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Sergeant Buzfuz
Harry Furniss
1910
13.5 cm high x 9.6 cm wide, vignetted
Dickens's Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, Vol. 2 of Charles Dickens Library Edition, facing 481.
[Click on image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Serjeant Buzfuz then rose with all the majesty and dignity which the grave nature of the proceedings demanded, and having whispered to Dodson, and conferred briefly with Fogg, pulled his gown over his shoulders, settled his wig, and addressed the jury. . . . .
"I say systematic villainy, gentlemen," said Serjeant Buzfuz, looking through Mr. Pickwick, and talking at him; "and when I say systematic villainy, let me tell the defendant Pickwick, if he be in court, as I am informed he is, that it would have been more decent in him, more becoming, in better judgment, and in better taste, if he had stopped away. Let me tell him, gentlemen, that any gestures of dissent or disapprobation in which he may indulge in this court will not go down with you; that you will know how to value and how to appreciate them; and let me tell him further, as my Lord will tell you, gentlemen, that a counsel, in the discharge of his duty to his client, is neither to be intimidated nor bullied, nor put down; and that any attempt to do either the one or the other, or the first, or the last, will recoil on the head of the attempter, be he plaintiff or be he defendant, be his name Pickwick, or Noakes, or Stoakes, or Stiles, or Brown, or Thompson." [Chapter XXXIV, "Is Wholly Devoted to a Full and Faithful Report of the Memorable Trial of Bardell against Pickwick," 480-81]
With his background as a law clerk, Dickens fashioned his first full-length plot around a legal issue that would later become the subject of a popular dramatic musical work, W. S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan's whimsical operetta Trial by Jury (1868). By 1910, readers of the Charles Dickens Library Edition of the novel would likely have made the connection between Dickens's handling of the issue of breach-of-promise of marriage and the celebrated Gilbert and Sullivan operetta so frequently staged as a forepiece for The Sorcerer throughout the provinces and at various London theatres, including The Gaiety (1875), The Royalty (1875-76), the Opera Comique (1876 and 1878), The Strand (1877), and most notably The Savoy (1884-99). In that highly popular spoof of the legal system and this peculiar law, revived by the D'Oyly Carte Company for a 1905 tour, as well as at The Lyric (1902) and a benefit matinée for actress Ellen Terry at Drury Lane (1906), the leering Judge settles the matter of Angelina versus Edwin by proposing to marry the jilted bride himself. Performed hundreds of times in London alone between 1875 and 1910, the short operetta would probably have ranked in the minds of Furniss's readers in 1910 as the most amusing and celebrated satire of breach-of-promise-of-marriage cases. The aria for the Counsel for the Plaintiff contains neither bluster nor intimidation in the manner of Dickens's Sergeant Buzfuz, but does frame the plaintiff, Angelina, as the innocent victim of the whiles of an "unmanly male" (line 254) who has fled rather go through with the planned marriage. Despite these satires of the breach-of-promise law by Dickens and Gilbert, "Until 1970 women could, and did, take men to court for breaking off engagements" (Bradley, Note 104, 12).
Readers only cursorily familiar with The Pickwick Papers in 1910 would have recognized, nonetheless, that the trial of Pickwick is the pivotal event in Dickens's plot. However, despite the lack of background details as a context for the apoplectic attorney, Furniss in describing the plaintiff's barrister, the ridiculously named Sergeant Buzfuz, was illustrating a specific textual moment in the trial which the illustrator probably expected alert readers to connect to his drawing. At this point, Mrs. Bardell's advocate summons Mr. Pickwick's valet, Sam Weller, to the stand in order to support his client's contention that the supposedly romantic interlude that the Pickwickians interrupted constituted a marriage proposal. Since Samuel Pickwick has made a fortune in business, Mrs. Bardell must be sure that her former lodger will prove a veritable golden goose, a conviction that her unscrupulous attorneys, Dodson and Fogg, apparently share. Sergeant Buzfuz serves as the courtroom arm of Dodson and Fogg, solicitors, and is presumably an effective examiner and cross-examiner, for the honorific title "Sergeant" (usually abbreviated "Sgt.") implies "one who serves with thoroughness" (from the Latin serviens).
What strikes readers today as a minor character was apparently a great comic favourite on stage as notable Victorian comedian J. L. Toole took the role of Sergeant Buzfuz in the January 1871 John Hollingshead Pickwick adaptation Bardell vs. Pickwick at London's Gaiety Theatre; another dramatic adaptation staged later that year at that same theatre was simply entitled Serjeant Buzfuz. The florid barrister's uniform courtroom strategy of intimidating, confusing, badgering, and bamboozling witnesses enables him to trick the muddled Winkle into giving incriminating testimony. Dickens likely based Buzfuz on an actual London barrister, George Cox Bompas, QC, a prominent lawyer who was accorded the honorific "Sergeant" or "Serjeant" in consequence of his successfully having represented the Crown in many cases. Because the March 1837 (thirteenth monthly) instalment contained only two long chapters and the trial constitutes a sort of climax in the episodic novel, Buzfuz cuts a memorable figure and is a source of considerable character comedy; he also proves instrumental in the jury's finding for the plaintiff to the tune of 750 pounds in damages — which the incensed Pickwick vows never to pay. Here Furniss suggests the pugnacious barrister's blustering forensic style of interrogation through his starting up from his seat in (supposed) indignation as he raises a fist, suggestive of his ferocious courtroom manner.
Left: Phiz's original conception of the scene in the Guildhall, The Trial (March 1837); centre: Kyd's Player's Cigarette Card No. 13 (circa>1910) attests to the continuing popularity, probably through stage adaptations, of the blustering bully in Sergeant Buzfuz; right: Kyd's watercolour version of the same character, Sergeant Buzfuz (1910). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Above: Phiz revises his approach to the trial scene to present the trial of Pickwick from the perspective of the magistrate's bench, showing a surprised Pickwick with his barrister, Mr. Perker, making a cautionary gesture, to the left and Mrs. Bardell and her female supporters to the right: An admonitory gesture from Perker restrained him, and he listened to the learned gentleman's continuation with a look of indignation" (1874).
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Created 28 December 2019