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Master Joey going to visit his Godpapa
George Cruikshank, 1792-1878
1838
Etching on copper
11 x 8.3 cm
Facing page 13 in Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi. Edited by "Boz." With ten illustrations by George Cruikshank.
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Being thus thoroughly equipped for starting, he was taken in for his father's inspection: the old gentleman was pleased to signify his entire approbation with his appearance, and, after kissing him in the moment of his gratification, demanded the key of the "fortune-box." The key being got with some difficulty out of one of the pockets of the green smalls, the bottom of which might be somewhere near the buckles, the old gentleman took a guinea out of the box, and, putting it into the boy's pocket, said, "Dere now, you are a gentleman, and something more — you have got a guinea in your pocket." The box having been carefully locked, and the key returned to the owner of the "fortune," off he started, receiving strict injunctions to be home by eight o'clock. The father would not allow anybody to attend him, on the ground that he was a gentleman, and consequently perfectly able to take care of himself; so away he went, to walk all the way from Little Russel-street, Drury-lane, to Newton-street, Holborn.
The child's appearance in the street excited considerable curiosity, as the appearance of any other child, alone, in such a costume, might very probably have done; but he was a public character besides, and the astonishment was proportionate. "Hollo!" cried one boy, "here's 'Little Joe!'" "Get along," said another, "it's the monkey." A third, thought it was the "bear dressed for a dance," and the fourth suggested "it mightbe the cat going out to a party," while the more sedate passengers could not help laughing heartily, and saying how ridiculous it was to trust such a child in the streets alone. However, he walked on, with various singular grimaces, until he stopped to look at a female of miserable appearance, who was reclining on the pavement, and whose diseased and destitute aspect had already collected a crowd. The boy stopped, like others, and hearing her tale of distress, became so touched, that he thrust his hand into his pocket, and having at last found the bottom of it, pulled out his guinea, which was the only coin he had, and slipped it into her hand; then away he walked again with a greater air than before.
The sight of the embroidered coat, and breeches, and the paste buckles, and the satin waistcoat and cocked-hat, had astonished the crowd not a little in the outset; but directly it was understood that the small owner of these articles had given the woman a guinea, a great number of people collected around him, and began shouting and staring by turns most earnestly. The boy, not at all abashed, headed the crowd, and walked on very deliberately, with a train a street or two long behind him, until he fortunately encountered a friend of his father's, who no sooner saw the concourse that attended him, than he took him in his arms and carried him, despite a few kicks and struggles, in all his brilliant attire, to his grandfather's house, where he spent the day very much to the satisfaction of all parties concerned.— Chapter I. "His Grandfather and Father — His Birth and first appearance at Drury Lane Theatre, and at Sadler's Wells — His Father's severity — Miss Farren — The Earl of Derby and the Wig — The Fortune-box and Charity's reward — His Father's pretended death, and the behaviour of himself and his brother thereupon," p. 13-14.
Dickens wrote an introductory chapter extolling the delights of pantomime, also a concluding one, and set much store by both of them. Throughout the work there are unmistakable Dickens touches, like the description of Grimaldi 'coughing very fiercely' in an attempt to frighten off some suspected burglars, and ironic asides like the one about two night watchmen having been 'chosen, as the majority of that fine body of men were, with a specific view to their old age and infirmities'. Moreover, in certain places Dickens has completely changed the original Grimaldi/Wilks text, 'telling some of the stories in my own way'. He sometimes ends up with something that could well be an episde from Pickwick . . . . — Michael Slater, p. 112.
Consequently, it is difficult to say whether the idea for this illustration began with Dickens or George Cruikshank since Boz emphasized incidents that demonstrated Joey's well-known generosity and compassion, such as this incident in the vicinity of Holborn, well known to Dickens from the time his family moved from Rochester to London. Again, as in Joe's debut into the Pit at Sadler's Wells, Cruikshank has captured well the varying attitudes of the mixed audience to Joey as he parades down Little Russell Street in Bloomsbury, including a number of boys who make the catcalls (based on parts that young Joey has taken in the pantomime, such as a monkey and a cat) and, on the steps, left, the poor woman whom Joey befriends.
The area "from Little Russel-street, Drury-lane, to Newton-street, Holborn" (near the present-day British Museum) is the London of the early Sketches by Boz, written between 1833 and 1834, although of course Grimaldi is recalling the Bloomsbury neighbourhood as it was fifty years earlier, when he was a child of circus people. Cruikshank has selected as a suitable backdrop an eighteenth, stone-faced house with area railings and ionic columns in its portico and a lantern supported by a wrought-iron trellis distinctive enough that he may have had a specific building in mind that exemplifies the Neo-Classical or Greek Revival architecture characteristic of the neighbourhood. Compare this rather more elaborate house with that in "Coach!" somewhere near Fitzroy Square — the area railing, shape of the door, and the multi-paned, fan-shaped window above the door are similar, and are very much in the manner of the Brothers Adam, the Scots architects who used Portland stone in facing many of the houses they built here in Fitzrovia in the last decade of the eighteenth century (the decade following Joey Grimaldi's childhood there). No. 29 Fitzroy Square, for example, approximates these residences drawn by Cruikshank; later, George Bernard Shaw (1887-1898) and Virginia Woolf (1907-11) lived in this particular Georgian house. All of the crowd members following the elaborately clad Joey are in period costume, including bonnets for the women and tricorn hats for the two adult males. As Joe passes her, the woman seated on the steps clasps her hands together in amazement. Joey himself does an admirable job of pretending not to notice the crowd of curious followers, including for jeering boys who recognize Joey from his stage performances.
Dickens utilizes the precocity of young Joey Grimaldi in the character of Bailey, Junior, in Martin Chuzzlewit, and refers to him specifically in allusions in The Old Curiosity Shop, Chapter 29 (Joey as one of the figures in Mrs. Jarley's Waxworks), Martin Chuzzlewit, Chapter 22, and the Pickwick Papers, Chapter 30. It is not unlikely that the illustrator had already read the manuscript in preparation for selecting subjects for illustration before Bentley commissioned Boz's editorial talents, but several of the scenes such as Joey's going by himself in theatrical garb to his grandfather's bear evidence of Dickens's strong story-telling abilities in the text.
Ackroyd, Peter. Dickens: A Biography. London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1990.
Ainsworth, William Harrison. Jack Sheppard. A Romance. With 28 illustrations by George Cruikshank. In three volumes. London: Richard Bentley, 1839.
Bentley, Nicholas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens: Index. Oxfiord: Oxford U. P., 1990.
Cohen, Jane Rabb. Part One, "Dickens and His Early Illustrators: 1. George Cruikshank. Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio University Press, 1980. Pp. 15-38.
Grimaldi, Joseph, and Charles Dickens. Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi, Edited By 'Boz'. With ten illustrations by George Cruikshank. London: George Routledge and Sons. The Broadway, Ludgate. New York: 416, Broome Street, 1869.
Kitton, Frederic G. "George Cruikshank." Dickens and His Illustrators. London: Chapman & Hall, 1899. Pp. 1-28.
Kitton, Frederic G. The Minor Writings of Charles Dickens: A Bibliography and a Sketch. London: Elliot Stock, 1900.
Schlicke, Paul. "Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi. Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1999. P. 374.
Slater, Michael. Charles Dickens: A Life Defined by Writing. New Haven and London: Yale U. P., 2009.
Last modified 5 June 2017