MR. PICKWICK, EMINENT SCIENTIST, AND HIS THEORY OF TITTLEBATS BY GEORGE R. POTTER Mr. Pickwick's personality was flexible, and changed as his author carried him through the chapters of Pickwick Papers. He changed so greatly that the reader, upon finishing the book, almost completely forgets his personality as it was outlined in the first chapter. Dickens himself, when carried away by the character he was creating, forgot the formula according to which Mr. Pickwick was originally conceived, and in only a few isolated places made half-hearted attempts to refit into that formula the living being which had outgrown it. But Mr. Pickwick cannot be fully understood unless the existence of the formula is recognized. Mr. Pickwick was, as all Dickens-lovers know, originally thought of as a "tall, thin man." Dickens intended him to be "a purblind, foolish professor, or scientist-one with spectacles-prying into this and that, taking notes, etc." and he intended the Pickwick Club to be a burlesque scientific society. Such a burlesque upon science was by no means an original idea. Ever since the seventeenth century, satirist after satirist had found attractive material in the foibles of scientists.2 The young Dickens was in his turn attracted by this sort of satire, and in The Mud-Fog Papers burlesqued, in rather uninspired fashion, a British Association meeting. He began Pickwick Papers according to the same general formula, except that he wished to add some farcical sporting incidents which would bring into play his illustrator's talent for caricaturing sportsmen. That the Pickwick Club was organized at the time as being in original intent a mock scientific society, is evidenced by an anonymous book, The Posthumous Papers of the Wonderful Discovery Club, published in 1838, which is obviously, 1 Percy Fitzgerald, Pickwickian Studies, p. 78. 2 For numerous examples of such satire, see Dr. C. S. Duncan's published dissertation, The New Science and English Literature of the Classical Period (University of Chicago, 1913); and his article, The Scientist as a Comic Type, in Modern Philology, Vol. 14, p. 281. even from its title, an imitation of Pickwick Papers, and is from beginning to end an attempt to work out the possibilities in a mock scientific society which Dickens left unrealized. Fortunately for the world, Mr. Pickwick's girth increased, his character changed, the Club changed with him, and instead of another one of the numerous satires upon science, we have one of the great books in English literature. In the first few chapters, however, and in one or two passages farther on in the book, the original plan appears. The meeting of the Club in the first chapter, and the introduction of Mr. Pickwick, are written almost wholly in accordance with it. Dickens of course was not by any means taking all his satire on scientific societies at second hand. But neither was he wholly uninfluenced by former satirists. The episode of "Bill Stumps His Mark," for instance (one of the isolated passages later in the book which attempt to conform to the original formula), is an anecdote which was very common in Dickens's time.* A number of striking parallels occur between certain details of Pickwick Papers and one eighteenth century book of satire upon scientists, which point toward the possibility, even the probability, that this book was known to Dickens and influenced his portrayal of Mr. Pickwick. The book is John Hill's Review of the Works of the Royal Society, London, 1751. John Hill"Sir John Hill," as he later called himself after receiving the order of Vasa from the king of Sweden in 1774 — is a most interesting figure in both literature and science, a man of a brilliant but very erratic mind and of undoubted unscrupulousness, though this latter trait has been exaggerated by his critics. Hill wrote on all sorts of subjects both scientific and literary, and became engaged in all sorts of quarrels both scientific and literary. He concerns us here, however, only as the author of the Review. The Review, as might be suspected, rose from one of Hill's quarrels. The details of the affair are uncertain, but the essential facts seem to be these: Hill when a young man became acquainted 3 Pickwick Papers, Vol. I, Chapter XI. It appears in Scott's Antiquary, for example. For other parallels, see Berndt, Arnold, Entstehungsgeschichte der Pickwick Papers, Greifswald, 1908; also see an article in The Dickensian" (edited by B. W. Matz; a magazine for the study of Dickens) for 1914 (Vol. 10), p. 330. with Martin Folkes, afterward President of the Royal Society, and with Henry Baker, afterwards an influential member of the Society. These two men, evidently seeing promise in Hill, introduced him to several prominent men who could further his ambitions. Later, however, in 1750, when Hill felt that his merits deserved a membership in the Royal Society, Folkes and Baker turned against him, and he failed to secure enough names to have himself nominated. He became very bitter against the Society and of course against Folkes and Baker; and he published several pamphlets against it besides his Review.5 Hill's Review is a volume of 265 pages, printed in a form somewhat similar to a volume of the Philosophical Transactions, and devoted to satire and criticism of the Society's published articles and of the writers of the articles. Hill's method of satire is to take some specific article actually published in the Transactionswhether written fifty years or more before his time or contemporary with his Review makes no difference to him—to mention the name of the author and the place in the Transactions where the article occurs, and then to satirize, burlesque, or more seriously controvert the article, meanwhile paying his respects to anything or anybody else that may occur to him at the time. The criticism and satire is always entirely unscrupulous, the facts are often misrepresented, and he never makes any attempt to be fair to his victims. But he is at least frank enough to point out boldly the specific article which he is satirizing. And his satire is often too abundantly justified. In spite of the evidently personal reasons for Hill's satire it seems to have had a healthy effect on the Royal Society. Up to that time the President or the Secretary of the Society had had almost unlimited control over the contents of the Philosophical Transactions. During the presidency of Martin Folkes, who was an antiquarian rather than a scientist, the Transactions contained a great many trivial and even foolish articles." On March 26, 1752 (not many months after the publication of Hill's Review, it will 5 I have not been able to consult copies of any of these pamphlets. The title of one of them seems to be A Dissertation on Royal Societies, London, 1750. This title is given in the Dictionary of National Biography, but no copy is listed in the British Museum catalogue. 