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Passage Illustrated

Slawkenbergii Fabella.

Vespera quâdam frigidulâ, posteriori in parte mensis Augusti, peregrinus, mulo fusco colore insidens, manticâ a tergo, paucis indusijs, binis calceis, braccisque sericis coccinejs repletâ Argentoratum ingressus est.

Militi eum percontanti, quum portus intraret, dixit, se apud Nasorum promontorium fuisse, Francofurtum proficisci, et Argentoratum, transitu ad fines Sarmatiæ mensis intervallo, reversurum.​

Miles peregrini in faciem suspexit — Di boni, nova forma nasi!

It​ was one cool refreshing evening, at the close of a very sultry day, in the latter end of the month of August, when a stranger, mounted upon a dark mule, with a small cloak-bag behind him, containing a few shirts, a pair of shoes, and a crimson-sattin pair of breeches, entered the town of Strasburg.

He told the​ sentinel, who questioned him as he entered the gates, that he had been at the promontory of NOSES — was going on to Frankfort — and should be back again at Strasburg that day month, in his way to the borders of Crim-Tartary.

The​ sentinel looked up into the stranger's face — never saw such a nose in his life!

No! said he, dropping his reins upon his mule's neck, and laying both his hands upon his breast, the one over the other in a saint-like position (his mule going on easily all the time) No! said he, looking up, — I am not such a debtor to the world — slandered and disappointed as I have been — as to give it that conviction — no! said he, my nose shall never be touched whilst heaven gives me strength​ — To do what? said a burgomaster's wife.

The stranger took no notice of the​burgomaster's wife — he was making a vow to saint Nicolas . . . . [Volume IV, Chapter I,​ pp. 2-3]

Commentary

The third of eight Cruikshank illustrations for Sterne's Tristram Shandy, in the Novelist's Library (1832), vol. XI, dates from the period of 1830 to 1836, when John Leech and Hablot Knight Browne arrived on the scene, Cruikshank was the undisputed master of book-illustration in England. The long-nosed stranger at Strasburg is generally reckoned to be among his very best book-illustrations from that period. Cruikshank executed seventy-four such etchings for the works of eighteenth-century novelists, covering seventeen of the nineteen volumes in Roscoe's Novelist's Library (London: James Cochrane, 1831-33). Of particular relevance here are his companion illustrations for Smollett, Fielding, Goldsmith, Sterne, and Cervantes. In these Cruikshank is working in the tradition of the earlier illustrators of many of these same works, Thomas Stothard, and Thomas Rowlandson.

Here we have Cruikshank's interpretations of some of the standard reading fare of the English public of his day. For works by Smollett, he did four etchings for Humphrey Clinker, five for Roderick Random, and eight for Peregrine Pickle. . . . . The general rule seemed to be four etchings for every volume in the series. [Vogler, p. 145]

This steel-engraved illustration of the almost saintly long-nosed traveller entering Strasburg introduces a long diversion which quotes one of Tristram's father's favourites in a collection of stories in Latin about noses. In this one, interest in the long-nosed stranger's nose draws the people of Strasburg out of their homes, just prior to French conquest of the town. The moment realised opens "Slawkenbergius's Tale" at the beginning of Book IV, which is also provided in Latin for a few pages. This tale recounts the journey of a courteous gentleman, Diego, who was endowed with a massive nose. Diego attempts to pass inconspicuously through Strassburg on his way from the "Promontory of Noses", but the sight of his giant nose sends the Strassburgers, especially the nuns, into a restless frenzy. The tale relays the results of the upset in Strassburg and the travels of Diego to his admirer Julia. Sterne in "Slawkenbergius's Tale" is imitating the style of Cervantes in Don Quixote.

A gentleman with an extremely long nose and with a feather in his cap, his arms crossed over his chest and eyes raised to the heavens, riding on an ass; to the right, the burgomaster's wife looking on in astonishment; men in military dress and women beyond, before the gates of Strasburg; illustration to "Roscoe's Novelist's Library, vol. XI and XII — The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy (1832). [British Library]

Cruikshank continued throughout his lengthy career as an artist and book illustrator to have a fascination with odd-looking characters. Indeed, facial distortions such as long noses and nutcracker chins seem to have intrigued him, particularly in figures such as Dickens's Fagin, for whom a distorted physiognomy was a reflection of his social and ethnic apartness, as in Oliver introduced to the respectable Old Gentleman​ (Part 4, May 1837).​ In Automaton Police Officer and the Real Offenders in Bentley's Miscellany for September 1838, for example, Cruikshank uses the same sort of distortion to ridicule the police magistrates. In this particular illustration from 1832, Cruikshank foregrounds the long-nosed, aesthetic-looking traveller (reminiscent of his visualisations of Don Quixote) in a peculiar pose — his arms crossed, so that he is not in control of the reins of his mount​ as his rides down the cobblestoned European high street.​ Behind him, at the mediaeval town-gate with a coat-of-arms over the arch, the tall, gangly sentinel ​with whom the stranger has just conversed, chats with a youth. Behind the mule, another soldier converses with a townswoman, perhaps about the stranger. The feather on the stranger's hat echoes the curve of the archway, taking the eye back to the gateway, while the scimitar emphasizes the vertical, leading the eye upward, to the stranger's unusually long nose,a distortion that has attracted the attention of the traditionally-dressed, middle-aged burgomaster's wife with the exaggerated furbelow or neck-frill in the foreground. Her right hand almost of its own accord is starting to reach out to touch the phallic-looking proboscus.

Bibliography

Burton, Anthony. "Cruikshank as an Illustrator of Fiction." George Cruikshank: A Revaluation. Ed. Robert L. Patten. Princeton: Princeton U. P., 1974, rev., 1992. Pp. 92-128.

Cohen, Jane Rabb. Part One, "Dickens and His Early Illustrators: 1. George Cruikshank. Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio University Press, 1980. Pp. 15-38.

Kitton, Frederic G. "George Cruikshank." Dickens and His Illustrators. London: Chapman & Hall, 1899. Pp. 1-28.

"The Long-nosed Stranger at Strasburg." British Library Collection online. http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=3509234&partId=1&people=106450&peoA=106450-1-2&view=list&page=1

McLean, Ruari. George Cruikshank: His Life and Work as a Book Illustrator. English Masters of Black-and-White. London: Art and Technics, 1948.

Patten, Robert L. Chapter 21, "An 'Average-European' Style." George Cruikshank's Life, Times, and Art, vol. 1: 1792-1835. Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers U. P., 1992; London: The Lutterworth Press, 1992. Pp. 341-354.

Sterne, Laurence. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759). Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London: James Cochrane, 1832.

Vogler, Richard A. Graphic Works of George Cruikshank. New York: Dover, 1979.

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Last modified 8 January 2018