[Victorian Web Home —> Douglas Jerrold —> Illustration —> Charles Keene —> Next]
Illuminated Initial Letter "N"
Charles Keene
1866
Wood-engraving
6.2 x 5.2 cm, framed
Seventeenth illustration for Douglas Jerrold's Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures (first published in 1845): "The Eighth Lecture," p. 34.
[Click on image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
[You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
"And I suppose they call you Brother Caudle? A pretty brother, indeed! Going and dressing yourself up in an apron like a turnpike man —; for that's what you look like. And I should like to know what the apron's for? There must be something in it not very respectable, I'm sure. Well, I only wish I was Queen for a day or two. I'd put an end to freemasonry, and all such trumpery, I know." ["Eighth Lecture. — Caudle has been made a Mason. —; Mrs. Caudle Indignant and Curious," pp. 35-36]
Keene seems to have enjoyed Jerrold's satire on the Masons in this chapter since both the initial letter vignette and the regular wood-engraving concern Mrs. Caudle's whimsical perspective about her husband's becoming a member of the United Grand Masonic Lodge, an amalgamation of four smaller lodges incorporated in central London on 24 June 1717 which in 1813 absorbed the rival Grand Lodge, "The Antients," founded by Irish Masons in 1751. Mr. Caudle as a successful toy-manufacturer would certainly have had the appropriate commercial and upper-middle-class background, social position, and affluence to join the Masons —; and he seems to be yearning for male camaraderie outside the home. Primarily a charitable organisation, the Masons observe secret rituals at the lodge meetings, during which they address each other as "Brother." Mrs. Caudle, examining her husband's Masonic apron, seems a little skeptical about the whole business. Turnpikes were becoming something of an impediment to trade and commerce by the early Victorian period, so that Mrs. Caudle's connecting the Masonic apron with a toll-collector should be regarded as a criticism of both offices. multitude of small turnpike trusts were frequently charged with being inefficient in use of resources and potentially suffered from petty corruption. See Cruikshank's 1836 illustration The Hornsey Gate in Harrison Ainsworth's Rookwood for an example of a turnpike and, in the background, clearly upset about Dick Turpin's avoid the toll, the keeper himself.
Jerrold, Douglas. Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures, as Suffered by the late Job Caudle.Edited from the Original MSS. by Douglas Jerrold. With a frontispiece by Leech, and as motto on the title-page, "Then, Pistol, lay thy head in Fury's lap. —; Shakespeare." London: Punch Office; Bradbury and Evans, 1846.
Jerrold, Douglas. Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures . Illustrated by John Leach and Richard Doyle. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1856.
Jerrold, Douglas. Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures. Illustrated by Charles Keene. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1866.
Last modified 13 November 2017