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Passage Illustrated: The Parson Brawling at the Alehouse

These words occasioned a dialogue between Adams and the host, in which there were two or three sharp replies, till Joseph bad the latter know how to behave himself to his betters. At which the host (having first strictly surveyed Adams) scornfully repeating the word "betters," flew into a rage, and, telling Joseph he was as able to walk out of his house as he had been to walk into it, offered to lay violent hands on him; which perceiving, Adams dealt him so sound a compliment over his face with his fist, that the blood immediately gushed out of his nose in a stream. The host, being unwilling to be outdone in courtesy, especially by a person of Adams's figure, returned the favour with so much gratitude, that the parson's nostrils began to look a little redder than usual. Upon which he again assailed his antagonist, and with another stroke laid him sprawling on the floor.

The hostess, who was a better wife than so surly a husband deserved, seeing her husband all bloody and stretched along, hastened presently to his assistance, or rather to revenge the blow, which, to all appearance, was the last he would ever receive; when, lo! a pan full of hog's blood, which unluckily stood on the dresser, presented itself first to her hands. She seized it in her fury, and without any reflection, discharged it into the parson's face; and with so good an aim, that much the greater part first saluted his countenance, and trickled thence in so large a current down to his beard, and over his garments, that a more horrible spectacle was hardly to be seen, or even imagined. All which was perceived by Mrs Slipslop, who entered the kitchen at that instant. This good gentlewoman, not being of a temper so extremely cool and patient as perhaps was required to ask many questions on this occasion, flew with great impetuosity at the hostess's cap, which, together with some of her hair, she plucked from her head in a moment, giving her, at the same time, several hearty cuffs in the face; which by frequent practice on the inferior servants, she had learned an excellent knack of delivering with a good grace. Poor Joseph could hardly rise from his chair; the parson was employed in wiping the blood from his eyes, which had entirely blinded him; and the landlord was but just beginning to stir; whilst Mrs. Slipslop, holding down the landlady's face with her left hand, made so dexterous an use of her right, that the poor woman began to roar, in a key which alarmed all the company in the inn. [Book II, Chapter 5: "A Dreadful Quarrel which happened at the Inn where the company dined, with its bloody consequences to Mr Adams," pp. 114-115]

Commentary

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. Working in the tradition of the earlier illustrators of many of these same works, Thomas Stothard and Thomas Rowlandson in turn influenced Cruikshank, who began book-illustration as a sort of Rowlandson disciple. This plate for Joseph Andrews (1831; although the book is dated 1832) effectively elaborates upon the misadventures of the story's most compelling character, who, like Cervantes' Don Quixote, is by turns heroic, confused, and comic. In his "Illustrations of Smollett, Fielding, and Goldsmith" (1832), as​ W. H. Chesson notes, Cruikshank presents eighteenth-century humour "as the flower of annoyance and catastrophe" (p. 188) — here, both at once as the learned clergyman finds himself covered with pig's bloody and at the centre of a tavern brawl in which he has laid out cold the supercilious landlord.

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]

Hot-headed though the innkeeper, Mr. Tow-wouse, may be, he draws the line at going to law for damages when two lawyers, who have just arrived by coach, encourage him to take an action against his fractious guest. All of this waste and temper is the result of Adams and Joseph not being able to cover the stabling of the horse. Mrs. Slipslop has come to Adams' rescue, and is now walloping the landlady (right) as Joseph, dumbfounded, watches from the left. The overall effect is that of an Hogarthian triple-action, with Joseph momentarily stunned, Adams about to clean his face with a handkerchief as he stands above his adversary, and Mrs. Slipslop (a somewhat grotesque Cruikshankian type) caught in the midst of a vigorous, Baroque action.

The Quixotic Character of Parson Abraham Adams

Since Cruikshank had his choice of a number of named characters to illustrate for Fielding's The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, and of his Friend Mr. Abraham Adams (1742), a reader not familiar with the eighteenth-century novel might well wonder why the Victorian illustrator focussed on the kindly and somewhat absent-minded Parson Adams, who​serves as a surrogate father to the naive Joseph. He is good-hearted but doctrinally a bit of a rebel for a Church of England minister. He becomes an agent of Providence when, quite by coincidence, the parson arrives at the inn where Joseph, badly beaten by highwaymen, is being tended. Having been robbed and even stripped of his clothing, Joseph has no money with which to pay his accommodation, and the landlady is all for turning him out​ — until Adams agrees to cover Joseph's expenses. His moral judgments about the principal characters of the interpolated tale "Leonora" actually condition readers' responses to the tale. Abraham Adams, despite his prodigious learning in Latin and Greek texts and a sympathetic heart, as a poor curate has to work extremely hard, particularly on Sunday, when he preaches a number of sermons in rural churches while the incumbents live in luxury in London. And despite his linguistic facility and scholarly attainments, Adams affords considerable comic relief as he is extremely absent-minded: for example, he leaves his horse at an inn after packing Joseph onto a coach, and assumes when the coachman tries to catch up with to remind him about the horse that the coachman is playing some sort of game. Despite there being some extremely amusing characters in the novel, Parson Adams is the funniest — and most convincing​— of all. As Walter Allen remarks,

perhaps he owes something to Don Quixote, but he is in every sense an original character, one of the archetypal characters in English fiction; and the secret of the pleasure he gives us can no more be reduced to a critical formula than Falstaff's [in Shakespeare's Henry the Fourth, Part One and The Merry Wives of Windsor] can. Adams, with his absent-mindedness, his small pedantries and vanities, his naive trust in human goodness, which is always being betrayed, is the heart of the novel. Fielding — and the reader — laugh at his innocence, which is constantly getting him into one series after another of misunderstandings and imbroglios; yet it is Adams, with his simple belief that Christianity is to be practised as well as preached, who is the measuring rod for all the other characters. . . . [56]

Cruikshank owned the third edition of the novel, illustrated by James Hulett, in which he inserted some pencil sketches as he was reading. He loved realising Fielding's farcical scenes, so smacking of the physical comedy of stage farces:

Even more congenial [than the knockabout scenes from Tom Jones] were Parson Adams's mishaps in Joseph Andrews: he gets hit in the face with a basin of hog's blood (a popular subject with previous illustrators) and slips into the muck of Parson Trulliber's pigsty. [Patten, p. 349].

Bibliography

Allen, Walter. "The Eighteenth Century." The English Novel: A Short Critical History. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1954. Pp. 43-102.

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.

Chesson, W. H. George Cruikshank. London: Duckworth, n. d.

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.

Fielding, Henry.​ The Adventures of Joseph Andrews​and his friend, Parson Abraham Adams.​Illustrated by George Cruikshank.​London: James Cochrane and Co.,​1832; rpt., London: George Bell, 1904.

Fielding, Henry.​Joseph Andrews, Shamela and Related Writings.​Ed. Homer Goldberg. New York: Norton Critical Editions, 1987.

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

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. "Phase 2: The Finest Things, Next to Rembrandt's — 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.

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

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