Reader and audience about equally, one may say, revelled in the “Trial from Pickwick.” Every well-known person in the comic drama was looked for eagerly, and when at last Serjeant Buzfuz, as we were told, “rose with more importance than he had yet exhibited, if that were possible, and said, 'Call Samuel Weller,'” a round of applause invariably greeted the announcement of perhaps the greatest of all Dickens's purely humorous characters. The Reading copy of this abbreviated report of the great case of Bardell v. Pickwick has, among the complete set of Readings, one very striking peculiarity. Half-bound in scarlet morocco like all the other thin octavos in the collection, its leaves though yellow and worn with constant turning like the rest, are wholly unlike those of the others in this, that the text is untouched by pen or pencil. Beyond the first condensation of that memorable 34th chapter of Pickwick, there is introduced not one single alteration by way of after-thought. Struck off at a heat, as it was, that first humorous report of the action for breach of promise of marriage brought by Martha Bardell against Samuel Pickwick admitted in truth in no way whatever of improvement. Anything like a textual change would have been resented by the hearers—every one of them Pickwickian, as the case might be, to a man, woman, or child—as in the estimation of the literary court, nothing less than a high crime and misdemeanour. Once epitomised for the Reading, the printed version, at least of the report, was left altogether intact. Nevertheless, strange to say, there was perhaps no Reading out of the whole series of sixteen, in the delivery of which the Author more readily indulged himself with an occasional gag. Every interpolation of this kind, however, was so obviously introduced on the spur of the moment, so refreshingly spontaneous and so ludicrously apropos, that it was always cheered to the very echo, or, to put the fact not conventionally but literally, was received with peals of laughter. Thus it was in one instance, as we very well remember, in regard to Mr. Justice Stareleigh—upon every occasion that we saw him, one of the Reader's most whimsical impersonations. The little judge—described in the book as “all face and waistcoat”—was presented to view upon the platform as evidently with no neck at all (to speak of), and as blinking with owl-like stolidity whenever he talked, which he always did under his voice, and with apparently a severe cold in the head. On the night more particularly referred to, Sam Weller, being at the moment in the witness-box, had just replied to the counsel's suggestion, that what he (Sam) meant by calling Mr. Pickwick's “a very good service” was “little to do and plenty to get.”—“Oh, quite enough to get, sir, as the soldier said ven they ordered him three hundred and fifty lashes.” Thereupon—glowering angrily at Sam, and blinking his eyes more than ever—Mr. Justice Stareleigh remarked, with a heavier cold in the head than hitherto, in a severe monotone, and with the greatest deliberation, “You must not tell us what the soldier says unless the soldier is in court, unless that soldier comes here in uniform, and is examined in the usual way—it's not evidence.” Another evening, again, we recall quite as clearly to mind, when the Reader was revelling more even than was his wont, in the fun of this representation of the trial-scene, he suddenly seemed to open up the revelation of an entirely new phase in Mr. Winkle's idiosyncrasy. Under the badgering of Mr. Skimpin's irritating examination, as to whether he was or was not a particular friend of Mr. Pickwick the defendant, the usually placable Pickwickian's patience upon this occasion appeared gradually and at last utterly to forsake him. “I have known Mr. Pickwick now, as well as I can recollect at this moment, nearly——”

“Pray, Mr. Winkle, do not evade the question. Are you or are you not a particular friend of the defendant's?” “I was just about to say——” “Will you, or will you not, answer my question, sir?” “Why, God bless my soul, I was just about to say that———” Whereupon the Court, otherwise Mr. Justice Stareleigh, blinking faster than ever, blurted out severely, “If you don't answer the question you'll be committed to prison, sir!” And then, but not till then, Mr. Winkle was sufficiently restored to equanimity to admit at last, meekly, “Yes, he was!”

