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Mr. Jefferson Brick Proposes an Appropriate Sentiment
Phiz
July 1843
Steel-engraving
14 cm high by 10.9 cm wide, vignetted
Thirteenth regular monthly illustration for Charles Dickens's Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, facing page 199 (1844 edition) in the sixteenth chapter.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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"My War Correspondent, sir — Mr Jefferson Brick!"
Martin could not help starting at this unexpected announcement, and the consciousness of the irretrievable mistake he had nearly made.
Mr. Brick seemed pleased with the sensation he produced upon the stranger, and shook hands with him, with an air of patronage designed to reassure him, and to let him blow that there was no occasion to be frightened, for he (Brick) wouldn't hurt him.
"You have heard of Jefferson Brick, I see, sir," quoth the colonel, with a smile. "England has heard of Jefferson Brick. Europe has heard of Jefferson Brick. Let me see. When did you leave England, sir?"
"Five weeks ago," said Martin.
"Five weeks ago," repeated the colonel, thoughtfully; as he took his seat upon the table, and swung his legs. "Now let me ask you, sir which of Mr Brick's articles had become at that time the most obnoxious to the British Parliament and the Court of Saint James's?"
"Upon my word," said Martin, "I —"
"I have reason to know, sir," interrupted the colonel, "that the aristocratic circles of your country quail before the name of Jefferson Brick. I should like to be informed, sir, from your lips, which of his sentiments has struck the deadliest blow —"
"At the hundred heads of the Hydra of Corruption now grovelling in the dust beneath the lance of Reason, and spouting up to the universal arch above us, its sanguinary gore," said Mr Brick, putting on a little blue cloth cap with a glazed front, and quoting his last article.
"The libation of freedom, Brick" — hinted the colonel.
" — Must sometimes be quaffed in blood, colonel," cried Brick. And when he said "blood," he gave the great pair of scissors a sharp snap, as if they said blood too, and were quite of his opinion. [Chapter XVI, "Martin disembarks from that noble and fast-sailing Line-of-Packet ship, The Screw, at the Port of New York, in the United States of America. He makes some Acquaintances, and Dines at a Boarding-house. The Particulars of those Transactions," page 198 in the 1844 edition. Descriptive headline in the 1868 edition: "Rowdy Journalists"; descriptive headline in the 1897 "The War Correspondent."]
In the first of he American scenes, Phiz offers a number of visual details as tacit commentary upon the principals in the scene, the offices of the New York Rowdy Journal: bottles of ink and poison (presumably used by the editorial staff in equal portions), a slang dictionary, and a poster advertising "disclosures," presumably about the private lives of public figures, a tendency which in the letterpress Martin pronounces horribly "personal." Jefferson Brick's shears imply that, in the United States, the print media facilitate partisan and personal attacks, some of which can fate-like severe a political career. Young Martin, looking much as thirty-year-old author Charles Dickens must have looked at the time of his first American tour (i.e., 5 February through 7 June 1842), has discovered a society riven by political factions, but united by the common goal of making as much money as possible, by fair means or foul. Attacked by the popular press such as Brother Jonathan for speaking out against rampant American expropriation of European authors' works, Dickens had felt both vilified and exploited, for just as American publishers had ruthlessly mined the Waverley Novels of Sir Walter Scott, now they were freely pilfering the works of Frederick Marryat and Dickens himself.
The sprawling, large-scale signature in a cloud of squiggles hovers above the recumbent figure, as if to identify Mark with the newspaper's "rowdiness." The "rowdy" nature of the office is reflected in the clippings strewn about the floor, and the "rowdy" nature of Diver and Brick by their choosing to sit on the large (and highly realistic) editor's that dominates the room rather than, like the more civilized Martin, upon a chair. With bemused interest Martin reads the paper as a whole, Brick cuts it to pieces. Whereas Phiz has made young Martin a realistic figure, he has mercilessly caricatured Jefferson Brick (centre) and Colonel Diver (left) as they sip the champagne that the unscrupulous editor has just extorted from the captain of the transAtlantic vessel The Screw in New York harbour.
This expose of American journalism is the first of the illustrations depicting Dickens's own direct impressions of America. Attacked by the popular press for speaking out about American publishers' massive violations of British copyright and their flagrant piracies of the works of popular British authors, Dickens takes artistic revenge by characterizing all transAtlantic journals as "rowdy," vituperative, and scurrilous. Dickens's heavy-handed satire of Americans in general and of journalists in particular unleashed a largely negative debate about Dickens's ingratitude: actor-manager William Macready and writer Harriet Martineau sympathized with the Americans and against Dickens; Thomas Carlyle, on the other hand, relished Dickens's assault on Yankle doodledom as "capital." The moment that Phiz, undoubtedly assisted by Dickens in terms of American costume, has realized is this:
"I will give you," he said to Colonel Diver and Martin, "'The Rowdy Journal and its brethren; the well of Truth, whose waters are black from being composed of printers' ink" (Ch. 16).
Diver's pomposity and high-flown rhetoric (to say nothing of his egotism and hypocrisy) immediately recall the comic excesses of Seth Pecksniff.
Allingham, Philip V. "Historical Background." The Dickens Magazine: Martin Chuzzlewit. 5.2 (August, 2008): 8.
_____. "Phiz's Illustrations, Part Two." [Ch. 16-23] The Dickens Magazine: Martin Chuzzlewit. 5.2 (August, 2008): 9-13.
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1844.
Harvey, John R. Ch. 6, "Dickens and Browne: Martin Chuzzledwit to Bleak House." Victorian Novelists and Their Illustrators. London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1970.
Steig, Michael. Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978.
Vann, J. Don. "Martin Chuzzlewit, twenty parts in nineteen monthly installments, January 1843 — July 1844." New York: Modern Language Association, 1985. Pp. 66-67.
Modified 8 January 2019
Last updated 12 November 2024