[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> Phiz (Hablot K. Browne) —> Illustrations of Barnaby Rudge —> Next]
The Secretary's Watch
Phiz (Hablot K. Browne)
21 August 1841
4 ½ x 3 ¾ inches (11.6 x 9.3 cm), vignetted
Dickens's Barnaby Rudge, The Bradbury & Evans single-volume edition of December 1849, Chapter the Fifty-third, Vol. III, 246: tailpiece (fiftieth full-page plate in the series).
[Click on image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.].
The secretary smiled, but he had other thoughts to dwell upon, and soon dismissed the topic. Dinner was brought him, but he sent it down untasted; and, in restless pacings up and down the room, and constant glances at the clock, and many futile efforts to sit down and read, or go to sleep, or look out of the window, consumed four weary hours. When the dial told him thus much time had crept away, he stole upstairs to the top of the house, and coming out upon the roof sat down, with his face towards the east.
Heedless of the fresh air that blew upon his heated brow, of the pleasant meadows from which he turned, of the piles of roofs and chimneys upon which he looked, of the smoke and rising mist he vainly sought to pierce, of the shrill cries of children at their evening sports, the distant hum and turmoil of the town, the cheerful country breath that rustled past to meet it, and to droop, and die; he watched, and watched, till it was dark save for the specks of light that twinkled in the streets below and far away — and, as the darkness deepened, strained his gaze and grew more eager yet.
"Nothing but gloom in that direction, still" he muttered restlessly. "Dog! where is the redness in the sky, you promised me!" [Chapter the Fifty-third, 246-47]
When Gashford had chided Hugh about the pitifully short conflagration that he and his fellows had set in a London street, Hugh had promised him something more sensational. His implication was unmistakable: Hugh intended to burn down the Haredale estate, The Warren. Now Gashford from a London rooftop studies the sky in that direction, hoping that his henchman will give him the vengeance he sires on his former school-friend, now a Catholic and a sworn enemy of Lord George Gordon's ultra-Protestant cause.
In The Secretary's Watch (21 August 1841) Phiz presents what happens after the fourth body of Gordon rioters (led by Hugh, Sim Tappertitit, and Barnaby) pass the city residence of Lord George. Whereas the other three parties of rioters have announced their destinations as Catholic chapels in Chelsea, Wapping, and East Smithfield, the fourth is acting under Gashford's orders to intimate the leading witness against the faction, Geoffrey Hardeale, by burning down his country house, The Warren, at Epping Forest. Eagerly awaiting a sign that the trio have effected the conflagration as he has instructed, he sits on the roof Lord George's house that evening, his feet on the parapet, his gaze directed eastward. What his has failed to ponder is the peculiar conduct of Sir John Chester earlier that day. The duplicitous politician had doffed his blue cockade as soon as the fourth party of rioters had passed, and engaged in intense conversation with a lady inside a carriage stopped in front of the house. Gashford does not pause to consider, but the reader wonders who the lady was, and precisely what he told her about the four parties of rioters.
Phiz's interpretation of the scene focuses on Gashford's eager sense of anticipation and a realistic rendition of the rooftop setting: a cat, four ornate chimney-tops, the roof-tiles, the opening to the attic, and the stone parapet with its rain-spout. Gashord hugs himself, perhaps out of malicious glee, but perhaps also to protect himself from a stiff breeze that is blowing the weather-vane from the east, the direction in which the wind-swept figure looks. As clouds, smoke, and mist scoot across the sky behind him, the sun seems to be setting, casting a final, intense light on the rooftop scene.
Dickens, Charles. Barnaby Rudge. Illustrated by Hablot K. Browne ('Phiz') and George Cattermole. London: Chapman and Hall, 1841; rpt., Bradbury & Evans, 1849.
Hammerton, J. A. "Ch. XIV. Barnaby Rudge." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition, illustrated by Harry Furniss. London: Educational Book Co., 1910. 213-55.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.
Steig, Michael. Chapter 3. "From Caricature to Progress: Master Humphrey's Clock to Martin Chuzzlewit." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. 53-85.
Vann, J. Don. "Charles Dickens. Barnaby Rudge in Master Humphrey's Clock, 13 February-27 November 1841." New York: MLA, 1985. 65-66.
Created 1 August 2015
Last modified 17 December 2020