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Jack Sheppard exhibits a vindictive character
George Cruikshank
April 1839
Etching
11 x 9.3 cm
"Epoch the Second, 1715. Thames Darrell," Chapter 6, "The First Steps towards the Ladder," in William Harrison Ainsworth's Jack Sheppard. A Romance, facing page 251.
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Save us!" he cried, as his glance accidentally alighted on the drawing, which Winifred had dropped in her agitation. "Is this her work?"
"It is," answered Thames. "Do you see any likeness?"
"Don't I," returned Jack, bitterly. "Strange!" he continued, as if talking to himself. "How very like it is!"
"Not so strange, surely," laughed Thames, "that a picture should resemble the person for whom it's intended."
"Ay, but it is strange how much it resembles somebody for whom it's not intended. It's exactly like a miniature I have in my pocket."
"A miniature! Of whom?"
"That I can't say," replied Jack, mysteriously. "But, I half suspect, of your father."
"My father!" exclaimed Thames, in the utmost astonishment; "let me see it!"
"Here it is," returned Jack, producing a small picture in a case set with brilliants.
Thames took it, and beheld the portrait of a young man, apparently — judging from his attire — of high rank, whose proud and patrician features certainly presented a very striking resemblance to his own.
"You're right Jack," he said, after a pause, during which he contemplated the picture with the most fixed attention: "this must have been my father!"
"No doubt of it," answered Sheppard; "only compare it with Winny's drawing, and you'll find they're as like as two peas in a pod."
"Where did you get it?" inquired Thames.
"From Lady Trafford's, where I took the box."
"Surely, you haven't stolen it?"
"Stolen's an awkward word. But, as you perceive, I brought it away with me."
"It must be restored instantly, — be the consequences what they may."
"You're not going to betray me!" cried Jack, in alarm.
"I am not," replied Thames; "but I insist upon your taking it back at once."
"Take it back yourself," retorted Jack, sullenly. "I shall do no such thing."
"Very well," replied Thames, about to depart.
"Stop!" exclaimed Jack, planting himself before the door; "do you want to get me sent across the water?"
"I want to save you from disgrace and ruin," returned Thames.
"Bah!" cried Jack, contemptuously; "nobody's disgraced and ruined unless he's found out. I'm safe enough if you hold your tongue. Give me that picture, or I'll make you!"
"Hear me," said Thames, calmly; "you well know you're no match for me."
"Not at fisticuffs, perhaps," interrupted Jack, fiercely; "but I've my knife."
"You daren't use it."
"Try to leave the room, and see whether I daren't," returned Jack, opening the blade.
"I didn't expect this from you," rejoined Thames, resolutely. "But your threats won't prevent my leaving the room when I please, and as I please. Now, will you stand aside?"
"I won't," answered Jack, obstinately.
Thames said not another word, but marched boldly towards him, and seized him by the collar.
"Leave go!" cried Jack, struggling violently, and raising his hand, "or I'll maul you for life."
But Thames was not to be deterred from his purpose; and the strife might have terminated seriously, if a peace-maker had not appeared in the shape of little Winifred, who, alarmed by the noise, rushed suddenly into the room.
"Ah!" she screamed, seeing the uplifted weapon in Sheppard's hand, "don't hurt Thames — don't, dear Jack! If you want to kill somebody, kill me, not him."
And she flung herself between them. — "Epoch the Second, 1715. Thames Darrell." Ch. 6, "The First Step towards the Ladder," p. 248-251.
The two Jacobite trenchermen who so avidly swill and guzzle the Woods' feast in "May be cursed," muttered Jack Sheppard, "if I ever try to be honest again" (March 1839) are, in fact, Jonathan Wild and his confederate, Blueskin, who are about to arrest the fatuous wollen-draper Kneebone for sedition. Presumably they have attached themselves to him in order to see who else might be involved in his Jacobite circle. However, Owen Wood as the district constable thwarts Wild's apprehension of Kneebone by threatening to reveal that Wild was planning to use the purloined key he picked up at Mrs. Sheppard's house in the Mint twelve years previous to rob him. Wild tries to bargain with the possibility of disclosing the true identities of Thames Darrell's parents, and threatens the boy with the same fate as his father if Wood does not give up the Jacobite. However, when Wood refuses, Wild implies that he will follow through with his threat. Thus, the March 1839 instalment ends on a note of menace, mitigated by the humour of Wild's ensuring a domestic quarrel by giving to Owen Wood Dolly Wood's romantic correspondence to Kneebone. In the present chapter, Jack has stolen a portrait miniature when delivering the travelling case he built for Sir Rowland Trenchard's sister, a miniature that much resembles Thames in a sketch just produced by Winny Wood. The young men quarrel first over Winny, and again when Thames insists that the "small picture in a case set with brilliants" must be returned to Lady Trafford (who the reader suspects to be Thames's mother). Thus, one tends to agree with Martin Meisel about the almost absurd complications of the "lost heir" plot:
The Thames Darrell plot, with its concealed parentage, proud and wicked uncle, and struggle in the dark over an inheritance, is staple melodrama; and the mode is underlined by Ainsworth's pervasive use of a melodramatic Providence. In melodrama, the more patent and blatant the providential coincidence, the better, the more believable. Coincidence in this mode is evidence of truth, as it is of coherence in the nature of things; and coincidence creates "effect," the effect of melodrama. — Martin Meisel, Realizations, p. 267.
