CHAPTER ONE

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_ INTRODUCTORY, CONCERNING THE PEDIGREE OF THE CHUZZLEWIT FAMILY

As no lady or gentleman, with any claims to polite breeding, can

possibly sympathize with the Chuzzlewit Family without being first

assured of the extreme antiquity of the race, it is a great

satisfaction to know that it undoubtedly descended in a direct line

from Adam and Eve; and was, in the very earliest times, closely

connected with the agricultural interest. If it should ever be

urged by grudging and malicious persons, that a Chuzzlewit, in any

period of the family history, displayed an overweening amount of

family pride, surely the weakness will be considered not only

pardonable but laudable, when the immense superiority of the house

to the rest of mankind, in respect of this its ancient origin, is

taken into account.

 

It is remarkable that as there was, in the oldest family of which we

have any record, a murderer and a vagabond, so we never fail to

meet, in the records of all old families, with innumerable

repetitions of the same phase of character. Indeed, it may be laid

down as a general principle, that the more extended the ancestry,

the greater the amount of violence and vagabondism; for in ancient

days those two amusements, combining a wholesome excitement with a

promising means of repairing shattered fortunes, were at once the

ennobling pursuit and the healthful recreation of the Quality of

this land.

 

Consequently, it is a source of inexpressible comfort and happiness

to find, that in various periods of our history, the Chuzzlewits

were actively connected with divers slaughterous conspiracies and

bloody frays. It is further recorded of them, that being clad from

head to heel in steel of proof, they did on many occasions lead

their leather-jerkined soldiers to the death with invincible

courage, and afterwards return home gracefully to their relations

and friends.

 

There can be no doubt that at least one Chuzzlewit came over with

William the Conqueror. It does not appear that this illustrious

ancestor 'came over' that monarch, to employ the vulgar phrase, at

any subsequent period; inasmuch as the Family do not seem to have

been ever greatly distinguished by the possession of landed estate.

And it is well known that for the bestowal of that kind of property

upon his favourites, the liberality and gratitude of the Norman were

as remarkable as those virtues are usually found to be in great men

when they give away what belongs to other people.

 

Perhaps in this place the history may pause to congratulate itself

upon the enormous amount of bravery, wisdom, eloquence, virtue,

gentle birth, and true nobility, that appears to have come into

England with the Norman Invasion: an amount which the genealogy of

every ancient family lends its aid to swell, and which would beyond

all question have been found to be just as great, and to the full as

prolific in giving birth to long lines of chivalrous descendants,

boastful of their origin, even though William the Conqueror had been

William the Conquered; a change of circumstances which, it is quite

certain, would have made no manner of difference in this respect.

 

There was unquestionably a Chuzzlewit in the Gunpowder Plot, if

indeed the arch-traitor, Fawkes himself, were not a scion of this

remarkable stock; as he might easily have been, supposing another

Chuzzlewit to have emigrated to Spain in the previous generation,

and there intermarried with a Spanish lady, by whom he had issue,

one olive-complexioned son. This probable conjecture is

strengthened, if not absolutely confirmed, by a fact which cannot

fail to be interesting to those who are curious in tracing the

progress of hereditary tastes through the lives of their unconscious

inheritors. It is a notable circumstance that in these later times,

many Chuzzlewits, being unsuccessful in other pursuits, have,

without the smallest rational hope of enriching themselves, or any

conceivable reason, set up as coal-merchants; and have, month after

month, continued gloomily to watch a small stock of coals, without

in any one instance negotiating with a purchaser. The remarkable

similarity between this course of proceeding and that adopted by

their Great Ancestor beneath the vaults of the Parliament House at

Westminster, is too obvious and too full of interest, to stand in

need of comment.

 

It is also clearly proved by the oral traditions of the Family, that

there existed, at some one period of its history which is not

distinctly stated, a matron of such destructive principles, and so

familiarized to the use and composition of inflammatory and

combustible engines, that she was called 'The Match Maker;' by which

nickname and byword she is recognized in the Family legends to this

day. Surely there can be no reasonable doubt that this was the

Spanish lady, the mother of Chuzzlewit Fawkes.

