Lawrence Boythorn
Sol Eytinge, Jr.
1867
Wood-engraving
10 x 7.4 cm (framed)
Dickens's Bleak House (Diamond Edition), facing VI, 67.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Passage Illustrated: The Peculiar Old Friend
He was not only a very handsome old gentleman — upright and stalwart as he had been described to us — with a massive grey head, a fine composure of face when silent, a figure that might have become corpulent but for his being so continually in earnest that he gave it no rest, and a chin that might have subsided into a double chin but for the vehement emphasis in which it was constantly required to assist; but he was such a true gentleman in his manner, so chivalrously polite, his face was lighted by a smile of so much sweetness and tenderness, and it seemed so plain that he had nothing to hide, but showed himself exactly as he was — incapable, as Richard said, of anything on a limited scale, and firing away with those blank great guns because he carried no small arms whatever — that really I could not help looking at him with equal pleasure as he sat at dinner, whether he smilingly conversed with Ada and me, or was led by Mr. Jarndyce into some great volley of superlatives, or threw up his head like a bloodhound and gave out that tremendous "Ha, ha, ha!"
"You have brought your bird with you, I suppose?" said Mr. Jarndyce.
"By heaven, he is the most astonishing bird in Europe!" replied the other. "He is the most wonderful creature! I wouldn't take ten thousand guineas for that bird. I have left an annuity for his sole support in case he should outlive me. He is, in sense and attachment, a phenomenon. And his father before him was one of the most astonishing birds that ever lived!"
The subject of this laudation was a very little canary, who was so tame that he was brought down by Mr. Boythorn's man, on his forefinger, and after taking a gentle flight round the room, alighted on his master's head. To hear Mr. Boythorn presently expressing the most implacable and passionate sentiments, with this fragile mite of a creature quietly perched on his forehead, was to have a good illustration of his character, I thought. [Chapter IX, "Signs and Tokens," 67]
Commentary: Walter Savage Landor, Poet and Model for Boythorn
Again, as is the case with Harold Skimpole, everyone in the Dickens Circle recognized the correspondence between the pre-Victorian poet Walter Savage Landor (1775-1860) and John Jardyce's gruff old friend Lawrence Boythorn. Whether Eytinge knew of this association, however, is unclear — and his image of Boythorn here does not much resemble the aged poet, who had died seven years earlier.
At the beginning of Chapter 9, Jarndyce's Chancery wards are enjoying settling into his estate, Bleak House, when one day at breakfast, Mr. Jarndyce shares the contents of a letter from his old friend, the curmudgeonly Lawrence Boythorn, who is to be expected at Bleak House shortly for an extended visit. According to Mr. Jarndyce, Mr. Boythorn is a strapping man whose good nature is characterized by a booming laugh and a heart of gold. The illustrator's challenge is to present the two Boythorn's simultaneously, and this objective Eytinge has achieved by placing the canary on the opinionated old man's head. Eytinge relies on Dickens's text to convey Boythorn's contrary nature, which is closely based on Dickens's experiences of Landor:
Landor’s most prominent moral and intellectual qualities: his mighty self-will, his arrogant audacity, his capacity of destructive rage, his fine imagination and fastidious taste, his delicate perception, his want of speculative power, his proneness to paradoxical views, his tendency to run into extremes, and whatever else would be ascribed to him by the discerning critic of his works. [ILN 15 October 1864): 385].
As the passage associated with the illustration suggests, Jarndyce's old friend, a former soldier, tends to speak in superlatives; his good-heartedness contradicts his very loud and harsh demeanour. As the fractious neighbour of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Boythorn is currently waging a legal campaign against the Dedlocks over a right-of-way across Boythorn's property that Sir Leicester has asserted his right to close.
Other Illustrations of Boythorn, 1852-1910
Left: Phiz's March 1852 engraving of the scene in Krook's depository, The Lord Chancellor Copies from Memory. Centre: Barnard's 1873 wood-engraving of Krook in the doorway of his shop, Title-page Vignette. Right: Portrait of Landor (1860) in Illustrated London News (15 October 1864): 385.
Left: Barnard's 1873 Household Edition composite woodblock engraving of the scene in Krook's shop in the fifth chapter, The Lord Chancellor relates the death of Tom Jarndyce, when Krook conducts Caddy, Esther, Ada, and Richard to theupper storey of his rag-and-bottle warehouse. Right: Harry Furniss's 1910 Charles Dickens Library Edition lithograph of Krook's shop, Mr. Krook and His Cat.
Related material, including front matter and sketches, by other illustrators for Bleak House (1852-1910)
- Bleak House (homepage)
- Phiz's monthly illustrations for the novel, March 1852 through September 1853.
- Cover for monthly parts
- John Gilbert: A large
grey cat leaped from some neighbouring shelf from
- F. O. C. Darley: A female
figure, closely veiled, stands in the middle of the room . . . . from
- F. O. C. Darley: "For, on a low bed opposite the fire. . . the lawyer hesitating just within the doorway, sees a man." — Vol. 1, Page 96 [actually, p. 200, from Bleak House] Vol. 3
- F. O. C. Darley: Springing a Mine, from Bleak House, Sheldon & Co. (New York) Household Edition (1863) Vol. 4
- The Diamond Edition of Charles Dickens’s Works
- Fred Barnard's 61 Illustrations for the Household Edition (1873)
- Harry Furniss's illustrations for the Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910)
- Kyd's four Player's Cigarette Cards (1910)
Bibliography
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.
Dickens, Charles. Bleak House. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1853.
_______. Bleak House. Illustrated by F. O. C. Darley and John Gilbert. The Works of Charles Dickens. The Household Edition. New York: Sheldon and Company, 1863. Vols. 1-4.
_______. Bleak House. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr, and engraved by A. V. S. Anthony. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. VI.
_______. Bleak House, with 61 illustrations by Fred Barnard. Household Edition, volume IV. London: Chapman and Hall, 1873.
_______. Bleak House. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. XI.
Hammerton, J. A. "Ch. XVIII. Bleak House." The Dickens Picture-Book. London: Educational Book Co., [1910], 294-338.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.
Steig, Michael. Chapter 6. "Bleak House and Little Dorrit: Iconography of Darkness." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. 131-172.
Vann, J. Don. "Bleak House, twenty parts in nineteen monthly instalments, October 1846—April 1848." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: The Modern Language Association, 1985. 69-70./
Last modified 17 February 2021