Passage Illustrated: Simmy Crow brings news of Jack's election victory

Before Nelligan could summon words to reply to this complimentary speech, the door of his room was flung suddenly open, and a short, thickset figure, shrouded in a coarse shawl and a greatcoat, rushed towards him, exclaiming in a rich brogue, —

“Here I am, body and bones; just off the coach, and straight to your quarters.”

“What! Mr. Crow; is it possible?” cried Nelligan, in some confusion.

“Just himself, and no other,” replied the artist, disengaging himself from his extra coverings. “When you said to me, 'Come and see me when you visit Dublin,' I said to myself, 'There 's a trump, and I 'll do it;' and so here I am.”

“You left the country yesterday. Did you bring me any letters?” asked Nelligan; but in the uncertain tone of a man who talked merely to say something.

“Not a line, — not a word. Your father was over head and ears at work this week back about the election, and it was only the night before last it was over.”

“And is it over?” asked Nelligan, eagerly.

“To be sure it is. Young Massingbred is in, and a nice business it is.”

“Let me inform you, Mr. Crow, before you proceed further —” broke in Nelligan; but as he got so far, Colonel Massingbred laid his hand on his arm, and said, in a bland but steady voice, “Pray allow the gentleman to continue; his account promises to be most interesting.”

“Indeed, then, that's what it is not,” said Crow; “for I think it's all bad from beginning to end.” Another effort to interrupt by Nelligan being repressed by the Colonel, Crow resumed: “Everybody trying to cheat somebody else; the Martins wanting to cheat the borough, the borough wanting to jockey the Martins, and then young Massingbred humbugging them both! And there he is now, Member for Oughterard; and much he cares for them both.”

“Was there a contest, sir?” asked the Colonel, while by a gesture he enforced silence on Nelligan. [Chapter XXI, "An Awkward Visitor," 229]

Commentary: News of the Oughterard Parliamentary Election Arrives in Dublin

The initial July illustration completes the saga of Jack Massingbred's accidental elevation to the office of Member of Parliament for the Borough, which Lever managed through an adroit blend of coincidence, Tory versus Radical factionalism, and the political astuteness of Kate Henderson, who has written Jack's campaign address to the local electors. The messenger is none other than the Martins' resident painter, Simmy Crow, and his auditors in the Joe's Trinity College study are Jack's father, Colonel Moore Massingbred (seated), and Jack's Trinity College colleague, Joe Nelligan. Thus, through a series of coincidences, Massingbred's son has just been elected to Parliament after the passage of the Irish Emancipation Act (1829). Phiz has realised in the backdrop Lever's details about Joe's book-lined study in a corner of the Old Square at Trinity College, Dublin:

Within those halls had he experienced all that he had ever tasted of successful ambition, and in the depths of that old chair had he dreamed away all the visions of a glorious future. The room in which he sat was a large and lofty one, lighted by two windows deeply set in the wall. Its sides were lined with book-shelves, and books littered the tables and even the floor,—for it was one of his caprices to read as he lay at full length, either on the ground or a sofa, — and the paper and pens were scattered about in different quarters, as accident suggested. The only thing like ornament to be seen was a lithographic print of Cro' Martin Castle over the fireplace, — a strange exception would it seem, but traceable, perhaps, to some remote scene of boyish admiration for what had first awakened in him a feeling of awe and admiration; and there it now remained, time-worn and discolored, perhaps unnoticed, or looked on with very different emotions. [Chapter XXI, 225]

Joe's guest is the recently-appointed Chief Secretary of Ireland who has arrived in his carriage to apologise for his son's recent behaviour at Cro' Martin. But, only after Simmy's recitation of the events leading up to Jack's besting his opponent by thirty-nine votes in an electorate of no more than two hundred, does the loquacious painter learn that Joe's handsome, well-dressed guest is none other than Colonel Moore Massingbred. To his utter mortification, Simmy has ironically denounced Jack's father as "old Moore Massingbred, that took his bribe for the Union?" (231) before Joe finally identifies his distinguished guest by name.

Bibliography

Buchanan-Brown, John. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978.

Lester, Valerie Browne Lester. Chapter 11: "'Give Me Back the Freshness of the Morning!'"Phiz! The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004. Pp. 108-127.

Lever, Charles. The Martins of Cro' Martin. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. London: Chapman & Hall, 1856, rpt. 1872.

Lever, Charles. The Martins of Cro' Martin. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Introduction by Andrew Lang. Lorrequer Edition. Vols. XII and XIII. In two volumes. Boston: Little, Brown, 1907.

Steig, Michael. Chapter VII, "Phiz the Illustrator: An Overview and Summing Up." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 299-316.

Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter XII, "Aspirant for Preferment, 1854-1856." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. New York: Russell and Russell, 1939; rpt. 1969. Pp. 203-220.

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Created 21 September 2022