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Mark Begins to be Jolly Under Creditable Circumstances
Phiz
March 1843
Steel-engraving
15.1 cm high by 10.8 cm wide, vignetted
Sixth regular monthly illustration for Charles Dickens's Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, facing page 88 (1844 edition) in the seventh chapter; running head in both the 1868 and 1898 editions: "Adieu to the Dragon."
[Click on image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
He rose early next morning, and was a-foot soon after sunrise. But it was of no use; the whole place was up to see Mark Tapley off; the boys, the dogs, the children, the old men, the busy people and the idlers; there they were, all calling out "Good-b'ye, Mark," after their own manner, and all sorry he was going. Somehow he had a kind of sense that his old mistress was peeping from her chamber-window, but he couldn't make up his mind to look back.
"Good-b'ye one, good-b'ye all!" cried Mark, waving his hat on the top of his walking-stick, as he strode at a quick pace up the little street. "Hearty chaps them wheelwrights — hurrah! Here's the butcher's dog a-coming out of the garden — down, old fellow! And Mr Pinch a-going to his organ — good-b'ye, sir! And the terrier-bitch from over the way — hie, then, lass! And children enough to hand down human natur to the latest posterity — good-b'ye, boys and girls! There's some credit in it now. I'm a-coming out strong at last. These are the circumstances that would try a ordinary mind; but I'm uncommon jolly. Not quite as jolly as I could wish to be, but very near. Good-b'ye! good-b'ye!" [Chapter VII, "In which Mr. Chevy Slyme asserts the independence of his spirit; and the Blue Dragon loses a limb," page 88 in the 1844 edition.]
Browne's propensity for interpretation is evident in the signpost, an emblem which Dickens and Browne put to various uses. The signpost in this plate points in the opposite direction from Mark's stick and hat, which together seem to express the real direction of his feelings, back toward the village; the four-way signpost is mirrored by the shape of the turnstile that separates Mark from the village. The empty, tipped-over pitcher carried by the little girl could represent either the moral emptiness of Mark's willful abandonment of his community, or the "spilt milk" over which there's no use crying. Finally, the three posters comment on Mark's action: the upper two, "Last Appearance" and "Every Man in His Humour," as theatrical notices imply that Mark is playing a role, and the specific reference to Jonson suggests that Mark's "humour" is as foolish and as in need of deflation as that of Jonson's characters; the third poster, "Lost, Stolen, Strayed/Reward!" again ridicules Mark's need for "creditable" jollity, implying that he is deserting his proper place, like a strayed dog or sheep. [Steig, Chapter 3, pp. 66-67]
Although the ebullient Mark has risen early, in part, one suspects, to avoid tearful farewells, already the villagers, their children, several dogs, Tom Pinch (left) and the Widow Lupin herself (in the window, centre) come to see him off. The plate's realisation of the event parallels Dickens's description, except for the crowd of young admirers that Dickens implies in "children enough to hand down human nature to the latest posterity" (Ch. 7, Penguin p. 172, Oxford p. 102). This crowd scene set piece — a picaro's "departure" in a "progress" — has both drama and pathos without any sense of crowding. Phiz has filled in the blanks in Dickens's description of the departure scene, which occupies a mere half-page, and added the buildings but subtracted the garden.
Phiz communicates something of the energy of the dashes and reiterated "good-by'es" in the letterpress through the waving hands of Tom Pinch, the conclave of wheelwrights, and the crowd in front of the inn, all vividly realised in the clear air that we are soon to exchange for the London smog of Todgers's and vicinity. Phiz's humanizing touch appears in the lone child, right, whose posture, gesture, and facial expression reveal how much everyone in the little community will miss jolly Mark. His jacket blows in the stiff breeze from left to right, a wind of destiny that in agitating the bottom of his garment draws the eye to the significant words on the poster: "Lost, Stolen." Reiterating the left-to-right movement is the fingerpost above Mark's beaver, with the word "Salisbury" just decipherable. The church spire and the gables of the Blue Dragon reinforce the upward movement of Mark's figure, as if heaven, emigration, and the pursuit of jollity under trying circumstances are all connected.
The execution of the whole scene is an artistic tour de force, as J. R. Harvey remarks of the majority of Phiz's etchings in the narrative-pictorial series for Martin Chuzzlewit: here, unlike some of his plates for the two novels in Master Humphrey's Clock,
his work is crisp and bright. His figures are full-size and solid, and while he retains the acuteness and economy of his caricatures, he seems less concerned with caricaturing people and more with drawing them well. The biting-in has produced an unusually clean line that shows Browne's etching at its most sensitive; the line takes delicate curves yet looks as though it has been slit in the paper with a razor. [130]
Mark Tapley, this picaresque novel's Sancho Panza figure, appears so obssessed with remaining "jolly" in the face of frustration, malevolence, and adversity seems a mere caricature at this point in the narrative. Nonetheless, Phiz has taken pains to individualise him in the March 1843 engraving Mark Begins to be Jolly Under Creditable Circumstances. From his tousled hair, swirling neck-cloth, neat leggings, and hat held jauntily aloft on a rather short walking-stick (a mere flourish to the travelling costume rather than a functional prop for this strapping giant) we have a clear conception of his style and manner; a significant touch is the slightly melancholy visage, betokening an inner conflict as he leaves the woman he has grown to love for an uncertain future. Phiz leaves us in no doubt that Mark is the subject of the picture, for his solid and robust figure fills the frame, from the dog in vigorous movement and the child in stasis at the bottom to the open sky above.
The illustration has the clean lines and delicate curves that characterize a well-bitten steel plate, implying a thoroughness of execution and attention to detail in every aspect of the process, from initial drawing through etching to printing. We note in Phiz's handling of the gabled Blue Dragon Inn the influence of antiquarian George Cattermole's A Very Aged, Ghostly Place (31 October 1840) and The Maypole Inn from Master Humphrey's Clock. The artist's discretely conceals his signature at the bottom right, immediately below the butcher's dog, whose bouncing gait and wagging tail add to the sense of urgency. Mark, despite feelings of uncertainty about his decisions and of pain at separation from a way of life, a people, and a place he has loved, must be off. The future (and, unbeknownst to Mark, at this point, America) beckons.
Left: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s Martin Chuzzlewit and Mark Tapley (1867). Centre and Right: J. Clayton Clarke's (Kyd's) Player's cigarette card image of and commentary about the indefatigable optimist, Mark Tapley (1910). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Left: F. O. C. Darley's frontispiece for volume two, "Jolly sort of lodgings", alluding to Mark's deciding to join young Martin on the voyage to America. Centre: Furniss's study of the inveterately jolly hostler, Mark Tapley, depicting Mark's cheerfully waving good-bye to all he has known. Right: Furniss's introduction of jolly Mark and pensive Tom, Mark Tapley and Tom Pinch (1910). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Above: Fred Barnard's complementary character studies "He turned a whimsical face and a very merry pair of blue eyes on Mr. Pinch" (Chapter 5, the Household Edition, 1872).
Allingham, Philip V. "Phiz's Illustrations, Part One." [Ch. 2-7] The Dickens Magazine: Martin Chuzzlewit. 5.1 (Feb., 2008): 12-15.
Dickens, Charles. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1844.
_____. 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.
_____. 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.
_____. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1872. Vol. II.
Harvey, John R. Ch. 6, "Dickens and Browne: Martin Chuzzlewit to Bleak House." Victorian Novelists and Their Illustrators. London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1970.
Steig, Michael. Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington and London: Indiana U. P., 1978.
_____. "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.
Modified 3 March 2019
Last updated 12 November 2024