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The Landing
Phiz
January 1842 instalment
Steel-engraving
14.5 cm by 10.7 cm (5 ¾ by 4 ¼ inches), vignetted
Second steel-engraving for Charles Lever's Jack Hinton, The Guardsman (1843), facing page 13; frontispiece in the 1901 edition.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Scarcely was a rope thrown ashore, when we were boarded on every side, by the rigging, on the shrouds, over the bulwarks, from the anchor to the taffrail; the whole population of the island seemed to flock in upon us; while sounds of welcome and recognition resounded on all sides — . . . .
Now, whether my hesitation at this moment was set down by the crowd of my solicitors to some doubt of my solvency or not, I cannot say; but true it is, their tone of obsequious entreaty gradually changed into one of rather caustic criticism.
“Maybe it's a gossoon you'd like to carry the little trunk.”
“Let him alone; it's only a carpet-bag; he'll carry it himself.”
“Don't you see the gentleman would rather walk; and as the night is fine, 'tis pleasanter — and — cheaper.”
“Take you for a fipp'ny bit and a glass of sparits,” said a gruff voice in my ear.
By this time I had collected my luggage together, whose imposing appearance seemed once more to testify in my favour, particularly the case of my cocked-hat, which to my ready-witted acquaintances proclaimed me a military man. A general rush was accordingly made upon my luggage; and while one man armed himself with a portmanteau, another laid hands on a trunk, a third a carpet-bag, a fourth a gun-case, and so on until I found myself keeping watch and ward over my epaulet-case and my umbrella, the sole remnant of my effects. At the same moment a burst of laughter and a half shout broke from the crowd, and a huge, powerful fellow jumped on the deck, and, seizing me by the arm, cried out,
“Come along now, Captain, it's all right. This way — this way, sir.”
“But why am I to go with you?” said I, vainly struggling to escape his grasp.
“Why is it?” said he, with a chuckling laugh; “reason enough — didn't we toss up for ye, and didn't I win ye.”
“Win me!”
“Ay; just that same.” [Chapter II, "The Irish Packet," pp. 12-13]
The book belongs precisely in the same period of Phiz's mature productions as Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit. Whereas the Dickens novel permitted Phiz to do individual and paired character studies, in the Lever novel he often focuses on rowdy crowd scenes. As was the case with Dickens, the artist had a collaborative relationship with Lever. The consequence is such lively scenes as The Landing and The Packet in the initial, January 1842 number. For the twelve-part serial Phiz provided a total of thirty-five plates: twenty-six steel engravings and nine wood-engravings. The result of this project was a life-long friendship between Phiz and the Anglo-Irish novelist. Throughout the years that they worked together, "Phiz found Lever easy to work with because he was given a far freer rein than he had with Dickens" (Lester, 115). Unfortunately, Lever was not nearly as regular as Dickens in providing his illustrator with the draft of the latest monthly instalment. He would be behindhand, and then would put forth a burst of energy, leaving Phiz scrambling to complete the etchings on time; "although Lever took advantage of the Diplomatic Bag [to get his copy back to Surrey from Italy], manuscript deliveries were often delayed, and, on one occasion, lost" (Lester, 116). Our Mess; Volume I, Jack Hinton, the Guardsman ran serially from March 1840 to December 1841 in the magazine, and in twelve monthly illustrated parts from January to December 1842.
In the opening illustrations, both for the initial January 1842 instalment, Phiz has passed over events in the opening chapter. Thus, he thrusts readers directly into Jack's passage across the Irish Sea, from Liverpool to Dublin, without offering any explanation as to why the aristocratic nineteen-year-old officer in the Guards has left London. In the first chapter, we learn that, through his father's connections, young Hinton has secured a post at Dublin Castle as an aide-de-camp. Here as a military attaché he observes the social functions of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in the early years of the second decade of the nineteenth century, the Viceroy as of the Act of Union (1801) being a full-time position first occupied by the Earl of Harwicke. Given the date of Jack's appointment, the Duke who presides over the evening entertainment at he Castle in these opening chapters is probably the Duke of Richmond, who occupied the post from April 1807 through June 1813.
Here, Phiz shows his penchant for social realism as, avoiding the high society family party in London entirely, he focuses on the mixed bag of thoroughly Irish passengers with whom Hinton has been interacting below decks for the past two days, and who alight from the Liverpool mail-packet in Chapter Two. Phiz's focal character, distinguished by his large traveller's cape, is the protagonist and narrator, Jack Hinton himself, looking somewhat dazed and disoriented in the presence of so many Irish "characters" who crowd the wharf, looking for customers for their various carriages for hire. His apparent discomposure may also stem from his having experienced nearly thirty hours of continuous seasickness, and being the object of contention as to who will have the privilege to drive him into Dublin. Beside him is the grim-visaged, rough-looking, "huge, powerful fellow" (13) who has won the right to deliver Hinton to the Castle by carriage. However, pitched into the road when the conveyance hits a pot-hole, Hinton in the next chapter has no memory of how he arrived at his destination.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.
Lever, Charles. Jack Hinton, The Guardsman. Illustrated by Hablột Knight Browne (Phiz). London: Downey & Co., 1901. [First published serially in The Dublin University Magazine January through December 1842; and subsequently in a single volume, Dublin: William Curry, Jun. December 1842, pp. 396. Illustrated with wood and steel engravings by H. K. Browne: 27 full-page plates. 8vo, 396pp. Boston: Little, Brown, 1894; New York: Croscup, 1894. 2 vols.
Sutherland, John A. "Jack Hinton The Guardsman." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989, rpt. 1990, 323.
Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter VI, "Editor, 1839-1841." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. Pp. 92-107.
Thomson, David Croal. Life and Labours of Hablột Knight Browne, "Phiz". London: Chapman and Hall, 1884.
Created 22 January 2020
Last modified 20 May 2023