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Mr Watkins Tottle and Miss Lillerton
George Cruikshank
1839
Etching on copper
9.2 x 8.5 cm, vignetted
Chapter 2 of "A Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle," Chapter 10 in "Tales" by Charles Dickens in Sketches by Boz, originally published in the February 1835 number of The Monthly Magazine; illustration facing p. 340.
[Click on image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
"There are some books on the sofa, Mr. Tottle, if you would like to look at them," said Miss Lillerton, after the lapse of another five minutes.
"No, thank you,"returned Watkins; and then he added, with a courage which was perfectly astonishing, even to himself, "Madam, that is Miss Lillerton, I wish to speak to you."
"To me!" said Miss Lillerton, letting the silk drop from her hands, and sliding her chair back a few paces. — "Speak — to me!"
"To you, madam—and on the subject of the state of your affections."The lady hastily rose and would have left the room; but Mr. Watkins Tottle gently detained her by the hand, and holding it as far from him as the joint length of their arms would permit, he thus proceeded: "Pray do not misunderstand me, or suppose that I am led to address you, after so short an acquaintance, by any feeling of my own merits — for merits I have none which could give me a claim to your hand. I hope you will acquit me of any presumption when I explain that I have been acquainted through Mrs. Parsons, with the state — that is, that Mrs. Parsons has told me — at least, not Mrs. Parsons, but —" here Watkins began to wander, but Miss Lillerton relieved him.
"Am I to understand, Mr. Tottle, that Mrs. Parsons has acquainted you with my feeling — my affection— I mean my respect, for an individual of the opposite sex?"
"She has."
"Then, what?’ inquired Miss Lillerton, averting her face, with a girlish air, "what could induce youto seek such an interview as this? What can your object be? How can I promote your happiness, Mr. Tottle?"
Here was the time for a flourish — "By allowing me," replied Watkins, falling bump on his knees, and breaking two brace-buttons and a waistcoat-string, in the act — "By allowing me to be your slave, your servant — in short, by unreservedly making me the confidant of your heart's feelings — may I say for the promotion of your own happiness — may I say, in order that you may become the wife of a kind and affectionate husband?"
"Disinterested creature!" exclaimed Miss Lillerton, hiding her face in a white pocket-handkerchief with an eyelet-hole border. — Chapter 2 of "A Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle," Chapter 10 in "Tales," running head, "Mr. Tottle makes a bold Start," pp. 349-50.
Comic account of an impoverished middle-aged bachelor's attempt, initiated and organized by his prosperous friend, Gabriel Parsons, to capture the affections of a prim, well-to-do spinster, Miss Lillerton. During the course of the story Tottle is arrested for theft [actually, debt] and taken to a sponging-house, from which he is rescued by Parsons. He fails, however, to win Miss Lillerton, who gives her hand to a smooth young curate instead, and Parsons gives him up in disgust. — The Dickens Index, p. 191.
Consistent with the miscommunication and misapprehension in the accompanying text, the drawing-room scene leads the reader to assume that Tottle is going to be successful in his quest to marry to demure spinster — however, her smiling behind her handkerchief at the reader is Cruikshank's comment on the comic misdirection, abetted by Mrs. Parsons, who has allowed herself to be called out of the room, although she is serving as her friend's chaperone and already knows about Miss Lillerton's liaison with the Reverend Charles Timson. Again, the detailing of the parlour is perfectly convincing, so that the reader willingly suspends disbelief, and accepts the notion that the squeamish spinster, not having set the date with the Reverend Timson, believes that the elderly Tottle is acting on her fiancé's behalf, that the "kind and affectionate husband" to whom he alludes is the younger, suave clergyman, and that Mrs. Parsons has let Tottle in on the secret engagement. The portrait of the younger man on the left must be that of Gabriel Parsons, who has clearly not been let in on the secret since he has advanced fifty pounds to Tottle on the strength of his marrying Miss Lillerton. The scene, the upstairs drawing-room of the Parsons' villa in Northampton, includes a coal hopper (suggesting the presence of the fireplace mentioned in the text) and a lady's workbasket. Other plausible details not mentioned in the text include the curtains and the bell-jar statue of Cupid on one knee with his bow, an emblem that suggests no arrow from Watkins Tottle is about to stir the spinster's emotions.
As Jane Rabb Cohen has noted, Dickens and Cruikshank, in text and illustration, are able to give the reader hints as to how each narrative "progress" will end; the three Cruikshank illustrations for "A Passage in the Life of Watkins Tottle" are particularly "Hogarthian" in that the timid protagonist's desire for wife and fortune (implied by the flashback of Gabriel and Fanny Parsons' romance at the head of the story) is frustrated first by his being arrested for debt, and then by his own bashful vagueness of expression in framing his proposal:
Indeed, Dickens's "progresses" throughout the Sketches, whether of criminals, or objects, or lovers, are really degenerations, ending only in disintegration or death. The author, and the artist after him, depicted little change in this society that was not for the worse.
