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Kerry O'Leary reading the News by Deputy
Phiz (Hablot K. Browne)
steel engraving
12.1 cm by 10.5 cm (4 ¾ by 4 ⅛ inches), vignetted
February 1845
Charles Lever's The O'Donoghue; A Tale of Ireland Fifty Years Ago, Chapter VIII, "The House of Sickness," facing p. 60.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Mrs. Branaghan withdrew her dudeen at these words, and gazed at the little fellow with unmixed astonishment, who, in obedience to the summons, took his place beside Kerry's chair, and prepared to commence his task.
“Where will I begin, sir?”
“Begin at the news, av coorse,” said Kerry, somewhat puzzled to decide what kind of intelligence he most desired. “What's this here with a large P in the first of it?”
“Prosperity of Ireland, sir,” said the child.
“Ay, read about that, Mickey,” said the cook, resuming her pipe.
With a sing-song intonation, which neither regarded paragraph nor period, but held on equably throughout a column, the little fellow began —
“The prospect of an abundant harvest is now very general throughout the country; and should we have a continuance off the heavenly weather for a week or so longer, we hope the corn will all be saved.”
As the allusion made here by the journalist, was to a period of several years previous, the listeners might be excused for not feeling a perfect concurrence in the statement.
“Heavenly weather, indeed!” grunted out the cook, as she turned her eyes towards the windows, against which the plashing rain was beating — Mike read on. [Chapter VIII, "The House of Sickness," 60]
The previous illustration for this number, Sir Archie and the Beggars in Chapter VII, has prepared us for the scene in the kitchen by showing us a pair of servants to the extreme right, immediately behind Sir Archy. The unusually sombre kitchen is a reflection of the servants' concerns for young Herbert O'Donoghue's health. As the doctor has failed to arrive, a general melancholy has set in below as well as above stairs. And now comes a comic scene to alleviate the gloom. The ill-tempered cook sits smoking a stunted pipe before the smoky fire, and centre is the sole remaining foxhound out of the pack with which the O'Donoghue used to hunt. And the sole remaining above-stairs servant, Kerry O'Leary, is constrained by the gloomy circumstances not to sing his usual repertoire of ballads. The bare-legged little gossoon, Mickey, Father Luke's servant who has just delivered a message, regards a much-soiled old newspaper and, sitting beside Kerry in his chair, actually reads the news aloud to the astonished, thoroughly illiterate adults. Contrasting the child's precocity Phiz gives us all the paraphernalia of a normal kitchen, including the sideboard with pewter plates (right), the vegetables being peeled for supper, the large cooking-pot, the clock, and the jugs and mugs above the fireplace mantle, and a gridiron left on the floor in the foreground.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.
Lever, Charles. The O'Donoghue; A Tale of Ireland Fifty Years Ago. With 26 engravings by Phiz [Hablột Knight Browne]. Dublin: William Curry, Jun., 1845.
Lever, Charles. The O'Donoghue; A Tale of Ireland Fifty Years Ago. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablột Knight Browne]. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. In One Vol. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: May 11, 2010.
Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter VIII, "Heretic Among Tories, 1844-1845." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. Pp. 128-145.
Sutherland, John A. "Lever, Charles." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989, rpt. 1990, 372-374.
Created 15 December 2023