"Aunt Fanny's Benediction" — Twenty-fifth illustration by "Phiz" for Charles Lever's "Roland Cashel," Chapter XLV, "A Startling Intrusion." (April 1849)

Aunt Fanny's Benediction

Phiz

Dalziel

April 1849

Steel-engraving, dark plate, facing p. 383.

12.5 cm high by 9.3 cm wide (4 ⅞ by 3 ⅝ inches), framed.

Twenty-fifth illustration for Roland Cashel, published serially by Chapman and Hall (1848-49).

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

[You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Passage Illustrated: Aunt Fanny Confers Her Blessing upon the Happy Couple

This was the moment in which mutual avowals, meeting like two rivers, form one broad and sweeping flood; it was the moment, too, in which, according to her theory; a friend was all essential. According to her phrase, the “nail should be clinched.”

Now, Aunt Fanny had been cruelly handled by the family for all the blunders she had committed. Her skill had been impugned; her shrewdness sneered at; her prognostications derided. Here was an opportunity to refute all at once; and, in the language of the conqueror, “to cover herself with glory.”

Gently opening the door she entered the room, and stealing tiptoe over, till she stood behind their chairs, she placed, with all the solemnity of an archbishop, a hand on either head, and, in a voice of touching fervour, said, —

“Bless ye both, my darlings; may ye be as happy as —”

As what? The history is unable to record; for a shrill cry from her niece, and an exclamation nearly as loud, and we fear far less polite, from Roland, cut short the speech.

Shriek followed shriek from Olivia, who, partly from the shock, and still more from shame, was thrown into an attack of hysterics.

“What the ——” he was very nigh saying something else. “What have you done, madam?” said Roland, in a state of mingled anger and terror.

“It's only your Aunt Fanny; it's me, my pet. Livy, darling, don't be frightened; and here, too, is Mr. Cashel.” [Chapter XLV, "A Startling Intrusion," 383]

Commentary: Numerous Embedded Commentaries Surround the Principals

Phiz has configured Aunt Fanny as if she were a puppeteer, and Roland and Olivia merely her life-size marionettes. To add to the humour of the situation, the artist surrounds the trio with images suggestive of marriage and romance. To begin with, above the lintel of the doorway (left) Phiz has embedded a biblical subject, The Marriage at Cana (John 2:1-11), where Christ worked his first miracle, turning water into wine, just as Aunt Fanny O'Hara believes she has effected the miraculous engagement of her niece and the millionaire. The painting is likely a copy of Paolo Veronese's The Wedding Feast at Cana (1562-63). From the classical tradition Phiz enlists three images of Cupid, suggestive of romantic love and erotic desire: the statue group down right, Psyche and Cupid; a rondel visible through the open door (left); and the framed oil painting of Cupid and Venus above the figures. Phiz seems to have found Lever's farcical scene delicious.

No wonder, then, after Olivia's flirtatiousness and Aunt Fanny's intrusion, Roland finds Mary Leicester a much more appropriate and unaffected a companion.

Bibliography

Lever, Charles. Roland Cashel. With 39 illustrations and engraved title-vignette by Phiz. London: Chapman & Hall, 1850.

Lever, Charles. Roland Cashel. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Vols. I and II. In two volumes. Boston: Little, Brown, 1907. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: 19 August 2010.

Steig, Michael. Chapter Seven: "Phiz the Illustrator: An Overview and a Summing Up." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 298-316.

Created 4 January 2023