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Lord Frederick Verisopht falls in a Duel
Harry Furniss
1910
3 ½ by 5 ½ inches (14.3 cm high x 9 cm wide), vignetted
"Hawk, we have not a moment to lose," cried Westwood. "Adams, consult your own safety, the living before the dead." He seized Sir Mulberry by the arm, and hurried him away. — p. 679.
Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby, The Charles Dickens Library Edition, facing IV, 672.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
The two shots were fired, as nearly as possible, at the same instant. In that instant, the young lord turned his head sharply round, fixed upon his adversary a ghastly stare, and without a groan or stagger, fell down dead.
"He’s gone!" cried Westwood, who, with the other second, had run up to the body, and fallen on one knee beside it.
"His blood on his own head," said Sir Mulberry. "He brought this upon himself, and forced it upon me."
"Captain Adams," cried Westwood, hastily, "I call you to witness that this was fairly done. Hawk, we have not a moment to lose. We must leave this place immediately, push for Brighton, and cross to France with all speed. This has been a bad business, and may be worse, if we delay a moment. Adams, consult your own safety, and don’t remain here; the living before the dead; goodbye!"
With these words, he seized Sir Mulberry by the arm, and hurried him away. Captain Adams — only pausing to convince himself, beyond all question, of the fatal result — sped off in the same direction, to concert measures with his servant for removing the body, and securing his own safety likewise.
So died Lord Frederick Verisopht, by the hand which he had loaded with gifts, and clasped a thousand times; by the act of him, but for whom, and others like him, he might have lived a happy man, and died with children’s faces round his bed.
The sun came proudly up in all his majesty, the noble river ran its winding course, the leaves quivered and rustled in the air, the birds poured their cheerful songs from every tree, the short-lived butterfly fluttered its little wings; all the light and life of day came on; and, amidst it all, and pressing down the grass whose every blade bore twenty tiny lives, lay the dead man, with his stark and rigid face turned upwards to the sky. [Chapter L, "Involves a serious Catastrophe," 679-680]
Furniss had at least two models he could have emulated: the rollicking brawl in the original serial, The Last Brawl between Sir Mulbery and His Pupil (July 1839), and the picturesque, panoramic treatment by Fred Barnard Household Edition of Verisopht's body laid out on the field of honour. Interestingly, Furniss chose to emulate neither earlier illustration, and elected instead to show the seconds, Westwood and Adams, hurrying Sir Mulberry Hawk away from the scene of the duel. His treatment reflects the fact that duelling had been illegal for some sixty years by the time Furniss was working on the Charles Dickens Library Edition illustration; hence the caption "the living before the dead" (679).
The first duel in Great Britain involving pistols rather than rapiers was apparently fought at Tothill Fields, London, in 1711 between Colonel Richard Thornhill and Sir Cholmley Deering, but such affairs of honour between military officers and aristocrats rarely involved firearms until the early 1760s. Such scenes occur regularly in novels set in the eighteenth century, but far less frequently in Victorian novels with contemporary settings since duelling was officially outlawed in 1819. In fact, from the seventeenth century onward most European nations had attempted to ban duelling, and replace it (when necessary) with litigation. By the time that Dickens was writing this instalment of Nicholas Nickleby in 1839, duelling had definitely fallen out of favour even among the aristocracy, in part thanks to a concerted effort by Prince Albert and the Duke of Wellington to change both the law and society's attitudes. The last duel officially recorded between Englishmen in the United Kingdom occurred on the beach near Portsmouth on 20 May 1845. Prior to the nineteenth century, an officer or a "gentleman" risked social ostracism for not issuing a challenge when insulted, or for failing to respond to such a challenge. By the time that Verisopht and Hawk met ion the field of honour such affairs had to be managed surreptitiously since killing another in a duel was legally judged homicide. However, an interesting coincidence is that the very last duels known to have occurred on British soil involved a pair of French political refugees, Lieutenant Hawkey and Emmanuel Barthélemy, in 1852. Both were tried for murder.
Left: Fred Barnard's full-page illustration of Verisopht laid out on the field of honour: All the light and life of day came on; and amidst it all, and pressing down the grass whose every blade bore twenty tiny lives, lay the dead man, with his stark and rigid face turned upwards to the sky. (1875). Right: C. S. Reinhart's picturesque realisation of the same scene for American readers: Lay the dead man, with his stark and rigid face turned upward to the sky in the Household Edition, New York (1875).
Barnard, J. "Fred" (illustrator). Charles Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby, with fifty-eight illustrations. The Works of Charles Dickens: The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1875. Volume 15. Rpt. 1890.
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. Oxford and New York: Oxford U. P., 1988.
Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. With fifty-two illustrations by C. S. Reinhart. The Household Edition. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1872. I.
__________. Nicholas Nickleby. With 39 illustrations by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). London: Chapman & Hall, 1839.
__________. Nicholas Nickleby. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. IV.
__________. "Nicholas Nickleby." Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens, being eight hundred and sixty-six drawings by Fred Barnard et al.. Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1908.
Created 20 September 2021