Dickens and the Sentimental Tradition: Mr. Pickwick and My Uncle Toby

DICKENS AND THE SENTIMENTAL TRADITION: MR. PICKWICK AND MY UNCLE TOBY ROSELEE ROBISON Soon after The Pickwick Papers burst upon early Victorian England '1ike a skyrocket," readers began drawing parallels between the young Dickens and comic writers of the eighteenth century, notably Sterne and Fielding. However, apart from making a few general observations upon the resemblance between Sam Weller and Corporal Trim, neither the Victorians nor later generations of readers attempted a sustained analysis of the relationship between Pickwick, Tristram Shandy, and A Sentimental Journey. In a famous contemporary review, the Athenaeum censured Boz for a lack of originality ("He runs closely upon some leading hounds in the humorous pack") and declared The Pickwick Papers to be "made up of two pounds of Smollett, three ounces of Sterne, a handful of Hook, a dash of grammatical Pierce Egan - incidents at pleasure, served with an additional sauce piquante.'" With a similar lack of precision, Gissing, in praising the aesthetic and moral superiority of Dombey's Mr. Toots to related figures in modern psychological novels, remarked that Dickens' delight in the "sacred SimpliCity" of such a character made him "akin to Oliver Goldsmith and the better part of Sterne."2 General historians of the English novel have also suggested links between the two great humorists, but again without specifying the nature of the affinities which they have sensed. Ernest A. Baker, for example, remarks that a surprising number of late Romantic and Victorian writers - De Quincey, Carlyle, Thackeray, Peacock, and Meredith as well as Dickens - "show traces of Shandeism or of a quality cognate with it"'; and Legouis and Cazamian suggest that in the highly idiosyncratic Shandy circle, Sterne created a group of figures which haunted Dickens' imagination: "They [the Shandys] all possess an oddity allied to a naturalness, and are gifted with an inner vitality that overcomes the resistance of judgment, and imposes the feeling of reality through the saving grace of our sympathy; but their outlines are keyed up to an extremely intense pitch; indeed, they only escape being caricatures by the geniality with which they are instinct. Dickens will remember these typeS."4 Volume XXXIX, Number 3, April 1970 ITlON 259 One of the basic reasons why the precise nature of the affinities between Dickens and Sterne remains so elusive lies in the ambiguity surrounding the concept of "sentimentalism" itself. By the early nineteenth century, the term "sentimental," O riginally connotative of spiritual refinement and moral excellence, had become opprobrious, suggestive of emotional falsity and tastelessness. While the Athenaeum disparaged Dickens for excessive indebtedness to his eighteenth-<:entury predecessors , the Edinburgh Review praised him for his "comprehensive spirit of humanity" and the eminently healthy tenor of his work: "It is quite untainted with sentimentality. There is no mawkish wailing for ideal disresses - no morbid exaggeration of the evils incident to our lot - nO disposition to excite unavailing discontent, or to tum our attention from remediable grievances to those which do not admit a remedy. Though he appeals much to our feelings, we can detect no instance in which he has employed the verbiage of spurious philanthropy.'" Dickens' strong distaste for calculated emotional self-indulgence, for the "cult" of sentimentality apparent in certain of the most famous episodes of Sterne's writings - Yorick's meditation upon the dead ass, Uncle Toby's forbearance towards the By, the spectacle of the deranged Maria - is amply attested in a little-noted passage from Nicholas Nickleby. Moreover, in its insistence upon the priority of the virtue of charity, this otherwise undistinguished paragraph becomes an important key to the Dickensian conception of goodness itself. There are not a few among the disciples of charity who require, in their vocation, scarcely less excitement than the votaries of pleasure in theirs, and hence it is that diseased sympathy and compassion are every day expended on out-of-the-way subjects when, only too many demands upon the legitimate exercise of the same virtues, in a healthy state, are constantly within the sight and hearing of the most unobservant person alive. In short, charity must have its romance, as the novelist or playwright must have his. A thief in fustian is a vulgar character, scarcely to be thought of by persons of refinement; but dress him in green velvet, with a high-crowned hat, and change the scene of his operations, from a thickly-peopled city to a mountain road, and you shall find in him the very soul of poetry and adventure. So it is with the one great cardinal virtue, which, properly nourished and exercised, leads to, if it does not necessarily include, all the others. It must have its romance; and the less of real, hard, struggling work-a-day life there is in that romance, the better. (Nicholas Nieldeby, ch. IS) . All references are to the Cadshill Edition of Dickens' Works (London: Chapman and Hall Ltd. IS97.) With carefully staged emotional displays and self-approbation for virtuous behavior, the "hedonism of altruism" which became Cas Sterne himself recognized) one of the most pernicious aspects of sentimentality, 260 ROSELEE RODISON the