Pickwickian Studies

Pickwickian Studies, by Percy
Fitzgerald

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Pickwickian Studies, by Percy
Fitzgerald
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Pickwickian Studies
Author: Percy Fitzgerald

Release Date: November 15, 2007 [eBook #23490]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
PICKWICKIAN STUDIES***
Transcribed from the 1899 New Century Press edition by David Price,
email [email protected]

PICKWICKIAN STUDIES
BY PERCY FITZGERALD, M.A., F.S.A. AUTHOR OF "The History
of Pickwick," "Pickwickian Manners and Customs," "Bozland," &c.
London: THE NEW CENTURY PRESS, LIMITED 434 STRAND,
W.C 1899
CHAPTER I.
IPSWICH
I.--The Great White Horse
This ancient Inn is associated with some pleasant and diverting
Pickwickian memories. We think of the adventure with "the lady in the
yellow curl papers" and the double-bedded room, just as we would
recall some "side splitting" farce in which Buckstone or Toole once
made our jaws ache. As all the world knows, the "Great White Horse"
is found in the good old town of Ipswich, still flourishes, and is
scarcely altered from the days when Mr. Pickwick put up there. Had it
not been thus associated, Ipswich would have remained a place obscure
and scarcely known, for it has little to attract save one curious old
house and some old churches; and for the theatrical antiquary, the
remnant of the old theatre in Tacket Street, where Garrick first
appeared as an amateur under the name of Lyddal, about a hundred and
sixty years ago, and where now the Salvation Army "performs" in his
stead. {1} The touch of "Boz" kindled the old bones into life, it peopled
the narrow, winding streets with the Grummers, Nupkins, Jingles,
Pickwick and his followers; with the immortal lady aforesaid in her
yellow curl papers, to say nothing of Mr. Peter Magnus. From afar off
even, we look at Ipswich with a singular interest; some of us go down
there to enjoy the peculiar feeling--and it is a peculiar and piquant
one--of staying at Mr. Pickwick's Inn--of sleeping even in his room.
This relish, however, is only given to your true "follower," not to his
German-metal counterfeit--though, strange to say, at this moment,
Pickwick is chiefly "made in Germany," and comes to us from that
country in highly-coloured almanacks--and pictures of all kinds. About

Ipswich there is a very appropriate old-fashioned tone, and much of the
proper country town air. The streets seem dingy enough--the hay
waggon is encountered often. The "Great White Horse," which is at the
corner of several streets, is a low, longish building--with a rather seedy
air. But to read "Boz's" description of it, we see at once that he was
somewhat overpowered by its grandeur and immense size--which, to us
in these days of huge hotels, seems odd. It was no doubt a large posting
house of many small chambers--and when crowded, as "Boz" saw it at
Election time in 1835, swarming with committeemen, agents, and
voters, must have impressed more than it would now. The Ball-room at
"The Bull," in Rochester, affected him in much the same way; and
there is a curious sensation in looking round us there, on its modest
proportions--its little hutch of a gallery which would hold about
half-a-dozen musicans, and the small contracted space at the top where
the "swells" of the dockyard stood together. "Boz," as he himself once
told me, took away from Rochester the idea that its old, red brick
Guildhall was one of the most imposing edifices in Europe, and
described his astonishment on his return at seeing how small it was.
Apropos of Rochester and the Pickwick feeling, it may be said that to
pass that place by on the London, Chatham, and Dover line rouses the
most curious sensation. Above is the Castle, seen a long time before,
with the glistening river at its feet; then one skirts the town passing by
the backs of the very old-fashioned houses, and you can recognise
those of the Guildhall and of the Watts' Charity, and the gilt vanes of
other quaint, old buildings; you see a glimpse of the road rising and
falling, with its pathways raised on each side, with all sorts of faded
tints--mellow, subdued reds, sombre greys, a patch of green here and
there, and all more or less dingy, and "quite out of fashion." There is a
rather forlorn tone over it all, especially when we have a glimpse of
Ordnance Terrace, at Chatham, that abandoned, dilapidated row where
the boy Dickens was brought up dismally enough. At that moment the
images of the Pickwickians recur as of persons