Pickwickian Studies | Page 9

dimity curtains without having done so. It does not strike every one that Mr. Pickwick, under ordinary circumstances, would have taken off his "things" before the fire just as the lady did, in the free and open space, and not huddled up in a dark corner. However, as Mr. Weller says: "It wos to be, and--it wos," or we should have had no story and no laugh.
There is a pleasant story--quite akin to Mr. Pickwick's adventure--of what befell Thackeray when travelling in America. Going up to bed, he mistook the floor, and entered a room the very counterpart of his own. He had begun to take off his clothes, when a soft voice came from within--"Is that you, George?" In a panic, he bundled up his things, like Mr. Pickwick, and hurriedly rushed out, thinking what would be the confusion should he encounter "George" at the door. Anthony Trollope, my old, pleasant friend and sponsor at the Garrick Club, used to relate another of these hotel misadventures which, he protested, was the most "side-splitting" thing ever he heard of. A gentleman who was staying at one of the monster Paris hotels with his lady, was seized with some violent cold or pulmonary attack. She went down to try and get him a mustard plaster, which, with much difficulty, she contrived. Returning in triumph, as Mr. Pickwick did with his recovered watch, she found that he had fallen into a gentle sleep, and was lying with his head buried in the pillows. With much softness and deftness, she quickly drew away the coverings, and, without disturbing him, managed to insinuate the plaster into its proper place. Having done her duty, she then proceeded to lie down, when the sleeping man, moving uneasily, awoke and showed his face. It was not her husband! She fled from the room. The humour of the thing--as described by Trollope--was the bewilderment of the man on discovering the damp and burning mass that had been applied to him, and the amazing disappearance of his visitant. What did it all mean? The mystery probably remained unsolved to the day of his death.
But the Great White Horse received an important cosmopolitan compliment from across the seas--at the Chicago Exhibition--when a large and complete model was prepared and set up in the building. This was an elaborate as well as important tribute to the Book which it was assumed that every one knew by heart.

V.--Ipswich Theatre
Boz, on his travels, with his strong theatrical taste, was sure to have gone to the little theatre in Tacket Street, now a Salvation Army meeting- house. It is the same building, though much altered and pulled about, as that in which David Garrick made his first appearance on the stage, as Mr. Lyddal, about 150 years ago. I have before me now a number of Ipswich play bills, dated in the year 1838, just after the conclusion of "Pickwick," and which, most appropriately, seem to record little but Boz's own work. Pickwick, Oliver, Nickleby, and others, are the Bill of Fare, and it may be conceived that audiences would attend to see their own Great White Horse, and the spinster lady in her curl papers, and Mr. Nupkins, the Mayor, brought on the boards. These old strips of tissue paper have a strange interest; they reflect the old-fashioned theatre and audiences; and the Pickwickian names of the characters, so close after the original appearance, have a greater reality. Here, for instance, is a programme for Mr. Gill's benefit, on January 19, 1839, when we had "The Pickwickians at half-price." This was "a comic drama, in three acts, exhibiting the life and manners of the present day, entitled--
"PICKWICK, or the sayings and doings of Sam Weller!" Adapted expressly for this Theatre from the celebrated Pickwick Papers, by Boz!
"The present drama of Pickwick has been honoured by crowded houses, and greeted by shouts of laughter and reiterated peals of applause upon every representation, and has been acknowledged by the public Press to be the only successful adaptation.
The ILLUSTRATIONS designed and executed by popular PHIZ-ES.
The new music by Mr. Pindar. The quadrilles under the direction of Mr. Harrison."
All the characters are given.
"Mr. Pickwick," founder of the Club, and travelling the counties of Essex and Suffolk in pursuit of knowledge.
"Snodgrass," a leetle bit of a poet.
"Winkle," a corresponding member also; and a something of a sportsman.
"Job Trotter," thin plant o' ooman natur; something between a servant and a friend to Jingle; a kind of perambulating hydraulic.
"Joe," a fat boy, addicted to cold pudding and snoring.
"Miss Rachel Wardle," in love with Jingle or anybody else that will have her.
"Emily" was appropriately represented in such a Theatre, by Miss Garrick.
The scenes are laid at first at the Red Lion, Colchester, close by which is Manor Farm, where a ball