Bardell v. Pickwick

‘Then you ought to be able to afford it, sir,’ said the judge, reddening; for Mr. Justice Stareleigh’s temper bordered on the irritable, and brooked not contradiction.

‘I know I ought to do, if I got on as well as I deserved, but I don’t, my Lord,’ answered the chemist.

‘Swear the gentleman,’ said the judge, peremptorily.

The officer had got no farther than the ‘You shall well and truly try,’ when he was again interrupted by the chemist.

‘I am to be sworn, my Lord, am I?’ said the chemist.

‘Certainly, sir,’ replied the testy little judge.

‘Very well, my Lord,’ replied the chemist in a resigned manner. ‘There’ll be murder before this trial’s over; that’s all. Swear me, if you please, sir;’ and sworn the chemist was, before the judge could find words to utter.

‘I merely wanted to observe, my Lord,’ said the chemist, taking his seat with great deliberation, ‘that I’ve left nobody but an errand boy in my shop. He is a very nice boy, my Lord, but he is not acquainted with drugs; and I know that the prevailing impression on his mind is, that Epsom salts means oxalic acid; and syrup of senna, laudanum. That’s all, my Lord.’ With this, the tall chemist composed himself into a comfortable attitude, and, assuming a pleasant expression of countenance, appeared to have prepared himself for the worst.

One who was born in the same year as Boz, but who was to live for thirty years after him, Henry Russell – composer and singer of “The Ivy Green” – was, when a youth, apprenticed to a chemist, and when about ten years old, that is five years before Bardell v. Pickwick, was left in charge of the shop. He discovered just in time that he had served a customer who had asked for Epsom salts with poison sufficient to kill fifty people. On this he gave up the profession. I have little doubt that he told this story to his friend a dozen years later, and that it was on Boz’s mind when he wrote. Epsom salts was the drug mentioned in both instances.

It must be said that even in our day a defendant for Breach, with Mr. Pickwick’s story and surroundings, would have had small chance with a city jury. They saw before them a benevolent-looking Lothario, of a Quaker-like air, while all the witnesses against him were his three most intimate friends and his own man.

We have, of course, testy judges now, who may be “short” in manner, but I think it can be affirmed that no judge of our day could behave to counsel or witnesses as Mr. Justice Stareleigh did. It is, in fact, now the tone for a judge to affect a sort of polished courtesy, and to impart a sort of light gaiety to the business he is transacting. All asperity and tyrannous rudeness is held to be out of place. Hectoring and bullying of witnesses will not be tolerated. The last exhibition was perhaps that of the late Dr. Kenealy in the Tichborne case.

All the swearing of jurymen before the court, with the intervention of the judge, has been got rid of. The Master of the Court, or Chief Clerk, has a number of interviews – at his public desk – with important individuals, bringing him signed papers. These are excuses of some sort – medical certificates, etc. – with a view to be “let off” serving. Some – most, perhaps – are accepted, some refused. A man of wealth and importance can have little difficulty. Of course this would be denied by the jurists: but, somehow, the great guns contrive not to attend. At ten o’clock this officer proceeds to swear the jury, which is happily accomplished by the time the judge enters.

SERJEANT BUZFUZ

Mr. Pickwick, considering the critical nature of his case, was certainly unfortunate in his solicitor, as well as in the Counsel selected by his solicitors. The other side were particularly favoured in this matter. They had a pushful bustling “wide-awake” firm of solicitors, who let not a point escape. Sergeant Buzfuz was exactly the sort of advocate for the case – masterful, unscrupulous, eloquent, and with a singularly ingenious faculty for putting everything on his client’s side in the best light, and his adversary’s in the worst. He could “tear a witness to pieces,” and turn him inside out. His junior, Skimpin, was glib, ready-armed at all points, and singularly adroit in “making a hare” of any witness who fell into his hands, teste Winkle. He had all the professional devices for dealing with a witness’s answers, and twisting them to his purpose, at his fingers’ ends. He was the Wontner or Ballantyne of his day. Mr. Pickwick’s “bar” was quite outmatched. They were rather a feeble lot, too respectable altogether, and really not familiar with this line of business. Even the judge was against them from the very start, so Mr. Pickwick had very poor chances indeed. All this was due to that old-fashioned and rather incapable “Family Solicitor” Perker.