The Cruikshank illustration has the narrative virtue of dismissing the details of the lost parent plot, and underscoring the growing romantic rivalry between the apprentices over Winny Wood, who tries to act as the peacemaker here. The scene is the garret where the boys sleep, somewhat fancifully elaborated by Cruikshank but encompassing the materials which Ainsworth has described, except that, in order to display the background, Cruikshank has eliminated the broadsword and broken-backed chairs. Above Jack, Cruikshank has placed a model of a pillory complementing his labelled model of a gibbet, complete with miniature victim. Behind Jack is his carpenter's toolbox, above Thames A Treatise on Geometry, complementing his military interests, as suggested by the model of a man-of-war and a naval cannon, as well as by the musket and grenadier's hat in the corner. All of these details are supported by the text — Cruikshank's invention, on the other hand, is the bird on a perch in front of a birdhouse, above Winny.
Dickens's handling of the old theme of rivalry between apprentices was somewhat more novel in Oliver Twist in that Oliver has no interest whatsoever in the Sowerberrys' maid, Charlotte, and the two do indeed come to blows with an unexpected result in Oliver plucks up a spirit (April 1837), in which Charlotte fails to intervene, and the smaller boy triumphs. The overturned furniture in the 1837 engraving is repeated in the toppled table of the 1839 illustration, and the key elements of Ainsworth's plot (the case with the miniature portrait and Winny's sketch of Thames) appear prominently in the foreground. As Jack pulls his knife, Thames grapples with him, and both young men anxiously regard Winny, perhaps fearful that she will get hurt if she comes between them. The two make it up and become fast friends again, unlike Noah and Oliver. Cruikshank's principal contribution to Ainsworth's scene, however, is his elaboration of the embedded texts and images that Ainsworth described in the background. Earlier in the chapter, the writer provides a detailed catalogue of the boys' garret:
. . . like most boy's playrooms, it exhibited a total absence of order, or neatness. Things were thrown here and there, to be taken up, or again cast aside, as the whim arose; while the broken-backed chairs and crazy table bore the marks of many a conflict. The characters of the youthful occupants of the room might be detected in every article it contained. Darell's peculiar bent of mind was exemplified in a rusty broadsword, a tall grenadier's cap, a musket without lock or ramrod, a belt and cartouch-box, with other matters evincing a decided military taste. Among his books, Plutarch's Lives, and the Histories of Great Commanders, appeared to have been frequently consulted; but the dust had gathered thickly upon the Carpenter's Manual, and a Treatise on Trigonometry and Geometry. Beneath the shelf, containing these books, hung the fine old ballad of 'St. George for England'and a loyal ditty, then much in vogue, called 'True Protestant Gratitude, or, Britain's Thanksgiving for the First of August, Being the Day of His Majesty's Happy Accession to the Throne'. Jack Sheppard's library consisted of a few ragged and well-thumbed volumes abstracted from the tremendous chronicles bequeathed to the world by those Froissarts and Holinsheds of crime— the Ordinaries of Newgate. His vocal collection comprised a couple of flash songs pasted against the wall, entitled 'The Thief-Catcher's Prophecy', and the 'Life and Death of the Darkman's Budge;' while his extraordinary mechanical skill was displayed in what he termed (Jack had a supreme contempt fororthography) a 'Moddle of his Mas. Jale off Newgate;' another model of the pillory at Fleet Bridge; and a third of the permanent gibbet at Tyburn. The latter specimen, of his workmanship was adorned with a little scarecrow figure, intended to represent a housebreaking chimney-sweeper of the time, described in Sheppard's own hand-writing, as 'Jack Hall a-hanging.' We must not omit to mention that a family group from the pencil of little Winifred, representing Mr. and Mrs. Wood in very characteristic attitudes, occupied a prominent place on the walls. [p. 238-241]
Prominently behind the heads of Jack and Thames Cruikshank has positioned another of Winny's sketches showing her mother, Dolly (left), and her father, Owen (right), smoking a long-stemmed pipe. The musket, cartridge case, and grenadier's cap are in the right-hand margin, giving the bric-a-brac above the adversaries greater significance: a model ship and books above Thames, the model gibbet and victim (upper left), and apparently a model of a prison above Jack. The illustrator has so juxtaposed the background materials that these become an extension of each of the boys: Thames's rather better organized display includes objects and texts that imply Thames's loyalist or Hanoverian politics and his essential "Englishness": a miniature cannon, a model warship, and the ballad St. George for England, for example.
Ainsworth, William Harrison. Jack Sheppard. A Romance. With 28 illustrations by George Cruikshank. In three volumes. London: Richard Bentley, 1839.
Ainsworth, William Harrison. Jack Sheppard. Edited by Edward Jacobs and Manuela Mourao. With 31 illustrations. Peterborough, ON: Broadview, 2007.
Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London: Bradbury and Evans; Chapman and Hall, 1846.
Meisel, Martin. Chapter 13, "Novels in Epitome." Realizations: Narrative, Pictorial, and Theatrical Arts in Nineteenth-Century England. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989. Pp. 247-282.
Sutherland, John. "Jack Sheppard" in The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 19893. Pp. 323-324.
Vann, J. Don. "Jack Sheppard in Bentley's Miscellany, January 1839 — February 1840." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: Modern Language Association, 1985. Page 19.
Last modified 10 December 2016
