"The Sagacious Dog" — Seymour's third illustration for Dickens's "Pickwick Papers" (May 1836)

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The Sagacious Dog

Robert Seymour

May 1836

steel engraving

10.6 cm high by 9.0 cm wide, vignetted

Chapter 5, Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens, facing p. 8

[Click on the image to enlarge it.]

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.]

Passage Illustrated: Alfred Jingle's Canine Reminiscence

Notice: The Gamekeeper has orders to shoot all Dogs found in this enclosure. {embedded signage]

"Sportsman, sir?" [remarked Jingle] abruptly turning to Mr. Winkle.

"A little, Sir," replied that gentleman.

"Fine pursuit, sir — fine pursuit. — Dogs, Sir?"

"Not just now," said Mr. Winkle.

"Ah! you should keep dogs — fine animals — sagacious creatures — dog of my own once — pointer — surprising instinct —out shooting one day — entering inclosure — whistled — dog stopped — whistled again — Ponto — no go; stock still — called him — Ponto, Ponto — wouldn’t move — dog transfixed—staring at a board—looked up, saw an inscription — "Gamekeeper has orders to shoot all dogs found in this inclosure" — wouldn’t pass it — wonderful dog — valuable dog that — very."

"Singular circumstance that," said Mr. Pickwick. "Will you allow me to make a note of it?" [Chapter II, "The First Day’s Journey, and the First Evening’s Advebntures; with their Consequences," 9]

Commentary: Another of Jingle's Tall Tales

The Sagacious Dog seems at first blush to be an utter interpolation, and a spurious one at that, since in it Seymour realizes not an actual event in the Pickwickians' adventures, but merely a reminiscence of the loquacious stranger who has suddenly forced himself upon them at Pickwick's quarrel with the paranoid cabman. However, the illustration certainly suggests field sports, the nominal subject of the Chapman and Hall project at this point. Moreover, through this plate, the illustrator draws the attention of readers to the utter improbability of Alfred Jingle's anecdotes, delivered rapid-fire and without transition.

After he has recalled the execution of Charles the First at Whitehall Palace (which the group are apparently passing at this point), Jingle then mentions how he came to write an epic poem of ten thousand lines even as he was fighting on the side of the insurgents in the July revolution in Paris. Since Jingle's having been involved in the 1789 revolution (thirty-eight years earlier, probably before he was born) is out of the question, Dickens may have erred in his timeline if the year is supposedly 1827: the 1830 revolution would have been three years in the future. But everything about the out-of-work actor is spurious. Jingle, the confidence man who is both quick-witted and unstoppably loquacious, preys upon the gullible — and the affluent, into which category readers readily place Pickwick and his friends. Pickwick unreservedly swallows Jingle's anecdote about the dog who could read the "no trespassing" sign. In Seymour's illustration, Jingle, fowling piece on his shoulder, has just crossed the stile, but his pointer, Ponto, demonstrating a nice sense of self-preservation, refuses to join him. Seymour even goes so far as to suggest that Ponto is reading the cautionary notice.

Other artists who illustrated this work, 1836-74

Bibliography

Cohen, Jane Rabb. Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio State U. P., 1980.

Dickens, Charles. "Pickwick Papers. Illustrated by Robert Seymour, Robert Buss, and Hablot Knight Browne. London: Chapman & Hall, 1836-37.

__________. "Pickwick Papers. Illustrated by Robert Seymour and Hablot Knight Browne. London: Chapman & Hall, 1896.

__________. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. Engraved by A. V. S. Anthony. The Diamond Edition. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.

__________. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. The Household Edition. Illustrated by Thomas Nast and Hablot Knight Browne. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1873; London: Chapman and Hall, 1874.

Last modified 28 December 2019