Barnaby Rudge, page 84
3. Atlas-wise: In Greek mythology, Atlas was a Titan, the son of Iapetus and Clymene, who held up the sky on his shoulders.
4. Dutch cheese … eating Cheshire sir, himself: Dutch cheese was a small round cheese made on the Continent from skimmed milk; Cheshire a traditional English cheese, presumably considered to be of higher quality.
5. marry her at the Fleet: Irregular marriages took place without a licence within the Fleet prison and its environs from the late sixteenth century until they were outlawed in 1753. This is therefore an anachronistic reference by Dickens or Mark Gilbert.
6. the court of aldermen: The Court of Aldermen of the City of London dates from 1200. Aldermen represented wards of the City, were justices of the peace responsible for the administration of justice and had a particular responsibility for the regulation of the City Livery Companies.
7. Temple Bar: At the junction of Fleet Street and the Strand, Temple Bar was rebuilt by Christopher Wren in the early 1670s and marked the western limits of the City of London. Until the mid eighteenth century, the heads of executed traitors were displayed there. In ch. 1 of Bleak House, it is described as ‘That leaden-headed old obstruction, appropriate ornament for the threshold of a leaden-headed old corporation.’ (It was removed to Theobalds Park in Hertfordshire in 1878 as it had become an obstruction to traffic.)
8. Fleet Market: Meat and vegetable market, designed by George Dance, between Fleet Street and Holborn. It was built in the 1730s on top of the Fleet Ditch and cleared in the 1820s.
CHAPTER THE NINTH
1. undone: Undressed, but Dickens is playing on its sense of ‘ruined by seduction’.
2. green as chemists’ lamps: ‘Chemists displayed large illuminated green, yellow, red and sometimes blue glass bottles in their windows’ (Hawes).
3. mourning-coach and feathers: I.e. a more elaborate funeral, with a carriage drawn by horses with ostrich plumes dyed black on their heads.
CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH
1. passing bad Notes: Circulating forged banknotes, a capital offence at this period.
CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH
1. Black Lion: The Black Lion Inn was at 75, Whitechapel Road in the East End, now demolished.
2. the Monument: Tall Doric column erected 1671–6 to commemorate the Great Fire of London. A popular place for suicide, it features in Nicholas Nickleby, Martin Chuzzlewit and Little Dorrit.
3. publicans coupled with sinners: Publicans in the Bible are tax-gatherers and much-hated figures, often coupled with sinners, as in Matthew 9:11, Mark 2:16, Luke 5:30. Mrs Varden here confuses them with inn-keepers.
CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH
1. ‘Who enters … noise behind’: Possible echo of the inscription at the gate of Hell in Inferno by Dante (1265–1321), III, 1: ‘Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’entrata’ (‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter’).
2. the Temple … the Strand … Fountain Court: Temple: The Inner and Middle Temples are two of the Inns of Court (see note 7 to ch. 67), and the residence of lawyers since the fourteenth century. The Temple, named after the Temple Church which was built by the Knights Templar in 1185, is located between Fleet Street and the Thames. It frequently appears in Dickens’s work, most notably in Martin Chuzzlewit, Our Mutual Friend and A Tale of Two Cities. The Strand: Important street, originally a bridlepath running alongside the north bank of the River Thames, which links Westminster to the City of London. Fountain Court: Court in the Middle Temple, with a single-jet fountain, which also features in chapter 45 of Martin Chuzzlewit.
3. Paper Buildings: Part of the Inner Temple, erected in 1610 and rebuilt in 1838.
4. Valentine and Orson: An old French romance and a favourite children’s story. Valentine and Orson are twin brothers, nephews of King Pepin. Orson is carried off by a bear and becomes a wild man, whereas Valentine is brought up at court and becomes an elegant gentleman.
5. centaurs: Wild and bestial creatures in Greek mythology, having the upper part of human beings and the lower part of horses. Centaurs often drink to excess and are representative of wildness and animal desire.
CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH
1. the watch: Patrolled and guarded the streets of the town, and announced the hours. Although from 1705 the City had the first professional paid watch in the country, the members of it were old, otherwise unemployable and notoriously ineffectual. It was only with the establishment of the Metropolitan Police in 1829 that a more efficient force was established; the watch system was finally abandoned ten years later. See also ch. 49.
2. Tyburn: The main place of execution in London between 1388 and 1783; the location is marked by a stone at the junction of Edgware Road, Oxford Street and Bayswater Road.
3. they who dealt in bodies with the surgeons: It was illegal at this period for surgeons to obtain bodies for dissection and so a lucrative but illegal trade arose in grave-robbing.
4. turnpike: From the mid seventeenth century onwards, turnpike trusts were permitted to erect gates and tollbars on roads and travellers were required to pay a toll to pass through. By the mid eighteenth century, there were turnpikes on all the main roads into and around London.
CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH
1.‘Polly put the ket –’: ‘Polly put the kettle on’, a well-known nursery rhyme.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH
1. Cornhill … Smithfield: Cornhill is the highest hill in the City, and Smithfield was the City’s largest meat market. It was not until 1855 that the sale of live cattle and horses was stopped.
2. the city jail: This is most likely to be the Bridewell prison on the banks of the Fleet River, which was under the control of the City rather than the Crown. Originally a palace, Bridewell became a prison in 1556, was rebuilt after the Great Fire and eventually closed in 1855. Alternatively, it could be one of the sheriff’s prisons, the Poultry Compter or the Wood Street Compter.
CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH
1. love among the roses: Hill quotes a ballad by J. C. Doyle, ‘Young love flew to the Paphian bower … / The Graces there were cutting posies, / And found young Love among the roses’ (Hill).
2. her maiden meditation: ‘In maiden meditation, fancy-free’, A Midsummer Night’s Dream II.i.164.
3. the plagues of Egypt: As described in Exodus 7–11.
4. Gretna Green: Village in Dumfriesshire, which lies just north of the River Sark, the dividing line between England and Scotland. Following the Marriage Act of 1754, English couples wishing to marry quickly were obliged to go to Scotland, where the law only required them to declare their wish to marry before witnesses. The marriages were usually performed by the local blacksmith.
5. hath been informed and verily believes: Dickens is here parodying legal jargon.
CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH
1. crossed afterwards: Because of the cost of postage, it was common in the period to write both down the page and then across it, at a right angle.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST
1. the nothingness of good works: ‘Justification by faith and not by works was an essential component of Protestant doctrine’ (Hawes).
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND
1. Saint Paul’s: St Paul’s Cathedral, designed by Sir Christopher Wren and completed in 1710.
2. a shining light: John 5:35.
3. Jezebel: The infamous wife of Ahab, King of Israel (1 Kings 16), and used for any wicked woman, or one who used cosmetics.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD
1. Lord Chesterfield: Philip Dormer Stanhope (1694–1773), fourth Earl of Chesterfield. His Letters to his son Philip Stanhope gave instruction in manners and morals and were published after Chesterfield’s death in two and then four volumes in 1774. Chester is therefore reading a recently published book, and a popular one. (Eleven editions were published in London and Dublin by the end of the century.) As David Roberts notes, the principles he taught
proved easy to caricature: self-interest above morality, adultery above marriage, cynicism above patriotism, breeding above all. Chesterfield badgers his son to find a mature society beauty to ‘polish’ him; tells him to seem trustworthy but never to trust; advises him that his dancing-master is more important than Aristotle. He favours smutty repartee with fifteen-year-old girls; prefers deceitful high-society liaisons, sometimes two or more at a time, to affairs of the heart; encourages the boy to enjoy his father’s old flames.
(Lord Chesterfield’s Letters, ed. David Roberts
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. x–xi)
Samuel Johnson famously described tbnr00007177he letters as teaching ‘the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing-master’ (James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, ed. R. W. Chapman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 188).
