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“‘T’other side, sir, if you please.’. . .”
Thomas Onwhyn ["Sam Weller del" for delineavit, Latin]
steel engraving
12.9 cm high by 11.5 cm wide (5 ⅛ by 4 ½ inches), vignetted
May 30, 1837 (Second Extra instalment)
Charles Dickens's The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, Chapter V (May 1836), facing page 46.
[Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
‘Now, shiny Villiam,’ said the hostler to the deputy hostler, ‘give the gen’lm’n the ribbons.’
Shiny Villiam’ — so called, probably, from his sleek hair and oily countenance — placed the reins in Mr. Pickwick’s left hand; and the upper hostler thrust a whip into his right.
‘Wo-o!’ cried Mr. Pickwick, as the tall quadruped evinced a decided inclination to back into the coffee-room window.
‘Wo-o!’ echoed Mr. Tupman and Mr. Snodgrass, from the bin.
‘Only his playfulness, gen’lm’n,’ said the head hostler encouragingly; ‘jist kitch hold on him, Villiam.’ The deputy restrained the animal’s impetuosity, and the principal ran to assist Mr. Winkle in mounting.
‘T’other side, sir, if you please.’
‘Blowed if the gen’lm’n worn’t a-gettin’ up on the wrong side,’ whispered a grinning post-boy to the inexpressibly gratified waiter.
Mr. Winkle, thus instructed, climbed into his saddle, with about as much difficulty as he would have experienced in getting up the side of a first-rate man-of-war.
‘All right?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick, with an inward presentiment that it was all wrong.
‘All right,’ replied Mr. Winkle faintly.
‘Let ‘em go,’ cried the hostler. — ‘Hold him in, sir;’ and away went the chaise, and the saddle-horse, with Mr. Pickwick on the box of the one, and Mr. Winkle on the back of the other, to the delight and gratification of the whole inn-yard.
‘What makes him go sideways?’ said Mr. Snodgrass in the bin, to Mr. Winkle in the saddle. [Chapter V, "A Short one. Showing, Among Other Matters, How Mr. Pickwick Undertook to Drive, and Mr. Winkle to Ride; and How They Both Did It," 46]
“‘T’other side, sir, if you please.’
‘Blowed if the gen’lm’n worn’t a-gettin’ up on the wrong side,’ whispered a grinning post-boy to the inexpressibly gratified waiter.” Page 46
Here Onwhyn anticipates a scene a little later that realises the same theme that R. S. Surtees (1803-64) pursued in satirising the Cockney grocer in Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities in his New Sporting Magazine between 1831 and 1834, namely the ineptitude of city-dwellers in dealing with horses, firearms, and field sports. Whereas in Mr. Winkle soothes the refractory steed (May 1836) Seymour shows Winkle experiencing difficulties controlling his saddle-horse as the Pickwickians make their way the fifteen miles from Rochester through the Kentish countryside to Manor Farm, here Onwhyn shows Pickwick in doubt as to how to control the carriage horse that he has just rented at The Bull, Rochester, in the background as the hostler has to instruct Winkle about how to even mount a horse. Since the inn's rented four-wheeled post-chaise can hold only three at the very most (the driver in the front plus two passengers in the back), Pickwick volunteers Winkle to ride separately, and arrange to have one of Wardle's stablehands return the mount afterwards. Although he knows very well that he lacks the necessary "equestrian skill," Winkle does not wish to admit his shortcomings as a horseman to his chief, Mr. Tupman, and Mr. Snodgrass (attempting to sit behind the anxious Pickwick in Onwhyn's "extra" illustration, not published until May 1837). Clearly the staff of The Bull are highly amused at the ineptitude of the "city-slickers."
Left: "Bless my soul" exclaimed the agonized Mr. Pickwick, "there's the other horse running away!". Right: The horse no sooner beheld Mr. Pickwick advancing with the chaisewhip in his hand, &c. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
The New York cartoonist Thomas Nast's 1874 wood-engraving focusses on the plight of the dismounted Winkle and the stranded Pickwick as the rented chaise rapidly disappears up the road out of Rochester. Phiz's illustration is a less cartoonish 1874 wood-engraving of the farcical scene in which Pickwick, a thorough urbanite, cannot control the horse whic he has rented.
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 6 February 2024