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The Likeness in Court
Harry Furniss
1910
13.4 cm high x 7.4 cm wide, vignetted
Seventh illustration for A Tale of Two Cities in A Tale of Two Cities, American Notes, and Pictures from Italy, Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910), facing XIII, 64.
[Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
"You say again you are quite sure that it was the prisoner?"
The witness was quite sure.
"Did you ever see anybody very like the prisoner?"
Not so like (the witness said) as that he could be mistaken.
"Look well upon that gentleman, my learned friend there," pointing to him who had tossed the paper over, "and then look well upon the prisoner. How say you? Are they very like each other?"
Allowing for my learned friend's appearance being careless and slovenly if not debauched, they were sufficiently like each other to surprise, not only the witness, but everybody present, when they were thus brought into comparison. My Lord being prayed to bid my learned friend lay aside his wig, and giving no very gracious consent, the likeness became much more remarkable. My Lord inquired of Mr. Stryver (the prisoner's counsel), whether they were next to try Mr. Carton (name of my learned friend) for treason? [Book Two, "The Golden Thread," Chapter Three, "A Disappointment," 68: the picture's original caption has been emphasized]
The uncanny likeness in appearance between the accused, the emigré Charles Darnay, and his barrister, Sydney Carton, in the Old Bailey trial for sedition creates enough reasonable doubt to acquit the French teacher of spying. However, in giving the accused and the attorney similar countenances and profiles, Furniss has made neither young man especially attractive, but at least has made the similarity as seen by the trial magistrate and others in the court obvious. The reader of Dickens's 1910 text anticipates the exoneration of Charles Darnay on charges of sedition because of the positioning of this illustration some three pages ahead of the passage it realises. Consequently, the reader's interest is not so much in the suspense of Dickens's narrative of the Old Bailey trial as in the manner in which Carton and Stryver, Darnay's defence attorneys, will play their ace to trump the shaky testimonies of the Crown's dubious witnesses. The vignetted illustration involving just the men themselves and nothing of the courtroom context serves to accentuate the sarcastic humour of the trial magistrate — and render dismissal of all charges a foregone conclusion.
Such telegraphing of the eventual outcome of the Old Bailey trial does not, of course, occur in the All the Year Round weekly instalment of June 4. However, the original monthly illustration of much the same name as Furniss's, The Likeness (see below) in Phiz's pair of illustrations for Part Two, July 1859, likewise identifies the outcome of the trial before the purchaser of the monthly part has even begun to process Dickens's accompanying text as the plates were always mounted first in each monthly instalment. Although Fred Barnard in Household Edition could easily have realised this telling and climactic moment in the courtroom scene, he (like A. A. Dixon afterwards) elected to describe a later moment, in which The Lion and the Jackal (see below), the oddly matched Stryver and Carton, conduct a peculiar pre-trial strategy; Barnard's avoiding repeating The Likeness may stem from his general reluctance, evident elsewhere in his Household Edition volumes, to have his work compared to that of his friend and mentor Hablot Knight Browne.
In Phiz's July 1859 representations of Carton, especially in Congratulations, Dickens's chief illustrator has made the debauchee far more attractive and sympathetic than either Barnard or Furniss at this point. A. A. Dixon is more flattering than Furniss to both young men, but dramatises the similarity between the two in a less formal and dramatic context than the trial. Furniss, like Phiz, clearly apprehended the importance of underscoring for the reader the uncanny facial resemblance of the two young men, the idealistic Frenchman who has renounced his title and aristocratic lineage in accordance with his Liberal principles, and the brilliant young English attorney who squanders his talents for a partner unworthy of him but who will keep him in drink. Furniss, isolating the two figures rather than losing them (as Phiz had done) in the packed courtroom, wishes the reader to comprehend how easy it would be for prison turnkeys and guards to confuse the two on the day of execution at the conclusion of the story. The wig put to one side suddenly, the entire body of spectators in the courtroom must be struck by The Likeness in Court.
Left: McLennan's New York periodical illustration of the two young men in court, The prisoner and his double. Right: Phiz's The Likeness (July 1859).
Left: Barnard's The Lion and The Jackal (1874). Right: Dixon's realisation of the tavern scene in Fleet-street after the trial, "Mr. Darnay, let me ask you a question." (1905).
Barnard, Fred. A Series of Character Sketches from Charles Dickens [Series One: Alfred Jingle, Mrs. Gamp, Bill Sikes, Little Dorrit, Samuel Pickwick, and Sidney Carton]. London: Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co., 1880 [portfolio].
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. Oxford and New York: Oxford U. , 1988.
Bolton, H. Phili "A Tale of Two Cities." Dickens Dramatized. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1987, 395-412.
Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.
Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. All the Year Round. 30 April through 26 November 1859.
__________. A Tale of Two Cities. Illustrated by John McLenan. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization. 7 May through 3 December 1859.
__________. A Tale of Two Cities. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). London: Chapman and Hall, 1859.
__________. A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 16 vols. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
__________. A Tale of Two Cities. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874.
__________. A Tale of Two Cities. Illustrated by A. A. Dixon. London: Collins, 1905.
__________. A Tale of Two Cities, American Notes, and Pictures from Italy. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. Vol. 13.
Created 2 April 2017
Last modified 7 January 2020