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Jonathan Wild seizing Jack Sheppard at his Mother's Grave in Willesden Church-yard
George Cruikshank
January 1840
Etching
11.8 x 9.9 cm
"Epoch the Third, 1724. The Prison Breaker," Vol. 3, for Ch. 26, "How Jack Sheppard attended his Mother's Funeral," in William Harrison Ainsworth's Jack Sheppard. A Romance, facing page 241.
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The funeral procession had now approached the grave, around which many of the congregation, who were deeply interested by the sad ceremonial, had gathered. A slight rain fell at the time; and a few leaves, caught by the eddies, whirled around. Jonathan mixed with the group, and, sure of his prey, abided his time.
The clergyman, meanwhile, proceeded with the service, while the coffin was deposited at the brink of the grave.
Just as the attendants were preparing to lower the corpse into the earth, Jack fell on his knees beside the coffin, uttering the wildest exclamations of grief, reproaching himself with the murder of his mother, and invoking the vengeance of Heaven on his own head.
A murmur ran through the assemblage, by several of whom Jack was recognised. But such was the violence of his grief,—such the compunction he exhibited, that all Page 440but one looked on with an eye of compassion. That person advanced towards him.
"I have killed her," cried Jack.
"You have," rejoined Jonathan, laying a forcible grasp on his shoulder. "You are my prisoner."
Jack started to his feet; but before he could defend himself, his right arm was grasped by the Jew who had silently approached him.
"Hell-hounds!" he cried; "release me!"
At the same moment, Quilt Arnold rushed forward with such haste, that, stumbling over William Morgan, he precipitated him into the grave.
"Wretch!" cried Jack. "Are you not content with the crimes you have committed, — but you must carry your villany to this point. Look at the poor victim at your feet."
Jonathan made no reply, but ordered his myrmidons to drag the prisoner along.
Thames, meanwhile, had drawn his sword, and was about to rush upon Jonathan; but he was withheld by Wood.
"Do not shed more blood," cried the carpenter.
Groans and hoots were now raised by the crowd, and there was an evident disposition to rescue. A small brickbat was thrown, which struck Jonathan in the face.
"You shall not pass," cried several of the crowd.
"I knew his poor mother, and for her sake I'll not see this done," cried John Dump.
"Slip on the handcuffs," cried the thief-taker. "And now let's see who'll dare to oppose me. I am Jonathan Wild. I have arrested him in the King's name."
A deep indignant groan followed. — Chapter XXVI, "How Jack Sheppard attended his Mother's Funeral," p. 239-242.
Jonathan Wild and his minions, despite the presence of mourners who support the Sheppard family, apprehend Jack as he arrives at his mother's gravesite in the churchyard at Willesden, seen in several previous illustrations and hard by Dollis Hill, where wealthy carpenter Owen Wood has retired and where Blueskin murdered Mrs. Wood. Again, the detestable Wild escapes a violent death since Owen Wood insists, as Thames is about to come to Jack's rescue, that enough blood has been shed already. The melodramatic scene, drawing on such antecedents asHamlet at Ophelia's funeral, involves Jack's condemning himself for his mother's death, and pleading in vain to be permitted to see the first few shovels full of earth thrown over his mother's coffin. In his penultimate appearance, Jonathan Wild, the dark, squared-headed man with the mark of Cain on his forehead, is once again utterly inexorable — and despicable. The reaction of the community to his lack of common decency foreshadows the London mob's burning down his house and Blueskin's attempting murdering him, as (at least in terms of Victorian notions of Poetic Justice) he has long deserved. His conduct in this confrontational scene is all the more reprehensible in that it occurs on a Sunday. An overcast, sullen day suggests pathetic fallacy for the fate of the dutiful son, Jack Sheppard, who apparently has been "too absorbed" and too self-absorbed to notice the conspicuous arrival of Wild's four-horse carriage at the nearby Six Bells.
The composition places Jack immediately below the square church tower, as if he is an extension of it; indignantly he coinfronts the ugly Wild, whose head and Jack's are the highest among the seventeen figures, including (left to right) the clergyman in the white surplice; the sexton, William Morgan (just precipitated into the grave, beside the coffin); Wild's "janizaries," Obadiah Lemon and Abraham Mendez ("Nab"), grasping Jack's right arm; and, to the right margin, Owen Wood and Thames Darrell (drawing his sword) in respectable mourning. Confusingly, Cruikshank has inserted a figure holding a shovel, as if the sexton is in two places at once, and the "crowd" which is about to rise in anger and hurl insults and brackbats at Jonathan Wild is largely female; finally, no figure corresponding to the stalwart John Dump is among the prominent figures. Jack's white silk waistcoat establishes him as virtuous here, whereas Jack's adversaries are wearing dark colours, contributing to the good-evil dichotomy, which is supported by the white vestments of the Anglican minister in the midst of reading the divine service and the white tower of the church as dark storm clouds gather in the left-hand register.
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 24 December 2016