young Dickens had no sympathy. On the other hand, Dickens' insistence that charity, ultimately the SOurce of all benevolent conduct, is the "one great cardinal virtue" which "properly nourished and exercised, leads to .,. all the others," links him firmly to one aspect of the sentimental tradition as established by Latitudinarian divines of the seventeenth century and elaborated by Sterne. As R. S. Crane has pointed out in his study of the strongly Christian basis of the qualities concentrated in the "Man of Feeling," the exaltation of the virtue of charity is one of the most recurrent themes of seventeenth-century sermon literature·; and in his third sermon, "Philanthropy Recommended," Sterne continues this emphasis: "'Tis observable in many places of Scripture, that our blessed Saviour, in describing the day of Judgment, does it in such a manner, as if the great inquiry then, was to relate principally to this one virtue of compassion - and as if our final sentence at that solemnity, was to be pronounced exactly according to the degrees of it '" Not that we are to imagine from thence, as if any other good or evil action should then be overlooked by the eye of the All'seeing Judge, but barely to intimate to us, that a charitable and benevolent disposition is so principal and ruling a part of a man's character, as to be a considerable test by itself of the whole frame and temper of his mind, with which all other virtues and vices respectively rise and fall, and will almost necessarily be connected. - Tell me therefore of a compassionate man, you represent to me a man of a thousand other good qualities ...'" The lascivious eighteenth-century cleric and the earnest young Victorian share a commOn faith in the redemptive power of love; and many of Dickens' oftenmaligned "good" characters, particularly his child-women, are figures in whom moral excellence is united with a surpassingly great capacity for self-sacrifice, the "benevolence" and "compaSSion" of the sentimental tradition. An attempt to determine the precise nature and extent of Dickens' indebtedness to Sterne in his first major work may be enlightening in several ways. In the first instance, such an analysis may provide certain insights into the highly complex problem of nineteenth-century taste and the manner in which it was constantly changing as Victoria's long reign wore on. As several modem critics have observed, the enormOus success of The Pickwick Papers was doubtless brought about by a certain climate of taste which distinguishes the early from the later Victorian period. As George Ford points out, in the opinion of numerous lateVictorian readers Pickwick could never have achieved its great vogue if it had been published in 1870 rather than in 1837. "AltllOugh much of DICKENS AND THE SENTIMENTAL TRADITION 261 this judgment can be dismissed simply as an example of high Victorian smugness about the progress of taste, there is some truth in the contention that Pickwick was published 'in the nick of time'.'" Moreover, although most of Dickens' contemporary readers were perplexed and disappointed by the "dark" novels of his maturity, repeatedly urging him to return to the episodiC mode and characteristic sunniness of tone of his first great success, Dickens himself was aware that the old Regency predilections which had savoured Pickwick's loosely episodiC construction and boisterous hilarity were nO longer in the ascendant. When in 1849 he remarked nostalgically that "the world would not take another Pickwick from me now,"· he was commenting upon the changed temper of the times as much as upon the public's insatiable demand for novelty from its favourite entertainer. The disapproval of the Athenaeum notwithstanding , Dickens' indebtedness to tradition was one of the major reasons for the enormous and instantaneous popularity of The Pickwick Papers. "The kind of novel-reader of 1837 who approved of boisterous high spirits in fiction welcomed Pickwick as another example of a ... well-beloved genre."'· In his first major work, Dickens used with great dexterity and freshness a set of conventions which in the eighteenthirties could still delight by reason of their very familiarity: the devoted servant, the predatory widow, and above all, the engaging simpleton. Like the intricacies and formalities of baroque music, these conventions were pleaSing because they gratified a certain tacit and unformulated expectation. There are of course certain differences between The Pickwick Papers and Tristram Shandy which are fully as revealing as the resemblances. As the anonymous author of an article on Sterne in the Edinhurgh Review remarks, "Even the writers who have felt Sterne's influence, and set out to imitate him, have generally contrived to get a considerable distance away from him before they have finished." "Dickens, on the whole, looked at life with very different eyes from Sterne ... "II If Sam Weller is Dickens' Corporal Trim, the convention of the faithful attendant has been transformed by having "passed through a temperament."" Dickens shared Sterne's faith in the virtue of compassionate goodness, but he also had a deeply pessimistic view of mankind as a race of parasites and victims. Moreover, he not only lacked Sterne's prurience, but even in 1837 was at the mercy of certain inflexible canons of taste which his predecessor could ignore with impunity. The