 

But there is one other piece of evidence, bearing immediate

reference to their close connection with this memorable event in

English History, which must carry conviction, even to a mind (if

such a mind there be) remaining unconvinced by these presumptive

proofs.

 

There was, within a few years, in the possession of a highly

respectable and in every way credible and unimpeachable member of

the Chuzzlewit Family (for his bitterest enemy never dared to hint

at his being otherwise than a wealthy man), a dark lantern of

undoubted antiquity; rendered still more interesting by being, in

shape and pattern, extremely like such as are in use at the present

day. Now this gentleman, since deceased, was at all times ready to

make oath, and did again and again set forth upon his solemn

asseveration, that he had frequently heard his grandmother say, when

contemplating this venerable relic, 'Aye, aye! This was carried by

my fourth son on the fifth of November, when he was a Guy Fawkes.'

These remarkable words wrought (as well they might) a strong

impression on his mind, and he was in the habit of repeating them

very often. The just interpretation which they bear, and the

conclusion to which they lead, are triumphant and irresistible. The

old lady, naturally strong-minded, was nevertheless frail and

fading; she was notoriously subject to that confusion of ideas, or,

to say the least, of speech, to which age and garrulity are liable.

The slight, the very slight, confusion apparent in these expressions

is manifest, and is ludicrously easy of correction. 'Aye, aye,'

quoth she, and it will be observed that no emendation whatever is

necessary to be made in these two initiative remarks, 'Aye, aye!

This lantern was carried by my forefather'--not fourth son, which is

preposterous--'on the fifth of November. And HE was Guy Fawkes.'

Here we have a remark at once consistent, clear, natural, and in

strict accordance with the character of the speaker. Indeed the

anecdote is so plainly susceptible of this meaning and no other,

that it would be hardly worth recording in its original state, were

it not a proof of what may be (and very often is) affected not only

in historical prose but in imaginative poetry, by the exercise of a

little ingenious labour on the part of a commentator.

 

It has been said that there is no instance, in modern times, of a

Chuzzlewit having been found on terms of intimacy with the Great.

But here again the sneering detractors who weave such miserable

figments from their malicious brains, are stricken dumb by evidence.

For letters are yet in the possession of various branches of the

family, from which it distinctly appears, being stated in so many

words, that one Diggory Chuzzlewit was in the habit of perpetually

dining with Duke Humphrey. So constantly was he a guest at that

nobleman's table, indeed; and so unceasingly were His Grace's

hospitality and companionship forced, as it were, upon him; that we

find him uneasy, and full of constraint and reluctance; writing his

friends to the effect that if they fail to do so and so by bearer,

he will have no choice but to dine again with Duke Humphrey; and

expressing himself in a very marked and extraordinary manner as one

surfeited of High Life and Gracious Company.

 

It has been rumoured, and it is needless to say the rumour

originated in the same base quarters, that a certain male

Chuzzlewit, whose birth must be admitted to be involved in some

obscurity, was of very mean and low descent. How stands the proof?

When the son of that individual, to whom the secret of his father's

birth was supposed to have been communicated by his father in his

lifetime, lay upon his deathbed, this question was put to him in a

distinct, solemn, and formal way: 'Toby Chuzzlewit, who was your

grandfather?' To which he, with his last breath, no less distinctly,

solemnly, and formally replied: and his words were taken down at the

time, and signed by six witnesses, each with his name and address in

full: 'The Lord No Zoo.' It may be said--it HAS been said, for human

wickedness has no limits--that there is no Lord of that name, and

that among the titles which have become extinct, none at all

resembling this, in sound even, is to be discovered. But what is

the irresistible inference? Rejecting a theory broached by some

well-meaning but mistaken persons, that this Mr Toby Chuzzlewit's

grandfather, to judge from his name, must surely have been a

Mandarin (which is wholly insupportable, for there is no pretence of

his grandmother ever having been out of this country, or of any

Mandarin having been in it within some years of his father's birth;

except those in the tea-shops, which cannot for a moment be regarded

as having any bearing on the question, one way or other), rejecting

this hypothesis, is it not manifest that Mr Toby Chuzzlewit had

either received the name imperfectly from his father, or that he had

forgotten it, or that he had mispronounced it? and that even at the

recent period in question, the Chuzzlewits were connected by a bend

sinister, or kind of heraldic over-the-left, with some unknown noble

and illustrious House?

