[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> Phiz (Hablot K. Browne) —> Charles Lever —> Jack Hinton —> Next]
The Duke knighting Corny Delaney
Phiz
March 1842 instalment
Steel-engraving
14.7 cm by 11.3 cm (5 ¾ by 4 ⅜ inches), vignetted
Sixth steel engraving for Charles Lever's Jack Hinton, The Guardsman (1843), facing page 73.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
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 it and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian
"Give me your sword," said his Grace, turning to me, in a tone half sleeping, half commanding; "give me your sword, sir!"
Drawing it from the scabbard, I presented it to him respectfully.
"Stand a little on one side, Hinton. Where is he? Ah, quite right. Kneel down, sir! kneel down, I say!" These words, addressed to Corny, produced no other movement in him than a slight change in his attitude, to enable him to extend his expanded hand above his eyes, and take a clearer view of the duke. [Chapter X, "A Finalé to the Evening," 73]
For the twelve-part serial, beginning serialisation in The Dublin University Magazine in January 1842, Phiz provided a total of thirty-five plates: twenty-six steel engravings and nine wood-engravings. This plate for Chapter Ten is listed as the sixth of twenty-seven "etchings" in the book that include a portrait of Lever as the frontispiece of the 1842 edition; that is, this is one of twenty-six full-page steel-engraved illustrations facing the letterpress, rather than dropped into it, as the nine wood-engravings of various characters are. In Jack Hinton, The Guardsman, Phiz captures the informal style of the first-person narrator, his being a young officer, as well as the somewhat boozy and rambunctious nature of the narrative itself. Military uniforms and horses figure prominently in the series of twenty-six steel-engravings; here, for example, both the Viceroy and Lieutenant are in uniform rather than evening dress. Phiz in this illustration of the Duke from Lever's text captures these features admirably.
This hilarious aftermath of the Rooneys' supper-party and ball follows hard upon the scene of Mrs. Rooney's intoxication in the supper room, The Finalé to an Evening, facing page 63. The Duke's confusion results from Corny Delaney's having wrapped himself in his master's cloak against the cold, for presumably he has been outside directing the carriages to pull up in front of the mansion to collect the Viceroy and his party. The fifth Duke of Richmond, General Charles Lennox (who had been dead for two decades when Lever published this novel), is long past discerning what he is doing "under the influence":
"Does he hear me, Hinton? — Do you hear me, sir?"
"Do you hear his grace?" said I, endeavouring with a sharp kick of my foot to assist his perceptions.
"To be sure I hear him," said Corny; "why wouldn't I hear him?"
"Kneel down, then," said I.
"Devil a bit of me'll kneel down. Don't I know what he's after well enough? Ach na bocklish! Sorrow else he ever does nor make fun of people."
"Kneel down, sir!" said his Grace, in an accent there was no refusing to obey. "What is your name?"
"Oh, murther! Oh, heavenly Joseph!" cried Corny, as I hurled him down upon his knees, "that I'd ever live to see the day!"
"What is his d —— d name?" said the duke passionately.
"Corny, your grace — Corny Delany."
"There, that'll do," as with a hearty slap of the sword, not on his shoulder, but on his bullet head, he cried out, "Rise, Sir Corny Delany!" [74]
Phiz has admirably realised the whole mistaken affair at the foot of the grand staircase in the Rooneys' mansion. The Duke's contorted face and his supporting himself on the newel post convey his profound inebriation. Hinton, whose hat has fallen on the floor, holds Corny down, as O'Grady leans over the railing, and Corny (still in his peculiar wig, like some incarnation of Shakespeare's Caliban) is "crouching in the attitude of an Indian monster." Phiz has added a young (relatively sober) couple who have just exited the supper-room are now descending the stairs: they will bear witness to the Viceroy's drunken folly at half-past-seven A. M. To add to his embarrassment, the Duke had forgotten to dismiss his honour guard, who have been lounging all night before the attorney's mansion. "And thus ended the great Rooney ball."
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. "The Dublin University Magazine." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989, rpt. 1990, 200.
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 24 May 2020