Mr. Lambkin, at an evening party, being full of Life and Spirits
George Cruikshank
1844
Steel-engraving
10 cm high by 9 cm wide, framed
Eighth illustration for George Cruikshank's The Bachelor’s Own Book; Or, The Progress Of Mr. Lambkin (Gent.), in the Pursuit Of Pleasure And Amusement (page 17, right-hand side of the fifth plate, complementing Lambkin's making a fool of himself at the picnic).
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Mr. Lambkin, at an evening party, being full of Life and Spirits (or rather, Wine.) gives great offence to the lady of his affections, by his Philanderings, and completely ruins his fortunes by dancing the Polka with such violence as to upset poor Old John, the coffee, and indeed the whole party.
Here the illustration and extended caption complement each other to enable Cruikshank to narrate Lambkin's downward progress more effectively. For example, although the caption mentions the protagonist's upsetting both Old John and the coffee, the illustration clarifies Old John's identity as a footman or butler in livery. As Lambkin cavorts in the crowded parlour, he nudges the elderly servant, throwing him off balance, so that the "lady of Lambkin's affections (now abandoned, seated right) is in jeopardy of having the contents of the coffee tray dropped upon her. The venerable family retainer nervously glances over his shoulder, but Lambkin seems oblivious to the chaos he is causing.
On the other hand, the picture does not make it clear precisely which dance-steps Lambkin is practising. The animated folk-dance from Central Europe introduced to England in the early 1840s accords well with the protagonist's agressive womanizing that leaves his original partner tearfully seated to one side. His embracingthis new, foreign dance-step implies Lambkin's thinking of himself as unconventional and rakish. By 1844, as Cruikshank was working on this illustration,the Bohemian polka was being danced in society ballrooms, eclipsing the forty-year supremacy of the waltz, which in turn had replaced such traditional English country dances as Sir Roger de Coverley. This latest revolution in dance which Cruikshank's illustration reflects involved a movement away from community and precise social order or hierarchy and towards the individual performance, from, that is, eighteenth-century decorum towards nineteenth-century romanticism.
The nobility might have assembly-room balls and the highest echelons of British society court balls, but even the lower middle class could indulge in parlour dancing, as we see in this Cruikshank illustration, which is consistent with his depictions of middle-class musical entertainments in Dickens's Sketches by Boz (1838-39). His emphasis here, as in many of those earlier dance illustrations, is on the young dancers themselves rather than on the musicians, who are well in the background in Greenwich Fair, and are not even shown here.
See also "The Development of Leisure in Britain":
Left: Cruikshank's animated and engaging bacchanal, Greenwich Fair. Centre: Cruikshank's view of the rising classes in a tea garden, London Recreations. Right: Cruikshank's sceneof a lower middle class group of would-be dancers at the neighbourhoodDancing Academy(1839). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Cruikshank, George. The Bachelor’s Own Book; Or, The Progress Of Mr. Lambkin, In The Pursuit Of Pleasure And Amusement. Glasgow: David Bryce, 1844, rpt. 1880.
Last modified 22 May 2018
