Note 26 — THE TRIAL.

So confused is the chronology of Pickwick, that it is difficult to fix the exact date of the Trial. Boz, writing some ten years after the event, seems to have got a little confused and uncertain as to the exact year of the Trial. He first fixed the opening of the story in 1817: but on coming to the compromising incident in Goswell Street, which occurred only a few weeks later, he changed the year to 1827. Then Jingle’s anachronism of the French Revolution of July suggested that the new date would not do. So 1830 was next adopted. But this did not end the matter, for in the “errata” we are directed to change this date back again to 1827. And so it now stands. The Trial therefore really took place on April 1, 1828.