Radicals in “The Parlour”: John Arthur Roebuck and the Politics of an 1835 Sketch

On 13 December 1835, “The Parlour,” one of a series of “Scenes and Characters” published by Dickens under the pseudonym “Tibbs,” appeared in Bell’s Life in London. In it, the narrator wanders into the parlor of a London public-house and finds a member of the company belligerently expressing political opinions. This “orator” refers to several controversial issues of the day. The present paper suggests that, through his manner of doing so, and Tibbs’s accompanying remarks, Dickens comments on contemporary radical attitudes, using as a focus those of the politician John Arthur Roebuck.

The Sketch¹

At odds with the peaceful setting of the “quiet decent public-house” which Tibbs enters is the disquiet he finds in its parlor. It arises from a man who has “that confident, oracular air, which marked him as the leading politician, general authority, and universal anecdote-relater of the place.” This “orator,”

John Arthur Roebuck. Oil on canvas. By an unknown artist NPG 1777 (Ormond 1: 398)

© National Portrait Gallery, London

who is flanked by two companions, has “just delivered himself of something veay w ighty [sic].” It has been received respectfully by the company, but with “a kind of solemn abstraction” which suggests incomprehension. After a silence, one of his friends comments mildly: “‘Very extraordinary!’ ” And for this not unequivocal response he receives a berating from the orator.

To illustrate his grasp of the (undefined) issue, the orator reminds the company that he (the orator) had persuaded the “Old-street Suburban Representative Discovery Society” not to recommend a certain candidate to represent “that place in Cornwall there – I forget the name.” When told that the candidate was “a friend to Reform,” he had, he tells his audience, responded by saying that the man’s actions did not demonstrate this. The man, he triumphantly continues, consequently had not been selected. The orator rounds off the anecdote by declaring that: “if I was a Member of the House of Commons […] I’ll make ’em shake in their shoes.” And he adds weight to this by striking “the table very hard with his clenched fist.”

The orator then reminds the company that “when I came into this parish, and first used this room […] I don’t believe there was one man in it who knew he was a slave, and now you all know it, and writhe under it.” When one of the company protests that he “don’t like to be called [such] names night after night,” the orator is indignant:

“You are a slave […] and the most pitiable of all slaves […] A willing slave […] resigning the dearest birth-right of your children, neglecting the sacred call of Liberty […] Bending beneath the yoke of an insolent and factious oligarchy: bowed down before the domination of cruel laws, groaning beneath tyranny and oppression on every hand, at every side, and in every corner.”

Growing more and more excited, the orator becomes less and less coherent:

“What is a man […] what is an Englishman? Is he to be trampled upon by every oppressor? is he to be knocked down at any body’s bidding? […] What is freedom? Not a standing army. – What is a standing army? Not freedom. – What is general happiness? Not universal misery. Liberty is not the window tax, nor the Lords the people.”

Eventually, he bursts into “a radiating sentence, in which the words ‘oppression,’ ‘tyranny,’ ‘violence,’ ‘misrule,’ ‘dastardly Whigs,’ ‘sanguinary Tories,’ ‘Mr. Roebuck,’ ‘depreciation of the currency,’ and ‘voluntary principle’ were most conspicuous.” Finally, he bangs out of the room, leaving behind him an admiring but mystified audience.

Alone in the parlor, Tibbs reflects:

Great ass […] a very common character, and in no degree exaggerated. Empty-headed bullies, who by their ignorance and presumption bring into contempt whatever cause they are connected with: equally mischievous in any assembly from the highest to the lowest, and disgusting in all. There is [such a] man in every ‘parlour’.

Readings of “The Parlour”

The sketch has been seen as the...