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Now there happened to be in Mudfog, as somehow or other there does happen to be, in almost every town in the British dominions, and perhaps in foreign dominions too — we think it very likely, but, being no great traveller, cannot distinctly say — there happened to be, in Mudfog, a merry-tempered, pleasant-faced, good-for-nothing sort of vagabond, with an invincible dislike to manual labour, and an unconquerable attachment to strong beer and spirits, whom everybody knew, and nobody, except his wife, took the trouble to quarrel with, who inherited from his ancestors the appellation of Edward Twigger, and rejoiced in the sobriquet of Bottle-nosed Ned. He was drunk upon the average once a day, and penitent upon an equally fair calculation once a month; and when he was penitent, he was invariably in the very last stage of maudlin intoxication. He was a ragged, roving, roaring kind of fellow, with a burly form, a sharp wit, and a ready head, and could turn his hand to anything when he chose to do it. [613]

While all this was going forward, Ned Twigger had descended into the kitchen of Mudfog Hall for the purpose of indulging the servants with a private view of the curiosity that was to burst upon the town; and, somehow or other, the footman was so companionable, and the housemaid so kind, and the cook so friendly, that he could not resist the offer of the first-mentioned to sit down and take something — just to drink success to master in.

So, down Ned Twigger sat himself in his brass livery on the top of the kitchen-table; and in a mug of something strong, paid for by the unconscious Nicholas Tulrumble, and provided by the companionable footman, drank success to the Mayor and his procession; and, as Ned laid by his helmet to imbibe the something strong, the companionable footman put it on his own head, to the immeasurable and unrecordable delight of the cook and housemaid. The companionable footman was very facetious to Ned, and Ned was very gallant to the cook and housemaid by turns. They were all very cosy and comfortable; and the something strong went briskly round.

At last Ned Twigger was loudly called for, by the procession people: and, having had his helmet fixed on, in a very complicated manner, by the companionable footman, and the kind housemaid, and the friendly cook, he walked gravely forth, and appeared before the multitude. — The Oxford Illustrated Dickens, p. 618.

Commentary

The first number of the new magazine [originally, Wit's Miscellany, but finally Bentley's Miscellany], in January 1837, had opened with a sketch by [Dickens] entitled "The Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble" and then the next month another sketch, a continuation of the first, appeared under the title "Oliver Twist." The first had been set in "Mudfog," a pseudonym for Chatham, and was a pleasant enough satire on the idiocies of provincial authorities with the moral that "puffed-up conceit is not dignity." The second, with "Oliver Twist" as its title, begins in a workhouse in the same town of Mudfog. In other words, at this point, harassed by family difficulties, exhausted by overwork, and suffering from a variety of ailments, Dickens himself did not at first seem to realise that he was embarking upon the novel which in later years would perhaps more than any other be identified with his name. He had the idea only of a series of articles in mind ("The Chronicles of Mudfog," perhaps), but then almost as soon as he began he had "hit on a capital notion." — Peter Ackroyd, 215-216.

Once established as a novelist, Charles Dickens seems to have forgotten about the youthful joie d'esprit of the satirical Mudfog Papers since they were not published as a collection during his lifetime. Dickens's first essay in the series, "Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble, Once Mayor of Mudfog," satirizes local politics, but his general intention seems to have been to pillory amateur scientific societies, his chief model being The British Association for the Advancement of Science (founded in 1831); hence, the Mudfog Association somewhat hyperbolically seeks "the Advancement of Every-thing." Thus, the "Full Report of the First Meeting" (October 1837) and the "Full Report of the Second Meeting" (September 1838) may be regarded as extensions of the twenty-five-year-old Dickens's satirical portrait of the members of a similar society in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, yet another [not-so-learned] society dedicated to the advancement of knowledge. However, in the "Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble, Once Mayor of Mudfog" (unlike the "Full Report" pieces later) Dickens does not play with the form and language of the kind of parliamentary reports he read as a reporter covering debates in the House of Commons.

The setting is purportedly the sleepy, unsophisticated town of Mudfog, which Dickens based on Chatham and Rochester in Kent, where he had spent the happiest part of his youth. When Oliver Twist first appeared in the February 1837 (second) number Bentley's Miscellany, Dickens described Mudfog as Oliver's birthplace and the location of the workhouse presided over by a parsimonious and heartless board of governors, so that what became a novel probably began as a mere satire on the New Poor Law, and therefore a continuation of the first of The Mudfog Papers. However, Dickens subsequently expunged references to Mudfog when he readied the novel for publication as a triple-decker (three-volume novel) in November 1838. The two-fold inspiration for the satirical sketch Michael Slater in his biography identifies as "the fatuously pompous Mr Nupkins, J. P., Mayor of Ipswich" (87) in the tenth monthly part of the Pickwick Papers and the November 1837 iteration of the Lord Mayor's Show: "this may well have been what sparked off in Dickens's mind, already running on provincial mayors. . . , the idea of a vainglorious specimen of the breed intent on mounting his own 'Show'" (87).

In imitation of the grand ceremonial procession staged for London's Lord Mayor annually in November in the streets of the capital, the small-town politician with grandiose aspirations, Nicholas Tulrumble, attempts to stage his own municipal extravaganza. As a key component of his installation as mayor, the overweening Tulrumble hires a local n'er-do-well, Ned Twigger, as his "champion," who will defend his honour against all comers, just as the monarch's champion would do at the coronation. Things go badly awry when Tom drinks too much below stairs in order to summon up the courage to appear in public in a full suit of brass armour. The drinking scene, with the town drunk in full armour, is the "capital subject" which author and illustrator had told the publisher would be the initial Bentley's plate in the first number, a nice piece of physical comedy far funnier than any satirical portrait of the over-reaching politician himself could ever be. Ironically, Mayor Tulrumble is responsible in part for Twigger's inebriation because he plies him with glass after glass of rum in order to persuade him to don the heavy armour, despite the fact that Tulrumble then insists that Bottle-nosed Ned must be "perfectly sober." In the Cruikshank copper engraving that led off the first issue of the magazine, jolly Ned is hoisting a glass as he hugs the amiable cook, nearly falling off the kitchen table in the process. In this delightful scene below stairs the servants are mightily enjoying the spectacle; it is only 9:55 A. M. by the clock (upper right), far too early for a deep carouse. The dog barks in anxiety (left) and the footman (right), wearing Ned's helmet, shows off for his fellow-servants. Clever touches added by Cruikshank include the footman's holding both the sword and the scabbard of the Mayor's champion, and the laughing kitchen boy in the background, utterly delighted by the boisterous scene.

References

Ackroyd, Peter. Dickens: A Biography. London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1990.

Bentley, Nicholas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens: Index. Oxfiord: Oxford U. P., 1990.

Dickens, Charles. "Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble, Once Mayor of Mudfog." Bentley's Miscellany. London: Richard Bentley, January 1837.

Dickens, Charles. "The Mudfog and Other Sketches." Sketches by Boz Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-Day People. Ed. Thea Holme. The Oxford Illustrated Dickens. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1957; rpt., 1987.

Schlicke, Paul. "The Mudfog Papers." The Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1999. P. 386.

Slater, Michael. Charles Dickens: A Life Defined by Writing. New Haven and London: Yale U. P., 2009.

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