[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> Phiz (Hablot K. Browne) —> Nicholas Nickleby —> Next]
Nicholas Instructs Smike in the Art of Acting
Phiz (Hablot K. Browne)
Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby
November 1838
Steel engraving
Source: J. A. Hammerton, The Dickens Picture-Book, p. 158.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
11.6 high cm by 10.6 cm wide, vignetted
Sixteenth plate for Dickens's Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, Chapter XXV.
"Who calls so loud?" repeated Nicholas.
"Who calls so loud?" cried Smike.
Thus they continued to ask each other who called so loud, over and over again; and when Smike had that by heart Nicholas went to another sentence, and then to two at a time, and then to three, and so on, until at midnight poor Smike found to his unspeakable joy that he really began to remember something about the text.
Early in the morning they went to it again, and Smike, rendered more confident by the progress he had already made, got on faster and with better heart. As soon as he began to acquire the words pretty freely, Nicholas showed him how he must come in with both hands spread out upon his stomach, and how he must occasionally rub it, in compliance with the established form by which people on the stage always denote that they want something to eat. After the morning’s rehearsal they went to work again, nor did they stop, except for a hasty dinner, until it was time to repair to the theatre at night.
Never had master a more anxious, humble, docile pupil. Never had pupil a more patient, unwearying, considerate, kindhearted master.
As soon as they were dressed, and at every interval when he was not upon the stage, Nicholas renewed his instructions. They prospered well. The Romeo was received with hearty plaudits and unbounded favour, and Smike was pronounced unanimously, alike by audience and actors, the very prince and prodigy of Apothecaries. [Chapter XXV, "Concerning a young Lady from London, who joins the Company, and an elderly Admirer who follows in her Train; with an affecting Ceremony consequent on their Arrival," 335-336]
Dickens focuses on Nicholas's discomfort in attempting to train Smike to field even a bit-part: "but by his anxiety on account of Smike, who, having to sustain the character of the Apothecary [in Romeo and Juliet], had been as yet wholly unable to get any more of the part into his head than the general idea that he was very hungry, which — perhaps from old recollections — he had acquired with great aptitude" (Ch. 25, "Concerning a young lady from London, who joins the Company, and an elderly Admirer who follows her Train; with an affecting Ceremony consequent on their Arrival," Part 8, November 1838). As in previous plates, Phiz depicts Smike's head as disproportionately large as compared to Nicholas's, and his limbs awkward and ungainly. From the decor, Phiz implies that this acting lesson occurs in the company's property room backstage.
Left: Harry Furniss's version focuses on Smike and excludes Nicholas as his backstage tutor: Smike rehearses as the Apothecary (1910). Centre: Fred Barnard's British Household Edition realisation of the theatrical context in Ch. 24: "As an exquisite embodiment of the poet's visions, and a realisation of human intellectuality, gilding with a refulgent light our dreamy moments, and laying open a new and magic world before the mental eye, the drama is gone, perfectly gone," said Mr. Curdle. (1875). Right: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s frontispiece of Nicholas consoling Smike at Dotheboys' Hall: Nicholas and Smike (1867).
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Illustrated by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1839.
_______. The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Ed. Andrew Lang. Illustrated by 'Phiz' (Hablot Knight Browne). The Gadshill Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1897. 2 vols.
Steig, Michael. Chapter 2. "The Beginnings of 'Phiz': Pickwick, Nickleby, and the Emergence from Caricature." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. 24-50.
Thomas, Deborah A. "Chapter 2: Imaginative Overindulgence." Dickens and the Short Story. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982. 7-31.
Vann, J. Don. "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, twenty parts in nineteen monthly installments, April 1838-October 1839." New York: Modern Language Association, 1985. 63.
Created 25 April 2002 Last modified 10 May 2021