"Giglio as a University Student" — Forty-fourth illustration by W. M. Thackeray for "The Rose and The Ring" (1855)

Giglio as a University Student

W. M. Thackeray

1855

Wood engraving, probably by William Linton

8.4 cm high by 6.5 cm wide (3 ⅜ by 2 ⅜ inches), vignetted

Descriptive headlines: "Humble Pie Is Wholesome Meat, / Good For All of Us to Eat" (pp. 380-381).

Forty-fourth illustration for The Rose and The Ring, p. 380.

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: Giglio becomes a student at the University of Bosforo

When [Giglio, disguised as a student] opened his trunk, which the day before he had filled with his best clothes, he found it contained only books. And in the first of them which he opened there was written —

Clothes for the back, books for the head:

Read and remember them when they are read.

And in his bag, when Giglio looked in it, he found a student’s cap and gown, a writing-book full of paper, an inkstand, pens, and a Johnson’s dictionary, which was very useful to him, as his spelling had been sadly neglected. [Chapter XIV, "What Became of Giglio," pp. 380-381]

Commentary

Having had but a slight education and having failed to apply himself to his studies, Giglio stares curiously at the inkstand and pens resting on top of his student's cap. Although Giglio begins as an indifferent scholar, he works hard all year and becomes a model student, winning eight prizes for academic excellence. Thackeray may have intended his fictional Prince Giglio to be a complete contrast to Britain's Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (1841-1910), who in 1855 was an indifferent thirteen-year-old student still working under private tutors. Although "Bertie" had been subjected to a demanding educational regime from an early age, he had been a mediocre student, and would prove so at both Oxford and Cambridge.

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 9 August 2022