"She must go upon the roof" — Forty-first illustration by W. M. Thackeray for "The Rose and The Ring" (1855)

She must go upon the roof

W. M. Thackeray

1855

Wood engraving, probably by William Linton

9.5 cm high by 7.6 cm wide (3 ¾ by 3 inches), vignetted

Descriptive headlines: "Here We See What Giglio's Doing / As Becomes His Lineage Knightly" (pp. 375-376).

Forty-first illustration for The Rose and The Ring, p. 376.

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

Passage Illustrated: And suddenly we return to a nineteenth-century stagecoach

It was very cold weather, and the snow was on the ground, and Giglio, who gave his name as simple Mr. Giles, was very glad to get a comfortable place in the coupe of the diligence, where he sat with the conductor and another gentleman. At the first stage from Blombodinga, as they stopped to change horses, there came up to the diligence a very ordinary, vulgar-looking woman, with a bag under her arm, who asked for a place. All the inside places were taken, and the young woman was informed that if she wished to travel, she must go upon the roof; and the passenger inside with Giglio (a rude person, I should think), put his head out of the window, and said, "Nice weather for travelling outside! I wish you a pleasant journey, my dear." The poor woman coughed very much, and Giglio pitied her. "I will give up my place to her," says he, "rather than she should travel in the cold air with that horrid cough." On which the vulgar traveller said, "You'd keep her warm, I am sure, if it’s a muff she wants." On which Giglio pulled his nose, boxed his ears, hit him in the eye, and gave this vulgar person a warning never to call him muff again. [Chapter XIV, "What Became of Giglio," pp. 375-376]

Commentary: Pantomime Anachronisms Galore in the Text and Illustrations

After Hogginarmo in late mediaeval armour and the Princess Rosalba in a dungeon, the illustrations of the fourteenth chapter are disconcerting — but then that is precisely the manner of the hybrid dramatic form that Thackeray has taken as his model. As he reverts to Giglio's story, Thackeray has Glumboso despatch a pair of police constables to arrest him, and incarcerate him in Newgate Prison, where he is to be beheaded rather than hanged. Travelling under the assumed name of "Mr. Giles," Giglio takes a place in a late-eighteenth or early nineteenth-century "diligence," which, true to contemporary English fashion, changes horses at every principal station along its route. The picture realizes the scene in which an ordinary female traveller (who carries a manifestly nineteenth-century umbrella) is being told by the somewhat surly conductor that, since all seats inside the stagecoach are occupied, she must take a seat on the roof, exposed to the elements. Although Thackeray does not depict the coach itself, he implies its presence by the great wheel (right). The conductor points upward, intimating that the passenger in crinoline skirts will have to take the ladder in order to sit up on the roof of the diligence.

Bibliography

Furniss, Harry. The Rose and The Ring; or, The History of Prince Giglio and the Prince Bulbo. William Makepeace Thackeray's Christmas Books. With illustrations by the author and Harry Furniss. The Harry Furniss Centenary Edition. London: Macmillan and Co., 1911. Pp. 287-428.

Titmarsh, M. A. [W. M. Thackeray].The Rose and The Ring. London: Smith, Elder, 1855.

Created 4 August 2022