[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> Phiz —> Martin Chuzzlewit —> Charles Dickens —> Next]
Mr. Pecksniff Announces Himself as the Shield of Virtue
Phiz
April 1844
Steel-engraving
11.9 cm by 10.3 cm, vignetted
Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit, Ch. XLIII.
[Click on image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose, as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
The original 1844 edition of Dickens's Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit placed Mr. Pecksniff Announces Himself as the Shield of Virtue (the thirty-second monthly illustration of the novel) facing p. 496 in the forty-third chapter.
He hurriedly advanced to seize the old man's hand in his, when Mr. Pecksniff interposed himself between them.
"No, young man!" said Mr. Pecksniff, striking himself upon the breast, and stretching out his other arm towards his guest as if it were a wing to shelter him. "No, sir. None of that. Strike here, sir, here! Launch your arrows at me, sir, if you'll have the goodness; not at Him!"
"Grandfather!" cried Martin. "Hear me! I implore you, let me speak!"
"Would you, sir? Would you?’ said Mr Pecksniff, dodging about, so as to keep himself always between them. "Is it not enough, sir, that you come into my house like a thief in the night, or I should rather say, for we can never be too particular on the subject of Truth, like a thief in the day-time; bringing your dissolute companions with you, to plant themselves with their backs against the insides of parlour doors, and prevent the entrance or issuing forth of any of my household" — Mark had taken up this position, and held it quite unmoved — "but would you also strike at venerable Virtue? Would you? Know that it is not defenceless. I will be its shield, young man. Assail me. Come on, sir. Fire away!" [Chapter XLIII, "Has an Influence on the Fortunes of several People. Mr. Pecksniff is exhibited in the Plenitude of Power; and wields the same with Fortitude and Magnanimity," page 497 in the 1844 edition]
If Pecksniff is to succeed in his plan to supplant young Martin as the patriarch's heir, he must ensure that the young protagonist does not effect a reconcilliation with the curmudgeonly grandfather. Consequently, when he discovers young Martin talking to Martin Chuzzlewit, Senior, the devious hypocrite acts with alacrity and determination to make himself a "shield of virtue" — in other words, as a blocking figure in a stage comedy. Only by safeguarding the exclusivity of his relationship with the patriarch whom he has taken under his own roof can Pecksniff hope to bring his plans, including marrying Mary Graham, to fruition. Phiz uses the juxtaposition of the figures to make plain their relationship as Pecksniff comes between the gradndfather and grandson as Mark Tapley observes the confrontation. Pecksniff may even be provoking a physical altercation that will demonstrate the young man's rash temper and unsuitability as Old Martin's heir. If we may judge by Old Martin's demeanour, Pecksniff is succeeding. However, the greenery intruding at the window implies that a renewed intimacy between the grandchild and grandparent will develop, and that Pecksniff cannot keep Mary and Old Martin to himself. His flamboyant gesture underscores the false melodramatic note that Dickens strikes in the accompanying text. Phiz has once again placed the architectural drawings on the wall to establish to setting as Pecksniff's parlour.
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1844.
_____. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Edited by Andrew Lang. Illustrated by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne). The Gadshill Edition: 34 volumes. London: Chapman and Hall; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1897. 2 vols.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.
Monod, Sylvère. "External and Additional Material." Martin Chuzzlewit. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1985. Pp. 173-185.
Steig, Michael. "From Caricature to Progress: Master Humphrey's Clock and Martin Chuzzlewit." Ch. 3, Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 51-85.
_____. "Martin Chuzzlewit's Progress by Dickens and Phiz." Dickens Studies Annual, 2 (1972): 119-149.
Vann, J. Don. "Martin Chuzzlewit, twenty parts in nineteen monthly installments, January 1843 — July 1844." New York: Modern Language Association, 1985. Pp. 66-67.
Last modified 29 April 2019