 

From documentary evidence, yet preserved in the family, the fact is

clearly established that in the comparatively modern days of the

Diggory Chuzzlewit before mentioned, one of its members had attained

to very great wealth and influence. Throughout such fragments of

his correspondence as have escaped the ravages of the moths (who, in

right of their extensive absorption of the contents of deeds and

papers, may be called the general registers of the Insect World), we

find him making constant reference to an uncle, in respect of whom

he would seem to have entertained great expectations, as he was in

the habit of seeking to propitiate his favour by presents of plate,

jewels, books, watches, and other valuable articles. Thus, he

writes on one occasion to his brother in reference to a gravy-spoon,

the brother's property, which he (Diggory) would appear to have

borrowed or otherwise possessed himself of: 'Do not be angry, I have

parted with it--to my uncle.' On another occasion he expresses

himself in a similar manner with regard to a child's mug which had

been entrusted to him to get repaired. On another occasion he says,

'I have bestowed upon that irresistible uncle of mine everything I

ever possessed.' And that he was in the habit of paying long and

constant visits to this gentleman at his mansion, if, indeed, he did

not wholly reside there, is manifest from the following sentence:

'With the exception of the suit of clothes I carry about with me,

the whole of my wearing apparel is at present at my uncle's.' This

gentleman's patronage and influence must have been very extensive,

for his nephew writes, 'His interest is too high'--'It is too much'

--'It is tremendous'--and the like. Still it does not appear (which

is strange) to have procured for him any lucrative post at court or

elsewhere, or to have conferred upon him any other distinction than

that which was necessarily included in the countenance of so great a

man, and the being invited by him to certain entertainment's, so

splendid and costly in their nature, that he calls them 'Golden

Balls.'

 

It is needless to multiply instances of the high and lofty station,

and the vast importance of the Chuzzlewits, at different periods.

If it came within the scope of reasonable probability that further

proofs were required, they might be heaped upon each other until

they formed an Alps of testimony, beneath which the boldest

scepticism should be crushed and beaten flat. As a goodly tumulus

is already collected, and decently battened up above the Family

grave, the present chapter is content to leave it as it is: merely

adding, by way of a final spadeful, that many Chuzzlewits, both male

and female, are proved to demonstration, on the faith of letters

written by their own mothers, to have had chiselled noses,

undeniable chins, forms that might have served the sculptor for a

model, exquisitely-turned limbs and polished foreheads of so

transparent a texture that the blue veins might be seen branching

off in various directions, like so many roads on an ethereal map.

This fact in itself, though it had been a solitary one, would have

utterly settled and clenched the business in hand; for it is well

known, on the authority of all the books which treat of such

matters, that every one of these phenomena, but especially that of

the chiselling, are invariably peculiar to, and only make themselves

apparent in, persons of the very best condition.

 

This history having, to its own perfect satisfaction, (and,

consequently, to the full contentment of all its readers,) proved

the Chuzzlewits to have had an origin, and to have been at one time

or other of an importance which cannot fail to render them highly

improving and acceptable acquaintance to all right-minded

individuals, may now proceed in earnest with its task. And having

shown that they must have had, by reason of their ancient birth, a

pretty large share in the foundation and increase of the human

family, it will one day become its province to submit, that such of

its members as shall be introduced in these pages, have still many

counterparts and prototypes in the Great World about us. At present

it contents itself with remarking, in a general way, on this head:

Firstly, that it may be safely asserted, and yet without implying

any direct participation in the Manboddo doctrine touching the

probability of the human race having once been monkeys, that men do

play very strange and extraordinary tricks. Secondly, and yet

without trenching on the Blumenbach theory as to the descendants of

Adam having a vast number of qualities which belong more

particularly to swine than to any other class of animals in the

creation, that some men certainly are remarkable for taking uncommon

good care of themselves. _

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