Eclectic Review censured Pickwick for containing "some few instances of profanity which we could readily dispense with; and some jokes, incidents, and allusions, 262 ROSELEE ROBISON which could hardly be read by a modest woman without blushing."" In addition to these somewhat ambiguous matters of taste and temperament , there are certain readily definable features which distinguish The Pickwick Papers from Tristram Shandy. As an early Victorian writer whose literary heritage differed greatly from Sterne's, Dickens could rely upon neither Rabelaisian obscenity and sexual innuendo nor the tradition of learned wit as sources of humour. Again, whereas Tristram Shandy was in some respects carefully planned from its inception, The Pickwick Papers, at least until Chapter Twelve and the introduction of Sam Weller and the Bardell scheme, was largely the result of inspired improvisation. However, notwithstanding all of these distinctions between the two novels, there are still enough similarities to make a comparison between Mr. Pickwick and Uncle Toby highly revealing. Dickens and Sterne expressed the sentimentalist's faith in the redemptive virtues of benevolence and charity through a similar figure, the lovable eccentric; and in so dOing, they employed a combination of modes which by the early nineteenth century was "popularly understood and thoroughly explOited" - the humorous and the pathetic." Both writers realized that sentiment can be admirable and ridiculous simultaneously, and as such, a fertile source of humour. (The Edinburgh Review praised Boz for "that mastery in the pathetic which, though it seems opposed to the gift of humour, is often found in conjunction with it."Y· Finally, by examining the affinities between the two novels, one may achieve a clearer understanding of Mr. Pickwick's highly elusive transformation from a gull to an "Angel in gaiters." At the outset of his appearance, he is no more than a Jorrocks-like buffoon; by the end of the novel he has become, like Uncle Toby, an Innocent. Like Sir Roger de Coverley, One of the most important early influences upon the evolving concept of "sensibility," Mr. Pickwick and Uncle Toby are both "Men of Feeling"; and like their predecessor, they combine surpassingly great good nature with whimsicality. As R. S. Crane and others have shown, the "Man of Feeling" was a composite of readily definable virtues, which included an unlimited capacity for immediate and instinctive compassion'·; an ability to share tl,e joys as well as the sorrows of others; and a faculty for cheerfulness which permitted enthusiastic participation in "all the God-given pleasures ... of a benign universe ."l7 Like the Latitudinarian divines whose sermOns helped to frame and inculcate these concepts, both Sterne and Dickens ultimately equated benevolence and "good nature" with utter selflessness: in The Pickwick Papers as well as throughout the later novels, Dickens' presentation DICKENS AND THE SENTIMENTAL TRADITION 263 of both innocence and goodness is inseparably linked with self-sacrifice. Moreover, Dickens never forbids the truly virtuous man to express his feelings openly. Although he had little patience with deliberately nurtured Romantic melancholy, he would have agreed with Sterne that "moral weeping is the sign of so noble a passion, that it may be questioned whether those are properly men, who never weep upon any occasion."1. Even in the early stages of his development, Dickens endows Mr. Pickwick with the concentrated geniality, kindness, and simplehearted good will which characterize Uncle Toby. Indeed, in commenting that Mr. Pickwick, like Charles Lamb, had monopolized the "cream" of life," one of Dickens' contemporary reviewers echoes Walter Shandy's somewhat salacious tribute to his brother's uniquely great good nature: "So much dost thou possess, my dear Toby, of the milk of human nature, and so little of its asperities - 'tis piteous the world is not peopled by creatures which resemble thee; and was I an Asiatic monarch ... I would oblige thee .., nolens volens to beget for me one subject every month ... " (Vol. 8, Ch. 33. All references are to James A. Work's edition of Tristram Shandy, New York: The Odyssey Press 1940). Similarly, Dickens describes his hero's virtues in phrases which would have been highly familiar to his audience: echOing Sterne's allusions to Toby's "inexpressible good will" (Ill, 6) and the "philanthropy of his heart" ('v, 2), Dickens remarks early in the novel that Mr. Pickwick's face glows "with an expression of universal philanthropy" (Ch. 2) and that he is "the very personification of kindness and humaniry" (Ch. 5). As he endeavours to greet deaf old Mrs. Wardle, Mr. Pickwick's exertions impart "a crimson hue to his benevolent countenance" (Ch. 6); a "sunbeam of plaCid benevolence" plays over his features as he engages Sam as his servant (Ch. 12); and his "innate good feeling" (Ch. 16) involves him in several embarrassing and compromising incidents. His good will overcomes his sense of propriety when he permits his followers to attend Mrs. Leo Hunter's fete in absurd costumes: "Thus Mr. Pickwick was led by the very warmth of his own good feelings to give his consent to a proceeding from which his better judgment recoiled - a more striking instance of his amiable character could hardly have been conceived ... " (Ch. 15). Much later