
There she was, with the identical housemaid in perspective, in order that there might be no interruption. We walked about, for a couple of hours; made ourselves delightfully miserable; and were regularly engaged. Then, we began to "correspond" — that is to say, we used to exchange about four letters a day; what we used to say in 'em I can't imagine. And I used to have an interview, in the kitchen, or the cellar, or some such place, every evening. Well, things went on in this way for some time; and we got fonder of each other every day. At last, as our love was raised to such a pitch, and as my salary had been raised too, shortly before, we determined on a secret marriage. Fanny arranged to sleep at a friend's, on the previous night; we were to be married early in the morning; and then we were to return to her home and be pathetic. She was to fall at the old gentleman's feet, and bathe his boots with her tears; and I was to hug the old lady and call her "mother," and use my pocket-handkerchief as much as possible. Married we were, the next morning; two girls — friends of Fanny's — acting as bridesmaids; and a man, who was hired for five shillings and a pint of porter, officiating as father. Now, the old lady unfortunately put off her return from Ramsgate, where she had been paying a visit, until the next morning; and as we placed great reliance on her, we agreed to postpone our confession for four-and-twenty hours. My newly-made wife returned home, and I spent my wedding-day in strolling about Hampstead-heath, and execrating my father-in-law. Of course, I went to comfort my dear little wife at night, as much as I could, with the assurance that our troubles would soon be over. I opened the garden-gate, of which I had a key, and was shown by the servant to our old place of meeting — a back kitchen, with a stone-floor and a dresser: upon which, in the absence of chairs, we used to sit and make love."
Make love upon a kitchen-dresser!" interrupted Mr. Watkins Tottle, whose ideas of decorum were greatly outraged.
"Ah! On a kitchen-dresser!" replied Parsons."And let me tell you, old fellow, that, if you were really over head-and-ears in love, and had no other place to make love in, you’d be devilish glad to avail yourself of such an opportunity. However, let me see;— where was I?"
"On the dresser," suggested Timson.
"Oh — ah! Well, here I found poor Fanny, quite disconsolate and uncomfortable. The old boy had been very cross all day, which made her feel still more lonely; and she was quite out of spirits. So, I put a good face on the matter, and laughed it off, and said we should enjoy the pleasures of a matrimonial life more by contrast; and, at length, poor Fanny brightened up a little. I stopped there, till about eleven o'clock, and, just as I was taking my leave for the fourteenth time, the girl came running down the stairs, without her shoes, in a great fright, to tell us that the old villain — Heaven forgive me for calling him so, for he is dead and gone now! — prompted I suppose by the prince of darkness, was coming down, to draw his own beer for supper — a thing he had not done before, for six months, to my certain knowledge; for the cask stood in that very back kitchen. If he discovered me there, explanation would have been out of the question; for he was so outrageously violent, when at all excited, that he never would have listened to me. There was only one thing to be done. The chimney was a very wide one; it had been originally built for an oven; went up perpendicularly for a few feet, and then shot backward and formed a sort of small cavern. My hopes and fortune — the means of our joint existence almost — were at stake. — Chapter 1 of "A Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle," Chapter 10 in "Tales," running head: "Mr. Parsons describes his Courtship," pp. 334-35.
Comic account of an impoverished middle-aged bachelor's attempt, initiated and organized by his prosperous friend, Gabriel Parsons, to capture the affections of a prim, well-to-do spinster, Miss Lillerton. During the course of the story Tottle is arrested for theft [actually, debt] and taken to a sponging-house, from which he is rescued by Parsons. — The Dickens Index, p. 191.
This initial illustration for two-part tragi-comedy of Watkins Tottle does not concern the protagonist's frustrated courtship of the wealthy spinster, Miss Lillerton. Rather, although the title Watkins Tottle would imply that the gentleman sitting with the young woman on the kitchen dresser is a younger version of Tottle, it is in fact Gabriel Parsons courting Fanny in their youth. Therefore, the title of the first illustration, Watkins Tottle is quite misleading as the keynote to the extended anecdote. Since it actually shows Mr. Gabriel and Mrs. Fanny Parsons as newlyweds in Parsons' inset, first-person flashback, it humorously demonstrates how even a curmudgeon can have a romantic past — and tell the story of it for the thousandth time. The situation undoubtedly tickled Cruikshank's fancy, and allowed him plenty of opportunity to depict kitchen realia in a highly convincing manner, including a push-broom and sieve (left), a service for twelve on the shelves of the settle (with two substantial platters and a soup tureen on the top shelf), and various pots beneath. The now-calculating Parsons' conducting a clandestine newlywed romance under such mundane conditions in his youth reveals a sentimental side to Tottle's advisor and financial backer, contrasting his purely pecuniary interest in seeing that the fifty-year-old bachelor marries his wife's rich friend, Miss Lillerton.
As Frederic G. Kitton notes, Cruikshank had to re-engrave this illustration for the Chapman and Hall serialisation, and the subsequent 1839 anthology:
During the following year (1837) Macrone published a Second Series of the "Sketches" in one volume, uniform in size and character with its predecessors, and containing ten etchings by Cruikshank; for the second edition of this extra volume two additional illustrations were done, viz., "The Last Cab-Driver" and "May-day in the Evening." It was at this time that Dickens repurchased from Macrone the entire copyright of the "Sketches," and arranged with Chapman & Hall for a complete edition, to be issued in shilling monthly parts, octavo size, the first number appearing in November of that year. The completed work contained all the Cruikshank plates (except that entitled "The Free and Easy," which, for some unexplained reason, was cancelled) and the following [twelve] new subjects: "The Parish Engine," "The Broker's Man," "Our Next-door Neighbours" [sic], "Early Coaches," "Public Dinners," "The Gin-Shop," "Making a Night of It," "The Boarding-House," "The Tuggses at Ramsgate," "The Steam Excursion," "Mrs. Joseph Porter," and "Mr. Watkins Tottle." — "George Cruikshank, p. 4.
Left: Cruikshank's second illustration for the story, showing the plot complication of Tottle's being arrested for debt as he is preparing to court Miss Lillerton, The Lock-up House in "Chapter the Second." Left of centre: Cruikshank's third illustration, which misleadingly suggests that Tottle will be successful in his courtship of the affluent spinster, Mr. Watkins Tottle and Miss Lillerton. Right of centre: Eytinge's single illustration, featuring Tottle (right), Rev. Timson (lefty), and Parsons (centre), as they learn of Miss Lillerton's engagement to the Anglican minister, Mr. Watkins Tottle (1867). Right: Furniss's realisation of the agent of the lock-up house, The Sheriff-Officer's Mercury (1910). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Above: Fred Barnard's wood-engraving of the same situation in the two-part short story, "Why," replied Mr. Watkins Tottle, evasively; for he trembled violently, and felt a sudden tingling throughout his whole frame; "Why — I should certainly — at least, I think I should like —" — to marry the wealthy spinster. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Above: Fred Barnard's wood-engraving of the scene in which Solomon Jacobs' minion reveals that Tottle has been apprehended for debt, "I've brought this here note," replied the individual in the painted tops in a hoarse whisper; "I've brought this here note from a gen'l'm'n as come to our house this mornin'." [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
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Last modified 11 April 2017