"The facetious Hardy, in fulfilment of his promise, had watched the child to a remote part of the vessel, and, suddenly appearing before him with the most awful contortions of visage, had produced his paroxysm of terror." — Fred Barnard's twenty-sixth illustration for "Sketches by Boz"

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The facetious Hardy

Fred Barnard

13 cm x 10.8 cm, framed, p. 189.

three-quarter-page wood-engraving for Chapter 7 in "Tales," in Dickens's Sketches by Boz, the thirteenth volume of the Household Edition (1876).

Full caption: "The facetious Hardy, in fulfilment of his promise, had watched the child to a remote part of the vessel, and, suddenly appearing before him with the most awful contortions of visage, had produced his paroxysm of terror."

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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham

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Passage Illustrated: The Comedy before the Storm

Here, the singer was interrupted by varied cries of the most dreadful description, proceeding from some grove in the immediate vicinity of the starboard paddle-box.

"My child!" screamed Mrs. Fleetwood. "My child! it is his voice — I know it."

Mr. Fleetwood, accompanied by several gentlemen, here rushed to the quarter from whence the noise proceeded, and an exclamation of horror burst from the company; the general impression being, that the little innocent had either got his head in the water, or his legs in the machinery.

"What is the matter?" shouted the agonised father, as he returned with the child in his arms.

"Oh! oh! oh!" screamed the small sufferer again.

"What is the matter, dear?" inquired the father once more — hastily stripping off the nankeen frock, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the child had one bone which was not smashed to pieces.

"Oh! oh! — I'm so frightened!"

What at, dear? — what at?" said the mother, soothing the sweet infant.

"Oh! he's been making such dreadful faces at me,’ cried the boy, relapsing into convulsions at the bare recollection.

"He! — who?" cried everybody, crowding round him.

"Oh! — him!" replied the child, pointing at Hardy, who affected to be the most concerned of the whole group.

The real state of the case at once flashed upon the minds of all present, with the exception of the Fleetwoods and the Wakefields. The facetious Hardy, in fulfilment of his promise [to keep the unwelcome children amused by teasing them], had watched the child to a remote part of the vessel, and, suddenly appearing before him with the most awful contortions of visage, had produced his paroxysm of terror. Of course, he now observed that it was hardly necessary for him to deny the accusation; and the unfortunate little victim was accordingly led below, after receiving sundry thumps on the head from both his parents, for having the wickedness to tell a story. — "Tales," Ch. 7, "The Steam Excursion," p. 189-90.

Commentary

"The Steam Excursion," the seventh of the stories in the "Tales" section of the collected edition of Sketches by Boz, was originally published in The Monthly Magazine in October 1834. The story is a young man's light-weight narrative — one can well imagine the agreeable "young-man-about-town" with rooms at Gray's Inn in Holborn, one of the old Inns of Court, as being an extension of twenty-two-year-old law clerk Charles Dickens himself, for he worked in the offices of Ellis and Blackmore at Gray's Inn in 1827, and was living in bachelor rooms at No. 13, Furnival's Inn, in December 1836. However, the second half of the story occurs not in Noakes's bachelor rooms, but on the General Steam Navigation Company vessel on the downward leg (during which the Misses Briggs give a performance on their guitars) and then returning from The Nore upriver — and encountering extremely rough weather in the sequel, The Steam Excursion — Part 2. In 1839, Cruikshank had provided two contrasting scenes, the first for the concert on the downward leg, on the rear deck of the steamer, the second in the cabin below decks as the storm hits on the return leg. In the concert scene, Cruikshank focuses on the guitar-playing Misses Briggs and the "facetious" Hardy, whom Barnard makes the subject of his first large-scale illustration "in a blue jacket and waistcoat, white trousers, silk stockings, and pumps — in full aquatic costume, with a straw hat on his head" (187). Whereas Fred Barnard captures precise moments in the text (although the first is given in narrative rather than in dialogue), George Cruikshank has provided prolonged scenes — the Misses Briggs' giving their musical performance — "a new Spanish composition, for three voices and three guitars" (190), and the guests' suffering from seasickness as the cabin is turned topsy-turvey by the rising wind, prior to their staggering on deck for air. Again, we see Barnard's tendency to particularize, to move in for the closeup, rather than pan back for a group scene. As with the other humorous vacation narrative, The Tuggses at Ramsgate, Fred Barnard depicts an earlier stage of the story, before the musical entertainment, the dinner, and the bout of seasickness occasioned by the sudden storm. As Paul Schlicke remarks,

