The Masquerade by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne), August 1849. Steel-engraving. 9.5 cm high by 19.2 cm wide (3 ¾ by 7 ½ inches), framed, full-page dark plate for Roland Cashel, Chapter LXI, "An Understanding between the Dupe and his Victim," facing p. 512. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: The Party Proceeds while Cashel confronts Linton Upstairs
The rooms were splendid in their decoration, lighted a giomo, and ornamented with flowers of the very rarest kind. The music consisted of a celebrated orchestra and a regimental band, who played alternately; the guests, several hundred in number, were all attired in fancy costumes, in which every age and nation found its type; while characters from well-known fictions abounded, many of them admirably sustained, and dressed with a pomp and splendor that told the wealth of the wearers.
It was truly a brilliant scene; brilliant as beauty, and the glitter of gems, and waving of plumes, and splendor of dress could make it. The magic impulse of pleasure communicated by the crash of music; the brilliant glare of wax-lights; the throng; the voices; the very atmosphere, tremulous with sounds of joy, — seemed to urge on all there to give themselves up to enjoyment. There was a boundless, lavish air, too, in all the arrangements. Servants in gorgeous liveries served refreshments of the most exquisite kind; little children, dressed as pages, distributed bouquets, bound round with lace of Valenciennes or Brussels, and occasionally fastened by strings of garnets or pearls; a jet d'eau of rose-water cooled the air of the conservatory, and diffused its delicious freshness through the atmosphere. There was something princely in the scale of the hospitality; and from every tongue words of praise and wonder dropped at each moment.
Even Lady Janet, whose enthusiasm seldom rose much above the zero, confessed that it was a magnificent fête, adding, by way of compensation for her eulogy, “and worthy of better company.” [Chapter LXI, "An Understanding between the Dupe and his Victim," pp. 513-514]
Commentary: Cashel's Masquerade Party
Lever immediately identifies a few of the characters whom Phiz includes in scene: Miss Kennyfeck, as the Queen of Madagascar, and her sister Olivia appeared as the fair “Gabrielle.” Sir Harvey, dressed, as King Henry IV, "won universal admiration. Then there were the ordinary number of Turks, Jews, Sailors, Circassians, Greeks, Highland Chiefs, and Indian Jugglers" (514), and “Jim” as a Newmarket “Jockey.” However, in the subsequent chapter the novelist reveals that what we see as an Egyptian obelisk in the centre of the masqueraders is in fact a costume:
In vain did Lord Charles Frobisher cover his Tartar dress with a Laplander's cloak and hood, to follow Miss Meek unnoticed. In vain did Upton abandon his royalty as Henry IV. for a Dominican's cowl, the better to approach a certain fair nun with dark blue eyes; Lady Janet whispered, “Take care, Olivia,” as she passed her. Even Mrs. Leicester White, admirably disguised as a Gypsy Fortune-teller, did not dare to speculate upon Lady Janet's “future” — possibly, out of fear of her “present.” Mr. Howie alone escaped detection, as, dressed to represent the Obelisk of the “Lucqsor,” he stood immovable in the middle of the room, listening to everybody, and never supposed to be anything but an inanimate ornament of the saloon. [LXII, 521]
Although he could not work several hundred costumed figures into the scene, the largest engraving in the novel, Phiz has included six musicians at the rear of the composition, as well as three children as pages.
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
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 22 January 2023