Clearing out by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne), facing page 103 in the fourth instalment (March 1855). Steel-engraving. 10.4 cm high by 17.6 cm wide (4 ⅛ by 7 inches), vignetted, full-page illustration for The Martins of Cro' Martin, for Chapter XI, "Young Nelligan — As Interpreted in Two Ways." [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: Joe Nelligan witnesses the "End of the Season"
[Joe Nelligan's] way led along the shore, and consequently in front of that straggling row of cottages which formed the village. It chanced to be the last day of the month, and, by the decree of the almanac, the close of the bathing-season. The scene then going forward was one of unusual and not unpicturesque confusion. It was a general break-up of the encampment, and all were preparing to depart to their homes, inland. Had young Nelligan been — what he was not — anything of a humorist, he might have been amused at the variety of equipage and costume around him. Conveyances the most cumbrous and most rickety, drawn by farm horses, or even donkeys, stopped the way before each door, all in process of loading by a strangely attired assemblage, whose Welsh wigs, flannel dressing-gowns, and woollen nightcaps showed how, by a common consent, all had agreed to merge personal vanity in the emergency of the moment. The innumerable little concealments which had sheltered many a narrow household, the various little stratagems that had eked out many a scanty wardrobe, were now abandoned with a noble sincerity; and had there been a cork leg or a glass eye in the company, it would not have shrunk from the gaze of that open-hearted community.
Such of the travellers as had taken their places were already surrounded with the strangest medley of household gods it is possible to conceive. Like trophies, bird-cages, candlesticks, spits, cullenders, fenders, and bread-baskets bristled around them, making one marvel how they ever got in, or, still more, how they were ever to get out again; the croaking of invalids, with crying children, barking terriers, and scolding owners, making a suitable chorus to the confusion.
Still, amidst all the discomforts of the moment, amidst the last wranglings with landlords, and the last squabbles over broken furniture and missing movables, it must be owned that the prevailing temper of the scene was good-humor and jollity. The Irish temperament seems ever to discover something congenial in those incidents of confusion and bustle which to other people are seasons of unmitigated misery, and even out of its own sources of discomfiture can derive matter for that quaint humor with which it can always regard life. In this wise was it that few now dwelt much upon their own inconveniences, so long as they were free to laugh at those of their neighbors. [Chapter Eleven, "Young Nelligan — As Interpreted in Two Ways," pp. 103-104]
Commentary: Lever Focuses on the Trinity College Scholar
Having brought Jack Massingbred on stage in the previous two group illustrations, Phiz now reverts to Joe Nelligan's perspective on the same day: 30 September 1830. Joe has just left the Martins at the Osprey's Nest, their summer residence on the seashore, and is passing the less impressive summer residences of such Irish bourgeoisie as Mrs. Cronan. (Joe was not present at Osprey's Lodge when Lady Dorothea demanded that her husband order their things packed for a sudden removal on the following day to Castle Martin.) They good-naturedly pull Joe's leg, well aware that the Martins have recently received him warmly. For his part, Joe wonders what both the aristocratic Martins and the people of his own class, packing up their summer cottages, mean by the way they have treated him. Little does he suspect that the Martins are considering backing him as their candidate for Parliament.
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
Buchanan-Brown, John. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978.
Lester, Valerie Browne Lester. Chapter 11: "'Give Me Back the Freshness of the Morning!'"Phiz! The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004. Pp. 108-127.
Lever, Charles. The Martins of Cro' Martin. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. London: Chapman & Hall, 1856, rpt. 1872.
Lever, Charles. The Martins of Cro' Martin. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Introduction by Andrew Lang. Lorrequer Edition. Vols. XII and XIII. In two volumes. Boston: Little, Brown, 1907.
Steig, Michael. Chapter VII, "Phiz the Illustrator: An Overview and Summing Up." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 299-316.
Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter XII, "Aspirant for Preferment, 1854-1856." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. New York: Russell and Russell, 1939; rpt. 1969. Pp. 203-220.
Created 11 September 2022