Serjeant Buzfuz is known the world all over, at least wherever English is known. I myself was once startled in a fashionable West End church to hear a preacher, when emphasizing the value and necessity of Prayer, and the certainty with which it is responded to, use this illustration: “As Serjeant Buzfuz said to Sam Weller, ‘There is little to do and plenty to get.’” Needless to say, an amused smile, if not a titter, passed round the congregation. But it is the Barrister who most appreciates the learned Serjeant. For the topics he argued and his fashion of arguing them, bating a not excessive exaggeration, comes home to them all. Nay, they must have a secret admiration, and fondly think how excellently well such and such topics are put, and how they must have told with a jury.

Buzfuz, it is now well known, was drawn from a leading serjeant of his day, Serjeant Bompas, K.C. Not so long since I was sitting by Bompas’s son, the present Judge Bompas, at dinner, and a most agreeable causeur he was. Not only did Boz sketch the style and fashion of the serjeant, but it is clear that Phiz drew the figure and features.

“I am the youngest son of Serjeant Bompas,” Judge Bompas writes to me, “and have never heard it doubted that the name Buzfuz was taken from my father who was at that time considered a most successful advocate. I think he may have been chosen for the successful advocate because he was so successful: but I have never been able to ascertain that there was any other special resemblance. I do not remember my father myself: he died when I was eight years old. But I am told I am like him in face. He was tall (five feet ten inches) and a large man, very popular, and very excitable in his cases, so that I am told that Counsel against him used to urge him, out of friendship, not to get so agitated. A connection of mine who knew him well, went over to hear Charles Dickens read the Trial Scene, to see if he at all imitated him in voice or manner, but told me that he did not do so at all. I think, therefore, that having chosen his name, as a writer might now that of Sir Charles Russell, he then drew a general type of barrister, as he thought it might be satirised. My father, like myself, was on the Western Circuit and leader of it at the time of his death.”

“I had a curious episode happen to me once. A client wrote to apply to the court to excuse a juror on the ground that he was a chemist and had no assistant who understood the drugs. It was not till I made the application and the Court began to laugh that I remembered the Pickwick Trial. I believe the application was quite bonâ fide, and not at all an imitation of it.” An interesting communication from one who might be styled “Buzfuz’s son;” and, as Judge Bompas alludes to his own likeness to his sire, I may add that the likeness to the portrait in the court scene, is very striking indeed. There is the same fullness of face, the large features. Buzfuz was certainly a counsel of power and ability, and I think lawyers will admit he managed Mrs. Bardell’s case with much adroitness. His speech, besides being a sort of satirical abstract of the unamiable thundering boisterousness addressed to juries in such cases, is one of much ability. He makes the most of every topic that he thought likely to “tell” on a city jury. We laugh heartily at his would-be solemn and pathetic passages, but these are little exaggerated. Buzfuz’s statement is meant to show how counsel, quite legitimately, can bring quite innocent acts to the support of their case by marshalling them in suspicious order, and suggesting that they had a connection with the charge made. Many a client thus becomes as bewildered as Mr. Pickwick was, on seeing his own harmless proceedings assuming quite a guilty complexion.

Serjeant Buzfuz-Bompas died at the age of fifty-three, at his house in Park Road, Regents Park, on February 29th, 1844. He was then, comparatively, a young man, and must have had ability to have attained his position so early. He was called to the Bar in 1815, and began as Serjeant in 1827, in Trinity Term, only a year or so before the famous case was tried.

So dramatic is the whole “Trial” in its action and characters, that it is almost fit for the stage as it stands. There have been a great number of versions, one by the author’s son, Charles “the Younger,” one by Mr. Hollingshead, and so on. It is a favorite piece for charitable benefits, and a number of well-known performers often volunteer to figure as “Gentlemen of the Jury.” Buzfuz has been often played by Mr. Toole, but his too farcical methods scarcely enhanced the part. The easiness of comedy is essential. That sound player Mr. James Fernander is the best Buzfuz that I have seen.

There is a French translation of Pickwick, in which the general spirit of the “Trial” is happily conveyed. Thus Mr. Phunky’s name is given as “M. Finge,” which the little judge mistakes for “M. Singe.” Buzfuz’s speech too is excellent, especially his denouncing the Defendant’s coming with his chops “et son ignoble bassinoire” i.e., warming pan.

THE OPENING SPEECH

Buzfuz’s great speech is one of the happiest parodies in the language. Never was the forensic jargon and treatment so humorously set forth – and this because of the perfect sincerity and earnestness with which it was done. There is none of the far-fetched, impossible exaggeration – the form of burlesque which Theodore Hook or Albert Smith might have attempted. It is, in fact, a real speech, which might have been delivered to a dull-headed audience without much impairing credibility. Apart from this it is a most effective harangue and most plausible statement of the Plaintiff’s case.

