[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> George Cruikshank —> The Tower of London —> W. H. Ainsworth —> Next]
Cuthbert Cholmondeley surprised by a mysterious figure in the dungeon.
George Cruikshank
February 1840
steel-engraving
11.7 cm high by 9.9 cm wide, framed, facing p. 48.
Fifteenth illustration for the seventh chapter of Ainsworth's The Tower of London.
[Click on 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 the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
On recovering from the stunning effects of the blow he had received, Cuthbert Cholmondeley found himself stretched on the floor of a gloomy vault, or dungeon, for such he judged it. At first, he thought he must be dreaming, and tried to shake off the horrible nightmare by which he supposed himself oppressed. But a moment's reflection undeceived him; and starting to his feet, he endeavoured to explore the cell in which he was confined. A heavy chain, which bound his leg to the floor, prevented him from moving more than a few paces; and, convinced that escape was impossible, he sank upon the ground in despair. . . . .
The cell in which he was thrown was part of a series of such dreadful receptacles, contrived in the thickness of the ballium wall, and extending from the Beauchamp Tower to the Devilin Tower. They were appropriated to those prisoners who were doomed to confinement for life.
Horrible recollections then flashed upon his mind of the dreadful sufferings he had heard that the miserable wretches immured in these dungeons underwent — how some were tortured — some destroyed by secret and expeditious means — others by the more lingering process of starvation. As the latter idea crossed him, he involuntarily stretched out his hand to ascertain whether any provisions had been left him; but he could find none.
The blood froze in his veins as he thought of dying thus; his hair stiffened upon his head; and he was only prevented from crying out to make his lamentable case known to the occupants of any of the adjoining cells, by the conviction of its utter futility. But this feeling passed away, and was succeeded by calmer and more consolatory reflections. While in this frame of mind, Nature asserted her sway, and he dropped asleep.
How long he remained thus, he knew not; but he was awakened by a loud and piercing scream. Raising himself, he listened intently. The scream was presently repeated in a tone so shrill and unearthly, that it filled him with apprehensions of a new kind. The outcry having been a third time raised, he was debating within himself whether he should in any way reply to it, when he thought he beheld a shadowy figure glide along the passage. It paused at a short distance from him. A glimmer of light fell upon the arch on the left, but the place where the figure stood was buried in darkness. After gazing for some time at the mysterious visitant, and passing his hand across his brow to assure himself that his eyesight did not deceive him, Cholmondeley summoned courage enough to address it. No answer was returned; but the figure, which had the semblance of a female, with the hands raised and clasped together as if in supplication or prayer, and with a hood drawn over the face, remained perfectly motionless. Suddenly, it glided forward, but with a step so noiseless and swift, that almost before the esquire was aware of the movement, it was at his side. He then felt a hand cold as marble placed upon his own, and upon grasping the fingers they appeared so thin and bony, that he thought he must have encountered a skeleton. Paralysed with fright, Cholmondeley shrunk back as far as he was able; but the figure pursued him, and shrieked in his ear — "My child, my child! — you have taken my child!" [Book One, Chapter VII. — "How Cuthbert Chomondeley was Thrown into a Dungeon near the Devlin Tower; And How a Mysterious Female Figure Appeared to Him There," pp. 46-48 — the first half of the second instalment]
Cuthbert Cholmondeley surprised by a mysterious figure in the dungeon adjoining the Devilin Tower is a scene straight out of Gothic romance. Although the scene in the text drops from suspense to mere inexplicable twaddle of the kind invented for Romantic gothic novels such as Matthew G. Lewis's The Monk, Cruikshank's atmospheric illustration enables the reader to clarify which plot strand the forthcoming chapter will be developing. The young hero of gothic romance in the tradition of Sir Walter Scott and Anne Radcliffe awakens after his being assaulted as he was leaving the jolly company in the kitchen of the Stone Tower. Quickly he realizes that, through his attentions to the beautiful Cicely, he must have made himself into an object of envy for the lugubrious chief jailer, Lawrence Nightgall, another dark villain from the realm of the Gothic Novel. Ainsworth has held the reader in suspense ever since the close of Chapter III, when an unknown agent (presumably, Nightgall) assaulted and imprisoned the handsome esquire to Lord Guildford Dudley:
Half an hour afterwards, as Cuthbert Cholmondeley issued from the postern with a heart elate with rapture at having elicited from the fair Cicely a confession that she loved him, he received a severe blow on the head from behind, and before he could utter a single outcry, he was gagged, and forced away by his assailants. [p. 48]
Ainsworth borrowed the suspense-generating stratagem of the sudden, inexplicable, and utterly unjust imprisonment of the young hero upon the stock plot gambit of the Romantic-era romances by Radcliffe and Lewis. Consequently, so that the scene betrays the Gothic origins of Ainsworth's The Tower of London, which he justly subtitles "a historical romance." The equally inexplicable appearance of a female spectre or visitant in the dank vaults provides a further source of suspense, a mystery for which Ainsworth eventually provides a rational explanation involving Cicely's mother and the obsessed jailer, Nightgall.
"Ainsworth, William Harrison." http://biography.com
Ainsworth, William Harrison. The Tower of London. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London: Richard Bentley, 1840.
Burton, Anthony. "Cruikshank as an Illustrator of Fiction." George Cruikshank: A Revaluation. Ed. Robert L. Patten. Princeton: Princeton U. P., 1974, rev., 1992. Pp. 92-128.
Carver, Stephen. Ainsworth and Friends: Essays on 19th Century Literature & The Gothic. 11 September 2017.
Golden, Catherine J. "Ainsworth, William Harrison (1805-1882." Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia, ed. Sally Mitchell. New York and London: Garland, 1988. Page 14.
Kelly, Patrick. "William Harrison Ainsworth." Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 21, "Victorian Novelists Before 1885," ed. Ira Bruce Nadel and William E. Fredeman. Detroit: Gale Research, 1983. Pp. 3-9.
McLean, Ruari. George Cruikshank: His Life and Work as a Book Illustrator. English Masters of Black-and-White. London: Art and Technics, 1948.
Sutherland, John. "The Tower of London" in The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 19893. P. 633.
Steig, Michael. "George Cruikshank and the Grotesque: A Psychodynamic Approach." George Cruikshank: A Revaluation. Ed. Robert L. Patten. Princeton: Princeton U. P., 1974, rev., 1992. Pp. 189-212.
Vogler, Richard A. Graphic Works of George Cruikshank. Dover Pictorial Archive Series. New York: Dover, 1979.
Worth, George J. William Harrison Ainsworth. New York: Twayne, 1972.
Vann, J. Don. "The Tower of London, thirteen parts in twelve monthly instalments, January-December 1840." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. Pp. 19-20.
Last modified 10 October 2017