VI.—Who was Pott?
There have been abundant speculations as to the originals of the Pickwickian characters—some Utopian enough, but I do not think that any have been offered in the case of Mr. Pott, the redoubtable editor of the Eatanswill Gazette. I am inclined to believe that the notorious and brilliant Dr. Maginn was intended. He and Pott were both distinguished for their “slogging” or bludgeoning articles, and both were High Tories, or “Blue,” as Mr. Pott had it. But what is most significant is that in the very year Pickwick was coming out, to wit, 1836, Maginn had attracted general attention and reprobation by the scandal of his duel with Grantley Berkely, arising out of a most scurrilous review of the latter’s novel. To this meeting he had been brought with some difficulty—just as Pott—the “Pot-valiant,” declined to “serve him so,” i.e., Slurk; being restrained by the laws of his country. He was an assistant editor to the “Standard,” and had
furnished scurrilites to the “John Bull.” He had about this time also obtained an influence over the interesting “L. E. L.,” whom John Forster, it is known, was “courting,” and by some rumours and machinations succeeded in breaking off the business. Now Forster and Boz, at the time, were bosom friends—Forster could be unsparing enough where he was injured: and how natural that his new friend should share his enmities. Boz was always glad to gibbet a notorious public abuse, and here was an opportunity. Maginn’s friend, Kenealey, wrote to an American, who was about to edit Maginn’s writings, “You have a glorious opportunity, where you have no fear of libel before your eyes. Maginn’s best things can never be published till his victims have passed from the scene.” How significant is this! Then Pott’s “combining his information,” his “cramming” critic, his using the lore of the Encyclopedia Britannica for his articles suggest Maginn’s classical lucubrations. A well-known eminent Littérateur, to whom I suggested this view, objected that Pott is not shown to be such a blackguard as Maginn, and that Maginn was not such an ass as Pott. But Boz generalised his borrowed originals. Skimpole was taken from Leigh Hunt, yet was represented as a sort of scoundrel; and Boz confessed that he only adapted his lighter manner and airy characteristics.
In these latter days, people have been somewhat astonished by the strange “freak” of our leading journal in so persistently offering and pressing on the public their venture of a new edition of the Encyclopedia. Every ingenious variation of bold advertisement is used to tempt the purchaser—a sovereign down and time for the rest; actual pictures of the whole series of volumes; impassioned arguments, pleadings, and an appeal to take it at the most wonderfully low price. Then we have desirable information, dealing with topics of varied kind, and assurances that material would here be found for dealing conveniently with every known subject. Still, what a surprise that use was not made of “the immortal Pickwick” in whose pages these peculiar advantages were more successfully and permanently set forth and illustrated by one most telling example furnished by no other than Mr. Pott himself, the redoubtable editor of the Eatanswill Gazette. To him and to no other is due the credit of being the first to show
practically how to use the Encyclopedia. He has furnished a principle which is worth all the lengthy exhortations of the Times itself.
Pott seems to have kept the work in his office, and to have used it for his articles in a highly ingenious fashion. For three months had he been supplying a series of papers, which he assures us “appeared at intervals,” and which excited “such general—I may say, such universal attention and admiration.” A fine tribute surely to the Encyclopedia. For recollect Pott’s was a newspaper. The Times folk say nothing of this important view. Poor, simple Mr. Pickwick had not seen the articles because he was busy travelling about and had no time for reading. (Probably Pott would have put him on the “free list” of his paper, but for the awkward Winkle flirtation which broke up the intimacy). Nay, he might have had “the revolving book case,” which would handily contain all the volumes.
And what were these articles? “They appeared in the form of a copious”—mark the word!—“review of a work on Chinese Metaphysics.” It had need to be copious therefor, for it is a very large subject. Mr. Pickwick himself must have been very familiar with the Encyclopedia, for he at once objected that he was not aware that so abstruse a topic was dealt with in its pages. He had perhaps consulted the book, say, at Garraway’s Coffee House, for, alas! the good man was not able to have a library of his own, living, as he did, in lodgings or at the “George and Vulture.” Mr. Pott, however, who also knew the work well, had then to confess that there was no such subject treated separately in it. But the articles were from the pen of his critic (not from his own), “who crammed for it, to use a technical but expressive term; he read up for the subject, at my desire, in the Encyclopedia.”
Now, as the subject was not treated in the work, how could this “cramming” help him? Here comes in the system, so unaccountably overlooked by the Times, i.e., the Combination Method. “He read, sir,” rejoined Pott, laying his hand on Mr. Pickwick’s knee and looking round with a smile of intellectual superiority, “he read for metaphysics under the letter M, and for China under the letter C, and combined his information, sir.” There we have it! We find separate articles De
omni scribili, and many topics unavoidably passed over; but we see how this can be cured by the ingenious Pott system. Combine your information! There you are! Here for instance—under “Metaphysics” we do find something about’ Confucius and the other Pundits; we then turn to China and get local colour, Chinese writers. &c., and then proceed “to combine our information.” And so with hundreds of other instances and other topics. Pott, therefore, has been overlooked by the managers of the Times, but it is not yet too late for them to call attention to his system. It is of interest to all at Eatanswill.
Pott was in advance of his time. His paper was not wholly the sort of scurrilous organ it has been shown to be. To weight its columns with “Chinese Metaphysics,” was a bold, reforming step—then the going on for three months, i.e., twelve articles—and all read with avidity. And what are we to think of the Eatanswill readers—surely in advance, too. And here we have him, nearly seventy years ago, giving a well-deserved puff to the Encyclopedia, which is really worth the innumerable columns the leading journal has devoted to the book. Its last effort was to show an ingenious connection between the British Association and the Encyclopedia, on the ground of its various Presidents. “It stimulates, in fact creates, the necessity for a good working Library of Science. It is here that the Encyclopedia comes in as of especial service.”