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"Now I'm grandfather."
W. H. C. Groome
1907
12.2 x 8.0 cm, (4 ¾ by 3 ⅛ inches), framed
Lithograph
Dickens's Master Humphrey's Clock, facing page 120.
[Click on the image to enlarge it, and mouse over the text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
‘That ’ere Tony is the blessedest boy,’ said Mr. Weller, heedless of this rebuff, ‘the blessedest boy as ever I see in my days! of all the charmin’est infants as ever I heerd tell on, includin’ them as was kivered over by the robin-redbreasts arter they’d committed sooicide with blackberries, there never wos any like that ’ere little Tony. He’s alvays a playin’ vith a quart pot, that boy is! To see him a settin’ down on the doorstep pretending to drink out of it, and fetching a long breath artervards, and smoking a bit of firevood, and sayin’, “Now I’m grandfather,” — to see him a doin’ that at two year old is better than any play as wos ever wrote. “Now I’m grandfather!” He wouldn’t take a pint pot if you wos to make him a present on it, but he gets his quart, and then he says, “Now I’m grandfather!”’ ["Further Particulars of Master Humphrey's Visitor," pp. 105-106]
Despite Tony Weller, Senior's protestations, he is delighted that his grandson is demonstrating for Mr. Pickwick's housekeeper his desire to become a coachman exactly like his grandfather. In the subsequent illustration, Groome pursues this theme with "He wouldn't pass vun single blessed post", from which emphasis we may conclude that the doting grandparent and his precocious grandson were great favourites with late Victorian and early modern readers.
Above: Phiz's A Chip Off the Old Block in "Mr. Weller's Watch" (1840).
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.
Davis, Paul. "Master Humphrey's Clock." Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to his Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998, 238.
Dickens, Charles. Master Humphrey's Clock. Illustrated by George Cattermole and Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). London: Chapman and Hall, 4 April 1840 - 6 February 41.
_______. Master Humphrey's Clock. The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Reprinted Pieces, and Other Stories. With thirty illustrations by L. Fildes, E. G. Dalziel, and F. Barnard. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1872. Vol. XX. Pp. 253-306.
_______. Master Humphrey's Clock and Pictures from Italy. With eight illustrations by W. H. C. Groome. London and Glasgow, 1907. Vol. XLIX. Pp. 1-168.
_______. Barnaby Rudge and Master Humphrey's Clock. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. Charles Dickens Library Edition. Volume VI. London: Educational Book, 1910.
Hammerton, J. A. The Dickens Picture Book: A Record of the Dickens Illustrators. Ch. XIV. "Master Humphrey's Clock." The Charles Dickens Library. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. Pp. 259-265.
Created 1 September 2022