Mr. Tuckle, dressed out with the cocked-hat and stick, danced the frog hornpipe among the shells on the table" — thirty-seventh illustration by Phiz for Dickens's "Pickwick Papers" (1874)

"Mr. Tuckle, dressed out with the cocked-hat and stick, danced the frog hornpipe among the shells on the table, etc. (See page 263.) by Phiz (Hablot K. Browne) in the Household Edition (1874) of Dickens's Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, Chapter XXXVII, "Honourably accounts for Mr. Weller's Absence, by describing a Soirée to which he was invited and went; and relates how he was intrusted by Mr. Pickwick with a Private Mission of Delicacy and Importance," p. 265. Wood-engraving, 4 inches high by 5 ½ inches wide (10.3 cm high by 14.3 cm wide), framed, half-page; referencing text on page 263 in previous chapter; descriptive headline: "Exhilarating Effects of Oysters and Punch" (p. 263). [Click on the illustration to enlarge it.]

Passage Illustrated

Here Sam sat down with a pleasant smile, and his speech having been vociferously applauded, the company broke up.

‘Wy, you don’t mean to say you’re a-goin’ old feller?’ said Sam Weller to his friend, Mr. John Smauker.

‘I must, indeed,’ said Mr. Smauker; ‘I promised Bantam.’

‘Oh, wery well,’ said Sam; ‘that’s another thing. P’raps he’d resign if you disappinted him. You ain’t a-goin’, Blazes?’

‘Yes, I am,’ said the man with the cocked hat.

‘Wot, and leave three-quarters of a bowl of punch behind you!’ said Sam; ‘nonsense, set down agin.’

Mr. Tuckle was not proof against this invitation. He laid aside the cocked hat and stick which he had just taken up, and said he would have one glass, for good fellowship’s sake.

As the gentleman in blue went home the same way as Mr. Tuckle, he was prevailed upon to stop too. When the punch was about half gone, Sam ordered in some oysters from the green-grocer’s shop; and the effect of both was so extremely exhilarating, that Mr. Tuckle, dressed out with the cocked hat and stick, danced the frog hornpipe among the shells on the table, while the gentleman in blue played an accompaniment upon an ingenious musical instrument formed of a hair-comb upon a curl-paper. At last, when the punch was all gone, and the night nearly so, they sallied forth to see each other home. Mr. Tuckle no sooner got into the open air, than he was seized with a sudden desire to lie on the curbstone; Sam thought it would be a pity to contradict him, and so let him have his own way. As the cocked hat would have been spoiled if left there, Sam very considerately flattened it down on the head of the gentleman in blue, and putting the big stick in his hand, propped him up against his own street-door, rang the bell, and walked quietly home. [Chapter XXXVII, "Honourably accounts for Mr. Weller's Absence, by describing a Soirée to which he was invited and went; and relates how he was intrusted by Mr. Pickwick with a Private Mission of Delicacy and Importance," 263]

Commentary: Upstairs versus Downstairs

The romantic and political adventures of the upper-middle-class Pickwickians are but half of The Pickwick Papers once Sam Weller enters the story. He, his background, his "below-stairs" associates, and his racy Wellerisms and Cockney wit impart a binocular vision of British nineteenth-century society whenever Dickens and his illustrators shift focus away from Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Tupman, and Mr. Winkle. Here, Sam has been invited to a "swarry" of members of his own class, footmen in the great townhouses of Bath. As Paul Davis remarks, "The splendor of their uniforms is matched only by their snobbery and condescension" (312) as they attempt to emulate the speech and mannerisms of their wealthy employers who frequent the Pump and Assembly Rooms. As the present illustration shows, Sam can enjoy himself "below-stairs," and still deflate pretension with his apt observations and street-wise witticisms.

This illustration complements Winkle's nocturnal misadventures in Chapter XXXVI and the Dickensian satire of the bibulous medical students in partnership, Ben Allen and Bob Sawyer, in Chapter XXXVIII. The servants' party offers plenty of physical comedy. Sam's host, John Smauker, the self-important valet of Bath's Master of Ceremonies, Cyrus Bantam, has already cautioned Sam that he will not be treated as an equal by the egotistical servants of superficial Bath society. But his ready wit and refraining from making a fool of himself "under the influence" distinguish him from the rest of the raucous company. This scene has no actual counterpart in the original serial illustrations for April and May, 1837.

Relevant Scenes from the Original Serial

The Card-room at Bath by Phiz (Ch. 35) April 1837
Mr. Winkle's Situation when the door "blew-to" by Phiz (Ch. 36) April 1837
Conviviality at Bob Sawyer's by Phiz (Ch. 38) May 1837

Related Material

Other artists who illustrated this work, 1836-1910

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Bibliography

Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.

Cohen, Jane Rabb. Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio State U. P., 1980.

Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File and Checkmark Books, 1998.

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).

_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Frontispieces by Felix Octavius Carr Darley and Sir John Gilbert. The Household Edition. 55 vols. New York: Sheldon & Co., 1863. 4 vols.

_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Thomas Nast. The Household Edition. 22 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1873. Vol. 2.

_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874. Vol. 5.

_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 2.

_____. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. Vol. 1.

_______. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Thomas Nast. The Household Edition. 16 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1873. Vol. 4.

_______. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874. Vol. 6.

_______. Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 2.

Guiliano, Edward, and Philip Collins, eds. The Annotated Dickens. 2 vols. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1986. Vol. I.

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.

Created 10 March 2012

Last modified 23 April 2024