In the Reading of the Trial the first droll touch was the well-remembered reference to the gentlemen in wigs, in the barristers' seats, presenting as a body “all that pleasing variety of nose and whisker for which the bar of England is so justly celebrated.” Even the allusion to those among their number who carried a brief “scratching their noses with it to impress the fact more strongly on the observation of the spectators,” and the other allusion to those who hadn't a brief, carrying instead red-labelled octavos with “that under-done-pie-crust cover, technically known as law calf,” was each, in turn, welcomed with a flutter of amusement. Every point, however minute, told, and told eifectively. More eifectively than if each was heard for the first time, because all were thoroughly known, and, therefore, thoroughly well appreciated. The opening address of Serjeant Buzfuz every one naturally enough regarded as one of the most mirth-moving portions of the whole representation. In the very exordium of it there was something eminently absurd in the Serjeant's extraordinarily precise, almost mincing pronunciation. As where he said, that “never in the whole course of his professional experience—never from the first moment of his applying himself to the study and practice of the law—had he approached a case with such a heavy sense of respon-see-bee-lee-ty imposed upon him—a respon-see-bee-lee-ty he could never have supported were he not,” and so forth. Again, a wonderfully ridiculous effect was imparted by the Reader to his mere contrasts of manner when, at one moment, in the bland and melancholy accents of Serjeant Buzfuz, he referred to the late Mr. Bardell as having “glided almost imperceptibly from the world to seek elsewhere for that repose and peace which a custom-house can never afford,” adding, the next instant in his own voice, and with the most cruelly matter-of-fact precision, “This was a pathetic description of the decease of Mr. Bardell, who had been knocked on the head with a quart-pot in a public-house cellar.” The gravity of the Reader's countenance at these moments, with, now and then, but very rarely, a lurking twinkle in the eye, was of itself irresistibly provocative of laughter. Even upon the Serjeant's mention of the written placard hung up in the parlour window of Goswell Street, bearing this inscription, “Apartments furnished for single gentlemen: inquire within,” the sustained seriousness with which he added, that there the forensic orator paused while several gentlemen of the jury “took a note of the document,” one of that intelligent body inquiring, “There is no date to that, is there, sir?” made fresh ripples of laughter spread from it as inevitably as the concentric circles on water from the dropping of a pebble. The crowning extravagances of this most Gargantuan of comic orations were always of course the most eagerly welcomed, such, for example, as the learned Serjeant's final allusion to Pickwick's coming before the court that day with “his heartless tomato-sauce and warming-pans,” and the sonorous close of the impassioned peroration with the plaintiff's appeal to “an enlightened, a high-minded, a right-feeling, a conscientious, a dispassionate, a sympathising, a contemplative jury of her civilised countrymen.” It was after this, however, that the true fun of the Reading began with the examination and cross-examination of the different witnesses. These, as a matter of course, were acted, not described.

Mrs. Cluppins first entered the box, with her feelings, so far as they could be judged from her voice, evidently all but too many for her. Her fluttered reply showed this at the very commencement, in answer to an inquiry as to whether she remembered one particular morning in July last, when Mrs. Bar-dell was dusting Pickwick's apartment. “Yes, my lord and jury, I do.” “Was that sitting-room the first-floor front?” “Yes, it were, sir”—something in the manner of Mrs. Crupp when at her faintest. The suspicious inquiry of the red-faced little Judge, “What were you doing in the back-room, ma'am?” followed—on her replying lackadaisically, “My lord and jury, I will not deceive you”—by his blinking at her more fiercely, “You had better not, ma'am,” were only exceeded in comicality by Justice Stare-leigh's bewilderment a moment afterwards, upon her saying that she “see Mrs. Bardell's street-door on the jar.”

Judge (in immense astonishment).—“On the what?”

Counsel.—“Partly open, my lord.”

Judge (with more owl-like stolidity than ever).—“She said on the jar.”

Counsel.—“It's all the same, my lord.”

Then—blinking more quickly than before, with a furtive glance at witness, and a doubtful look of abstraction into space—the little Judge made a note of it.

As in Mrs. Cluppins' faintness there was a recognizable touch of Mrs. Crupp, when the spasms were engendering in the nankeen bosom of that exemplary female, so also in the maternal confidences volunteered by the same witness, there was an appreciable reminder of another lady who will be remembered as having been introduced at the Coroner's Inquest in Bleak House as “Anastasia Piper, gentlemen.” Regarding that as a favourable opportunity for informing the court of her own domestic affairs, through the medium of a brief dissertation, Mrs. Cluppins was interrupted by the irascible Judge at the most interesting point in her revelations, when, having mentioned that she was already the mother of eight children, she added, that “she entertained confident expectations of presenting Mr. Cluppins with a ninth about that day six months”—whereupon the worthy lady was summarily hustled out of the witness-box.

