Departure of the Young Couple and the Chapman & Hall title-page with Dickens's name (or pseudonym "Boz") conspicuously absent. — Phiz's initial illustration for Charles Dickens's Sketches of Young Couples, 1838. Steel engraving for Chapter 2, "The Young Couple." 10.5 cm high by 8.5 cm wide (4 ⅛ by 3 ¼ inches), vignetted. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Passage Illustrated: Departing for the Honeymoon
Of all the company though, none are more pleasant to behold or better pleased with themselves than two young children, who, in honour of the day, have seats among the guests. Of these, one is a little fellow of six or eight years old, brother to the bride, — and the other a girl of the same age, or something younger, whom he calls ‘his wife.’ The real bride and bridegroom are not more devoted than they: he all love and attention, and she all blushes and fondness, toying with a little bouquet which he gave her this morning, and placing the scattered rose-leaves in her bosom with nature’s own coquettishness. They have dreamt of each other in their quiet dreams, these children, and their little hearts have been nearly broken when the absent one has been dispraised in jest. When will there come in after-life a passion so earnest, generous, and true as theirs; what, even in its gentlest realities, can have the grace and charm that hover round such fairy lovers!
By this time the merriment and happiness of the feast have gained their height; . . . and the table is deserted.
Now, for at least six weeks last past it has been solemnly devised and settled that the young couple should go away in secret; but they no sooner appear without the door than the drawing-room windows are blocked up with ladies waving their handkerchiefs and kissing their hands, and the dining-room panes with gentlemen’s faces beaming farewell in every queer variety of its expression. The hall and steps are crowded with servants in white favours, mixed up with particular friends and relations who have darted out to say good-bye; and foremost in the group are the tiny lovers arm in arm, thinking, with fluttering hearts, what happiness it would be to dash away together in that gallant coach, and never part again.
The bride has barely time for one hurried glance at her old home, when the steps rattle, the door slams, the horses clatter on the pavement, and they have left it far away. [Chapter II, "The Young Couple," pp. 17-18]
Commentary: Which "Young Couple"?
The only residue of Dickens's having developed the minor characters of the two maids as the chief spectators of the proceedings is the knowing, Sam Weller-like servant acting as the postillion in the foreground. This must certainly be John, the servant who has shared a bottle of wine with the two maids and extracted a kiss from each in recompense. The child relatives of the bride and groom assume a prominence in the illustration that reflects the philosophical and somewhat wistful narrator's reflections on the children as ideal lovers who enjoy a pure and unsullied devotion to one another. Thus, "The Young Couple" as a title of the engraving refers not the the bride and groom, who are not in evidence at all in the illustration, but to the little girl and boy on the steps, waving their older siblings goodbye.
Scanned images and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned them and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Ackroyd, Peter. Dickens: A Biography. London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1990.
Buchanan-Brown, John. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978.
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 22 April 2023 Last updated 13 May 2023