“I shall prove to you, gentlemen, that about a year ago Pickwick suddenly began to absent himself from home, during long intervals, (’on Pickwick Tours,’) as if with the intention of breaking off from my client: but I shall show you also that his resolutions were not at that time sufficiently strong, or that his better feelings conquered, if better feelings he has: or that the charms and accomplishments of my client prevailed against his unmanly intentions.” We may note the reserve which suggested a struggle going on in Mr. Pickwick. And how persuasive is Buzfuz’s exegesis! Then, on the letters:

“These letters bespeak the character of the man. They are not open, fervid, eloquent epistles breathing nothing but the language of affectionate attachment. They are covert, sly, under-hand communications, but, fortunately, far more conclusive than if couched in the most glowing language. Letters that must be viewed with a cautious and supicious eye: letters that were evidently intended at the time, by Pickwick, to mislead and delude any third parties into whose hands they might fall.” The gravity and persuasiveness of all this is really impayable. “Let me read the first: ’Garraway’s, twelve o’clock. Dear Mrs. B., Chops and tomato sauce. Yours, Pickwick.’ Gentlemen, what does this mean? Chops and tomato sauce. Yours, Pickwick. Chops! Gracious Heavens! and tomato sauce! Gentlemen, is the happiness of a sensitive and confiding female to be trifled away by such artifices as these? The next has no date whatever which is in itself suspicious: ’Dear Mrs. B., I shall not be at home until to-morrow. Slow coach.’ And then follows the very remarkable expression, ’Don’t trouble yourself about the warming pan.’”

There is a little bit of serious history connected with these letters which I was the first I think to discover. They were intended to satirise the trivial scraps brought forward in Mrs. Norton’s matrimonial case Norton v. Lord Melbourne. My late friend, “Charles Dickens the younger,” as he used to call himself, in his notes on Pickwick, puts aside this theory altogether as a mere unfounded fancy; but it will be seen there cannot be a doubt in the matter. Sir W. Follett laid just as much stress on these scraps as Serjeant Buzfuz did on his: he even used the phrase, “it seems there may be latent love like latent heat, in these productions.” We have also, “Yours Melbourne,” like “Yours Pickwick,” the latter signing as though he were a Peer. “There is another of these notes,” went on Sir William, “How are you?” “Again there is no beginning you see.” “The next has no date, which is in itself suspicious,” Buzfuz would have added. Another ran “I will call about half past four, Yours.” “These are the only notes that have been found,” added the counsel, with due gravity, “they seem to import much more than mere words convey.” After this can there be a doubt?

This case was tried in June, 1836, and, it must be borne in mind, caused a prodigious sensation all over the Kingdom. The Pickwick part, containing the description, appeared about December, six months afterwards. Only old people may recall Norton v. Melbourne, the fair Caroline’s wrongs have long been forgotten; but it is curious that the memory of it should have been kept alive in some sort by this farcical parody. Equally curious is it that the public should always have insisted that she was the heroine of yet another story, George Meredith’s Diana, though the author has disclaimed it over and over again.

The Serjeant’s dealing with the warming pan topic is a truly admirable satiric touch, and not one bit far-fetched or exaggerated. Any one familiar with suspicious actions has again and again heard comments as plausible and as forced. “Don’t trouble yourself about the warming pan! The warming pan! Why, gentlemen, who does trouble himself about a warming pen?” A delicious non sequitur, sheer nonsense, and yet with an air of conviction that is irresistable. “When was the peace of mind of man or woman broken or disturbed by a warming pan which is in itself a harmless, a useful and I will add, gentlemen, a comforting article of domestic furniture?” He then goes on ingeniously to suggest that it may be “a cover for hidden fire, a mere substitute for some endearing word or promise, agreeably to a preconcerted system of correspondence, artfully contrived by Pickwick with a view to his contemplated desertion and which I am not in a position to explain?” Admirable indeed! One could imagine a city jury in their wisdom thinking that there must be something in this warming pan!

Not less amusing and plausible is his dealing with the famous topic of the “chops and tomato sauce,” not “tomata” as Boz has it. I suppose there is no popular allusion better understood than this. The very man in the street knows all about it and what it means. Absurd as it may seem, it is hardly an exaggeration. Counsel every day give weight to points just as trivial and expound them elaborately to the jury. The Serjeant’s burst of horror is admirable, “Gentlemen, what does this mean? ‘Chops and tomata sauce! Yours Pickwick!’ Chops! Gracious Heavens! What does this mean? Is the happiness of a sensitive and confiding female to be trifled away by such shallow artifices as these?’”

I recall that admirable judge and pleasant man, the late Lord FitzGerald, who was fond of talking of this trial, saying to me that Buzfuz lost a good point here, as he might have dwelt on the mystic meaning of tomato which is the “love apple,” that here was the “secret correspondence,” the real “cover for hidden fire.”

He concluded by demanding exemplary damages as “the recompense you can award my client. And for these damages she now appeals to an enlightened, a high-minded, a right feeling, a conscientious, a dispassionate, a sympathising, a contemplative jury of her civilized countrymen!”