Mr. Cuming Walters says: ‘Literary art rebels against the idea. Bazzard was one of Dickens’s favourite low comedy characters.’
Dr. James dismisses the Bazzard theory ‘because Buzzard in his first and principal appearance has too much both of the fool and of the knave about him to develop into the Datchery whom we are intended to admire.’
Dr. Jackson says: ‘Capacity can ape incapacity, but incapacity cannot ape capacity. This being so, I am sure that Bazzard, who is not only “particularly angular, but also somnolent, dull, incompetent, egotistical, is wholly incapable of playing the part of the supple, quick-witted, resolute, dignified Datchery.”’ In these judgments I agree. Bazzard has no ethical quality. He has not the smallest personal interest in the discovery. How could it be said of Bazzard that his ‘wistful gaze is directed to this beacon, and beyond?’
As the theory is obvious and popular, it may be worth while to say something more, and Dr. Hugo Eick’s words, as previously quoted, may help us. Helena Landless had the elemental qualities needed for the Datchery role. Note that among Shakespeare’s heroines who masquerade as men, Rosalind, in As you Like It, and Julia, in Two Gentlemen of Verona, have not these elemental qualities and are suspected. Portia has them, and even her own husband does not know her in her doctor’s robes. She is recognised by all as a young doctor, but not one person in court thinks ‘There is a woman!’ Bazzard might have imitated depressive and negative conditions, but he could not have imitated the qualities of positive life. ‘Fulness of life and the sap which quickens it cannot be replaced by any dissimulation.’
It should also be noted that if Bazzard was Datchery, he had no occasion to disguise himself in a huge white wig, for he was not known in Cloisterham.
THE GREWGIOUS-DATCHERY THEORY
The theory that Datchery was Grewgious may be dismissed in a sentence. Grewgious with his ‘awkward and hesitating manner,’ his ‘shambling walk,’ his ‘scanty flat crop of hair,’ his ‘smooth head,’ his ‘short sight,’ his general angularity fits in no way the watchful, courtly, adroit, fluent, and versatile Datchery.
THE DATCHERY-NEVILLE THEORY
Mr. Lang has a wild conjecture somewhere that Neville was Datchery, and that Helena was disguised as Neville. It is difficult to treat this seriously. Neville would inevitably have been found out. His cause was undertaken by his friends, and his business was to study and wait. Why on earth should Helena disguise herself as Neville?