Initial letter T: Dr. Rogan pronounced his opinion by Sir Luke Fildes; engraver, Swain. Fourteenth initial-letter vignette for Charles Lever's Lord Kilgobbin, from the November 1871 number of the Cornhill Magazine, p. 513 in Vol. XXIV. 7.6 cm by 5.0 cm (3 by 2 inches), framed. Part 14, Chapter LVI, "Before the Door." The wood-engraver responsible for this thumbnail illustration was Joseph Swain (1820-1909), noted for his engravings of Sir John Tenniel's cartoons in Punch. [Click on the image to enlarge it; mouse over links.]
Right: The title-page for Volume XXIV of the Cornhill Magazine (July-December, 1871).
This initial vignette is based on the opening passage in Ch. 57, "A Doctor"
Perfect and unbroken quiet was enjoined as his best, if not [Gorman O'Shea's] only, remedy; and Kate gave up her own room for the sick man, as that most remote from all possible disturbance, and away from all the bustle of the house. The doctors consulted on his case in the fashion that a country physician of eminence condescends to consult with a small local practitioner. Dr. Rogan pronounced his opinion, prophetically declared the patient in danger, and prescribed his remedies, while Price, agreeing with everything, and even slavishly abject in his manner of concurrence, went about amongst the underlings of the household saying, "There’s two fractures of the frontal bone. It’s trepanned he ought to be; and when there’s an inquest on the body, I’ll declare I said so."
Though nearly all the care of providing for the sick man’s nursing fell to Kate Kearney, she fulfilled the duty without attracting any notice whatever, or appearing to feel as if any extra demand were made upon her time or her attention; so much so, that a careless observer might have thought her far more interested in providing for the reception of the aunt than in cares for the nephew." [Cornhill, Vol. XXIV, 517; 318 in volume]
Commentary: Dr. Charles Lever's Expertise Reflected throughout "A Doctor"
One wonders how much even a relatively well-informed reader of the 1870s would have understood the many medical terms that Lever, a practising physician, trots out to describe the conditions of Peter Gill and Gorman O'Shea. Would such a reader, had he or she not encountered such medical issues, have appreciated the difference in diagnostic powers of a regular and a "dispensary" physician (Doctors Price and Rogan)? Certainly neither seems particularly optimistic about the prognosis of either patient, but, should Gill and O'Shea miraculously recover, then their physicians can take all of the credit for having effected a medical miracle.
Although the title for Chapter LVII like the initial-letter vignette suggests that the delerious patient occupying Kate Kearney's bed in her turret room is being attended by a single physician ("A Doctor"), Lever in fact introduces three doctors: the Dublin dispensary physician, Tom Price (who has accompanied the patient from Kilbeggan), the local general practitioner, Dr. Rogan, and a sophisticated, wealthy specialist brought down from the capital. He has come at the express wish of Betty O'Shea, who has been so shocked by recent events at the O'Shea Barn that she has begged Kate to accept her apologies for her recent rudeness towards the Kearneys. The middle-aged physician in the November 1871 vignette, therefore, is probably Sir St. Xavier Brennan, the "physician-in-chief to the nuns of the Bleeding Heart" (321 in volume; 521 in serial). His medical, political, and economic ruminations wind up the chapter as he ponders young O'Shea's chances of recovery, and mulls over the romantic rivalry between Kate and Nina:
As the doctor drove back to Dublin, he went over a variety of things in his thoughts. There were serious disturbances in the provinces; those ugly outrages which forerun long winter nights, and make the last days of October dreary and sad-coloured. Disorder and lawlessness were abroad; and that want of something remedial to be done which, like the thirst in fever, is fostered and fed by partial indulgence. Then he had some puzzling cases in hospital, and one or two in private practice, which harassed him; for some had reached that critical stage where a false move would be fatal, and it was far from clear which path should be taken. Then there was that matter of Miss O’Shea herself, who, if her nephew were to die, would most likely endow that hospital in connection with the Bleeding Heart, and of which he was himself the founder; and that this fate was by no means improbable, Sir X. persuaded himself, as he counted over all the different stages of peril that stood between him and convalescence. "We have now the concussion, with reasonable prospect of meningitis; and there may come on erysipelas from the scalp wounds, and high fever, with all its dangers; next there may be a low typhoid state, with high nervous excitement; and through all these the passing risks of the wrong food or drink, the imprudent revelations, or the mistaken stimulants. Heigh-ho!" said he at last, "we come through storm and shipwreck, forlorn-hopes, and burning villages, and we succumb to ten drops too much of a dark-brown liquor, or the improvident rashness that reads out a note to us incautiously! [321 in volume; 521 in serial]
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Bibliography
Lever, Charles. Lord Kilgobbin. The Cornhill Magazine. With 18 full-page illustrations and 18 initial-letter vignettes by S. Luke Fildes. Volumes XXII-XXV. October 1870-March 1872.
Lever, Charles. Lord Kilgobbin: A Tale of Ireland in Our Own Time. With 18 Illustrations by Sir Luke Fildes, R. A. London: Smith, Elder, 1872, 3 vols; rpt., Chapman and Hall, 1873.
Lever, Charles. Lord Kilgobbin. Illustrated by Sir Luke Fildes. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Vols. I-III. London: Smith, Elder, 1872, Rpt. London: Chapman & Hall, 1873, in a single volume. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: 19 August 2010.
Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter XVI, "Exile on the Adriatic, 1867-1872." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. New York: Russell and Russell, 1939; rpt. 1969. Pp. 277-296.
Sutherland, John A. "Lord Kilgobbin." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989, rpt. 1990, 382.
Created 10 June 2023 Updated 2 July 2023