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Pecksniffery Revealed: The Purloined Design

"My grammar-school. I invented it. I did it all. He has only put four windows in, the villain, and spoilt it!"

Mark could hardly believe it at first, but being assured that it was really so, actually held him to prevent his interference foolishly, until his temporary heat was past. In the meantime, the member addressed the company on the gratifying deed which he had just performed.

He said that since he had sat in Parliament to represent the Gentlemanly Interest of that town; and he might add, the Lady Interest, he hoped, besides (pocket handkerchiefs); it had been his pleasant duty to come among them, and to raise his voice on their behalf in Another Place (pocket handkerchiefs and laughter), often. But he had never come among them, and had never raised his voice, with half such pure, such deep, such unalloyed delight, as now. "The present occasion," he said, "will ever be memorable to me; not only for the reasons I have assigned, but because it has afforded me an opportunity of becoming personally known to a gentleman —"

Here he pointed the trowel at Mr. Pecksniff, who was greeted with vociferous cheering, and laid his hand upon his heart.

"To a gentleman who, I am happy to believe, will reap both distinction and profit from this field; whose fame had previously penetrated to me — as to whose ears has it not! — but whose intellectual countenance I never had the distinguished honour to behold until this day, and whose intellectual conversation I had never before the improving pleasure to enjoy."

Everybody seemed very glad of this, and applauded more than ever.

"But I hope my Honourable Friend," said the Gentlemanly member — of course he added "if he will allow me to call him so," and of course Mr Pecksniff bowed — "will give me many opportunities of cultivating the knowledge of him; and that I may have the extraordinary gratification of reflecting in after-time that I laid on this day two first stones, both belonging to structures which shall last my life!"

Great cheering again. All this time, Martin was cursing Mr. Pecksniff up hill and down dale. [Chapter XXXV, "Arriving in England, Martin witnesses a Ceremony, from which he derives the Cheering Information that he has not been Forgotten in his Absence," page 416 in the 1844 edition]

Commentary: Martin returns to discover Plagiarism

In the last chapter in the thirteenth monthly instalment, young Martin, who has returned from America poorer but wiser, witnesses Pecksniff's fraudulently claiming Martin's design for a grammar school building as his own. The stout timbers assembled as a tripod, as we may surmise from the letterpress, will enable the local Member of Parliament to lever the foundation stone (centre) into place. At the right-hand base of the triangle, architectural plans in hand, stands the man of the hour, while at the left hand base of the triangle stand the other community pillars, the schoolmaster ("an ancient scholar" who reads the Latin inscription) and (we presume) his wife (left); meanwhile, standing on a bucket, the local M. P., his social eminence emphasized by the tower and flagpole immediately behind him (though according to the text, he must be on the ground since he looks up at the stone), extols the labour and character of Pecksniff. He holds a trowel in his left hand as he gestures at the celebrated architect with his right, as if Pecksniff is the metaphorical mortar that binds the community together, or another corner stone about to be set in place after winning the public design competition and thereby established as a well-known architect.

The viewer instinctively scans the admiring crowd of assembled bourgeoisie (their respectability identified by top-hats and bonnets) for Mark and young Martin, from whose perspective Dickens describes the scene. Squeezed into a corner on the ground, Mark and Martin might be the pair of observers top left, except for the fact that they are able to step forward and, unseen by the architect, survey his plans. The charity children are evident behind Pecksniff, but Phiz seems to have been unable to work in the marching band and rod-carrying Members of the Corporation, although the Mayor is present, to the right of Pecksniff, with whom hehas been conversing. The purpose of the mortar and second, practicable trowel (bottom, centre) which, presumably, Pecksniff will wield in the ceremony are obvious enough, but the meaning of the overturned bottle, lying on the ground, is not — unless it is the little vase containing coins that the Member has been jingling moments earlier. The cornerstone has already been lowered into place, and Pecksniff has, as the letterpress suggests, unrolled his plans, but these have yet to receive the admiring gaze of the assembled multitude, and Martin has yet to step forward and, in private conversation with Mark, claim the plans for the grammar school as his own design, pirated (a reminder of Dickens's ill-fated lawsuit against Peter Parley's Illuminated Library for theft of A Christmas Carol. Steig points out that

