"Didn’t you give me this paper promising marriage?" — thirty-second illustration by M. A. Titmarsh [W. M. Thackeray], 1855. Wood-engraving, probably by William Linton. 7 cm high by 8.9 cm wide (2 ¾ by 3 ½ inches), vignetted, thirty-second illustration for The Rose and The Ring, p. 354. Descriptive headlines: "She Has Giglio's Plighted Troth" (354). [Click on the image to enlarge it; mouse over links.]
Passage Illustrated: Prince Giglio turns down Gruffy's Proposition in the Garden
"I have been thinking, darling, what you must do in this scrape. You must fly the country for a while."
"What scrape? — fly the country? Never without her I love, Countess," says Giglio.
"No, she will accompany you, dear Prince," she says, in her most coaxing accents. "First, we must get the jewels belonging to our royal parents. and those of her and his present Majesty. Here is the key, duck; they are all yours, you know, by right, for you are the rightful King of Paflagonia, and your wife will be the rightful Queen."
"Will she?" says Giglio.
"Yes; and having got the jewels, go to Glumboso’s apartment, where, under his bed, you will find sacks containing money to the amount of L2I7,000,000,987,439, 13S. 6 1/2d., all belonging to you, for he took it out of your royal father’s room on the day of his death. With this we will fly."
"We will fly?" says Giglio.
"Yes, you and your bride — your affianced love — your Gruffy!" says the Countess, with a languishing leer.
"You my bride!" says Giglio. "You, you hideous old woman!"
"Oh, you — you wretch! didn’t you give me this paper promising marriage?" cries Gruff.
"Get away, you old goose! I love Betsinda, and Betsinda only!" And in a fit of terror he ran from her as quickly as he could. [Chapter XI, "What Gruffanuff did to Giglio and Betsinda," pp. 353-354]
Commentary: Another Scene in the Palace Gardens
This scene in the palace gardens, which have appeared previously in Gruffahuff walking in the palace garden, is all the funnier when one realizes that Thackeray intends the Countess Gruffanuff to be a "dame part," a middle-aged pantomime actor got up as an ugly woman of advanced middle age. The plot (such as it is) thickens as Gruffy produces the royal edict that Giglio signed under the mistaken impression that it was to execute charitable activities.
Image scan and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one. ]
Bibliography
Furniss, Harry. The Rose and The Ring; or, The History of Prince Giglio and the Prince Bulbo. William Makepeace Thackeray's Christmas Books. With illustrations by the author and Harry Furniss. The Harry Furniss Centenary Edition. London: Macmillan and Co., 1911. Pp. 287-428.
Titmarsh, M. A. [W. M. Thackeray].The Rose and The Ring. London: Smith, Elder, 1855.
Created 31 July 2022