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Passage Illustrated: The Fearless Rider

Polly Dill rode very well and very fearlessly, and occasionally was assisted to “a mount” by some country gentleman, who combined gallantry with profit, and knew that the horse he lent could never be seen to greater advantage. Yet, even in this, she avoided display, quite satisfied, as it seemed, to enjoy herself thoroughly, and not attract any notice that could be avoided. Indeed, she never tried for “a place,” but rather attached herself to some of the older and heavier weights, who grew to believe that they were especially in charge of her, and nothing was more common, at the end of a hard run, than to hear such self-gratulations as, “I think I took great care of you, Miss Dill?” “Eh, Miss Polly! you see I'm not such a bad leader!” and so on. [Chapter VI, "The Doctor's Daughter," 50]

Commentary: Lever's Quintessential Heroine

Self-assured and highly competent, Polly seems to have avoided her father's flummery and her brother's lassitude — indeed, one might argue that Lever has taken a proto-feminist stance in his characterisation of the young woman since it is clearly she and not her brother who should qualify as a physician. Here, despite the disadvantage of riding side-saddle, she engages enthusiastically in the local hunt; having taken out the post and rail of a neighbour's fence, she waves her handkerchief to indicate to a more cautious (male) rider named Ambrose Bushe who was afraid of "staking" his mount that the ground was good. Phiz was from his earliest efforts a good hand at drawing horses.

Related Material

• A Synopsis of Charles Lever's Barrington
• The Novels of Charles Lever, 1839-72
• Phiz: "A Good Hand at a Horse" — A Gallery and Brief Overview of Phiz's Illustrations of Horses for Defoe, Dickens, Lever, and Ainsworth (1836-64)
• Charles Lever (1806-1872): Anglo-Irish Novelist, Physician, and Diplomat

Scanned image and text 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

Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.

Lever, Charles. Barrington. With 25 engravings by Phiz [Hablột Knight Browne]. London: Chapman and Hall, 1863.

Sutherland, John A. "Barrington." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989, rpt. 1990, 48-49.

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Last modified 17 January 2024