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Randulph's interview with Cordwell Firebras in the Cloisters of Westminster Abbey
George Cruikshank
March 1842
Steel-engraving
12.3 cm high by 9.8 cm wide, framed
Seventh illustration for the volume edition of William Harrison Ainsworth's The Miser's Daughter: A Tale, Chapter 14, facing page 84 (second plate for the April 1842 number).
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
"Despite the singularity of your address, there is an earnestness in your manner that inspires me with confidence in you, sir," rejoined Randulph; "the rather, that you told me this morning you were an old friend of my father's. I will freely confess to you that I am captivated by the miser's daughter, and that I would hazard much to obtain her. Now, on what condition do you propose to make her mine?"
"You shall learn presently," replied Firebras, evasively. "Let us take a turn along the cloisters," he added, moving slowly forward.
They marched on together in silence, until they reached the eastern angle of the ambulatory, when Firebras, suddenly halting, laid his hand upon Randulph's arm, and fixing a searching look upon him, said, "Young man, I will tell you what you must do to gain the miser's daughter?"
"What? what?" demanded Randulph.
"You must join the Jacobite party," replied Firebras, "to which her father belongs — to which your father belonged — and to which your mother also belongs." [Chapter XIV, "Randulph's Interview with Cordwell Firebras in the Cloisters of Westminster Abbey," pp. 84-85]
Who is this brilliantly named Cordwell Firebras? His name suggests that he is something of a firebrand; in fact, he is a Jacobite sympathizer who is agitating for the restoration of "The King across the Water," the Old Pretender, James Stuart. The novel, set in the year before the Second Rising in the Highlands, interweaves the fortunes of the protagonist, Randulph Crew, the miser, Scarve, and a select group of clandestine Stuart supporters. Firebras again appears again in The Jacobite Club pursued by the guard (Book II, Chapter 11), which shows soldiers pursuing members of the Jacobite Club over the rooftops. However, Cruikshank's image of a dour, middle-aged, overweight, nondescript bourgeois here hardly lives up to the swashbuckling expectations which Ainsworth creates through the plotter's name.
In terms of composition, the dual study of the conspirator and his possible recruit contrasts the individual portrait of the shocked miser. The setting here is incidental as Cruikshank focuses on the figures, whereas in the companion plate the empty chest is another person in the room, a catalyst for Scarve's extremely emotional response to the robbery in The Miser discovering the loss of the mortgage money (Chapter 15).
Thus, in the companion illustrations for the April 1842 in Ainsworth's Magazine Cruikshank follows the fortunes (or misfortunes) of the principal continuing characters, and captures highly suspenseful moments in each of the plot-lines. Here, Ainsworth builds suspense through the mysterious note upon which Randulph is determined to act by keeping his appointment in the secluded cloisters of Westminster Abbey at 6:00 P. M.:
The young man shaped his course towards the Abbey, and skirting its western extremity, passed under the archway leading to the play-ground of Westminster school. Here he paused, and, addressing a porter, was directed towards another archway, through which he passed, and entered the cloisters. [page 84]
Having met Firebras that morning at the nearby barber, Randulph now puts a name to the face of the middle-age Jacobite. Perhaps neither would be so candid if either were aware of the eavesdroppers in the background, Peter Pokerich, the inquisitive barber, and his fair companion, his daughter Thomasine. Although the illustrator makes the barber and his daughter comic figures as they grip the beam and lean in to overhear the interview, by accentuating their presence he foreshadows the apprehension of the conspirators by suggesting that word will get to the authorities of their plot. Cruikshank contrasts the inner, darker space of the cloisters where the conspirators meet with the external, sunlit view of the Abbey's Gothic tracery and buttresses, suggesting that the illustrator had recently visited Westminster Abbey in order to capture the specific details of the setting.
If we compare to another cloister interview of the same period, The Meeting in the Cloisters of Saint George's Chapel by French illustrator Tony Johannot for the fifth instalment of Windsor Castle, December 1842, we can appreciate the sharpness of the Cruikshank composition and his effective use of chiaroscuro to create a sense of the clandestine. Presumably, Cruikshank's composition for The Miser's Daughter may influenced Johannot's choice of subject for Windsor Castle; however, Johannot seems to have borrowed little as he minimizes the physical setting and focusses on the two pairs of styllized figures. In all likelihood, the French illustrator had not visited the site and therefore fails to convey a sense of authenticity in the background, which might be any late mediaeval corridor.
Above: Tony Johannot's atmospheric steel-engraving of another private meeting in mediaeval cloisters, The Meeting in the Cloisters of Saint George's Chapel (December 1842). [Click on image to enlarge it.]
Ainsworth, William Harrison. The Miser's Daughter: A Tale. With 20 illustrations by George Cruikshank. First published in 3 volumes by Cunningham and Mortimer, London, 1842. London, Glasgow, and New York: George Routledge, 1892.
Ainsworth, William Harrison. Windsor Castle. An Historical Romance. Illustrated by George Cruikshank and Tony Johannot. With designs on wood by W. Alfred Delamotte. London: Routledge, 1880. Based on the Henry Colburn edition of 1844.
Vann, J. Don. "The Miser's Daughter in Ainsworth's Magazine January-October 1842." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1988. Pp. 22-23.
Last modified 17 June 2018