in the novel, his decision to pay Mrs. Bardell's costs and leave the Fleet is described in almost identical terms: the descriptive title of Chapter Forty-Seven reads in part, "Mr. Pickwick's Benevolence Proves Stronger than his Obstinacy." Moreover, although Dickens' attitude towards lachrymosity is by no means one of straightforward approval, Mr. Pickwick's tears, like those which Uncle Toby 264 ROSELEE ROBISON sheds at the death of Le Fever, are evidence of his profoundly sensitive and compassionate nature. When he unexpectedly encounters the impoverished and wretched Job Trotter in the Fleet, "four large tears [run] down his waistcoat" (Ch. 42); and at the conclusion of the novel, when his old friends assemble at his house in Dulwich to celebrate Winkle's marriage, he weeps in an access of tender and nostalgic feelings: "Sam takes his station behind his master's chair; the laughter and talking cease; Mr. Pickwick haVing said grace, pauses for an instant, and looks 'round him. As he does so, the tears roll down his cheeks, in the fulness of his joy" (Ch. 57) . In both Uncle Toby and Mr. Pickwick, sensitivity, good will, and the capacity for profound distress at the pain or unhappiness of others are reflected in several specific and very similar actions, which might be called "Good Samaritanism" and the "perpetration of concord." In his third sermon, Sterne called the behaviour of the Good Samaritan "that fair example of universal benevolence"'· and cited it as proof of a certain inherent "generosity and tenderness of nature which disposes us for compassion, abstracted from all consideration of self: so that without any observable act of the will, we suffer with the unfortunate, and feel a weight upon our spirits we know not why, On seeing the most common instances of their distress."" Uncle Toby's explicitly Christian piety (,"Twas no inconsistent part of my uncle Toby's character - that he feared God, and reverenced religion" [III, 41]) strengthens his inherent good nature, and his immediate anguish at Le Fever's plight and his anxious desire to comfort his orphaned SOn are echoed in Mr. Pickwick's demeanour when he confronts Job Trotter in the Fleet. The giving of "something from Mr. Pickwick's waistcoat pocket" instead of the "sound hearty cuff" which his enemy deserves "somehow or other imparted a sparkle to the eye, and a swelling to the heart, of our excellent old friend" (Ch. 42). Later, with true Samaritan prudence, he equips the two quondam strollers with the prOvisions necessary for their emigration to a new and morally hopeful future. Indeed, both Toby and Mr. Pickwick radiate a suffUSing kindness in which the distraught instinctively seek solace. Tristram remarks that there is something in his uncle's "looks, and voice, and manner ... which eternally beckoned to the unfortunate to come and take shelter under him" (VI, 10); and when Mr. Pickwick leaves the prison, Dickens implies that many of the prisoners have been comforted by his very presence: "In all the crowd of wan, emaciated faces, he saw not one which was not the happier for his sympathy and charity" (Ch. 47). DICKENS AND THE SENTIMENTAL TRADITION 265 Furthermore, both of these genial beings are peace-makers, perpetrators of concord in their often fractious and turbulent worlds. When Mrs. Shandy with characteristic dulness interrupts Walter's oration over the departed Bobby, Uncle Toby benignantly and gently restores the tranquillity which Mr. Shandy's irateness is constantly shattering: They are Socrates's children, said my uncle Toby. He has been dead a hundred years ago, replied my mother. My uncle Toby was no chronologer - so not caring to advance a step but upon safe ground, he laid down his pipe deliberately upon the table, and rising up, and taking my mother most kindly by the hand, without saying another word, good or bad, to her, he led her out after my father, that he might finish the eclaircissement himself (v, 14). Mr. Pickwick plays an almost identical part on several occasions. During his Christmas visit to Manor Farm, he delicately and tactfully restores harmony between Arabella Wardle and her irascible old grandmother: "Ah, Mr. Pickwick, young people was very different, when I was a girl." "No doubt of that, ma'am," said Mr. Pickwick, !land that's the very reason why I would make much of the few that have any traces of the old stock," - and saying this, Mr. Pickwick gently pulled Bella towards him, and bestowing a kiss upon her forehead, bade her sit down on the little stool at her grandmother's feet. Whether the expression of her countenance, as it was raised towards the old lady's face, called up a thought of old times, or whether the old lady was touched by Mr. Pickwick's affectionate good nature ... she was fairly melted; so she threw herself on her granddaughter's neck, and all the little ill-humour evaporated in a silent gush of tears (Ch. 28). Later, in a less serious vein, he accompanies Winkle on a nocturnal expedition to the home of Arabella Allen; and following his release from prison, he reconciles both her brother and the disgnmtled Bob Sawyer to their marriage. Chapter Forty-Eight "Relates How Mr. Pickwick, With the Assistance of Samuel Weller, Essayed to Soften the Heart of Mr. Benjamin Allen, and to Mollify the Wrath of Mr. Robert Sawyer." Abetted by Ben's old aunt, master and servant succeed in turning