“Mr. Weller surveyed the attorney from head to foot with great admiration, “And what’ll you take, Sir?” <br/> “Why, really,” replied Mr. Pell “you’re very _ Upon my word and honour, I’m not in the habit of _ It’s so very early in the morning, that, actually, I am almost _ Well, you may bring me three penn’orth of rum, my dear.”</a></span> — Thomas Onwhyn's twenty-fifth extra illustration for Charles Dickens's “The Pickwick Club” (26 October 1837)

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“Mr. Weller surveyed the attorney from head to foot with great admiration, “And what’ll you take, Sir?”
“Why, really,” replied Mr. Pell. “. . . Well, you may bring me three penn’orth of rum, my dear.”

Thomas Onwhyn [“TO del”]

steel engraving

12.3 cm high by 10.7 cm wide (4 ¾ by 4 ¼ inches), vignetted

Charles Dickens’s The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, Chapter XLIII, “Showing how Mr. Samuel Weller Got into Difficulties,” facing 458.

[Click on the 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: The Convivial Coachmen Persuade Pell to ‘Take Something’ (final instalment)

Mr. Weller nodded in a manner which bespoke his inward approval of these arrangements; and then, turning to Mr. Pell, said, pointing to his friend George —

‘Ven do you take his cloths off?’

‘Why,’ replied Mr. Pell, ‘he stands third on the opposed list, and I should think it would be his turn in about half an hour. I told my clerk to come over and tell us when there was a chance.’

Mr. Weller surveyed the attorney from head to foot with great admiration, and said emphatically —

‘And what’ll you take, sir?’

‘Why, really,’ replied Mr. Pell, ‘you’re very —. Upon my word and honour, I’m not in the habit of —. It’s so very early in the morning, that, actually, I am almost —. Well, you may bring me threepenn’orth of rum, my dear.’

The officiating damsel, who had anticipated the order before it was given, set the glass of spirits before Pell, and retired. [Chapter XLIII, “Showing how Mr. Samuel Weller Got into Difficulties,” 458]

Commentary: More Bibulous Behaviour Among the Coachmen

Part Fifteen (July 1837) is composed of just two chapters, an instalment which Onwhyn waited several months to illustrate, giving him ample opportunity to see what Phiz and Dickens had done with the Tony Weller/Stiggins comic subplot. Onwhyn had offered the book-collecting public his initial interpretation two months earlier, whereas Phiz's initial version of Tony Weller had appeared in The Valentine in March 1837. But Onwhyn's second depiction of the coachman closely resembles that by Phiz in that March plate rather than his own version of Tony Weller in “He called me a wessel, Sammy_a wessel of wrath_and all sorts of names . . . and walked off” (issued on 31 August 1837). Clearly, with Phiz's version in mind, Onwhyn decided to make his own figure align rather than conflict with it.

The Jovial Tony Weller in the British and American Household Editions (1873-74)

Left: Phiz for the British Household Edition woodcut reworked his original steel engraving as Before Sam could interfere to prevent it, his heroic parent had penetrated into a remote corner of the room, and attacked the Reverend Stiggins with manual dexterity (Ch. XXII, 1874). Right: Phiz's British Household Edition woodcut reworks his August 1837 steel engraving as Mr. Stiggins, getting on his legs as well as he could, proceeded to deliver an edifying discourse for the benefit of the company (Ch. XLV, 1874). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Left: The American edition's illustration by Thomas Nast that gives us the scene from inside the public house, Resuming his kicking with greater agility than before (1873). Right: Phiz's re-drafted version of the same scene for the Household Edition, Mr. Weller . . . . . immersing Mr. Stiggins's head in a horse-trough. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Phiz's Scenes Involving the Convivial Coachman, Tony Weller

The Valentine (March 1837 instalment)
The Red-Nosed Man Discourseth (August 1837 instalment)
Tony Weller ejects Mr. Stiggins (November 1837 instalment)
Mr. Weller and his friends drinking to Mr. Pell (November 1837 instalment)

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Robert Seymour, Robert Buss, and Phiz. London: Chapman and Hall, November 1837. With 32 additional illustrations by Thomas Onwhyn (London: E. Grattan, April-November 1837).

_______. The Pickwick Papers. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874; New York: Harpers and Brothers, 1873. Vol. 6.

Titley, Graham D. C. "Thomas Onwhyn: a Life in Illustration (1811-1886)." Pearl. University of Plymouth (2018-07-12).

Created 19 February 2024