2. the Graces: Goddesses of fertility in Greek mythology, usually said to be three in number: Aglaia (Brightness), Euphrosyne (Joyfulness) and Thalia (Bloom). Often associated with Aphrodite, the goddess of love.
3. Day of Judgment: The end of the world in Christian belief, when there will be a universal judgement of the living and the dead. See 2 Peter 2:9. Also ‘the last day’ (ch. 68).
4. the cart and ladder: Prisoners condemned to death would travel to the place of execution in a cart and ascend the scaffold by a ladder.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH
1. the Gunpowder Plot: Conspiracy of English Roman Catholics, led by Robert Catesby, to blow up the Houses of Parliament on 5 November 1605.
2. E. C.: Dickens or Sim is making a mistake here, as Chester’s initials are ‘J. C.’, unless, as Spence suggests, ‘he is wearing his son’s nightcap’.
3. playing upon him: cf. Hamlet III.ii.352–4.
4. Horse Guards: The regiments of the Household Cavalry, which date back to the seventeenth century and are responsible for the protection of the sovereign.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH
1. hewer of wood and drawer of water: After Joshua conquered Canaan, the inhabitants of Gibeon attempted to deceive him, and were in consequence made menial bondsmen, ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water’ (Joshua 9:21–3).
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH
1. pride … one of the seven deadly sins: The others are avarice, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth.
2. the church catechism: From the Book of Common Prayer.
3. wines and fig-trees: Miggs’s pronunciation of the biblical phrase ‘vines and fig-trees’, found for example in Psalm 105:33, Jeremiah 5:17, Hosea 2:12. She means the wealth and pleasure Mrs Varden brings to the household.
4. as though she were Hope and that her Anchor: Hebrews 6:19 refers to hope as ‘an anchor of the soul’; this has given rise to a number of allegorical paintings, to which Dickens alludes here.
5. the cardinal virtues: The cardinal (from Latin cardo, ‘hinge’) or natural virtues: prudence, temperance, fortitude and justice.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH
1. Covent Garden: Built in 1639 and at first was one of the most fashionable addresses in London. It soon started to decline with the growth of the fruit and vegetable market from the later seventeenth century. Coffee-houses began to spring up there from the middle of the eighteenth century, of which the best known was the Bedford, frequented by Pope, Fielding, Goldsmith and Boswell. The area was also a centre for gambling dens, Turkish baths and brothels.
CHAPTER THE THIRTY -FIRST
1. great cry … but very little wool: Adaptation of the proverbial ‘Much cry, little wool’.
2. War-office: The government department responsible for the Army.
3. the Crooked Billet in Tower-street: Eighteenth-century inn near the Tower of London, in fact at No. 1, Little Tower Hill. (It was demolished in 1912.)
4. Needs must when the devil drives: All’s Well that Ends Well I.iii.29.
5. a temporary accommodation: If Joe had taken the shilling, he would have enlisted himself.
6. Since the time of noble Whittington: Richard Whittington (1358– 1423), popularly known as Dick, four times Lord Mayor of London. The popular story of Dick Whittington who turned at the sound of Bow Bells chiming ‘turn again Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London’ cannot be found earlier than 1605. Whittington is mentioned in several Dickens novels, including Bleak House and David Copperfield.
7. purse of Fortunatus: In the German folktale, Fortunatus, a beggar, is given a purse by Fortune which produces an inexhaustible supply of money. The story was made popular in English by Thomas Dekker in The pleasant Comedie of Old Fortunatus (1600), and is referred to in several Dickens novels and stories.
8. adamantine chains: ‘In Adamantine chains and penal fire’, Milton, Paradise Lost (1667) I, 48.
9. in his mind’s eye … sconce: Hamlet I.ii.184. Valerie Gager notes in Shakespeare and Dickens: The Dynamics of Influence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 278 that ‘Dickens’s unusual use of the word “sconce”, used by Hamlet at V, i, 99 in a similarly violent manner, as well as the ghostly beginning and ending of this chapter, strengthen the connection with the play.’