A little professional touch, which is highly significant as part of the pantomine, and which Boz made very effective at the reading, was the Serjeant’s dramatic preparation for his speech. “Having whispered to Dodson and conferred briefly with Fogg, he pulled his gown over his shoulders, settled his wig, and addressed the Jury.” Who has not seen this bit of business?

Again, Juries may have noted that the Junior as he rises to speak, mumbles something that is quite inaudible, and which nobody attends to. This is known as “opening the pleadings.”

The ushers again called silence, and Mr. Skimpin proceeded to ‘open the case;’ and the case appeared to have very little inside it when he had opened it, for he kept such particulars as he knew, completely to himself, and sat down, after a lapse of three minutes, leaving the jury in precisely the same advanced stage of wisdom as they were in before.

Serjeant Buzfuz then rose with all the majesty and dignity which the grave nature of the proceedings demanded, and having whispered to Dodson, and conferred briefly with Fogg, pulled his gown over his shoulders, settled his wig, and addressed the jury.

A most delightful legal platitude, as one might call it, is to be found in the opening of the learned Sergeant’s speech. It is a familiar, transparent thing, often used to impose on the Jury. As Boz says of another topic, “Counsel often begins in this way because it makes the jury think what sharp fellows they must be.” “You have heard from my learned friend, gentlemen,” continued the Serjeant, well knowing that from the learned friend alluded to they had heard just nothing at all, “you have heard from my learned friend, that this is an action for Breach of Promise of Marriage, in which the damages are laid at £1,500. But you have not heard from my learned friend, inasmuch as it did not lie within my learned friend’s province to tell you, what are the facts and circumstances of the case.” This rich bit of circumlocution is simple nonsense, in rotund phrase, and meant to suggest the imposing majesty of legal process. The Jury knew perfectly beforehand what they were going to try: but were to be impressed by the magnifying agency of legal processes, and would be awe stricken accordingly. The passage, “inasmuch as it did not lie within my learned friend’s province to tell you,” is a delightful bit of cant. In short, the Jury was thus admitted to the secret legal arena, and into community with the learned friends themselves, and were persuaded that they were very sharp fellows indeed. What pleasant satire is here, on the mellifluous “openings” of Counsel, the putting a romantic gloss on the most prosaic incidents.

A sucking Barrister might well study this speech of Buzfuz as a guide to the conducting of a case, and above all of rather a “shaky” one. Not less excellent is his smooth and plausible account of Mrs. Bardell’s setting up in lodging letting. He really makes it “interesting.” One thinks of some fluttering, helpless young widow, setting out in the battle of life.

He describes the poor innocent lady putting a bill in her window, “and let me entreat the attention of the Jury to the wording of this document – ‘Apartments furnished for a single gentleman!’ Mrs. Bardell’s opinions of the opposite sex, gentlemen, were derived from a long contemplation of the inestimable qualities of her lost husband. She had no fear – she had no distrust – she had no suspicion – all was confidence and reliance. ‘Mr. Bardell,’ said the widow: ‘Mr. Bardell was a man of honour – Mr. Bardell was a man of his word – Mr. Bardell was no deceiver – Mr. Bardell was once a single gentleman himself; to single gentlemen I look for protection, for assistance, for comfort, and for consolation – in single gentlemen I shall perpetually see something to remind me of what Mr. Bardell was, when he first won my young and untried affections; to a single gentleman, then, shall my lodgings be let.’ Actuated by this beautiful and touching impulse (among the best impulses of our imperfect nature, gentlemen), the lonely and desolate widow dried her tears, furnished her first floor, caught her innocent boy to her maternal bosom, and put the bill up in her parlour window. Did it remain there long? No. The serpent was on the watch, the train was laid, the mine was preparing, the sapper and miner was at work. Before the bill had been in the parlour window three days – three days, gentlemen – a being, erect upon two legs, and bearing all the outward semblance of a man, and not of a monster, knocked at the door of Mrs. Bardell’s house. He enquired within.”

Those who attended the Reading will recall the admirable briskness, and more admirable spirit with which Boz delivered the passage “by the evidence of the unimpeachable female whom I shall place in that” – here he brought down his palm with a mighty slap on the desk, and added, after a moment’s pause, “Box before you.” It was that preceding of the stroke that told. So real was it, one fancied oneself listening to some obstreperous counsel. In all true acting – notably on the French boards – the gesture should a little precede the utterance. So the serjeant knew something of art.

