"The Couple who coddle themselves," fifth of six engravings by Phiz for Dickens's "Sketches of Young Couples" (1840)

The Couple who coddle themselves.

Phiz

Dalziel

1840

Steel-engraving

10.3 cm high by 8.3 cm wide (4 by 3 ¼ inches), facing p. 75, vignetted, for Chapter XI, "The Couple who Coddle Themselves," pp. 75-82.

Source: Sketches of Young Couples, opposite p. 75.

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

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 it, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Passage Illustrated: Aging Comfortably, if not Gracefully: Col temp

Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle are a couple who coddle themselves; and the venerable Mrs. Chopper [Mrs. Merrywinkle's mother] is an aider and abettor in the same.

Mr. Merrywinkle is a rather lean and long-necked gentleman, middle-aged and middle-sized, and usually troubled with a cold in the head. Mrs. Merrywinkle is a delicate-looking lady, with very light hair, and is exceedingly subject to the same unpleasant disorder. The venerable Mrs. Chopper — who is strictly entitled to the appellation, her daughter not being very young, otherwise than by courtesy, at the time of her marriage, which was some years ago — is a mysterious old lady who lurks behind a pair of spectacles, and is afflicted with a chronic disease, respecting which she has taken a vast deal of medical advice, and referred to a vast number of medical books, without meeting any definition of symptoms that at all suits her, or enables her to say, ‘That’s my complaint.’ Indeed, the absence of authentic information upon the subject of this complaint would seem to be Mrs. Chopper’s greatest ill, as in all other respects she is an uncommonly hale and hearty gentlewoman.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Chopper [by whom Dickens obviously means "Merrywinkle"] wear an extraordinary quantity of flannel, and have a habit of putting their feet in hot water to an unnatural extent. They likewise indulge in chamomile tea and such-like compounds, and rub themselves on the slightest provocation with camphorated spirits and other lotions applicable to mumps, sore-throat, rheumatism, or lumbago. [Chapter XI, "The Couple Who Coddle Themselves," pp. 76-77]

Commentary: Hardly a "Sketch of a Young Couple"

Phiz has realised both the married figures, but has deliberately avoided depicting Merrywinkle's mother-in-law. Since the mother-in-law is a "mysterious old lady who lurks behind a pair of spectacles," the middle-aged woman to the left in her elaborate, frilled dressing-gown is not Mrs. Chopper. As this is the first of the little volume's couples who are manifestly "not young," Dickens seems to have abandoned his original scheme in favour of delineating respectable, middle-class couples of various ages; the final couple some seven pages further on are specifically not newly-weds, but an Old Couple in the twelfth and final chapter of a slender volume inspired by the royal engagement. What the couples in advanced middle age and old age are in this little volume their Majesties Victoria and Albert, prophesies Dickens, will become. The spirit of youth and vivacity so evident in The Loving Couple and The Nice, Little Couple have been replaced by a hot toddy and several wine bottles on the mantlepiece. Phiz depicts only Mr. Merrywinkle as indulging in a foot-bath, and his beverage container implies that he is consuming something other than tea in this rather small, crowded parlour before bed.

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.

Created 24 April 2023

Last updated 13 May 2023