Nathaniel Winkle, however, consoled us immediately. Don't we remember how, even before he could open his lips, he was completely disconcerted? Namely, when, bowing very respectfully to the little Judge, he had that complimentary proceeding acknowledged snappishly with, “Don't look at me, sir; look at the jury——” Mr. Winkle, in obedience to the mandate, meekly looking “at the place where he thought that the jury might be.” Don't we remember also perfectly well how the worst possible construction was cast by implication beforehand upon his probable reply to the very first question put to him, namely, by the mere manner in which that first question was put? “Now, sir, have the goodness to let his lordship and the jury know what your name is, will you?” Mr. Skimpin, in propounding this inquiry, inclining his head on one side and listening with great sharpness for the answer, “as if to imply that he rather thought Mr. Winkle's natural taste for perjury would induce him to give some name which did not belong to him.” Giving in, absurdly, his surname only; and being asked immediately afterwards, if possible still more absurdly, by the Judge, “Have you any Christian name, sir?” the witness, in the Reading, more naturally and yet more confusedly even it seemed than in the book, got that eminent functionary into a great bewilderment as to whether he (Mr. Winkle) were called Nathaniel Daniel, or Daniel Nathaniel. Bewildered himself, in his turn, and that too almost hopelessly, came Mr. Winkle's reply, “No, my lord; only Nathaniel—not Daniel at all.” Irascibly, the Judge's, “What did you tell me it was Daniel for, then, sir?” Shamefaced and yet irritably, “I didn't, my lord.” “You did, sir!”—with great indignation, topped by this cogent reasoning,—“How could I have got Daniel on my notes, unless you told me so, sir?” Nothing at all was said about it in the Reading; but, again and again, Mr. Winkle, as there impersonated, while endeavouring to feign an easiness of manner, was made to assume, in his then state of confusion, “rather the air of a disconcerted pickpocket.”

Better almost than Mr. Winkle himself, however, as an impersonation, was, in look, voice, manner, Mr. Skimpin, the junior barrister, under whose cheerful but ruthless interrogations that unfortunate gentleman was stretched upon the rack of examination. His (Mr. Skimpin's) cheery echoing—upon every occasion when it was at last extorted from his victim—of the latter's answer (followed instantly by his own taunts and insinuations), remains as vividly as anything at all about this Reading in our recollection. When at length Mr. Winkle, with no reluctance in the world, but only seemingly with reluctance, answers the inquiry as to whether he is a particular friend of Pickwick, “Yes, I am!”—“Yes, you are!” said Mr. Skimpin (audibly to the court, but as if it were only to himself). “And why couldn't you say that at once, sir? Perhaps you know the plaintiff, too—eh, Mr. Winkle?” “I don't know her; I've seen her!” “Oh, you don't know her, but you've seen her! Now have the goodness to tell the gentlemen of the jury what you mean by that, Mr. Winkle.” As to how this unfortunate witness, after being driven to the confines of desperation, on being at last released, “rushed with delirious haste” to the hotel, “where he was discovered some hours after by the waiter, groaning in a hollow and dismal manner, with his head buried beneath the sofa cushions”—not a word was said in the Reading.

A flavour of the fun of Mrs. Sanders's evidence was given, but only a passing flavour of it, in reference to Mr. Sanders having, in the course of their correspondence, often called her duck, but never chops, nor yet tomato-sauce—he being particularly fond of ducks—though possibly, if he had been equally fond of chops and tomato-sauce, he might have called her that instead, as a term of affection.

The evidence of all, however, was that of Sam Weller, no less to the enjoyment of the Author, it was plain to see, than to that of his hearers. After old Weller's hoarse and guttural cry from the gallery, “Put it down a wee, my lord,” in answer to the inquiry whether the immortal surname was to be spelt with a V. or a W.; Sam's quiet “I rayther suspect it was my father, my lord,” came with irresistible effect from the Reader, as also did his recollection of something “wery partickler” having happened on the memorable morning, out of which had sprung the whole of this trial of Bardell v. Pickwick, namely, that he himself that day had “a reg'lar new fit out o' clothes.” Beyond all the other Wellerisms, however, was Sam's overwhelmingly conclusive answer to counsel's inquiry in regard to his not having seen what occurred, though he himself, at the time, was in the passage, “Have you a pair of eyes, Mr. Weller?” “Yes, I have a pair of eyes; and that's just it If they wos a pair o' patent double-million magnifying gas microscopes of hextra power, p'r'aps I might be able to see through two flights o' stairs and a deal door; but bein'' only eyes, you see, my wision's limited.” Better by far, in our estimation, nevertheless, than the smart Cockney facetiousness of the inimitable Sam; better than the old coachman's closing lamentation, “Vy worn't there a alleybi?” better than Mr. Winkle, or Mrs. Cluppins, or Serjeant Buzfuz, or than all the rest of those engaged in any capacity in the trial, put together, was the irascible little Judge, with the blinking eyes and the monotonous voice—himself, in his very pose, obviously, “all face and waistcoat.” Than Mr. Justice Stareleigh there was, in the whole of this most humorous of all the Readings, no more highly comic impersonation.