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The Mausoleum at Chesney Wold
Phiz (Hablot K. Browne)
1853
Etching
5 ⅛ by 4 ⅞ inches (13.1 cm by 9.9 cm), framed
Ch. 66, "Down in Lincolnshire" — the first page of the brief final chapter of Dickens's Bleak House, facing p. 619.
Scanned image and text by George P. Landow; additional text by Philip V. Allingham.
There is a hush upon Chesney Wold in these altered days, as there is upon a portion of the family history. The story goes that Sir Leicester paid some who could have spoken out to hold their peace; but it is a lame story, feebly whispering and creeping about, and any brighter spark of life it shows soon dies away. It is known for certain that the handsome Lady Dedlock lies in the mausoleum in the park, where the trees arch darkly overhead, and the owl is heard at night making the woods ring; but whence she was brought home to be laid among the echoes of that solitary place, or how she died, is all mystery. Some of her old friends, principally to be found among the peachy-cheeked charmers with the skeleton throats, did once occasionally say, as they toyed in a ghastly manner with large fans — like charmers reduced to flirting with grim death, after losing all their other beaux — did once occasionally say, when the world assembled together, that they wondered the ashes of the Dedlocks, entombed in the mausoleum, never rose against the profanation of her company. But the dead-and-gone Dedlocks take it very calmly and have never been known to object.
Up from among the fern in the hollow, and winding by the bridle-road among the trees, comes sometimes to this lonely spot the sound of horses' hoofs. Then may be seen Sir Leicester — invalided, bent, and almost blind, but of worthy presence yet — riding with a stalwart man beside him, constant to his bridle-rein. When they come to a certain spot before the mausoleum-door, Sir Leicester's accustomed horse stops of his own accord, and Sir Leicester, pulling off his hat, is still for a few moments before they ride away. [Chapter LXVI, " Down in Lincolnshire," 619; Project Gutenberg etext (see bibliography below)]
Only one illustration in the double part pertains directly to any action in that part: Magnanimous conduct of Mr. Guppy (ch. 64) . . . . The Mausoleum at Chesney Wold (ch. 66) corresponds to a passage which remarks that although some of "her old friends, principally to be found among the peachy-cheeked charmers with skeleton throats," said that "the ashes of the Dedlocks ... rose against the profanation of their company" by the presence of Lady Dedlock, in fact "the dead-and-gone Dedlocks ... have never been known to object." But the etching conveys nothing of this irony, being an atmospheric dark plate of a rather static kind, which includes the trees which "arch darkly overhead," but omits the owl "heard at night making the woods ring" (ch. 54, p. 519). Its rather grim aspect does not fit very well with the hopefulness of the novel's conclusion, although it may have been Dickens' intention to have it represent reconciliation and peace. That Phiz found the subject excessively sober is indicated by the working drawing (Elkins), in the margin of which he has sketched three mocking devils, one thumbing his nose with both hands, one laughing directly at the mausoleum, and the third peeking around the border of the drawing with a smirk on his face. How Dickens felt if he in fact saw this drawing we cannot know, but his doubts about Browne, expressed at least as long before as Mrs. Pipchin, would not have been lessened by it. [516]
Right: Barnard's majestic concluding dark plate in the Household Edition maintains the novel's sombre mood, but includes Lady Dedlock's "survivors": Volumnia's Devotion to Sir Leicester (1873).
"Bleak House — Sixty-one Illustrations by Fred Barnard." Scenes and Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens, Being Eight Hundred and Sixty-six Drawings by Fred Barnard, Gordon Thomson, Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz), J. McL. Ralston, J. Mahoney, H. French, Charles Green, E. G. Dalziel, A. B. Frost, F. A. Fraser, and Sir Luke Fildes. London: Chapman and Hall, 1907.
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.
Brown, John Buchanan. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's, 1978.
Burton, Anthony. "Vision and Designs. Review of John Harvey, Victorian Novelists and heir Illustrators. Sidgwick & Jackson, 1970. Pounds 3.50." Dickensian, 67.2 (1971): 105-109.
Dickens, Charles. Bleak House. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"). London: Bradbury & Evans. Bouverie Street, 1853.
_______. Bleak House. Project Gutenberg etext prepared by Donald Lainson, Toronto, Canada (charlie@idirect.com), with revision and corrections by Thomas Berger and Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D. Seen 9 November 2007.
_______. Bleak House. Illustrated by F. O. C. Darley and John Gilbert. The Works of Charles Dickens. The Household Edition. New York: Sheldon and Company, 1863. Vols. 1-4.
_______. Bleak House. Project Gutenberg etext prepared by Donald Lainson, Toronto, Canada (charlie@idirect.com), with revision and corrections by Thomas Berger and Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D. Seen 9 November 2007.
_______. Bleak House. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. XI.
Harvey, John R. "Conditions of Illustration in Serial Fiction." Victorian Novelists and Their Illustrators. London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1970. Pp. 182-198.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.
Steig, Michael. Chapter 6. "Bleak House and Little Dorrit: Iconography of Darkness." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. 131-172.
Vann, J. Don. "Bleak House, twenty parts in nineteen monthly instalments, October 1846—April 1848." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: The Modern Language Association, 1985. 69-70.
Created 26 April 2007 Last modified 25 March 2021