  PICKWICK And now we come, past the tree-shaded hamlet of Cross Keys, to Pickwick, ninety-seven miles from London, situated at a turning in the road which leads to Corsham Regis, half a mile distant, on the left hand. The traveller, exploring this road for the first time, looks forward with curiosity to seeing a place with so famous a name; but Pickwick, the decayed CROSS KEYS. It is a curious literary puzzle—How did the title of the “Pickwick Papers” originate? It is a well-ascertained fact that, in 1835, Dickens, then a reporter for the daily press, was sent to Bath to report a speech of Lord John Russell’s, that now almost-forgotten statesman being a candidate for representing that city. The future novelist was then but twenty-three years of age, a time of life when impressions of travel are vivid and lasting. Journeying by coach, he had every opportunity for observing places and people; and so it happened that when, a few months later, the now historic publishing firm of Chapman and Hall offered him the literary commission which resulted in the “Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club,” the story he produced derived many of its features from his own experiences. His recollections had no time to fade, for in March, 1836, the first part of “Pickwick” was published, and others were well on the way. It must ever be a matter of doubt whether Dickens noticed the existence of Pickwick, the place. That he had noted the existence of Moses “‘I’m wery much afeerd, sir, that the properiator o’ this here coach is a playin’ some imperence vith us,’ says Sam. “‘How is that, Sam?’ said Mr. Pickwick; ‘aren’t the names down on the way-bill?’ “‘The names is not only down on the vay-bill, sir,’ replied Sam, ‘but they’ve painted vun on ’em up, on the door o’ the coach.’ “‘Dear me,’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick, quite staggered by the coincidence, ‘what a very extraordinary thing!’ “‘Yes, but that ain’t all,’ said Sam, again directing his master’s attention to the coach door; ‘not content vith writin’ up Pickwick, they puts “Moses” afore it, vich I call addin’ insult to injury.’” There were then, it will be seen, real Pickwicks living in Bath, and the “Moses” Pickwick referred to was an actual person, the great-grandson of one Eleazer Pickwick, who, many years before, had risen by degrees from the humble position of post-boy at the “Old Bear,” at Bath, to be landlord of the once famous “White Hart” inn, which stood where the “Grand Pump Room” hotel now towers aloft. Now comes the long-sought-for connection between place and persons of identical name. Eleazer Pickwick was a foundling. Discovered as an infant on the road at Pickwick, he was named by the guardians, in accordance with an old custom, after the place. CORSHAM REGIS THE HUNGERFORD ALMSHOUSE, CORSHAM REGIS. The townlet is a pleasing one, and, always excepting the new and ugly stone villas recently built, it abounds with delightful specimens of domestic architecture of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and mid-eighteenth centuries; fine houses built of Corsham stone in a dignified Renaissance manner, or in the earlier Tudor convention of gables and mullioned windows. Corsham Court, the finest of all, standing in its For the rest, Corsham has little history. It was the scene of a mysterious murder in 1594, when a gentleman, one Henry Long, was shot dead, while sitting at dinner amid his friends, by Sir Charles and Sir Henry Danvers, two brothers, who hailed from Dauntsey. The motive was never known, and the assassins were never punished. Six years later, Charles was beheaded for taking part in Essex’s rebellion; which seems to be a kind of oblique and fumbling retribution on the part of Providence for his crime. Henry, however, prospered amazingly, and was eventually created Earl Danby, flourishing all his life, as the wicked are, on good authority, supposed to do, “like the green bay tree,” and dying in the odour of sanctity, “full of honours, woundes, and daies.” He is commemorated in an eloquent epitaph, written by the saintly George Herbert of Bemerton, more than ten years before his (Danvers’) death; a circumstance which would seem to prove Herbert a hypocrite and Danvers peculiarly solicitous for his own post-mortem reputation. Corsham was the birthplace of Sir Richard Blackmore, physician to William the Third, and poetaster, who, says Leigh Hunt, “composed heaps of dull poetry, versified the Psalms, and, by way of extending the lesson of patience, wrote a paraphrase of the Book of Job.” What sarcasm! |
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