6 Nov. 30, 1741, to Nov. 30, 1752. 7 See Weld's History of the Royal Society, Vol. I, pp. 483 ff. be noted), a committee was formed at the suggestion of Lord Macclesfield to pass upon all papers for the Transactions. Hill himself claims to have caused this change; and there is little doubt that his claim is at least partially justified." On November 30, 1752, Lord Macclesfield succeeded Martin Folkes as President of the Society, and in 1753 an Advertisement was inserted in the Transactions,10 calling attention to the newly formed committee. The concluding paragraph is worth quoting: It is likewise necessary on this occasion to remark that it is an established rule of the Society, to which they will always adhere, never to give their opinion, as a body, upon any subject, either of nature or art, that comes before them. And therefore the thanks which are frequently proposed from the chair, to be given to the authors of such papers, as are read at their accustomed meetings, or to the persons, through whose hands they receive them, are to be considered in no other light, than as a matter of civility, in return for the respect shown to the Society by those communications. The like also is to be said with regard to the several projects, inventions, and curiosities of various kinds, which are often exhibited to the Society; the authors whereof, or those who exhibit them, frequently take the liberty to report, and even to certify in the public newspapers, that they have met with the highest applause and approbation. And therefore it is hoped, that no regard will hereafter be paid to such reports, and public notices; which in some instances have been too lightly credited, to the dishonor of the Society. This advertisement has been included, with only a few breaks, in each volume of the Transactions up to the present time. The statement that the Society should not be held responsible for the opinions in papers presented to it was, when it was first written, obviously caused by Hill's attacks, for he constantly takes that attitude in his Review.11 The Review also obviously called forth the explanation that the "thanks" of the Society is merely a matter of courtesy; for Hill continually represents the Society as publicly avowing its eternal gratitude to the writer of some utterly foolish article.12 But while the Royal Society recognized and remedied some of the faults which Hill had pointed out, the stigma which he cast on them remained long after the faults which had justified his 8 Preface to Vol. III of Hill's General Natural History, 1752. 9 Weld's History of the Royal Society admits the probability: Vol. I, P. 485. 10 Transactions for 1751-2. 11 Review, pp. 154, 169, etc. 12 See, for example: Review, pp. 15, 121, etc. A good deal of later satire satire were no longer in existence. against the Royal Society, I suspect, goes back in spirit to John Hill. And independently of any prejudice against the Society itself, the Review was evidently recognized then and later as a clever and amusing piece of satiric literature. Though the character of John Hill himself was blackened-considerably more then he deserved the book was read with interest and amusement. From the fact that Wordsworth owned a copy,13 we can surely infer that it was not unknown to the early nineteenth century also. Several bits of satire in Pickwick Papers recall the spirit of John Hill's book. In Chapter VII, Mr. Pickwick is at his chamber window in the morning: He looked to the right, but he saw nobody; his eyes wandered to the left, and pierced the prospect; he stared into the sky, but he wasn't wanted there; and then he did what a common mind would have done at once-looked into the garden, and there saw Mr. Wardle. Hill, for instance, represents Henry Baker as describing the exact length and breadth of a pill-box in which he kept a beetle, while neglecting to describe the measurements of the beetle itself. The incident of Mr. Pickwick and his dark lantern also is similar in its general tone. An "elderly gentlemen of scientific attainments" sees the flash of Mr. Pickwick's lantern in the garden and conjectures several explanations, scorning his servant's sensible suggestion, "Thieves!" and finally hitting on the brilliant idea that the flashes were caused by some marvelous new natural phenomenon never described before. These parallels are, to be sure, rather vague, for John Hill was not the only person to pick out such foibles in some scientific men to make fun of. One paragraph, however, and that on the second page of Pickwick Papers, has more definite reminiscences of Hill. This is the resolution of thanks which the Pickwick Club presents to Mr. Pickwick: That this Association has heard read, with feelings of unmingled satisfaction and unqualified approval, the paper communicated by Samuel Pickwick, Esq. G. C. M. P. C., entitled "Speculations on the Source of the Hampstead Ponds, with some Observations on the Theory of Tittlebats," and that this Association does hereby return its warmest thanks to the said Samuel Pickwick, Esq. G. C. M. P. C., for the same. 13 The Rydal Mount Library Catalogue. Transactions of the Wordsworth Society, No. 6, pp. 195 ff. |