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Passage Realised: In the Charnel House

Muttering a hasty prayer, and secretly crossing himself, Guy Fawkes strode after him towards the grave. By the Doctor's directions, he, with some reluctance, assisted Kelley to raise the corpse, and convey it to the charnel. Dee followed, bearing the lantern, and, on entering the building, closed and fastened the door.

The chamber in which Guy Fawkes found himself was in perfect keeping with the horrible ceremonial about to be performed. In one corner lay a mouldering heap of skulls, bones, and other fragments of mortality; in the other a pile of broken coffins, emptied of their tenants, and reared on end. But what chiefly attracted his attention, was a ghastly collection of human limbs, blackened with pitch, girded round with iron hoops, and hung, like meat in a shambles, against the wall. There were two heads, and, though the features were scarcely distinguishable, owing to the liquid in which they had been immersed, they still retained a terrific expression of agony. Seeing his attention directed to these revolting objects, Kelley informed him they were the quarters of the two priests who had recently been put to death, which had been left there previously to being placed on the church-gates. The implements, and some part of the attire used by the executioner in his butcherly office, were scattered about, and mixed with the tools of the sexton; while in the centre of the room stood a large wooden frame supported by trestles. On this frame, stained with blood and smeared with pitch, showing the purpose to which it had been recently put, the body was placed. This done, Doctor Dee set down the lantern beside it; and, as the light fell upon its livid features, sullied with earth, and exhibiting traces of decay, Guy Fawkes was so appalled by the sight that he half repented of what he had undertaken.

Noticing his irresolution, Doctor Dee said, "You may yet retire if you think proper."

"No," replied Fawkes, rousing himself; "I will go through with it." [Book I, "The Plot," Chapter VII, "Doctor Dee," pp. 53-54]

Commentary: Mismatch between Text and Plate

Whereas the illustration which complemented March 1840 instalment dealt with a cliffhanger at the end of a serial instalment (Fawkes about the intervene in Dee's exhumation of the corpse of Elizabeth Orton), the April (fourth) instalment’s illustration features Dr. Dee about to reanimate her corpse, certainly a highly suspenseful moment in Book One, Chapters 7-9. However, Cruikshank abates the horror of the quartered priests by substituting a number of skeletons; moreover, the illustrator has not included the recently disinterred corpse of the prophetess. Thus, Cruikshank's scene conveys suspense but without the gothic horrors of Ainsworth’s text. The illustration's cabalistic chest, circle, and basin containing fire, do not, however, correspond to anything in the text. Indeed, these added details imply that Dee and his assistant prepared for for the reanimation well in advance of their having disinterred the body. There are several possible explanations for Cruikshank’s diveregence from the text: he may have found Ainsworth's sensational scene too difficult to illustrate, or his adding details to the secene suggests either that Ainsworth revised the passage after he had sent it to the artist, or that Cruikshank didn’t know Ainsworth meant by what Dee's "Exhibiting His Magical Skill to Guy Fawkes;" or, finally, that the artist deliberately elected to improvise. The novel offers a far more dramatic scene than Cruikshank’s depiction of Fawkes regarding a closet full of rather prosaic skeletons.

As Robert L. Patten points out, “the book straddles two modes — history and Gothic romance — and the plates are a mishmash of theatrical tableaux, historical prints, and illustrations to Walpole or Mrs. Radcliffe. They were not, on the whole, poorly conceived or executed, despite the pressures of time, but they failed to satisfy anyone” (144).

Throughout 1840 Cruikshank was also illustrating a second monthly serialisation by Ainsworth — The Tower of London — outside the confines of Bentley's Miscellany. This massive project required author and artist to visit the Tower each month to study the scene for the next instalment and then determine monthly illustrations that, over the thirteen parts, would amount to 98 by the conclusion of the December 1840 double number. No wonder, then, that Cruikshank's work for Guy Fawlkes failed to meet the high standards of his illustrations for Jack Sheppard in 1839 and for Oliver Twist in 1837-39.

References

Ainsworth, William Harrison. Guy Fawkes, or The Gunpowder Treason: An Historical Romance. With 22 illustrations by George Cruikshank. London: Cunningham & Mortimer, 1841 (first edition). Rpt., London: George Routledge & Sons, n. d.

Patten, Robert L. Chapter 29, "The Tower! Is the Word — Forward to the Tower." George Cruikshank's Life, Times, and Art Vol. 2: 1835-1878. Cambridge: Lutterworth, 1996. Pp. 129-152.

Sutherland, John. "Guy Fawkes" in The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford: Stanford U. P., 19893. Pp. 267-68.

Vann, J. Don. "Guy Fawkes in Bentley's Miscellany, January 1840-Noevmber 18401." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. P. 20.

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Last modified 12 August 2018