Dickens described the appearance of his characters as well as their environments in graphic detail. Yet the physical attributes of his characters, as Thackeray observed, would not have "impressed" themselves on the reader's memory were it not for Cruikshank's rendering of them. Indeed, despite his delineation of them in conceptual as well as visual detail, Dickens's point was precisely the insignificance of his characters. His Londoners are constantly overwhelmed by their environment; things are endowed with more importance, vitality, and permanence than people. — Jane Rabb Cohen, "George Cruikshank," p. 18.
The massive curtains in the third of the three "Tottle" illustrations do not merely seal the elderly bachelor and flirtatious spinster in the little drawing-room; they suggest that these two are actors in the third act of a stage farce that their misunderstanding is creating. The portrait here, like portraits in Cruikshank's other quiet, middle-class interiors, implies an audience relishing their folly. "By ironic contrast, the impassive figures in the portraits that adorn many of the interior sin the Sketches not only anticipate the possible fate of those characters they so often resemble . . . , but bear witness that permanence in such a society comes only through death, or perhaps art" (18).
Deborah A. Thomas notes that "A Passage in the Life of Watkins Tottle" and seven other early short fictions published in the years 1833, 1834, and 1835 in periodicals and then as "Tales" in Sketches by Boz are "exercises in the art of fiction" [De Vries, p. 31] "that sometimes end on what readers of Dickens's subsequent works may view as an uncharacteristically bitter note" (14). However, whereas there is an element of poetic justice in young couple in "Sentiment" being exiled and in Horatio Sparkins' being exposed as a fraud, Dickens's treatment of the inept Watkins Tottle seems excessive, for his failing as a suitor results in his being rejected by his only friend, Gabriel Parsons, which in turn leads to his deep depression and subsequent suicide.
This is one of three sequential illustrations for a single story; the only other 1839 selections with more than a single illustration each are "The Boarding House" (two plates, one for each part) and "The Steam Excursion" (also two illustrations, one for each part). As Frederic G. Kitton notes, Cruikshank had to re-engrave these three illustrations for the Chapman and Hall serialisation, and the subsequent 1839 anthology:
During the following year (1837) Macrone published a Second Series of the "Sketches" in one volume, uniform in size and character with its predecessors, and containing ten etchings by Cruikshank; for the second edition of this extra volume two additional illustrations were done, viz., "The Last Cab-Driver" and "May-day in the Evening." It was at this time that Dickens repurchased from Macrone the entire copyright of the "Sketches," and arranged with Chapman & Hall for a complete edition, to be issued in shilling monthly parts, octavo size, the first number appearing in November of that year. The completed work contained all the Cruikshank plates (except that entitled "The Free and Easy," which, for some unexplained reason, was cancelled) and the following [twelve] new subjects: "The Parish Engine," "The Broker's Man," "Our Next-door Neighbours" [sic], "Early Coaches," "Public Dinners," "The Gin-Shop," "Making a Night of It," "The Boarding-House," "The Tuggses at Ramsgate," "The Steam Excursion," "Mrs. Joseph Porter," and "Mr. Watkins Tottle." — "George Cruikshank, p. 4.
Left: Cruikshank's initial illustration for the story, introducing the timid protagonist, Watkins Tottle. Left of centre: Cruikshank's third illustration, which suggests that Tottle will be successful in his courtship of the affluent spinster, Mr. Watkins Tottle and Miss Lillerton. Right of centre: Eytinge's single illustration, featuring Tottle (right), Rev. Timson (lefty), and Parsons (centre), as they learn of Miss Lillerton's engagement to the Anglican minister, Mr. Watkins Tottle (1867). Right: Furniss's realisation of the agent of the lock-up house, The Sheriff-Officer's Mercury (1910). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Above: Fred Barnard's wood-engraving of the same situation in the two-part short story, "Why," replied Mr. Watkins Tottle, evasively; for he trembled violently, and felt a sudden tingling throughout his whole frame; "Why — I should certainly — at least, I think I should like —" — to marry the wealthy spinster, Miss Lillerton. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Above: Fred Barnard's wood-engraving of the scene in which Solomon Jacobs' minion reveals that Tottle has been apprehended for debt, "I've brought this here note," replied the individual in the painted tops in a hoarse whisper; "I've brought this here note from a gen'l'm'n as come to our house this mornin'." [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
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Last modified 25 May 2017