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The Sheriff-Officer's Mercury
Harry Furniss
1910
13.3 cm x 8.2 cm, vignetted
Dickens's Sketches by Boz, The Charles Dickens Library Edition, "Tales," Chapter 10, "A Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle," facing I, 432.
[Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
"Time Tottle was down," said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, ruminating — "Oh, here he is, no doubt," added Gabriel, as a cab drove rapidly up the hill; and he buttoned his dressing-gown, and opened the gate to receive the expected visitor. The cab stopped, and out jumped a man in a coarse Petersham great-coat, whity-brown neckerchief, faded black suit, gamboge-coloured top-boots, and one of those large-crowned hats, formerly seldom met with, but now very generally patronised by gentlemen and costermongers. [Chapter 2 of "A Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle," Chapter 10 in "Tales," 432-33]
Extended caption adapted from the text: The cab stopped, and out jumped a man in a coarse Petersham great-coat, whity-brown neckerchief, faded black suit, gamboge-coloured top-boots, and one of those large-crowned hats, formerly seldom met with, but now very generally patronised by gentlemen and costermongers. — Sketches by Boz, 432.
Bentley et al. succinctly describe the slight piece of magazine fiction in these terms:
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. [191]
Just when the enterprising Mr. Gabriel Parsons, sugar-baker, believes that he has found the solution to Watkins Tottle's financial problems (to say nothing of a 33£. debt Tottle owes him) comes a dire complication: Tottle has been apprehended for debt, and is being held in a lock-up house, prior (presumably) to being transferred to the Marshalsea in Southwark.. The short scene in which the sheriff-officer's "Mercury" (confidential messenger) delivers Tottle's explanation of his changed circumstances is a fine example of Dickens's being able to create a character in brief space through idiosyncratic dialogue.
Charles Dickens's father, John, must have been held in just such a situation when he was arrested for debt of 40£, including costs (and therefore a sum similar to that owed by Watkins Tottle), and prior to his being incarcerated in the Marshalsea Prison, Southwark, on 20 February 1824, just after Charles Dickens's twelfth birthday. Undoubtedly, as Michael Slater remarks, Charles made "a close study . . . of his father's fellow-prisoners in the Marshalsea" (23) which would serve him well when writing this scene, as well as those in which Samuel Pickwick is incarcerated in the Fleet Prison. Whereas in the original anthology George Cruikshank depicted the interior of Tottle's place of temporary confinement in The Lock-up House (see below)rather than the messenger scene which prompts Parsons to travel to the lock-up to bail out Tottle, Barnard and Furniss have elected to depict instead the moment when Parsons learns of Tottle's misfortune from Solomon Jacobs' agent. The expectation is, of course, that the wealthy suburbanite, Parsons, will wish to bail his friend out. The earlier illustration by Cruikshank, The Broker's Man, also concerns the issue of a gentleman's being dunned for debt, and the "Mercury" here is definitely of the same "knowing" tribe as this earlier functionary.
Furniss has elaborated on the figure of the cocky messenger in his 1910 lithograph The Sheriff-Officer's Mercury, which is at least partly derived from Barnard's 1876 Household Edition illustration in which the "Mercury" delivers the news of Tottle's arrest to Gabriel Parsons in his dressing-gown, "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'" (see below). As is more typical of Barnard's artistic tendencies, his wood-engraving is essentially a dual character study of the Gabriel Parsons in his dressing-gown and the burly messenger in his white top-hat (reminiscent of that of the housebreaker Bill Sikes in James Mahoney's Household Edition illustrations for Oliver Twist, and of George Cruikshank's Oliver claimed by his affectionate friends), Petersham greatcoat, and topboots. Likewise in the Furniss lithograph, the Mercury is exactly as Dickens has described him. However, Furniss translates the moment in Parsons' garden, taking the reader back to the point at which the messenger jauntily alights from the cab (which looks much more like a carriage in the 1910 illustration). Since the dour-looking man holding the carriage door is wearing a duster, he is surely not Parsons, but the cab-driver (although Dickens does not mention the driver, and focusses exclusively on the Mercury). Although he has a slightly burlier figure than Barnard's, Furniss's messenger has that same self-assured manner, cocky smile, and knowing look as he touches the note to his nose, as if taking his auditor into his confidence.
Left: Cruikshank's initial illustration for the story, which, despite its caption, is in fact a realisation of Gabriel Parsons' anecdote about his own courtship, Watkins Tottle in "Chapter the First." Right: Cruikshank's second illustration for the story, showing the plot complication of Tottle's being arrested for debt as he is preparing to court Miss Lillerton, The Lock-up House in "Chapter the Second."
Left: Cruikshank's third illustration, which misleadingly suggests that Tottle will be successful in his courtship of the affluent spinster, Mr. Watkins Tottle and Miss Lillerton. Right: Eytinge's single Diamond Edition 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).
Above: 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.
Above: 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'."
Bentley, Nicholas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens: Index. Oxford: Oxford U. , 1990.
Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z. The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Checkmark and Facts On File, 1998.
Dickens, Charles. "A Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle," Chapter 10 in "Tales," Sketches by Boz. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London: Chapman and Hall, 1839; rpt., 1890. 326-55.
Dickens, Charles. "A Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle," Chapter 10 in "Tales," Christmas Books and Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-day People. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. Boston: James R. Osgood, 1875 [rpt. of 1867 Ticknor and Fields edition]. 465-85.
Dickens, Charles. "A Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle," Chapter 10 in "Tales," Sketches by Boz. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1876. 115-117.
Dickens, Charles. "A Passage in the Life of Mr. Watkins Tottle," Chapter 10 in "Tales," Sketches by Boz. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. I, 419-55.
Hawksley, Lucinda Dickens. Chapter 3, "Sketches by Boz." Dickens Bicentenary 1812-2012: Charles Dickens. San Rafael, California: Insight, 2011. 12-15.
Kitton, Frederic G. "George Cruikshank." Dickens and His Illustrators. London: Chapman & Hall,1899. Rpt. Honolulu: U. Press of the Pacific, 2004. 1-28.
Schlicke, Paul. "Sketches by Boz.Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens. Oxford: Oxford U. , 1999. 530-535.
Slater, Michael. Charles Dickens: A Life Defined by Writing. New Haven and London: Yale U. , 2009.
Thomas, Deborah A. Dickens and the Short Story. Philadelphia: U. Pennsylvania Press, 1982.
Created 14 May 2017
Last modified 2 February 2020