“One of the men suddenly seizing Mr. Pickwick by the leg . . . red-hot,” — Thomas Onwhyn's fifth extra illustration for Charles Dickens's "The Pickwick Club" (31 August 1837)

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“One of the men suddenly seizing Mr. Pickwick by the leg . . . red-hot;”

Thomas Onwhyn [unsigned]

steel engraving

12.5 cm high by 12.4 cm wide (5 by 4 ⅞ inches), vignetted

August 31, 1837 (fifth instalment)

Charles Dickens's The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, Chapter V (May 1836), facing page 50, last page in monthly instalment.

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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Passage Illustrated: Pickwick suffers an unusual reception at Manor Farm (May 1836)

Three or four buxom girls speedily dispersed in search of the different articles in requisition, while a couple of large-headed, circular-visaged males rose from their seats in the chimney-corner (for although it was a May evening their attachment to the wood fire appeared as cordial as if it were Christmas), and dived into some obscure recesses, from which they speedily produced a bottle of blacking, and some half-dozen brushes.

‘Bustle!’ said the old gentleman [Mr. Wardle] again, but the admonition was quite unnecessary, for one of the girls poured out the cherry brandy, and another brought in the towels, and one of the men suddenly seizing Mr. Pickwick by the leg, at imminent hazard of throwing him off his balance, brushed away at his boot till his corns were red-hot; while the other shampooed Mr. Winkle with a heavy clothes-brush, indulging, during the operation, in that hissing sound which hostlers are wont to produce when engaged in rubbing down a horse. [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," 50]

Commentary: The Pickwickians Welcomed at Manor Farm

“One of the men suddenly seizing Mr. Pickwick by the leg, at the imminent hazard of throwing him off his balance, brushed away at his boot, till his corns were red-hot;” Page 50

At this point Onwhyn had to adapt himself to another illustrator's style, for veteran Robert Seymour had committed suicide, and was ultimately replaced by Hablot Kninght Brown or Phiz. Here Onwhyn anticipates another group scene in Chapter VIII in which the Pickwickians, Wardle, and the family are overcome by consuming too much wine, although Snodgrass attributes the general inebriation to the "Injurious Effects of Salmon" in Mr. Wardle & his friends under the influence of the Salmon (substituted in November 1837 after Dickens replaced R. W. Buss). Significantly, Onwhyn would not have seen the Phiz scene, but, working on this plate in August 1837, would have seen both Buss's Cricket Match and Arbour Scene (June 1836). But Phiz might well have seen this earlier Onwhyn group scene. However, in his substitute plate Phiz fails to model his figures as effectively as Onwhyn, and does not individualize the rather stiff, drunken characters in the parlour. However, Onwhyn's three female servants are hardly "buxom girls," even if his kitchen backdrop with platters, great fireplace, and hanging meats is far better detailed than Phiz's parlour.

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 6 February 2024