a boisterous family squabble into an occasion of forgiveness and reconciliation : At last he [Bob Sawyer] emerged from the room ... and, remarking that he was very sorry to say he had been making a fool of himself, begged to propose the health and happiness of Mr. and Mrs. Winkle, whose felicity, so far from envying, he would be the first to congratulate them upon. Hearing this, Mr. Ben Allen suddenly rose from his chair, and, seizing the black bottle, drank the toast so heartily, that, the liquor being strong, he became nearly as black in the face as the bottle. Finally, the black bottle went round till it 266 ROSELEE ROBISON was empty, and there was so much shaking of hands and interchanging of compliments, that even the metal-visaged Mr. Martin condescended to smile (Ch.48). As has already been suggested, both Uncle Toby and Mr. Pickwick are not only "men of Feeling" who share certain well-defined virtues, but Innocents, ingenuous idealists whose childlike gUilelessness and ntiivete allow their creators to illuminate in similar ways both the absurdities and the abuses of the adult worlds in which they are placed. As J. B. Priestley has observed, "It is more than likely that there is something of the child in all the comic figures that are not merely satirical sketches ... in uncle Toby, and in all the figures that his inRuence has probably called into existence, the child predominates."" Although Toby's exquisite modesty is repeatedly outraged by both his brother and Doctor Slop, as in Walter's repeated allusions to Aunt Dinah's indecorous behaviour, in many instances Toby displays the radical naivete of a child: he is neither amused nor shocked by much of the obscenity which fills the air at Shandy Hall simply because he does not understand it. From the outset of the novel to its conclusion with Obadiah's cock-and-bull story, Toby is encased in an often impenetrable haze of innocence. He is apparently oblivious of Slop'S salaciousness when the man-midwife gives his explanation of military science an indecent twist (" 'Besiegers seldom offer to carry on their attacks directly against the curtains ... because they are so well Ranked.' 'Tis the case with certain other curtains,' quoth Doctor Slop, laughing" (rr, 12)); and with a similar blindness to the impropriety of his suggestion, he proposes that Walter counter the rumours of Tristram's emasculation by "[showing] him publicly ... at the market cross" (VI, 14). Although Dickens cannot rely upon a failure to appreciate sexual innuendo as a means of suggesting innocence, he reveals Pickwick's ntiivete in a similar manner by demonstrating his complete unfamiliarity with the racy language and nefarious practices which characterize adult life. Sam Weller explains to his ingenuous master the meaning of "sawbones" (Ch. 30) and "the twopenny rope" (Ch. 16) and opens his eyes to the shady procedures which go on behind the scenes at the Eatanswill elections: liMe and the two waiters at the Peacock, has been a pumpin' over the independent voters as supped last night." uPumping over independent voters!" exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. ''Yes ... every man slept vere he fen down; we dragged 'em out, one by one, this momin', and put 'em under the pump, and they're in reg'Jar fine order, now. Shillin' a head the committee paid for that 'ere job." DICKENS AND THE SENTIMENTAL TRADITION 267 "Can such things be!" exclaimed the astonished Mr. Pickwick. "Lord bless your heart, sir," said Sam, "why where was you half·baptized?" eCho 13). The profound innocence of both Uncle Toby and Mr. Pickwick is also revealed by their endless enthusiasm for essentially childish amusements . Moreover, their unoffending glee reHects the benevolent man's readiness to participate in "all the God·given pleasures ... of a benign universe." When the ingenious Corporal Trim broaches his scheme of fortifying the bowling green, his innocent master is so delighted that he can neither Iinish his supper nOr sleep that night. Totally unaware of the possible sexual implications of his contemplated pleasures (the bowling green is a sequestered place which the old soldier hopes to enjoy in complete privacy), he blushes with innocent joy as Trim elaborates upon his plans. As Walter L. Myers remarks, Toby's elation with "the appurtenances of mimic warfare suggests the lingering delight in miniature machines, things that buzz and gyrate internally and move of their own power, which persists in many a strong man from childhood to second ... "2' Mr. Pickwick conducts no sieges among the cabbages and cauliHowers of a kitchen garden, but his gleeful participation in the Christmas festivities at Manor Farm stems from a similarly boyish nature. Like Uncle Toby, he has brought a child's readiness to be amused intact into the adult world. At Emily Wardle's wedding he dances inexhaustibly, "smiling on his partner all the while with a blandness of demeanour which bames all description" (Ch. 28); plays blindman 's buff "with a nimbleness and agility that elicited the applause and admiration of all beholders" (Ch. 28); and like Uncle Toby at his fortiIications , radiates boyish exuberance as he slides with Sam Weller on the ice: "It was the most intensely interesting thing, to observe the manner in which Mr. Pickwick performed his share in the ceremony ... his eyes beaming cheerfulness and