“Weal pie,” said Mr. Weller, soliloquizing . . . don't know the difference!” — Thomas Onwhyn's fourteenth extra illustration for Charles Dickens's "The Pickwick Club" (31 July 1837)

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“Weal pie,” said Mr. Weller, soliloquizing . . . don't know the difference!”

Thomas Onwhyn [unsigned]

steel engraving

12.4 cm high by 11.0 cm wide (4 ⅞ by 4 ¼ inches), vignetted

Charles Dickens's The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, Chapter XIX, "A Pleasant Day, with an Unpleasant Termination" (October 1836), facing page 193.

[Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Passage Illustrated: Pickwick Enjoying A Day in the Countryside

‘Hold on, sir,’ said Mr. Weller, invigorated with the prospect of refreshments. ‘Out of the vay, young leathers. If you walley my precious life don’t upset me, as the gen’l’m’n said to the driver when they was a-carryin’ him to Tyburn.’ And quickening his pace to a sharp run, Mr. Weller wheeled his master nimbly to the green hill, shot him dexterously out by the very side of the basket, and proceeded to unpack it with the utmost despatch.

‘Weal pie,’ said Mr. Weller, soliloquising, as he arranged the eatables on the grass. ‘Wery good thing is weal pie, when you know the lady as made it, and is quite sure it ain’t kittens; and arter all though, where’s the odds, when they’re so like weal that the wery piemen themselves don’t know the difference?’

‘Don’t they, Sam?’ said Mr. Pickwick.

‘Not they, sir,’ replied Mr. Weller, touching his hat. [Chapter XIX, “A Pleasant Day, with an Unpleasant Termination,” 193]

Commentary: A Pleasant Picnic with Veal Pie and Cold Punch

From the wheelbarrow in which his employer has been transported across the fields for a day of fowling at Manor Farm, Sam discharges Pickwick on the hillock, where he presides over the luncheon on the grass. Tupman has just received Wardle's congratulations on shooting a partridge (even though had not intended to shot the bird at all!), and it is now past twelve. The boy from Dingley Dell carrying the picnic basket has just arrived at the appointed spot, and the company is looking forward to the refreshments Wardle has provided — particularly a glass of punch all around. Sam, of course, as a servant drinks a can of beer instead. Wardle and the "long gamekeeper" are positioned upper left, Winkle (standing) and Tupman are to the right. In contrast to Onwhyn's petit déjeuner approach, in the Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910), Harry Furniss depicts an inebriated Pickwick in The Effect of Cold Punch after the Shooting Party, which admirably sets up Captain Boldwig's having Pickwick consigned to the village pound.

Parallel Scenes from Pickwick's Field Day in Later Editions (1861, 1873, and 1874)

Left: Nast's American Household Edition realisation of Boldwig's finding the comatose Pickwick in his wheelbarrow: "Who are you, you rascal?" (1873). Centre: Darley's 1861 frontispiece, a lithograph: Making a Point — "What's the matter with the dogs' legs?" Right: Phiz's Household Edition woodcut "Who are you, you rasca?" said the captain, administering several pokes to Mr. Pickwick's body with the thick stick. "What's your name?" (1874). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Robert Seymour, Robert Buss, and Phiz. London: Chapman and Hall, November 1837. With 32 additional illustrations by Thomas Onwhyn (London: E. Grattan, April-November 1837).

Titley, Graham D. C. "Thomas Onwhyn: a Life in Illustration (1811-1886)." Pearl. University of Plymouth (2018-07-12).

Created 16 February 2024