Passage Illustrated: A Boating Idyll on the Upper Thames

In the bustle of the scene, Mr. and Mrs. Leaver stole down to the boat, and disposed themselves under the awning, Mrs. Leaver reclining her head upon Mr. Leaver’s shoulder, and Mr. Leaver grasping her hand with great fervour, and looking in her face from time to time with a melancholy and sympathetic aspect. The widow sat apart, feigning to be occupied with a book, but stealthily observing them from behind her fan; and the two firemen-watermen, smoking their pipes on the bank hard by, nudged each other, and grinned in enjoyment of the joke. Very few of the party missed the loving couple; and the few who did, heartily congratulated each other on their disappearance. [Chapter IV, "The Loving Couple," 34]

Commentary: The Annoyingly "Loving" Couple on a boat excursion to Twickenham

Although Chapman and Hall have juxtaposed the illustration and the introductory paragraph of the chapter, Phiz is in fact realizing the very last paragraph of the sketch, after the rowing party has arrived on the shores of the River Thames at Twickenham, have had an extensive picnic, and are now dancing on the green. Phiz has therefore amalgamated previous moments with the shipboard idyll as the rowers ("the amateur crew") are still eating and drinking on the green (rear). On the bank (left) the pair of tramps, as we initially judge them to be, turn out to be members of the boating party ("the two firemen-watermen, smoking their pipes on the bank hard by"). However, the reader is likely to misconstrue these figures until he or she arrives at the final paragraph of the sketch.

What amounts to the sketch's headpiece announces that the happy couple will be chaperoned in their boat, but only reading the text will enable us to determine the relationshop between the middle-aged woman in the bow and the lovers in the stern. Once again, then, as mentioned above, Phiz tantalizes readers from the beginning with a scene occurring at the end. The "loving couple," we quickly learn, are Mr. Augustus and Mrs. Augusta Leaver, and their companion is a widow, Mrs. Starling. Their "lovingness" is most particularly on display at picnics and water parties such as the one they attended at Twickenham. But the boat they take, despite its blue-striped awning in both the plate and the letterpress is hardly an eight-oared galley in Phiz's headpiece. The medical emergency of Mrs. Leaver's fit averted by the timely intervention of a medical man, the picnic resumes with dancing on the green (rear) and the couple's cuddling in the boat. Dickens makes it clear that Mrs. Starling is only pretending to be engaged in her book, and is stealthily watching their making up from behind her fan. What Phiz's illustration about the happy couple misses entirely is how annoying they are to everyone around them except Mrs. Starling.

Bibliography

Buchanan-Brown, John. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978.

Caswell, Edward. Sketches of Young Ladies: In Which These Interesting Members of the Animal Kingdom Are Classified, According to Their Several Instincts. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. London: Chapman and Hall, 31 December 1836.

Dickens, Charles. Sketches of Young Couples. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. London: Chapman and Hall, 1840.

Dickens, Charles. Sketches of Young Gentlemen. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. London: Chapman and Hall, 1838.

Lester, Valerie Browne Lester. Phiz! The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.

Slater, Michael. Charles Dickens. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009.

Bentley, Nicholas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. "Sketches of Young Couples." The Dickens Index. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. P. 237.

Steig, Michael. Chapter Two: "The Beginnings of 'Phiz': Pickwick, Nickleby, and the Emergence from Caricature." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 24-85.

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Created 12 May 2023