The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick": With Some Observations on Their Other Associations — John Shaqi
The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick": With Some Observations on Their Other AssociationsMatz, B. W. (Bertram Waldrom)
History
The Inns and Taverns of "Pickwick": With Some Observations on Their Other Associations
Matz, B. W. (Bertram Waldrom)
Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870. Pickwick papers; Taverns (Inns) -- England
The entrance hall is as spacious as it was when Dickens described
it, in "The Great Winglebury Duel," as ornamented with evergreen
plants terminating in a perspective view of the bar, and a glass
case, in which were displayed a choice variety of delicacies ready
for dressing, to catch the eye of a new-comer the moment he enters,
and excite his appetite to the highest possible pitch. "Opposite
doors," he says, "lead to the 'coffee' and 'commercial' rooms; and
a great wide rambling staircase--three stairs and a landing--four
stairs and another landing--one step and another landing--and so
on--conducts to galleries of bedrooms and labyrinths of sitting-rooms,
denominated 'private,' where you may enjoy yourself as privately as
you can in any place where some bewildered being or other walks into
your room every five minutes by mistake, and then walks out again, to
open all the doors along the gallery till he finds his own."
And so the visitor finds it to-day, although the interior of the
coffee-room may have been denuded of its compartments which the
interview between Pip and Bentley Drummie in Great Expectations
suggests were there on that occasion. It was in this room that
the Pickwickians breakfasted and awaited the arrival of the chaise
to take them to Dingley Dell; and it was over its blinds that
Mr. Pickwick surveyed the passers-by in the street, and before
which the vehicle made its appearance with the very amusing result
known to all readers of the book.
The commercial room is across the yard, over which on one occasion
Mr. Wopsle was reciting Collin's ode to Pip in Great Expectations
with such dramatic effect that the commercials objected and sent up
their compliments with the remark that "it wasn't the Tumbler's Arms."
From the hall runs the staircase upon which took place the famous
scene between Dr. Slammer and Jingle, illustrated so spiritedly by
Phiz. Those who remember the incident--and who does not?--can
visualize it all again as they mount the stairs to the bedrooms
above, which the Pickwickians occupied. They remain as Dickens
described them, even in some cases to the very bedsteads and
furniture, and are still shown to the interested visitor.
"Winkle's bedroom is inside mine," is how Mr. Tupman put it. That
is to say, the one led out of the other, and they are numbered 13
and 19; but which is which no one knows. Number 18, by the way, is
the room the Queen slept in on the occasion of her visit, eight
months after the appearance of the first part of Pickwick.
Number 17 is claimed as Mr. Pickwick's room, which is also the one
Dickens occupied on one occasion, and the one spoken of in Seven
Poor Travellers, from which the occupant assured us that after the
cathedral bell struck eight he "could smell the delicious savour of
turkey and roast beef rising to the window of my adjoining room,
which looked down into the yard just where the lights of the kitchen
reddened a massive fragment of the castle wall"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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