gladness through his spectacles. And when he was knocked down ... it was the most invigorating sight that can possibly be imagined, to behold him gather up his hat, gloves, and handkerchief , with a glowing countenance, and resume his station in the rank ..." (Ch. 30). Moreover, the childish simplicity and gentleness of both characters is paradoxically combined with great courage and rectitude . Toby's view of war may be absurdly idealistic ("What is it, but the getting together of quiet and harmless people, with their swords in their hands, to keep the ambitious and the turbulent within bounds?" [VI, 32)), but as Trim reveals to the assembled servants upon the occasion of Bobby's death, "There never was a better officer in the king's 268 ROSELEE ROBISON army ... for he would march up to the mouth of a cannon, though he saw the lighted match at the very touch hole" (v, 10). Perhaps even more valorously, he assumes the blame for Tristram's accidental circumcision ; with the real culprits, Susannah and Corporal Trim, bringing up the rear, he leads the procession back to Shandy Hall. Similarly, Mr. Pickwick not only refuses to abet the legal skulduggery of Dodson and Fogg, resolutely choosing the ignominy and discomfort of imprisonment instead, but with great courage and self-denial, sends Sam Weller away: "Old men may come here, through their own heedlessness and unsuspicion : and young men may be brought here by the selfishness of those they serve. It is better for these young men, in every point of view, that they should not remain here" (Ch. 42). As his role of mediator in the love affairs of both Sam and Winkle would suggest, Mr. Pickwick, unlike Uncle Toby, is capable of playing an active and influential part in adult affairs. Nevertheless, both men are essentially quixotic figures whose childlike naivete makes their impossibly idealistic view of human nature all the more endearing. Sterne and Dickens further disclose the ingenuousness of their "Men of Feeling" through the time-honoured convention of the predatory widow. The misadventures of Uncle Toby with Widow Wadman and of Mr. Pickwick with Mrs. Bardell derive a speCial comic piquancy from the fact that both men are ignorant of the nature of women as well as exquisitely modest. As Walter Shandy takes a lewd delight in pointing out, his brother cannot distingUish the right from the wrong end of a woman; and Toby's vulnerability to the insinuations of Mrs. Wadman is immensely exacerbated by "a most extreme and unparalleled modesty of nature" (r, 21). Similarly, Mr. Pickwick is an elderly bachelor whose dealings with women have been limited to amenable instructions regarding chops and tomato sauce; and his mishap with the "middle-aged lady in yellow curl-papers" at Ipswich reveals that he shares with Uncle Toby an almost feminine delicacy of nature. "One of the most modest and delicate-minded of mortals," when he finds himself in the wrong bedroom he is nonplussed; "the very idea of exhibiting his nighHap to a lady overpowered him ". " (Ch. 22). InHuenced by Victorian ideas of good taste and propriety, Dickens of cOurse modifies the figure of the amorous widow herself very conSiderably. While the delectable and "concupiscible" Widow Wadman, that "Daughter of Eve," can assault the utterly unsuspecting Toby by following the lines on his map with her wayward fingers, pressing the calf of his leg with her own, and DICKENS AND THE SENTIMENTAL TRADITION 269 gazing at him with "as venereal a pair of eyes as ever stood in a head" (VIII, 25), Mrs. Bardell, "a comely woman of bustling manners and agreeable appearance," can employ only a feather duster: "Do you think it a much greater expense to keep two people than one?" "La, Mr. Pickwick," said Mrs. Bardell, colouring up to the very border of her cap, as she fancied slle observed a species of matrimonial twinkle in the eyes of her lodger ... 'Well, but do you?" inquired Mr. Pickwick. ''That depends -" said Mrs. Bardell, approaching the duster very near to Mr. Pickwick's elbow, which was planted on the table ... (Ch. 12). Although Widow Wadman and her Victorian counterpart differ strongly in that One is prompted by concupiscence, the other by avarice, Sterne and Dickens both derive humour from the fact that both women deliberately exploit good nature and unsuspecting innocence. Toby searches for the imaginary mote in Widow Wadman's eye "with as much innocency of heart as ever child looked into a raree-show box" (VUI, 24); and when Mrs. Bardell faints in Mr. Pickwick's arms, he is stupefied: "Mr. Pickwick was struck motionless and speechless. He stood with his lovely burden in his arms, gazing vacantly on the countenances of his friends, without the slightest attempt at recognition or explanation" (Ch. 12) . True to their benevolent natures, however, both men repay the perfidy of womankind with Christian forbearance. Rudely awakened by Trim as to the true reaSOn for Widow Wadman's consuming interest in his wound, Toby returns to Shandy Hall "with marks of infinite benevolence and forgiveness in his looks" (IX, 32); and after a little prompting from his attorney, Mr. Pickwick consents to abandon his high moral stance and take the humane view of Mrs. Bardell's predicament, realizing that he alone "can rescue her from this den of wretchedness" (Ch. 47). As well as being a source of humour, the romantic misadventures of