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Solemn Reference Is Made to Mr. Bunsby
Phiz (Hablot K. Browne)
steel-engraving
May 1847 (Part 8)
5.25 inches by 4.25 inches (13.4 cm by10.6 cm)
Click on image to enlarge it.
Dickens's Dombey and Son, Chapter 23, facing p. 404
Image scan and text by Philip V. Allingham.
"Bunsby," said the Captain, striking home at once, "here you are; a man of mind, and a man as can give an opinion. Here’s a young lady as wants to take that opinion, in regard of my friend Wal’r; likewise my t’other friend, Sol Gills, which is a character for you to come within hail of, being a man of science, which is the mother of invention, and knows no law. Bunsby, will you wear, to oblige me, and come along with us?"
The great commander, who seemed by expression of his visage to be always on the look-out for something in the extremest distance, and to have no ocular knowledge of anything within ten miles, made no reply whatever.
"Here is a man," said the Captain, addressing himself to his fair auditors, and indicating the commander with his outstretched hook, "that has fell down, more than any man alive; that has had more accidents happen to his own self than the Seamen’s Hospital to all hands; that took as many spars and bars and bolts about the outside of his head when he was young, as you’d want a order for on Chatham-yard to build a pleasure yacht with; and yet that his opinions in that way, it’s my belief, for there ain’t nothing like ‘em afloat or ashore."
The stolid commander appeared by a very slight vibration in his elbows, to express some satisfaction in this encomium; but if his face had been as distant as his gaze was, it could hardly have enlightened the beholders less in reference to anything that was passing in his thoughts.
"Shipmet," said Bunsby, all of a sudden, and stooping down to look out under some interposing spar, "what’ll the ladies drink?" [Chapter 23, "Florence solitary, and the Midshipman mysterious," 402-3]
Here, Captain Cuttle and Jack Bunsby are puzzling over maps no longer decorating the walls of The Little Midshipman, but
strewn haphazardly over a desk and onto the floor of the Wooden Midshipman. Both men are attempting to track the possible whereabouts of Walter gay's missing ship. in normal circumstances, mariners would never treat a nautical map in such a disrespectful manner. Ominously, in the background of this illustration, Browne depicts a ship floundering in rough weather. Also noticeable is the fact that the man with the sextant, seen in chapter nine, is now absent. The scattered maps, the absence of a sextant, and the picture of a ship battling rough seas visually suggest that Walter is lost, perhaps even dead. [Lowens, 71]
Left: Clayton J. Clarke's watercolour study for Player's Cigarette Card No. 25: Captain Cuttle (1910). Centre: Harry Furniss's version of the society of the back-parlour of the Little Midshipman: "Sol Gills, Ahoy!" (1910). Right: Kyd's watercolour study of the old sailor with the hook: Captain Cuttle (1910).
Dickens, Charles. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"). The London Edition, Volume 4. London: Caxton & Ballantyne, 1901.
__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). 8 coloured plates. London and Edinburgh: Caxton and Ballantyne, Hanson, 1910.
__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz"). The Clarendon Edition, ed. Alan Horsman. Oxford: Clarendon, 1974.
__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr., and engraved by A. V. S. Anthony. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. III.
__________. Dombey and Son. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. 61 wood-engravings. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1877. XV.
_________. Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail, and for Exportation. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. IX.
Hammerton, J. A. "Chapter 16: Dombey and Son."The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition.Illustrated by Harry Furniss. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. Vol. 17, 294-337.
Kitton, Frederic George. Dickens and His Illustrators: Cruikshank, Seymour, Buss, "Phiz," Cattermole, Leech, Doyle, Stanfield, Maclise, Tenniel, Frank Stone, Landseer, Palmer, Topham, Marcus Stone, and Luke Fildes. Amsterdam: S. Emmering, 1972. Re-print of the London (1899) edition.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Ch. 12, "Work, Work, Work." Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004, pp. 128-160.
Lowens, Peter. "How Charles Dickens Came to Vancouver Island." Dickensian No. 525, Vol. 121, Part 1 (Spring 2025): 67-75.
Steig, Michael. Chapter 4. "Dombey and Son: Iconography of Social and Sexual Satire." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. 86-112.
Created 8 August 2015 Last modified 15 June 2025