Business is Busyness, or the Work Ethic

Alexander Welsh Business is Busyness, or the Work Ethic “ NOW HER SO BISY A MAN AS HE THER NAS,” W E READ OF ONE OF CHAUCER’S pilgrims; “ And yet he semed bisier than he was.” And yet? The logic of these lines seems more than a little mischievous. Nowhere could there be found a man as busy as this, and yet this man seemed busier than he was. If both of these statements are strictly true, most men are not as busy as they seem, and diligence is largely a matter o f show. This particular pilgrim is the serjeant o f the law, as introduced in the general prologue to The Canterbury Tales. Lawyers have been targets o f satire for quite a few centuries now, and some irony unmistakably plays about Chaucer’s description; “Discreet he was and o f greet rever­ ence— I He semed swich, his words weren so wise”; and, “Of fees and robes hadde he many oon.” Serjeants-at-law were senior barristers, as this description would suggest, and from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century in England the title was bestowed by the crown. Until 1845 one had to be a serjeant in order to practice in the Court of Common Pleas—that is, for civil, not criminal cases—although the serjeant could be assisted by lesser barristers. Thus, in one of the most famous trials of that century, Bardell vs. Pickwick for breach of prom­ ise, Mrs. Bardell was represented by Seijeant Buzfuz and Mr. Pickwick by Seijeant Snubbin; and again, it may be that the lawyers in the case were neither so busy nor so diligent as they seemed. The best account of this trial can be found in chapters 31 and 34 of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, as set down by Charles Dickens between 1836 and 1837. social research Voi 72 : No 2 : Summer 2005 471 As readers o f Dickens’s first novel can attest, Mr. Pickwick is entirely innocent of making love or proposing marriage to his landlady, Mrs. Bardell. Through an unfortunate conjunction o f circumstances and the widow’s hyperactive imagination, she mistakes his intention to hire Sam Weller as a manservant for a proposal of marriage to her; the solicitors Dodson and Fogg, known for their “sharp practice,” bring suit against the defendant without cost to their client unless they can persuade ajury to award damages. Mr. Pickwick, however, is an inspired quixotic hero who perversely insists that the barrister who will defend him in court is assured of his innocence. Abridging still another prec­ edent, he asks his own attorney, Perker, to take him to Lincoln’s Inn and introduce him to Seijeant Snubbin. The serjeant is there, according to his clerk, but “very busy”;to disturb him would be “too absurd.” Only after Perker prods the clerk and jokes about fees and the like is the serjeant “prevailed upon, in violation of all his established rules and customs, to admit them” and be introduced to his client, “the defen­ dant in Bardell and Pickwick.” “‘I am retained in that, am I?’ said the Serjeant.” Perker explains the purpose of the visit, Pickwick speaks of his innocence, and Snubbin appears at once skeptical, bored, and impa­ tient. It is time to turn his visitors over to his assisting barrister. “Who’s with me in this case?” “Mr. Phunky, Seijeant Snubbin,” replied the attorney. “Phunky-Phunky,” said the Serjeant; “I never heard the name before. He must be a very young man.” “Yes, he is a very young man,”replied the attorney. “He was only called the other day. Let me see—oh, he hasn’t been at the Bar eight years yet.” Other people have difficulty catching Mr. Phunky’s name: in the courtroom, the judge in the case will mistakenly write him down as “Mr. Monkey.” But “although he was an infant barrister,” the flunkey 472 social research proves very handy to Dickens’s irony and, once again, his purpose of distinguishing busyness from the business of the law. “You are with me in this case, I understand?” said the Seijeant. IfMr. Phunky had been a rich man, he...