Formally, the sketches and tales are organized in fundamentally different ways. The sketches generally lack plot and proceed wherever Boz's enquiring eye happens to alight. Their tone is genial, compassionate, and urbane. The tales, in contrast, are generally sardonic, moving boldly towards narrative climax, which often exposes vain or foolish characters to ridicule. . . . — The Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens, p. 534.

Since the actual plot of the short story is slight, Dickens emphasizes the rivalries between the balloting factions in the organizing committee meetings, and between the Briggses and Tauntons, the antics of the peculiar Mr. Hardy, and the moments of physical humour, rather than the development of character, internal conflict, theme, and atmosphere that one would find in a modern short story. Barnard wisely focuses on two moments of vigorous activity; in the first, the comic man of the play, Mr. Hardy (who resembles Dickens's confidant and legal adviser John Forster, whom Dickens met on 25 December 1836). Barnard depicts the oversized elf in the ridiculous Victorian fashion for male children as anything but an innocent four-year-old "infant," as the subsequent thumping that his parents give him "for having the wickedness to tell a story" (190) implies. Rather than behaving like an ogre, Hardy seems to be doing a pirate imitation — certainly Barnard vivifies a comic scene that Dickens neglected to develop.

The Relevant Illustrations by George Cruikshank and Fred Barnard

Left: Cruikshank's far less engaging study of the Miss Briggses' guitar performance, Steam Excursion — Pt. 1. Centre: Cruikshank's more animated description of the chaos in the dining-room, Steam Excursion — Pt. 2. Right: Fred Barnard's illustration for the second half of the story, describing the chaos that ensues when the storm hits, One gentleman was observed suddenly to rush from table without the slightest ostensible reason, and dart up the steps with incredible swiftness: thereby greatly damaging both himself and the steward, who happened to be coming down at the same moment. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Three Other "Entertainment" Illustrations by Cruikshank

Left: Cruikshank's far more animated and engaging musical entertainment, Greenwich Fair. Centre: Cruikshank's view of the leisured middle classes ar a Sunday tea-garden, London Recreations. Right: Cruikshank's depiction of the an afternoon's musical entertainment at Vauxhall on the south bank of the Thames, Vauxhall Gardens by Day. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

See also "The Development of Leisure in Britain, 1700-1850:

Bibliography

Ackroyd, Peter. Dickens: A Biography. London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1990.

Bentley, Nicholas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens: Index. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.

Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z. The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Checkmark and Facts On File, 1998.

Dickens, Charles. "The Steam Excursion," Chapter 7 in "Tales," Sketches by Boz. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London: Chapman and Hall, 1839; rpt., 1890. Pp. 288-305.

Dickens, Charles. "The Steam Excursion," Chapter 7 in "Tales," Sketches by Boz. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1876. Pp. 182-94.

Hawksley, Lucinda Dickens. Chapter 3, "Sketches by Boz." Dickens Bicentenary 1812-2012: Charles Dickens. San Rafael, California: Insight, 2011. Pp. 12-15.

Schlicke, Paul. "Sketches by Boz." Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1999. Pp. 530-535.

Slater, Michael. Charles Dickens: A Life Defined by Writing. New Haven and London: Yale U. P., 2009.

Tomalin, Claire. Charles Dickens, A Life. New York: Penguin, 2011.

Last modified 27 May 2017