When Mr. Pickwick gave an indignant start on hearing himself described as a heartless villain how cleverly does the capable Buzfuz turn the incident to profit.

‘I say systematic villany, gentlemen,’ said Serjeant Buzfuz, looking through Mr. Pickwick, and talking at him; ‘and when I say systematic villiany, let me tell the defendant, Pickwick, if he be in court, as I am informed he is, that it would have been more decent in him, more becoming, in better judgment and in better taste, if he had stopped away. Let me tell him, gentlemen, that any gestures of dissent or disapprobation in which he may indulge in this court will not go down with you; that you will know how to value, and to appreciate them; and let me tell him further, as my lord will tell you, gentlemen, that a counsel, in the discharge of his duty to his client, is neither to be intimidated nor bullied, nor put down; and that any attempt to do either the one or the other, or the first or the last, will recoil on the head of the attempter, be he plaintiff or be he defendant, be his name Pickwick, or Noakes, or Stoakes, or Stiles, or Brown, or Thompson.’

This little divergence from the subject in hand, had of course the intended effect of turning all eyes to Mr. Pickwick.

We relish, too, another “common form.” When the Serjeant found that his jest as to “greasing the wheels of Mr. Pickwick’s slow-coach” had somewhat missed fire – a thing that often unaccountably happens, in the case of the “twelve intelligent men,” the Serjeant knew how to adroitly recover himself.

He paused in this place to see whether the jury smiled at his joke; but as nobody took it but the greengrocer, whose sensitiveness on the subject was very probably occasioned by his having subjected a chaise-cart to the process in question on that identical morning, the learned Serjeant considered it advisable to undergo a slight relapse into the dismals before he concluded.

‘But enough of this, gentlemen,’ said Mr. Serjeant Buzfuz, ‘it is difficult to smile with an aching heart; it is ill jesting when our deepest sympathies are awakened. My client’s hopes and prospects are ruined, and it is no figure of speech to say that her occupation is gone indeed. The bill is down – but there is no tenant. Eligible single gentlemen pass and repass – but there is no invitation for them to enquire within or without. All is gloom and silence in the house; even the voice of the child is hushed; his infant sports are disregarded when his mother weeps; his “alley tors” and his “commoneys” are alike neglected; he forgets the long familiar cry of “knuckle down,” and at tip-cheese, or odd and even, his hand is out. But Pickwick, gentlemen, Pickwick, the ruthless destroyer of this domestic oasis in the desert of Goswell Street – Pickwick, who has choked up the well, and thrown ashes on the sward – Pickwick, who comes before you to-day with his heartless tomato sauce and warming-pans – Pickwick still rears his head with unblushing effrontery, and gazes without a sigh on the ruin he has made. Damages, gentlemen – heavy damages is the only punishment with which you can visit him.’

THE INCRIMINATING LETTERS

“I shall prove to you, gentlemen, that about a year ago Pickwick suddenly began to absent himself from home, during long intervals, (‘on Pickwick Tours,’) as if with the intention of breaking off from my client: but I shall show you also that his resolutions were not at that time sufficiently strong, or that his better feelings conquered, if better feelings he has: or that the charms and accomplishments of my client prevailed against his unmanly intentions.” We may note the reserve which suggested a struggle going on in Mr. Pickwick. And how persuasive is Buzfuz’s exegesis! Then, on the letters:

“These letters bespeak the character of the man. They are not open, fervid, eloquent epistles breathing nothing but the language of affectionate attachment. They are covert, sly, under-hand communications, but, fortunately, far more conclusive than if couched in the most glowing language. Letters that must be viewed with a cautious and supicious eye: letters that were evidently intended at the time, by Pickwick, to mislead and delude any third parties into whose hands they might fall.” The gravity and persuasiveness of all this is really impayable. “Let me read the first: ‘Garraway’s, twelve o’clock. Dear Mrs. B., Chops and tomato sauce. Yours, Pickwick.’ Gentlemen, what does this mean? Chops and tomato sauce. Yours, Pickwick. Chops! Gracious Heavens! – and tomato sauce! Gentlemen, is the happiness of a sensitive and confiding female to be trifled away by such artifices as these? The next has no datewhatever which is in itself suspicious: ‘Dear Mrs. B., I shall not be at home until to-morrow. Slow coach.’ And then follows the very remarkable expression, ‘Don’t trouble yourself about the warming pan.’”

