Pickwickian Studies

Pickwickian Studies

This ancient Inn is associated with some pleasant and diverting Pickwickian memories. We think of the adventure with the lady in the yellow curl papers and the double-bedded room, just as we would recall some side splitting farce in which Buckstone or Toole once made our jaws ache. As all the world knows, the Great White Horse is found in the good old town of Ipswich, still flourishes, and is scarcely altered from the days when Mr. Pickwick put up there. Had it not been thus associated, Ipswich would have remained a place obscure and scarcely known, for it has little to attract save one curious old house and some old churches; and for the theatrical antiquary, the remnant of the old theatre in Tacket Street, where Garrick first appeared as an amateur under the name of Lyddal, about a hundred and sixty years ago, and where now the Salvation Army performs in his stead. [1] The touch of Boz kindled the old bones into life, it peopled the narrow, winding streets with the Grummers, Nupkins, Jingles, Pickwick and his followers; with the immortal lady aforesaid in her yellow curl papers, to say nothing of Mr. Peter Magnus. From afar off even, we look at Ipswich with a singular interest; some of us go down there to enjoy the peculiar feelingand it is a peculiar p. 2and piquant oneof staying at Mr. Pickwicks Innof sleeping even in his room. This relish, however, is only given to your true follower, not to his German-metal counterfeitthough, strange to say, at this moment, Pickwick is chiefly made in Germany, and comes to us from that country in highly-coloured almanacksand pictures of all kinds. About Ipswich there is a very appropriate old-fashioned tone, and much of the proper country town air. The streets seem dingy enoughthe hay waggon is encountered often. The Great White Horse, which is at the corner of several streets, is a low, longish buildingwith a rather seedy air. But to read Bozs description of it, we see at once that he was somewhat overpowered by its grandeur and immense sizewhich, to us in these days of huge hotels, seems odd. It was no doubt a large posting house of many small chambersand when crowded, as Boz saw it at Election time in 1835, swarming with committeemen, agents, and voters, must have impressed more than it would now. The Ball-room at The Bull, in Rochester, affected him in much the same way; and there is a curious sensation in looking round us there, on its modest proportionsits little hutch of a gallery which would hold about half-a-dozen musicans, and the small contracted space at the top where the swells of the dockyard stood together. Boz, as he himself once told me, took away from Rochester the idea that its old, red brick Guildhall was one of the most imposing edifices in Europe, and described his astonishment on his return at seeing how small it was. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 23490
Author: Fitzgerald, Percy
Release Date: Nov 15, 2007
Format: eBook
Language: English