“My father died 20th February, 1880, aged 76, and was buried at Hitchin, beside my mother. He had long retired from business, and spent many years abroad on account of my mother’s health.”
This pleasing sketch quite suggests the account given by Sterne of his father. There is a quaint, old-world air about it—and the traits are really those of Mr. Pickwick in his later development. We could imagine the latter at Dulwich examining and measuring his holly bushes. It would not be too fanciful to suppose that Boz—constantly with him, dining with him, and consulting him on every point—must have been impressed, and influenced too, by those amiable qualities, particularly by that unaffected simplicity and good-will which is also so notable in his hero. So the figure stands thus—first, the long, thin man with Dry-as-dust tastes: then the short, round philanthropist, whose externals were suggested by the Foster, of Richmond,
the latter’s “internals” being transferred to Tupman. Not only do “Vith and Visdom” go together, but also “Vith” and good humour and benevolence, which Boz felt were necessary adjuncts to such a physique. Where was he to find these? Now, we know how much Boz was inclined to draw from what was before his eyes. It saved him trouble and also set his imagination at work. The Cheeryble Brothers, each a Pickwick redivivus, were taken from the Grant Brothers, merchants, at Manchester. And here he had this very exceptional character daily before him, in the person of Edward Chapman. [84]
CHAPTER XII. THE CALVERLEY EXAMINATION PAPER
Few things have been more interesting to the Pickwickian, or have done more to elevate Pickwickian study, than this celebrated jeu d’esprit. Calverley, or Blayds—his original name—was a brilliant creature, well known for his scholarship, verses, and sayings. He early obtained a fellowship at Cambridge, and was one of the youngest “Dons.” Like Dr. Thomson, the celebrated Master, he is felt to be a characteristic and a real personage, even by those little familiar with his work or writings. He was, moreover, an ardent Pickwickian and thoroughly saturated with the spirit of the immortal book, to appreciate which a first-rate memory, which he possessed, is essential; for the details, allusions, names, suggestions, are so immense that they require to be present together in the mind, and jostle each other out of recollection. In the ’fifties, there were at Cambridge a number of persons interested in the Book, who were fond of quoting it and detecting oddities. It was in the year 1858 or 1859—for, curious to say, the year cannot be fixed—that Calverley conceived the bizarre idea of offering a premium for the best answers to a series of searching examination questions, drawn from this classic. It was held at his own rooms at 7 o’clock in the evening, as Sir Walter Besant, one of the candidates, recalls it. There were about a dozen entered, the most formidable of whom were Skeat, the present professor of Anglo-Saxon, a well-known Chaucerian scholar, and Sir Walter Besant aforesaid. The latter describes the scene in very dramatic fashion—the Examiner, in his gown, cap, and hood, gravely walking up and down during the two
hours the examination lasted, going through the ceremonial with all the regular solemnity of the Senate House. The candidates, we are told, expected a sort of jocose business, and were little prepared for the “stiffness” of the questions which were of the deep and searching kind they were accustomed to in the case of a Greek Play or a Latin Epic. Almost at once, three-fourths showed by their helpless bewilderment that the thing was beyond them; and the struggle lay between the two well-versed Pickwickians—Besant and Skeat. The latter was known to have his “Pickwick” at his fingers’ ends, and Besant confessed that he had but small hopes of success. Both plodded steadily through the long list of questions. It should be said that the competition was open only to members of Christ Church College, which thus excluded the greatest reputed Pickwickian of them all, John Lemprière Hammond—the name, by the way, of the “creator” of Sam Weller on the stage. Besant went steadily through his list of questions to the end, revised his answers, and got his paper ready for delivery, but Skeat worked on to the very last moment. An evening or two later, as they were going into Hall, Calverley pinned up his report on the board at the door just like one of the usual University reports, and there was read the result:—
Besant . . . 1st Prize
Skeat . . . 2nd Prize
The authorities were not a little shocked at a liberty which assumed the aspect of a burlesque of their own proceedings, and Calverley was spoken to gently by a Don of the older school. The paper of questions certainly shows what ability may be brought to bear on so trifling a matter; for there is really a power of analysis and a grasp of “inner meaning” that is most remarkable. Sir Walter has very acutely commented on this little “exercise,” and has shown that it reached much higher than a mere jest. It brought out the extraordinary capacities of the book which have exercised so many minds. For “The Pickwick Examination,” he says, “was not altogether a burlesque of a college examination; it was a very real and searching examination in a book which, brimful as it is of merriment, mirth, and wit, is just as intensely human as a book can be. The characters are not puppets in a farce, stuck up only to be knocked down: they are men and
women. Page after page, they show their true characters and reveal themselves; they are consistent; even when they are most absurd they are most real; we learn to love them. It is a really serious test paper; no one could answer any of it who had not read and re-read the Pickwick Papers, and acquired, so to speak, a mastery of the subject. No one could do well in the examination who had not gone much further than this and got to know the book almost by heart. It was a most wonderful burlesque of the ordinary College and Senate House examination, considering the subject from every possible point of view. Especially is it rich in the department then dear to Cambridge: the explanation of words, phrases, and idioms.”