10. Chatham: Port and important naval base on the Kent coast, adjacent to the city of Rochester. Dickens spent several years of his childhood in Chatham.
CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SECOND
1. the soles of their feet: ‘But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot’ (Genesis 8:9).
CHAPTER THE THIRTY -FIFTH
1. Lord George Gordon: For his background and life, see Appendix VI. Dickens wrote to John Forster during the composition of the novel:
Say what you please of Gordon, he must have been at heart a kind man, and a lover of the despised and rejected, after his own fashion. He lived upon a small income, and always within it; was known to relieve the necessities of many people; exposed in his place the corrupt attempt of a minister to buy him out of Parliament; and did great charities in Newgate. He always spoke on the people’s side, and tried against his muddled brains to expose the profligacy of both parties. (Pilgrim, 2, pp. 294–5)
2. rising up of the sun to the going down of the same: ‘from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof’ (Psalms 50:1).
3. Bloody Mary: Mary I (1516–58), Queen of England, 1553–8, only surviving child of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon and a Catholic. She gained the nickname because of her persecution of Protestants, some 300 of whom were executed during her reign. In A Child’s History of England (1851–3), Dickens wrote: ‘as Bloody Queen Mary, she will ever be justly remembered with horror and detestation in Great Britain’.
4. across the Scottish border: On the Gordon Riots, see Appendix VI.
5. ‘Called and chosen and faithful’: Taken from Revelation 17:14.
6. blue cockades, and glorious Queen Besses … and Protestant associations: Blue cockades were worn by supporters of the Protestant Association, founded in London in February 1779 to oppose Catholic emancipation. Gordon became its president on 12 November of the same year. Queen Bess was an affectionate nickname for Queen Elizabeth I.
CHAPTER THE THIRTY -SIXTH
1. manna in the wilderness … widows’ mites: Manna was the food that miraculously sustained the Israelites between their Exodus from Egypt and their arrival in the Promised Land (Exodus 16:15). A ‘mite’ is a very small coin; on the widow’s mite, see Mark 12:42.
2. Newgate: There had been a gaol at Newgate since the twelfth century, but it had been recently rebuilt (1770–78) at a cost of £45,000. It was described by George Crabbe as ‘a very large, strong, and beautiful building’ (George Crabbe, The Poetical Works of the Rev. George Crabbe (London: John Murray, 1851), 1, p. 82).
3. Bedlam: Bethlehem Royal Hospital in Moorfields, the most famous of all lunatic asylums. See also chs. 55 and 67.
4. Dennis the hangman: The public hangman at this period (1771–86) was Edward Dennis, who was tried on 3 July 1780 for his part in the attack on 7 June on the house of a certain Mr Boggis. His defence was that he was compelled to do so by the mob. He was convicted and condemned to death, but was reprieved and pardoned, to allow him to execute his fellow-rioters. Other than in his name and occupation, Dickens’s character does not seem to resemble the historical Dennis.
5. Welbeck Street: Gordon lived at 64, Welbeck Street.
6. He snuffs the battle from afar, like the war-horse: Job 39:25.
7. A malignant: Rebellious, disaffected, a term particularly current during the Protectorate (1653–9) and used by supporters of Parliament and the Commonwealth to describe their political and religious enemies. It was also used as a term by early Protestants to describe the Roman Catholic Church.
8. in outer darkness: Matthew 8:12.
CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SEVENTH
1. false prophets: Matthew 7:15 and elsewhere.
2. petitioning Parliament: In fact the act had already been passed on 3 June 1778. Gordon’s petition was to repeal it.
3. Smithfield market into … cauldrons: Between 1554 and 1558, over 200 Protestants were burned to death at Smithfield (see also note 1 to ch. 18.) in the reign of Mary I.
4. stocks and stones: ‘When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones’: from Milton’s sonnet ‘On the Late Massacre in Piedmont’ (1655).
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