The caption here is ironic, since Martin is outraged at Pecksniff's plagiarism of his architectural design. The tripod which supports the block and tackle will figure again in the frontispiece [one of the last plates executed], with Pecksniff dangling from it in a fitting allegory of his defeat and humiliation. [DSA 2, 137]

The moment illustrated seems to be when the M. P. points his silver trowel toward Pecksniff as he remarks,

The present occasion . . . will ever be memorable to me: not only for the reasons I have assigned, but because it has afforded me an opportunity of becoming personally known to a gentleman . . . who, I am happy to believe, will reap both distinction and profit from this field . . . . [Ch. 35]

In short, Pecksniff, like Tigg, has thus far been successful at fooling the majority into believing him a pillar of society and his profession. But Martin, who feels quite the reverse of "gratified" at having witnessed the "imposing ceremony," now resolves to unmask the hypocrite and plagiarist at last.

Relevant Illustrations from Other Editions, 1867-1910

Left: Harry Furniss's derivative realisation of the laying of the corner-stone for Martin's grammar school, The Laying of the Foundation Stone (1910). Centre: Clayton J. Clarke's watercolour study of the mock-modest architect with the distinctive hairstyle, Mr. Pecksniff (c. 1910). Right: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s portrait of Martin and Mark a year earlier, shortly before they leave Eden, Martin Chuzzlewit and Mark Tapley (1867). [Click on images to enlarge them.]

Above: Fred Barnard's realisation of the scene in which Pecksniff, plans in hand, sails the taproom window of the inn where the travellers are staying, Mr. Pecksniff. Placid, calm, but proud . . . . . gently travelling across the disc, as if he were a figure in a magic lantern (1872).

Related Materials: Later Illustrations

• Illustrations by Sol Eytinge, Jr. (16 plates from the Ticknor and Fields' Diamond Edition of 1867)
• Fred Barnard (60 plates from the Chapman and Hall Household Edition of 1872)
• Clayton J. Clarke (five studies from three sources, 1910)
• Harry Furniss (twenty-eight lithographs for the Charles Dickens Library Edition, 1910)

Bibliography

Allingham, Philip V. "Phiz's Illustrations, Part Three." [Ch. 29-35] The Dickens Magazine: Martin Chuzzlewit. 5.3 (February, 2009): 8-11.

Cohen, Jane Rabb. Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio State U. P., 1980.

Dickens, Charles. American Notes for General Circulation and Pictures from Italy in Works. Illustrated by Marcus Stone. Illustrated Library Edition. London: Chapman and Hall: 1866, rpt. 1874.

_____. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1844.

_____. Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867. Vol. 2.

_____. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1872. Vol. 2.

_____. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Edited by Andrew Lang. Illustrated by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne). The Gadshill Edition: 34 volumes. London: Chapman and Hall; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1897. 2 vols.

_____. Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. Edited by J. A. Hammerton. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 7.

_____. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Edited by Margaret Cardwell. Illustrated by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne). The Clarendon Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982.

Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.

Monod, Sylvère. "External and Additional Material." Martin Chuzzlewit. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1985. Pp. 173-185.

Steig, Michael. "From Caricature to Progress: Master Humphrey's Clock and Martin Chuzzlewit." Ch. 3, Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U.P., 1978. Pp. 51-85.

_____. "Martin Chuzzlewit's Progress by Dickens and Phiz." Dickens Studies Annual, 2 (1972): 119-149.

Vann, J. Don. "Martin Chuzzlewit, twenty parts in nineteen monthly installments, January 1843 — July 1844." New York: Modern Language Association, 1985. Pp. 66-67.

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