the two nalve eccentrics have considerable structural importance in both novels. As Wayne C. Booth has shown, the story of Uncle Toby's amours is one of the major sources of order in the seemingly chaotic and plotless Tristram Shandy. Through his continual references to Toby's romantic involvement as the "choicest morsel" in his book, Sterne creates a certain suspense; and when the reader's expectations are finally gratified in volume nine, "wbat seems to have been the abiding intention" has been carried out" and the novel reaches a kind of climax. Similarly, although much of The Pickwick Papers was the result of brilliant improvisation, modern critics are unanimous in the opinion that the Bardell intrigue is one of the key elements which gave a somewhat amorphous series of sketches the unity and complexity of a novel. An additional point of resemblance between Tristram Shandy and The Pickwiclt Papers lies in the use which both novelists make of the convention of the devoted servant. As in the relationship between Don Quixote and Sancho, Corporal Trim and Sam Weller are united to their idealistic masters by the bond of affection and mutual need. Trim's great ingenuity in amusing the childlike Toby ("His fertile head" is "never at a loss ... to supply ... uncle Toby with whatever his fanc), called for") is responsible for some of the most amusing incidents in the novel, notably the conversion of Walter's jack boots into mortars and the accidental circumcision of Tristram by the sash window; and his inventiveness is fully matched by his devotion. He resolves to dismantle Toby's beloved fortifications "before his Honour rises" to witness the disheartening sight (VIll, 18); and on the occasion of Bobby's death, he cannot "refrain from tears" as he speaks of his veneration of his master. For his part, Toby is equally attached to the corporal, regarding him less as a servant than as a "humble friend." As J. B. Priestley succinctly observes, "each would be lost without the other."" In Dickens' use of the convention , the relationship between master and man is marked by a similar emotional depth. The infinitely resourceful and resilient Sam not only guides Mr. Pickwick through the mazes of London and rescues him from his embarrassing predicaments at Ipswich and Bury St. Edmunds, but like Corporal Trim, inspires his master witl, a love which far transcends the formal limits of their agreement. The affection which binds the two begins to emerge as early as the account of Mr. Pickwick's recovery from his misadventures at Bury; during his attack of rheumatism, Sam is his "constant attendant" and like Corporal Trim with his story of the King of Bohemia and his Seven Castles, exerts himself to "amuse his master by anecdote and conversation" (Ch. 17). Moreover, the servants' connection with the love theme in both novels helps to emphasize their masters' dignity and innocence. The gravity and decorum with which Toby advances his suit with Widow Wadman are tacitly enhanced by the corporal 's more robust courtship of Susannah, in the course of whicl, one of the miniature bridges is demolished, as well as by his account of Tom's proposal of marriage to the Jew's widow while the two are making sausages, a Rabelaisian prelude to Toby's more decorous amours'· Similarly , while the hapless Mr. Pickwick is vainly attempting to evade Mrs. Bardell's toils, Sam Weller, with a forthright lustiness shared with nO DlCKENS AND TlIE SENTIMENTAL THADl1"IOi\" 271 other character in Dickens' novels, steals kisses from Susannah's counterpart , the pretty housemaid, Mary, and sends her a valentine signed "your lovesick Pickwick." However, despite the many similarities between the two sets of relationships, there are certain extremely important differences between Sam Weller and Corporal Trim. It is through Sam, in fact, that Dickens sharply criticizes one of the most notable features of the sentimental tradition: the emotional displays in which the "Man of Feeling" may indulge. Whereas the corporal and his deeply sensitive master are equally lachrymose, weeping copiously at their recollection of Tom's miserable fate (IX, 5) and the suffering of the unjustly punished grenadier (rv, 4) as well as at the desolation of Le Fever's SOn (VI, 7), Sam Weller is instinctively skeptical of emotional extravagance. In essence, the insouciant and eminently unsentimental Sam conveys Dickens' perception that "moral weeping" can degenerate all too easily into hypocrisy and pernicious self-indulgence. Furthermore, in The Pickwick Papers, the sentimentalist 's tears become a rich source of laughter. The shrewd Cockney perceives at once that Job Trotter's weeping camouSages his rapacity ("Blow this here water-cart bis'ness" [Ch. 16]); Susan Weller's pious tears are discovered to consist largely of pineapple rum; and when the Reverend Mr. Stiggins visits Sam in the Fleet and begins to lament Tony's backsliding, the sentimentalist's gestures of commiseration are burlesqued with tremendous gusto and dexterity: Here Mrs. Weller let fall some more tears, and Mr. Stiggins groaned. "Hello! Here's this unfort'nate gen'l'm'n took i1l again," said Sam. "Where do you feel it now, sir?" "In the same place, young man," rejoined Mr. Stiggins: uin the same place." 