There is a little bit of serious history connected with these letters which I was the first I think to discover. They were intended to satirise the trivial scraps brought forward in Mrs. Norton’s matrimonial case – Norton v. Lord Melbourne. My late friend, “Charles Dickens the younger,” as he used to call himself, in his notes on Pickwick, puts aside this theory altogether as a mere unfounded fancy; but it will be seen there cannot be a doubt in the matter. Sir W. Follett laid just as much stress on these scraps as Serjeant Buzfuz did on his: he even used the phrase, “it seems there may be latent love like latent heat, in these productions.” We have also, “Yours Melbourne,” like “Yours Pickwick,” the latter signing as though he were a Peer. “There is another of these notes,” went on Sir William, “How are you?” “Again there is no beginning you see.” “The next has no date, which is in itself suspicious,” Buzfuz would have added. Another ran – “I will call about half past four, Yours.” “These are the only notes that have been found,” added the counsel, with due gravity, “they seem to import much more than mere words convey.” After this can there be a doubt?

This case was tried in June, 1836, and, it must be borne in mind, caused a prodigious sensation all over the Kingdom. The Pickwick part, containing the description, appeared about December, six months afterwards. Only old people may recall Norton v. Melbourne, the fair Caroline’s wrongs have long been forgotten; but it is curious that the memory of it should have been kept alive in some sort by this farcical parody. Equally curious is it that the public should always have insisted that she was the heroine of yet another story, George Meredith’s Diana, though the author has disclaimed it over and over again.

The Serjeant’s dealing with the warming pan topic is a truly admirable satiric touch, and not one bit far-fetched or exaggerated. Any one familiar with suspicious actions has again and again heard comments as plausible and as forced. “Don’t trouble yourself about the warming pan! The warming pan! Why, gentlemen, who does trouble himself about a warming pen?” A delicious non sequitur, sheer nonsense, and yet with an air of conviction that is irresistable. “When was the peace of mind of man or woman broken or disturbed by a warming pan which is in itself a harmless, a useful and I will add, gentlemen, a comforting article of domestic furniture?” He then goes on ingeniously to suggest that it may be “a cover for hidden fire, a mere substitute for some endearing word or promise, agreeably to a preconcerted system of correspondence, artfully contrived by Pickwick with a view to his contemplated desertion and which I am not in a position to explain?” Admirable indeed! One could imagine a city jury in their wisdom thinking that there must be something in this warming pan!

Not less amusing and plausible is his dealing with the famous topic of the “chops and tomato sauce,” not “tomata” as Boz has it. I suppose there is no popular allusion better understood than this. The very man in the street knows all about it and what it means. Absurd as it may seem, it is hardly an exaggeration. Counsel every day give weight to points just as trivial and expound them elaborately to the jury. The Serjeant’s burst of horror is admirable, “Gentlemen, what does this mean? ‘Chops and tomata sauce! Yours Pickwick!’ Chops! Gracious Heavens! What does this mean? Is the happiness of a sensitive and confiding female to be trifled away by such shallow artifices as these?’”

I recall that admirable judge and pleasant man, the late Lord FitzGerald, who was fond of talking of this trial, saying to me that Buzfuz lost a good point here, as he might have dwelt on the mystic meaning of tomato which is the “love apple,” that here was the “secret correspondence,” the real “cover for hidden fire.”

He concluded by demanding exemplary damages as “the recompense you can award my client. And for these damages she now appeals to an enlightened, a high-minded, a right feeling, a conscientious, a dispassionate, a sympathising, a contemplative jury of her civilized countrymen!”

THE PLAINTIFF’S CASE

It was really of a very flimsy kind but “bolstered-up” and carried through by the bluster of the serjeant and the smartness of his junior. It rested first on a dialogue between Mr. Pickwick and his landlady which was overheard, in fact by several persons; second, on a striking situation witnessed by his three friends who entered unexpectedly and surprised him with Mrs. Bardell in his arms; third, on some documentary evidence, and lastly, on a damaging incident disclosed by Winkle.

The first witness “put in the box,” was Mrs. Martha Cluppins – an intimate friend of the plaintiffs.

We know that she was sister to Mrs. Raddle, who lived far away in Southwark, and was the landlady of Mr. Sawyer. She might have been cross-examined with effect as to her story that she had been “out buying kidney pertaties,” etc. Why buy these articles in Goswell Street and come all the way from Southwark? What was she doing there at all? This question could have been answered only in one way – which was that the genial author fancied at the moment she was living near Mrs. Bardell.