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Meeting of the Protestant Association
Mr. Tappertit mounted on an empty cask which stood by way of rostrum in the room, and volunteered a speech upon the alarming crisis then at hand.
Harry Furniss
1910
13.8 cm x 9.2 cm (5 ½ by 3 ¾ inches), vignetted
Dickens's Barnaby Rudge, The Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910), facing VI, 304.
[Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
All these compliments Mr. Tappertit received as matters of course — flattering enough in their way, but entirely attributable to his vast superiority. His dignified self-possession only delighted Hugh the more; and in a word, this giant and dwarf struck up a friendship which bade fair to be of long continuance, as the one held it to be his right to command, and the other considered it an exquisite pleasantry to obey. Nor was Hugh by any means a passive follower, who scrupled to act without precise and definite orders; for when Mr. Tappertit mounted on an empty cask which stood by way of rostrum in the room, and volunteered a speech upon the alarming crisis then at hand, he placed himself beside the orator, and though he grinned from ear to ear at every word he said, threw out such expressive hints to scoffers in the management of his cudgel, that those who were at first the most disposed to interrupt, became remarkably attentive, and were the loudest in their approbation. [Chapter XXXIX, 302]
Whereas Barnard depicts Gordon leaving the inn-yard triumphantly, Furniss shows him already on his way, and that throng behind him. But according to the text, his departure was not attended by a supportive throng, but just a few — he receives only "the parting salutation of a dozen idlers whom the rumour of a live lord being about to leave the Maypole had gathered round the porch" (286). A number of these curious "idlers" in the Barnard illustration are mere children.
Left: Phiz's more caricatural illustration shows the leader of the United Bulldogs leading his followers in song at The Boot: Mr. Tappertit's Harangue (3 July 1841). Right: Fred Barnard's treatment of the three villains indulges in considerable distortion of Hugh and Dennis: A Nice Trio (1874).
Dickens, Charles. Barnaby Rudge in Master Humphrey's Clock. Illustrated by Phiz and George Cattermole. 3 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1841; rpt., Bradbury and Evans, 1849.
________. Barnaby Rudge — A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874. VII.
________. Barnaby Rudge. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. VI.
Created 24 July 2020
Last modified 25 December 2020