'Where may that be, sir?" inquired Sam, with great outward simplicity. "In the buzzim, young man," replied Mr. Stiggins, placing his umbrella on his waistcoat (Ch. 45). Whereas Corporal Trim himself is in many respects a "Man of Feeling," repeatedly joining T oby in sentimental reminiscences, Sam Weller belongs to a different species: notwithstanding his genuine devotion to his master, he remains consistently cool and even undemonstrative. His love for Mr. Pickwick is suggested more indirectly than is that of Trim for Uncle T oby, as when he refuses to abandon Pickwick in the Fleet and indignantly rejects Job Trotter's proposal: "No man serves him but me." Thus, while Sam's imperturbability and paradoxical "sophisticated inno- cence" help to emphasize Mr. Pickwick's childlike helplessness and naivete, Corporal Trim's sensibilities often make him not the contrast, but the counterpart of his master. The character in Tristram Shandy who provides the strongest illumination of Toby's virtues is not his servant, but his brother, the uniquely eccentric, fractiOUS, and immodest Walter. In conclusion, it should be stressed that in attempting to discover certain resemblances between these two great comic masterpieces, I am by no means denying the originality and uniqueness of Dickens' achievement. Indeed, at least one contemporary reviewer contended that Boz had no ties at all with the past. 'We know nO other English writer to whom he bears a marked resemblance. He sometimes imitates other writers, such as Fielding in his introductions, and Washington Irving in his detached tales ... But his Own manner is very distinct - and comparison with any other would not serve to illustrate and describe it."'7 Again, there are almost as many differences as affinities between Mr. Pickwick and his innocent counterpart. For example, Dickens does not use Sterne's theory of the monomania as a mode of characterization. In the early stages of the novel Mr. Pickwick's scientific dilettantism may have been intended to serve the same purpose as Uncle Toby's military obsession (a writer in the Eclectic Review contended that Pickwick "had a monomanu. ... for inserting eminently silly things in his notebook"'8), but the notebook and the rest of the scientific paraphernalia SOOn disappear. Among Dickens' lovable eccentrics, the character whose idiosyncrasies most closely resemble a hobby-horse is not Mr. Pickwick but Captain Cuttle, whose nautical perspective upon reality is often reminiscent of Toby's preoccupation with siege-craft. Similarly, while Toby is almost inarticulate, dependent upon his pipe and LiUihuUero to convey his feelings of shock or amazement, Mr. Pickwick, as his love of speech-making demonstrates, is an eloquent man. More Significantly, while Sterne implies that Toby's boyish naivete can be a defect as well as a comical and endearing foible ("Outside his hobby his brain is like wet tinder which cannot be sparked"'·), Dickens' insight into the ambiguous nature of innocence does not begin to emerge until much later in his career. As long as he is guarded by Sam, Mr. Pickwick is invulnerable to the perils which would explOit and undermine his ingenuousness. Like Tristram Shandy, the immediately popular and beloved Pickwick Papers was a kind of literary miracle, and as such, retains a certain mysteriousness which disarms criticism. But an examination of one of the traditions with which Dickens was intimately acquainted may serve to revcal some of the means by which such miracles are accomplished. 1l1CKENS ,\NO TIlE SENTIMENTAL TRADITION NOTES I Athenaeum, no. 475 (3 Dec. 1836),841. 273 2 George Gissing, The Immortal Dickens (London: Cecil Palmer 1925), 100. 3 Ernest A. Baker, The History of the English NCnJeZ (Londo", H. F. and C. Witterly 1924), 275. + Emile Legouis and Louis Cazamian, A History of English Literature (New York: The Macmillan Co. 1929), 173. 5 Edinburgh Review, 68 ( Oct. 1838), 77. 6 R. S. Crane, uSuggestions Toward a Genealogy of the Man of Feeling," ELH, (1934), 210-11. 7 The Complete Life and Works of Lau-renee Sterne (New York: J. F. Taylor and Co. 1904), v, 50-1. 8 George Ford, Dic1wns and His Readers: Aspects of Novel-Criticism Since 1836 ( New York, W. W. Norton and Co., Inc. 1965), 38. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid., 11. II "Bicentenary of Laurence Sterne," Edinburgh Review, 218 (1913), 364, 366, 12 Ibid., 356. 13 Eclectic Review, I (April 1837), 354. 14 Stuart M, Tave, The Amiable Humorist: A Study in the Comic Theory of the Eighteenth and Early Ni'ueteenth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1960), 225-6. J5 Edinburgh Review, 68 (Oct. 1838), 76. 16 Crane, 208. 17 Gardiner D. Stout, Jr., "Yorick's Sentimental Journey: A Comic Pilgrim's Progress for the Man of Feeling," ELH, 30 (1963), 297-8. 18 Crane, 206. 19 The Quartedy Review, 59 (Oct. 1837),495. 20 The Complete Life and Works of Laurence Sterne, v, 37. 21 Ibid., 39. 22 J, B. Priestley, The English Comic Characters (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company 1925), 130-1. 23 Walter L. Myers, "0, The Hobby-Horse," Virginia Q1Uirterly Review, 19 (1943), 274-5. 24 \Vayne C. Booth, "Did Sterne Complete Tristram Sltandy?" }\rIodern Philology, 98 (1951), 180-1. 25 Priestley, 128-9. 26 Booth, 181. 27 Edinburgh Review, 68 ( Oct. 1838),76. 28 Eclectic Revietv, I (April 1837), 343-4. 29 Elizabeth Drew, TIle -Novel: A M odern Guide to Fifteen English Masterpieces ( New York, Dell Publishing Co. 1963), 91. ...